Worm Game

I'm really into getting games for free, so much so that I'll check online communities every once in a while just to learn about deals I may have missed when checking on my own. That's how I learned about the closed beta for Google's "Project Stream" that came with a complimentary copy of Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which I then applied for immediately. I was accepted into the beta testing group, and while I only had a few opportunities to sit down with it, Project Stream left me extremely impressed. I was playing a full, triple-A game through my browser with almost no input delay. The possibilities that I had floating in my brain for the future of that technology were incredibly exciting. Eventually, Project Stream graduated out of its beta to become the ill-fated Google Stadia, which I tried so hard to love. I bought multiple games on it and I tried the"Pro" subscription, I just never had a good enough reason to play it over my, more convenient, Switch. Unfortunately for Stadia, it seems like that kind of attitude may have been pretty popular.

Two and a half years after its official launch, Stadia was sunsetted. Purchased games were refunded, save data was transferred, and proprietary controllers were unlocked for universal use (Google set an impressively high standard for how to shut down a service with this one). As one final thank you to loyal players, the developers behind Stadia released their feature-testing game for free to all users to play during the last few days the service was available. Although it's just a Snake clone and a glorified debugger, it's clear that a lot of love went into this game's development. Unfortunately, my play experience didn't reflect that all too well.

I spent all of my time in Worm Game trying to make it through the hand-crafted levels in the campaign mode. The goal is to guide your worm around the screen in order to eat fruit. Every fruit you eat grows the worm by one segment, just as expected, and a golden apple appears once the worm is long enough. Eating that golden apple clears the stage and unlocks the next one. This sounds simple enough, and normally I'll have enough dedication to beat a good amount of levels in a game like this before I move on. However, I experienced so much input lag that it was impossible to make the precise turns this game calls for. Throughout my whole experience with Assassin's Creed Odyssey on Project Stream and Superhot on Stadia, I never noticed any input lag. It was only now that I had any trouble, and it ruined the whole experience. I actually didn't even make it past the second level in the campaign. I just couldn't manage all of those collectibles sitting on the very edge of the screen.

I have no doubt that Worm Game offered something special for a lot of people. The fact that it was released to the public at all was kind of a big deal, seeing as it was designed for internal use only. It's just a shame that I wasn't able to properly enjoy it. I love the novelty of games like this and the history that it contains and represents. Hopefully, someday we can see Worm Game preserved and playable without Stadia, but while preservationists wait patiently for their job to begin, at least we have a written record of how special this release and its host platform were, no matter how well they played or how long they lasted.

Although the game is no longer available, you can learn more about it here (as of 2/21/23): https://kotaku.com/google-stadia-play-final-last-game-worm-snake-weird-1849987880

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