Game Rant recently sat down with Edmund McMillen, creator of some pretty punishing games likeSuper Meat BoyandThe Binding of Isaac, to talk about his newest creation: a light, fun little tabletop card game calledTapeworm. It has all the morbid yet cute stylings of McMillen’s signature aesthetic, but the game is quite different than his usual fare. We had some questions about his opinion of difficulty in video games, and how Tapeworm fits into his ideas about game design.
McMillen has made a card game before:Binding of Isaac: Four Soulswas a hit, but it also had a level of challenge and complexity on par with card games likeMagic: The Gathering.Tapeworm, on the other hand, was designed to be picked up and played intuitively, with deeper strategy emerging through interaction with other players, not necessarily a litany of rules and conditions.Tapewormlooks a lot like dominoes on the surface, but unlike dominoes,Tapewormis not an objectively bad game. Players connect various segments of different colored worms to build out a tangled mass on the tabletop, but there are additional abilities, like cutting off a section or hatching new worms that make the game extra strategic and competitive.
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There is often a debate in video games about the merits of accessibility compared to the creative expression that some developers find in making their games extra challenging. Alongside the likes ofDark Souls, Edmund’s games are often brought up as examples of titles that use their difficulty to their advantage and make a point of being tough. As Edmund himself said when asked about the challenging nature of a game likeSuper Meat Boy, “It’s about perseverance.”
Thatperseverance is very much the pointof games likeSuper Meat BoyandBinding of Isaac. The player is meant to try over and over again, which fits into the story or overall feel of the game to create an emotional response in the player.
I try my best to not use themes without something tied into a core mechanic behind it…. [but that kind of difficulty] is not always appropriate for every game….Tapewormis not like that.
The visuals ofTapewormfit right into the morbid and adorable style that McMillen is so well known for, which caused a bit of concern for some of the game’s early critics. Edmund was told that if he designed the game to look like trains instead of worms it would do a lot better, but he expressed to us the desire to stick with the same themes that had inspired so much of his other work. When asked if those dark themes always translated into gameplay, he just had this to say:
There’s a big difference between making something thematically inaccessible and mechanically inaccessible.
It seems like most of the challenge inTapewormcomes from the other players. Edmund stated that he wantedTapewormto focus very heavily on thesocial aspect of a card game, and the interactions that spring up naturally between players. With the ability to predict what other players have in their hand, force others to draw cards, and even lock them off from being able to play anything at all, Edmund described a very interesting dynamic between players who picked up the seemingly simple game and found deeper and deeper layers of strategy. “I wanted to make a game that people could sit down and instantly know what they were doing. And then as they play they discover more strategy….”
