331 · Silkworm
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Silkworm is a classic horizontally-scrolling shoot-em-up. The main difference between this game and many other side-scrolling shoot-em-ups is that you will be on land as well as in the air.
Silkworm is a side-scrolling shooter that arrived on the NES from computers in 1990, and its box promises that every "byte" is crammed full of action. We pointed out that the game also has loading screens, a bonus tally and a vehicle select. Mike, Sean and Joe were on this one. We didn't play it with a second person, and that matters, because the second person is the whole point.
What's interesting
- Helicopter or jeep. You pick before the game starts, and the levels are identical either way. The helicopter flies anywhere but only fires forward and a little downward, and you tilt it with A. The jeep is stuck on the ground with a turret that can aim behind, straight up and ahead, and it can jump. Around 75 percent of the enemies are in the air, so the jeep has to shoot up at them.
- Asymmetrical co-op. One player flies, one drives, both at once. It was the first asymmetrical co-op game we could remember seeing on the NES. The jeep kills the snake-helicopter enemy in two hits, which is how you get power-ups, while the helicopter is the one that can reach boss weak spots. You can picture two people yelling "get that thing."
- A few small touches. You can shoot most of the missiles out of the air instead of dodging them. The final boss, which we only saw on footage, looks good, and the hit box seems to be only the middle of the cockpit, so bullets pass right through you.
What isn't
- Alone, it's half a game. Single player has no adjustments for one person, and the other vehicle's score stays on screen. The helicopter is a standard shooter with two power-ups, and the jeep is a good idea you can't fully use. We called it bargain bin material.
- Wallpaper. The levels are palette swaps with nice backgrounds, the bosses blur together as vague machinery, and the enemies all fire the same missile.
- Autofire and an easy jeep. Hold B and never let go. The jeep avoids most missiles, so you can mostly cruise.
- Badges that don't do anything. Collect five items for a promotion through Lieutenant and Commander to Captain. Only the last one matters, because it makes the double firepower permanent. Why not all of them?
- The hints. They were helpful in the sense of "avoid contact with all indestructible enemies," and we weren't sure the one about hugging the bottom of the screen should have been printed.
Beyond the game
It started on computers, and it inspired SWIV, a vertical helicopter-and-jeep shooter. The name comes from a real missile, the Silkworm. We're losing patience with computer ports landing on the NES, and with an NES that is getting more skippable in 1990, as listeners predicted.
The bottom line
Skip it. We both voted no on the Essential Games List. Joe said it was not essential even in two-player, though it might be worth a try there. As a one-player game it is just too basic a shooter, going backwards from what we've already seen.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
- Every byte is crammed full of action
- NES Longplay
- Manual
- Vehicle Selection: Silkworm allows players to choose between two different vehicles: a helicopter and a jeep. Each vehicle offers its own unique playstyle and abilities, adding variety to the gameplay experience.
- Cooperative Gameplay: One of the standout features of Silkworm is its cooperative gameplay mode, where two players can play simultaneously. One player controls the helicopter, while the other controls the jeep. This cooperative dynamic adds a layer of strategy and coordination to the gameplay.
- Weapon Systems: Both the helicopter and the jeep are equipped with different weapons that can be upgraded throughout the game. Discuss the various weapon options available to players, such as machine guns, missiles, and bombs, and how they can be used strategically to defeat enemies.
- Power-Ups
- Bonus items will appear only after defeating the MH SNAKEHEAD helicopter.
- The item received will depend on the previous item collected.
- They will progress in this order: Twin Sphere, Turbo Card, and Bonus Pod.
- Item Name: Twin Sphere
- A Twin Sphere allows the player to double their firepower
- Item Name: Turbo Card
- Capturing this item will allow the player to increase their movement speed.
- Item Name: Bonus Pod
- This pod will add 10,000 points to the players point total.
- Item Name: Eagle Emblem
- This emblem will appear somtime in Wave 4 or 5.
- It adds 100,000 points to the players total.
- Item Name: Condor Emblem
- The item will only appear if the player collected the Eagle Emblem.
