I'm giving this a recommendation purely because this has so much potential, but the rough bits are really rough. Last Train out of Wormtown is a game where a handful of players (pardners) run away from the idea people have when you mention the dune worm (the worm). A fun party game for up to 8 players, a 7 v 1 fight for survival as pardners attempt to fuel a train, unblock the track with explosives, and find the key to get outta wormtown, while the worm seeks to sate its hunger by searching for players with the restriction that they can only see players that move on the ground. To hide from the worm, players have some fun options: the rocky terrain offers cover, they can cling to the sides of walls or use crates, cacti, and ladders to keep off the ground. The worm gets to scream out its frustrations to see players and stationary objects in a small radius too. By default, these mechanics feel well tuned and fair. Now comes the gadgetry, which can feel a bit busted. On the Pardner side, you get fun objects like the knife, which lets you escape the worm one, or the wormgun, a powerful rifle capable of sending the worm packing. A necronomicon lets Pardners revive others quickly while the Luigi Board gives benefits for both the living and dead players. A skillful use of dynamite also sends the beast packing. Pardner options really open up the game to create clutch moments and at times utterly annoy the worm. The worm, on the other hand, has options that are either way too good, or not good enough. Stealth makes the worm completely silent, allowing it to sneak up on unassuming players. Sandstorm forces player movement in random directions, throwing them off a majority of cover from the worm's vision while magma trail blocks players off from certain routes. This is where the balance feels painful. The players get a train in the center of the map that offers a good chunk of safety, a traction-less plane for the worm, but its a long line with plenty of open areas, and nothing that really stops the worm from getting players that are on the train. The train has a horn that inverts worm's controls but when you've been playing for a good number of rounds this is hardly a deterrent. Magma trail can be placed under the train too, creating inconsistent areas where players can be damaged despite being given a "safe" area. For somewhere so vital for the pardner's victory, there is nothing stopping the worm from camping the train and preventing a majority of progress. The fuel objective also feels inconsistent at times. Objects in the game have a "burn" value, but its largely meaningless as a burn value of 5 can potentially give what feels like the same progress as 3 or 10. Throwing objects in the fire means you're also largely stationary, meaning the worm gets an easy lunch if they're camping. The key's spawn location is largely random, meaning it can be the hardest task as it spawns away from anything useful to the pardners or the easiest as it gets placed near the train or on a common route. Reviving players requires either using the necronomicon to revive them out in the field, or moving the heart to the church. Rather annoyingly, if the heart jar gets pushed to the church by the ghosts, they can revive themselves, which means the ghosts can both distract a worm and bring themselves back at the same time. It may not sound like much, but when you have a player running for the air balloon (this game's version of the Dead by Daylight hatch) and others trying to revive themselves looking like an attempt to rescue the entire team, its hard to track. Speaking of the hat- i mean air balloon, this game takes a decision that I find a bit annoying. The worm is incapable of knowing where the balloon spawns until its too late. It never touches the ground and the indicator is for the player only. Additionally, it usually appears near large clusters of rock, making it easy for players to just play the floor is lava and escaping without the worm having much of a chance to counter. The only option to balance this in game is to outright disable it, which feels unfair for the pardners when they'll eventually end up on the bad end of a refueling run. For early access, this game is phenomenal, a party game for the ages. The addition of the free Friend's Pass is also a feature I hope to see past launch, since we all know how hard it is getting anyone to want to play a party game (will admit, some choice words were yelled during close games). With some finer tuning this could be plenty of people's game of the year. As for now though, you might want to make a few home rules to help the game run with a little less aggravation. Some suggestions: Magma Trail deals damage very fast and only has the requirement that the worm be underground. Perhaps making it so the worm took damage while using the ability and the caveat that they need to be at full health will make this feel less as a parting gift and more as a barrier to keep the pardners off of worm found objectives. The train needs to be safer for the pardners. 3 crates and a handful of ladders is a good start when your just beginning, but they only go so far once you understand the mechanics and can get around the occasional horn blare. Giving the back car walls is a solid start, but I don't think making it perfectly safe would be too much of a detriment to the experience. Bile Bomb and Sand Pit need buffs. The bile often doesn't come in handy despite the fast recharge, and while annoying, Sand Pit requires too much accuracy on the worms part for what is essentially a zero risk escape game since captured players do not show up for the worm. Rather than a percentage gauge, let the pardners know how much fuel they need exactly. Running up to a 97% gauge only for an entire inventory to push it 1% is all the more aggravating when you don't know what the fuel numbers mean. I agree the worm should get stronger when the players take their time, but the fact that the worm gets both cool down reductions and ability buffs feels far too strong and pushes pardners to be fast and reckless, which doesn't fit the game. A good start could be to make the scream simply double in range and highlight players rather than be map wide and on a cool down that feels like milliseconds. When your only advantage against the worm is to stand still and hide, giving the worm a faster scream makes hiding impossible and only disadvantages low health pardners who have no stamina to dodge with. Stamina either needs to be a separate stat or be less tied to health. Maybe make pardner stamina decrease as time goes by or only lose half the stamina you would when damaged. As it stands, I find the Canteen to be the best item the pardners can have equipped simply because it makes stamina less of a fear, plus if the worm is going after 1 pardner in specific the entire game, it becomes progressively easier to catch them as they lose both durability and range. I'd have it as an option in the game lobby, but maybe implementing a system to make it less compelling to attack the same pardner over and over again. Maybe making the minigame easier when you do it quickly. Additional escape minigames would make it a bit refreshing, but as it stands the current minigame is perfect for promoting speed and accuracy, while punishing focusing on either one.
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