Hello, worms! Finally, for all you readers who are worms and scour Nintendo Life for worm-related content, here’s a game that puts annelids front and center. Making the switch to the Switch from solo dev Munted Finger, Can of Wormholes dares to open that proverbial can and throw meandering birdfeed – if we can call you that – right into a beautiful array of multi-dimensional puzzles. Worms can stand proud everywhere. Or at least only in a way lie proud.
The rules of the game are simple enough to develop your tiny worm brain: on each stage, you, the worm protagonist, must crawl into a worm-shaped slot. You move your head square by square on the trellis, and the rest of your body follows the path you go – much like eating through a flower bed, aerating the soil. A critical tweak to the process is that when you ride in reverse, your rear end always comes back in a straight line, not going back the way it came. Further mechanical additions include pills that can be eaten to grow taller, blocks to push, shapes to swallow and more. The game even allows for the sad revelation that cutting a worm in two doesn’t actually create two worms. (Not two life worms, anyway.)
The variety of puzzles is really impressive. Challenges are grouped into a sort of wormy spaceships, and jumping between ships—a meta-puzzle in itself—introduces new concepts alongside new visual themes. But even within each ship, the range of logic tests is impressive, with new ideas continually layered on top of each other. And they’re serious brainteasers – or at least they’ll tease the little brain-like ganglion at the top of your central nervous cord. (No offense, but you worms aren’t exactly known for your intellectual prowess – you’re more about instinct. That and eating dirt.)
But to accompany the trickiness of the puzzles, there’s a hint system that really goes further. He doesn’t hold your hand – or your bristles sequels that cover your worm body – instead, it takes time to actually teach you the core concept of each poser. It does this by dropping off the stage into a smaller, simpler, black-and-white setting. Here, the heart of the puzzle is isolated so that you can work out the key ideas yourself before bringing them back to the ‘real world’ and applying them. It leaves so much for you as a player that you will never feel like cheating or giving up on it.
For the most part, the presentation is clear and to the point, letting the puzzles do the talking. Like worms without eyes, you are not missed also a lot on the graphic front. However, since you’re equipped to detect vibrations, you’ll appreciate music that brilliantly drops in upbeat cues when you’ve taken a crucial step toward a solution, or goes slightly dissonant when you’ve messed up.
With ingenious puzzles, a high level of difficulty and an educational hint system, be careful or Can of Wormholes will hook you.