- It adds 500,000 points to the players total.
- Item Name: Shield
- This item will appear whenver you destroy a land mine.
- When collected the player is invinsible for a short time.
- Badges
- Badge Name: Ensign Badge
- Players begin Wave 1 with this badge.
- After picking up 5 bonus items, the player is promoted to Lieutenant.
- Badge Name: Lieutenant Badge
- Collecting 5-9 bonus items will qulify the player for this badge.
- Badge Name: Commander's Badge
- Collecting 10-14 bonus items will qulify the player for this badge.
- Badge Name: Captain's Badge
- Collecting 15 bonus items will qulify the player for this badge.
- Having this badge allows the player to keep the "twin sphere" firing upgrade
- until the game is over.
- Enemy Variety: Describe the variety of enemies encountered throughout the game, ranging from ground-based tanks and turrets to airborne helicopters and fighter jets. Discuss how each enemy type behaves and the strategies players can employ to defeat them.
- Level Design: Analyze the level design of Silkworm, discussing the different environments players will encounter, such as desert landscapes, urban cityscapes, and military bases. Highlight any unique obstacles, hazards, or environmental features that players must navigate through.
- Boss Battles: Boss battles are a staple of the shooter genre, and Silkworm is no exception. Discuss the challenging boss encounters players will face at the end of each level, including their attack patterns, weak points, and strategies for defeating them.
- Difficulty Progression: Explore how the game's difficulty ramps up as players progress through the levels. Discuss how enemy patterns become more complex, obstacles become more numerous, and boss battles become more challenging, requiring players to hone their skills to succeed.
- Replay Value: Consider the game's replay value and how it encourages players to return for multiple playthroughs. Discuss any hidden secrets, alternate paths, or high score challenges that add to the game's longevity.
- Sequels and spinoffs
- Silkworm inspired the game SWIV, while not a direct sequel, it followed the same core gameplay design of a helicopter/jeep team, albeit as a vertically scrolling shooter instead of a horizontally scrolling one and was described as "inspired by" and a spiritual successor by several reviews, both of the time and contemporary, respectively.
- EGL
- Next week
- NEStalgia Byte
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Silkworm, every bite is crammed full of action.
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Is that bite? It was like a Y? Yeah, with a Y. Okay.
The rest of the back of the box was all just quotes. So I wasn't really sure like what, you know, like I'm not going to quote some magazine, right? So instead I took, I guess what would be a quote from somebody, but just the only thing that could read is a back of the box. Sometimes the back of the box isn't so obvious, people.
It's weird to call it like, to talk about bites on the back of the box. Because I know it's a video game, but it's not like a video game about being a video game. Yeah. I was going to say something similar. Like it's not like a selling point that this is a digital product. Right. Maybe it's because... It's like a game game or something. It is about like an artificial intelligence, but it's very, very loosely about that. I didn't even know it was about that, I'll be honest.
Oh, you didn't? You pressed start really quick then. I pressed start immediately, yeah. That's what I'm known for. But like, it would be like if a movie, if like Shawshank Redemption was like every reel of film, it's like, this is a movie. Yeah, that's what I was going to get at. Even if they meant that like every bite in the code is full of action, right? It's like, well, that's not true because there's loading screens and there's a bonus tally menu and there's a part where you got to select whether you want to be a helicopter or a jeep or a, not jeep, a tank. It's a jeep. Oh, it is a jeep. Okay. Yeah. See, I was trying to make it sound more badass than it was.
So we'll start there then. Helicopter or jeep? Helicopter. My gut would say helicopter for sure. But jeep cool too. Yeah. And there's actually some things the jeep can do that surprised me that the helicopter can't do, like take down certain enemies really easily that I had a really hard time with with a helicopter. Helicopter. Well, real quick, what are we talking about right now? But why do we say jeep helicopter good bad? Well, no, I just thought that we should just be as vague as possible. And that was the goal of our show. It seems like for the last 300 something episodes, we've been really nondescript about all these things. So why start now? We try.
