I'm Jeron (rhymes with Erin). A trans girl, apparently. I dabble in basically everything. World Record Holder. Girl-King of cats. Fledgling Goddess of Hunger


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List of games I think are cool


mneko
@mneko

Years and years and way too many years ago, a programmer who called themselves Wani created a Super NES game called Bio-Worm. It wasn't officially licensed by Nintendo, which was still supporting the Super NES at the time of the game's release, but it wasn't a bootleg, either... more of a homebrew that was well ahead of the curve. User-created games for consoles are pretty commonplace today, but back in 1996 when Bio-Worm was released, the concept was still unfamiliar territory and even a little mystifying. Someone made a Super NES game? HOW?

What's more surprising is that despite its lack of a Nintendo seal of quality and its bare-bones simplicity, Bio-Worm is surprisingly solid, professionally designed and with a compelling play loop. It's like the games Targ and Spectar, but the insectoid enemies that wander through the maze regularly cycle through three colors. Pink is the standard color; Bio-Worms can be killed with bullets in this stage. Pink enemies eventually become baby blue, making them vulnerable to your ship. Squish as many as you can for a big bonus, but don't get too comfortable... blue enemies quickly become silver ones, and these are completely invincible. Even firing at them is a bad idea, as it splits them in two, doubling the threat to the player.

There are two tricks to playing Bio-Worm. The first is to get a handle on your ship. It's screamingly fast, jetting off in whatever direction you press the D-pad, and you'll quickly plow into enemies unless you can make split-second turns at the intersections scattered throughout the maze. Make good use of the edges of the screen, too, as they're the only way you can stop. The second trick is to adjust yourself to the game's Circadian Rhythm, firing at Bio-Worms from a safe distance when they're pink, then racing into a cluster of them just as they're about to turn blue, then racing away once they switch to their silver forms. Get careless with your shots and you'll mess up that rhythm, with Bio-Worms of all three colors crawling around on the screen at once.

Kill all the enemies in a stage and you move on to the next one, with more Bio-Worms and new graphic tiles for the same maze. Like I said, it's a simple game, but it does what little it does well. The metallic surfaces and raw industrial noises in Bio-Worm give the game a machined menace that ramps up its intensity, making it easy to forget the lack of variety. Bio-Worm was one of the first homebrew games developed for the Super NES, and it's also one of the better ones.


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