The Tale of Earl

by dans17
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.65
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.51
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.58
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.23
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.73
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.91
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.48
Meet Earl, a parasitic alien worm scouring the universe for food. You start with nothing, not even a whole body, but you can inhabit the bodies of humans in your path. Help Earl infiltrate a spaceship and inhabit the captain so you can redirect the ship to your home planet and feed your species!



Controls:

- AD - Move left and right
- WS - Use hatches and ladders
- E - Inhabit body
- Space - Jump
- Mercenary: Click to shoot
- Strongman: Click to punch
- Officer: Click to use sword
- Robot : Cannot be inhabited
- Scientist: Pick up key-cards and click to open door

Tips:

- Use hatches to walk through the floor undetected, then inhabit enemies while you are underneath them
- You can only inhabit a body for a limited amount of time, and afterwards, it will make you sick for some time
- As Earl, you can reach the next floor by jumping up and going through a hatch
- Passing an alien scanner will alert enemies and cause them to attack even while you are inhabiting a body

Created By:

Daniel Sousa | Sam Westerlund | Andrew Potach

screenshot

Comments29

Reblys8 Oct 2019, 17:01
I liked it ! The game is pretty rough on you at the start, but once you get the hang of it, it goes smoothly. I did not really get the point of possessing ennemies (that's a cool feature though). During most of my tries, I was just bouncing around and hiding myself.
Besides, I liked your take on the theme "You start with nothing". I expected some power-ups along the way, but you sticked with the "nothing" part. That was nice !
Seabird
Seabird8 Oct 2019, 17:04
Good job. I had a little trouble to get rid of the enemies though.
dans17
dans17author8 Oct 2019, 17:36
Thanks for rating! Sorry that it's so hard at the start, we didn't have time to balance it very well, but if you are having trouble getting rid of enemies, try possessing a Mercenary and using his gun to take them out.
hiro.e
hiro.e8 Oct 2019, 19:02
I almost went deaf when all the sirens sounded. You could just leave one of them sounding when the others activate as well.

Other than that, the game is very good, congratulations!
GreenDinoGames
GreenDinoGames8 Oct 2019, 21:49
Great game! I like the pixel art and idea to play as a worm who can inhabit people! Good job!
ToxicComputer
ToxicComputer9 Oct 2019, 02:40
Graphic were beatiful and loved the audio. Great game. :)
Extrone
Extrone9 Oct 2019, 02:53
Really nice game, loved the sound effects and graphics, a bit hard at the start though :sweat_smile:
stephenwhoskins9 Oct 2019, 03:02
Overall, 5/5. I really like it. The graphics are gorgeous. The character animations are off the hook and I love playing from the perspective of a some kind of parasitic alien worm. Nice idea. Wish I thought of it, heh.
s-yanik9 Oct 2019, 12:11
Good idea and good concept but with nice graphics and atmosphere,but level of difficulty a bit high.
Nice.
fallcresthero
fallcresthero10 Oct 2019, 08:32
Wow! I mean just a small polishing, some minor improvements and I can imagine myself buyng that game for a descent price. Very nice job.
Hiago Tadeu10 Oct 2019, 14:32
A very good game, and quite challenging and fun too congratulations.
adhesion11 Oct 2019, 01:44
Really cool concept, good use of the theme and the graphical style is solid. I found the gameplay to be a bit frustrating though. There were lots of times when firing mercenary shots would seemingly not kill an enemy even though I got a direct hit - also enemies shooting you on sight when you're possessing one of them was a bit annoying (I thought I was being sneaky!) and meant that there wasn't much point to doing that in most situations. Might be cool to have a sort of progression in the level design, like having a tutorial area and then a simple area with just a few enemies, rather than a big open area with a bunch of dudes right off the bat. Definitely has potential though. Solid entry, nice work!
Scott Steffes
Scott Steffes11 Oct 2019, 01:48
Interesting idea, well executed! Took me a bit to get the hang of it, but once I did, I definitely saw the potential. very creative! My only minor piece of criticism was that it would have been nicer to be able to return to the title screen more quickly after dying, since you die a lot in the beginning!
konomizure
konomizure11 Oct 2019, 02:05
It's pretty hard to play at the beginning, mostly because i can't know when an enemy can see me, what distance am i safe from the enemy. But the game could be pretty fun to play. Maybe if you show what the enemy can see at the beginning, just for the player to learn, this would make easier to get the hang of the game.
Gauphastus11 Oct 2019, 03:46
This is a neat one. One complaint is when hopping out of a body you get spotted and instakilled more often than not. Might have been doing something wrong though.
But pretty fun. Yet another not often explored concept in games.

Good job and props to the team.
JosephGaiser13 Oct 2019, 02:22
Really cool mechanics in this!
Kalucifer13 Oct 2019, 02:23
Loved the worm, nice personality. Sometimes indeed you get instakilled. Nice game thank you!
TORT60091
TORT6009113 Oct 2019, 18:29
I really like this mechanic. This hiding create the unique mood. Great work guys!
asfdfdfd13 Oct 2019, 18:46
Great! With a bit of polishing it may become full fledged game.
Wolf4D
Wolf4D13 Oct 2019, 19:11
Damn, this game is funny, but it's too hard!
ImportantCreations14 Oct 2019, 05:28
As others already pointed out: Very nice concept and very nice polished implementation! But also a little bit hard in the beginning :)
celsyum
celsyum20 Oct 2019, 11:07
nice concept , but too hard to start playing
Solah
Solah20 Oct 2019, 13:11
Very good concept, I really played stealthy, I did not inhabit more than two or three people to win. Good work!
Philarmon22 Oct 2019, 20:41
I needed a few tries to figure out the controls but once you get used to it it's pretty fun :)
Finlal
Finlal27 Oct 2019, 02:15
очень весело и бодро играется
Amerigo Gazaway
Amerigo Gazaway28 Oct 2019, 07:12
Cool concept and execution! Love the art. If you still need music for the full Steam version let me know :)
zuf
zuf29 Oct 2019, 11:28
Nice mechanic of possessing opponents to get to the top. I look forward to playing a more polished post-compo version.

Getting insta-killed was annoying. There were two main ways it happened that could be fixed:
* When you finish possessing an enemy they can kill you immediately. I ended up dealing with this by always finishing above a hatch and going into
the hatch immediately. A way to mitigate this issue could to be add a post-possess cooldown/sickness that briefly prevents the victim from doing anything.
* When you jump up to a hatch from underneath you also pop up to the next floor. Maybe add something (debounce?) that prevents the player from going up again immediately.

The physics were a bit glitchy. It can do things like make the player pop through the floor when walking quickly over a hatch, or make your possessed character get stuck half way through a floor and never be able to get out again.

Could also add more telegraphing for enemy attacks. e.g. a brief ! reaction before they start chasing and attacking.

Make it clearer what each scientist is carrying.

Also, the "possess" text is flipped when the target is flipped.

I ended up winning by abusing the mercenary's ability to kill things at range and through floors.

Other games by @dans17

RobotsXRescue
jam
co-authored
Dig in, Gus!
jam
co-authored
Meatheads
jam
co-authored
Found a bug?
Tell us on Discord