I know. Okay. So yes, there is a choice of basically before you start any of the game, you have a choice between your vehicle. And so the helicopter in this game, first off, this game is a side scrolling shoot them up. If you can believe that with a with the vehicle side, it's basically no matter what you do, it's not like the vehicle unlock certain missions and the helicopters a different set of missions. No, it's the same thing. You're just choosing whether you want to be in a flying vehicle or a ground vehicle, which each have their different like pros and cons, right?
The helicopter obviously has air maneuverability and can basically attack all airborne targets a lot easier. However, it can only really shoot in like a straightforward direction and a like, is that 45 degrees? What do we call it? I'd say it's a good 45 degrees down. Okay. It felt like even less than 45. Maybe 30 degrees. Yeah. It's made more complicated because you're always also firing straightforward and 45 degrees down. Then you tilt for 30 degrees down. So you're still firing 30 degrees and then like 30 plus 45 degrees. Obviously, I should be able to do that math very easily, but I didn't.
But yeah, so it's more complicated than that too. Right. And that exists, of course, in order to tilt, you have to press the A button. The B button is something that you really should just hold down because there's no penalty and you can just constantly keep shooting. That exists because, as I mentioned, the levels don't change. So there are some ground enemies. And so in order to perfect the shot at them, you're going to want to potentially tilt the helicopter in a way where you can shoot at the ground more clearly.
If you don't do the helicopter, though, then you have the Jeep. And the Jeep has to make up for its land capabilities where it basically is stuck at the bottom of the screen. You can jump, though.
Yeah, you can jump. But keep in mind, all the enemies, I would say like 75% of the enemies that you will deal on any particular level exist in the air. So you now have to take them on from the ground via a turret that you can control in different arcs. So it's not like something that freely moves, but it moves in different positions. But it moves in a lot more positions than the helicopter. So whereas the helicopter only had the ability to tilt just a little bit forward to shoot on the ground, the Jeep can make it this way. You can shoot behind you, a little bit in an arc behind you, fully straight up, fully in a little arc ahead of you, and then fully straight ahead of you. So you get a lot of different advantage points there.
And to wrap up what we were saying about preference, I'm surprised to hear the helicopter from you guys because I actually thought the Jeep was pretty op in this game. I mean, you can basically dodge a lot of enemies by the nature of being on the ground, and then you have the ability to control your shot in such a fluid manner that you never have to really worry about where your position is on the map as long as you can arc it the shot. I agree with that, and I also think that it's at least a unique perspective to be in the Jeep.
But if we're just talking about how straightforward it is, like how it's much more intuitive to play as the helicopter because it is just so like everything that we've played before. And that's actually not a great thing. I don't think that's a great thing because it just means that, oh, it's just how you do a shmup and not something new. The Jeep is something new. It's just a little harder to get your head around.
Yeah, and I was also coming at it more from a standpoint of like, you know, of like nine-year-old Joe. And if I'm playing like multiplayer, who am I, what am I taking? And like, yeah, you want to be the one that can fly because it's just in my brain cooler. But yeah, I do think that, honestly, I think what it comes down to, if you like really look at it for me, is that I think that they kind of balance nicely. So like I do think that there's an argument to be made for both of them. And I think that the way that we've been talking about it this far is sort of beating around the bush of this game in that I think this is one of the first shmups that we've played that like the main way that I think you're supposed to experience it is in multiplayer.
Like one person playing is the helicopter. One person playing is the Jeep. And I think I didn't have a friend to do this. That seems like it'd be pretty fucking cool. Yeah, I also didn't play multiplayer and I kind of wish I had. But it even feels to the extent that like single player seems to not have adjusted itself to be a single player game. Not that like it's bad as a single player game, but it just feels like there are things in place that like are designed for the multiplayer element that is not edited for the single player.
Right. There's no change in the cooperative mode. To Sean's point, it is just suggested that for the complete experience, two players would play where one controls the helicopter and one controls the Jeep. And they are simultaneous. It's not, oh, when the helicopter loses its life, you restart the stage with player two now as the Jeep. They happen all at the same time. And because nothing ever changes, it's the exact same layout as if you were playing handicapped alone.
