Review: Earth Must Die

You might have heard of Size Five Games, they’re the creators of other silly entertaining point-and-click games like Ben There, Dan That!, Time Gentlemen, Please! and Lair of the Clockwork God. I played the first two ages ago, and the last one is still on my to-do list. We’ll see when I get round to playing that one. Even though I knew the developer of Earth Must Die (even though they were still called Zombie Cow Studios back then). The reason this game got on my radar was because of the pormotional trailer with Alex Horne!

If you’ve never heard of Alex Horne, you’re in for a treat! He’s the creative genius behind Taskmaster. One of my all-time favourite shows. So when I heard he was involved in this project, I was immediately curious to see what it was all about. Alex Horne is not the only comedian who took part in voicing the characters, some other heavy-hitters also lend their voice like: Mike Wozniak, Sophie Duker and Tom Lawrinson. It was only much later I realized Ben Starr also appears in the game! Special shout-out as well to Joel Fry for voicing Vvalak and Martha Howe-Douglas for voicing Milky.

Truly, the voice acting in this game is absolutely stellar. The game is filled with jokes that will make you laugh out loud, or sigh in disbelief. I found the comedy in the game to be on the edge of a sword, some jokes landed very well with me, others didn’t. The main character, Vvalak Lizardtongue, mispronounces several words, which irritated me a bit at the start. But ended up becoming the most hilarious part in the narrative. Everytime Vvalak opens his mouth, I’m left wondering which simple-to-pronounce word will be disfigured next.

You play as Vvalak Lizardtongue and are followed by Milky, your milkbot, your only friend. Your milkbot companion even offers you with lore of the world you find yourself in, in the form of the Milkypedia. Some of its entries are crucial to solve puzzles in the game, but more than that I loved reading what the larger world of The Tyryth Ascendancy looks like. The game is very linear, whenever you enter a location, you can’t leave it before solving the puzzle in that location. Which got me fooled at first. I didn’t expect I wouldn’t be able to freeroam, but it does give you the knowledge that you have all the tools you need to solve any puzzles that come across your path.

None of the puzzles are exceptionally hard. The only ones I was ever stuck on, was one were I had to repeat a certain action multiple times. Any other puzzles can be solved by logical interactions, or bruteforcing if that is your thing. There is also no inventory to work with. So everything can be solved by interacting with your environment directly. Or should I say indirectly? Vvalak dislikes touching things, so he orders Milky to interact with the world in his stead…

There’s a part in Act 2 of the game, where you can pick your mission, which is the only part of the game where it isn’t completely linear and you have some say in what you do. I haven’t gone back to check if picking a different order has any effect, but from Vvalak’s comments and from what I’ve read from the developer in some other situations, I’m sure there will be some small changes. In fact, the game gives you a beautiful illusion of agency. The decisions you make, usually make a reappearance somewhere down the line. The overall structure of the story doesn’t change, but the flavour does. And it’s a treat seeing the different callbacks.

There’s one more thing that really stood out during my playsessions, which are the beautifully drawn art and camera angles. It’s not your typical point-and-click adventure game, with a single fixed camera angle for every shot, but instead throws in some cinematic angles for extra effect. I guess it’s something you don’t see a lot because of the pixel art in other games.

In closing, if you’ve liked any of Size Five Games’ previous titles, you’re also going to like this one. If you know any of the voice actors you’ll love recognizing their voices in this game. Be prepared for silliness and whimsy.