Nerm the Worm

My primary game genres are MMORPGs (typically older ones with a focus on open world, lore and/or sandbox elements), arena FPS titles, CRPGs, Action RPGs, MUDs, and other titles that tend to be heavy on immersive elements and a shared world for exploration. These games are also huge time sinks and can be quite stressful, so I often take breaks to revisit classic arcade titles, platformers, kart racers, and other titles that are much easier to jump in and out of. I've played many Bubble Bobble, Snake / Nibbles, Pong, and Breakout clones during these breaks. It seems fairly easy to make a mediocre clone of the latter 3 aforementioned titles, with very few titles I've come across being downright awful or impressive.
Nerm the Worm takes the snake / nibbles formula and adds a bit of personality to it, making solid use of limited resources to construct a quite playable, cute, and even a bit funny take on the formula. Upon loading, we are met with very amateurish, albeit quite fitting, voice acting for Nerm the Worm, which appears to have been done by the developer with pitch being adjusted to make it sound less like an adult human male and more cutesy worm-like. Coupled with the child-like drawings on the title screen, it creates a great first impression. I'll gladly take objectively lower quality but cohesive and consistent art and sound direction over hastily thrown together top tier work any day. You also have 4 volume sliders, all of which started in the appropriate range for someone wearing headphones and recording a stream. If you find Nerm annoying but love the rest of it, you can easily turn off Nerm and keep other aspects of the music and sound. This basic level of customization should be standard across any game and is unfortunately not as common as it should be in the indie games space.
The game itself is quite simple. 50 levels. Grow your worm. Avoid running into yourself and the walls. There's a break feature and some other additions that help this stand out from other Nibbles/Snake-like games. There's a full set of achievements, all of which progress in a logical way and omit a lot of the fluff of other titles (i.e. getting an achievement for launching the game or reading the credits screen). A bit more creativity with the achievements isn't necessary, but it could make for additional fun (i.e. 30 consecutive seconds running directly next to the wall or your worm, etc). There's a leaderboard as well, which adds a bit more replay value and helps you see how well you are doing against your peers. Zaxtor99 himself is quite high on the list, which shows he either enjoys playing his own game, spent a lot of time testing it, or both.
There is no gamepad support but you can use keyboard or keyboard+mouse. It's easy to change the settings, but it appears that the settings don't reliably save on my end. Not a deal breaker, especially given the default settings are perfect for me. The menus and game also load quickly, so making a quick change isn't going to interrupt gameplay much.
Overall, it's just snake / nibbles, except it's done in such a way where it actually plays well and has it's own personality. Nothing stands out as clearly broken and as this developer gains more experience, I believe future titles will display even more polish. Even though Snake-a-roni has a better feature set (including multiplayer already being present), I found this adaptation to be more to my liking given it's more faithful to the source material while adding it's own personality.
Overall score: 4.1/5.0 - Recommend. It's very close to being a top tier recommendation. Hopefully the 50 positive reviews happen so multiplayer is added. That feature alone, assuming it is implemented competently, would be sufficient to push it into the top tier list of games.
Commentary, gameplay footage, and comparison to other Steam nibbles/snake-likes available here:
I will be investigating this game in more detail in the future for one of Meg & Egg Gaming / The Aun Collective curator reviews, where I'll get a second opinion from Mrs. Aun Megasaurus Egg. It passes the test for this old dog tumerok, though!

Speaking as the person with the current Nerm high score and likely the most amount of time played due to my insanity, its an alright game. It's fun to rack up a crap ton of points if youve got a few hours, its fun watching that combo grow ever bigger and finding new strats to increase my point earning efficiency. Main complaint is that there are too many levels. In trying to make so many of them for a total of 50, many of them are either very poorly designed or just lazy reworks of previous levels, making finishing all the levels more boring and tedious than it needed to be. Like there are many levels where the creator took a previous level and just adds like 1 line of blocks and calls it good. Others look like they were designed in 15 seconds in microsoft paint. Many levels are still good but the campaign still has way too much bloat.
Overall, i think the campaign is meh and the core game-play is pretty decent, i find its great when i want a quick distraction for my hands as i watch a movie or something

Best game ever!!! relaxing! difficult and fun!!!
CHECK MY STREAM IF YOU WANT TO SEE GAMEPLAY! Twitch.tv/Xecut1ve

Great rendition of a classic game! I like the addition of keys to open up certain areas of the map to allow for more movement.

I am typically not a fan of these types of games but I can say that this game is fun and worth playing.

Before we start on this review, I must disclaim a pair of items that I normally would do later on in my review.
1. I would like to thank the developer for providing my copy of the game to review as part of the 1080 Review series
2. I am friends with the developer and talk to him on a regular basis.
With that out of the way, let's get on with the 1080 Review of Nerm the Worm.
Normally speaking, if I find a developer who put in effort, I usually reward the developer by buying his products. With Nerm the Worm, however, while I am generally supportive of the developer, the fact of the matter is, that because this developer is my friend, I usually put Zaxtor the friend on a separate pedestal than Zaxtor the developer.
The game itself was released on October 23rd, 2020 (as a more personal note, it was my grandfather's birthday and he would have been 77), and is developed and published by my friend Zaxtor99. The game play, at its preface, is like any other snake game that you just have to search your favorite search engine for. However, where the challenge comes in is that Nerm, the snake in this game, goes at variable speeds and starts with a length of 20 with the ability to exit the level at over 600 length. The tight constricting space that Nerm has (the play area) can be relaxed by grabbing a purple key that spawns at a fixed set of time.
However, here is where the twist comes in. The purple key opens up one side of the play area to loop back around like Pac-man. So if you are restricted to one side of the map, the newly opened gates can act as a release valve to get that green apple on the other side of the map.
At review time, which is about 12:07pm PST, the game is controlled by WASD keys and arrow keys along side a mouse. While I did try both methods (keyboard and mouse), in a discussion with the developer, I was notified that one of my "would-be" biggest complaints about this review (the lack of arrow key support) was already addressed, it is just that no one realized that arrow keys DO work.
There is one other nitpick that I would have to give this review on, and that is more of a personal taste than anything. And that is that the game doesn't clearly let you know where the head of Nerm actually is. On at least two separate occasions, I was positioned lower than I actually thought I was, and that is because I didn't get a complete picture. Again, your mileage may vary, but that is what I perceived to be case, and I won't hold it against the final verdict.
Speaking of the Final Verdict:
Gameplay: 9/10
Music: 8/10
Astetic: 10/10
Price Factor: 9/10
Replayability: 10/10
Overall verdict: A
To sum up the scores, the game is a very advanced SNAKE game that combines influences from several different games. And while the $3 price tag can be fearful, the fact of the matter is that this game could be charging upwards of $5 and I would still give it about the same score. This is a brilliant piece of work with a developer who cares about his product and stands behind it. For that reason, and the fact that he patched the arrow key issue as I type this review, gets a
GOLD BAD*** Seal of Approval.

NERM GAMING
NERM GAMING