What's interesting about that is, I don't know, like not that it would be possible with the NES controller to control both. But to think about modern games, just to go to a recent favorite example of like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, if you made it so that like, oh, like you need two other friends to be the other party members. Like we can't make it so that you control Cloud, Tifa and Aerith all at once. Right. Like you need to have a player logged into controller number two in order to control Tifa. It's like that's what this feels like on a NES scale. It feels like I'm not able to get the actual full game.
And I don't think there's another there's another genre where that's true on the NES. Like there's no platformer example of that where, oh, you know, like the real game is playing with two Mega Mans at once. Right. Like that hasn't happened yet on the NES. And so this is a weird example where you're you're missing features by just not having friends. Now, of course, everybody who owned an NES would have plenty of friends in the neighborhood because they own an NES.
Naturally, people just want to come over your house and play your games. But that still doesn't change that the single player experience is one that feels a little restrictive. And by that, I mean it truly restrictive in the sense of the way the levels are designed.
There are there are definitely enemies that are preferred to be with the Jeep and there are enemies that are preferred to be taken up against with the helicopter. And I think for the boss battles, it's much easier to say like, oh, it's the helicopter. A hundred percent like it just makes hitting the glowing parts of the boss fight so much easier when you're in something that can maneuver across the entire screen. But there are certain moments where it's nice to not have to worry about being hit by any enemies on the ground other than the landmines and stationary objects that remain on the bottom of the screen.
Guys, help me out here. Is there a justification for stripping out or rather is it not stripping out? And it's just like, hey, this is just some cool bonus perk where you can actually play as both. Like you totally would want to play Super Mario Brothers with Mario and Luigi at the same time. Now, when you say that, do you mean like one person controlling both of them at the same time?
No, I meant, you know, like the the way that it's here in Silkworm, like they should have made it so that, you know, it's not one and then the other. It's that Mario and Luigi should both be on the screen at the same time. And that, you know, that's how it should always be. And that it's not restrictive here. I think what's weird about this game is that the the the more unique way to play it, which is as the Jeep.
If that were the only way to play this game, I would be completely befuddled by the design decision going into it. Like, what are you talking about? Like it's a shmup where you can't go up and down and you're just there's all of this real estate like above you that just isn't being used properly. And you can do this weird jump and all you can just sort of affect the the angle at which you shoot like this is super stupid. And then the on the other side, you just have the helicopter, which operates pretty much like every other shmup.
I I'm not I wouldn't say that it's that the playing this single player with either of them is is like a bad experience. It's just it it feels incomplete. And I think that if it were either just one or the other, it would be just another like bargain bin thing. And even together like this, this game really only shines when you're playing a multiplayer because I mean, I'm not saying that from experience. I'm saying that from the just, you know, just the this the theory of it.
Because otherwise, it is just half of an experience. I'm just rambling. No, I see it the same way. I mean, I bargain bin, I think, is a great way to put it. Like, that's what this feels like playing in single player. It feels like a good bargain bin game, I guess. But it's not anything I would write home about. And also, having not played two player, I'm very interested. I want to play this in two player because it it feels like, yeah, alone, each of these things are kind of lacking. I mean, the helicopter is just such a basic shmup.
It is not even like really very good power ups. There's like two what like that I think there's just two power ups. Yeah. And yeah, like you said, the Jeep is cool. But it is clearly like not designed to be driving a Jeep game alone. But putting them together, I think that is cool because it's it's it's not only is it co-op like like contra or something, but it's asymmetrical, which makes it. Yes. It feels like you have to really work together. There are these enemies that I was facing. They show up all the time. They like they like form out of like five smaller things into this like big ship. And you just it's like really hard to take one down with the helicopter.
But when you do, you get that's how you get like that's like the biggest way to get power ups, if not the only way to get power up. I'm not sure. But I think that from what I remember, that is the only thing that drops power ups. Yeah. That like snake that snake helicopter thing. Yeah. But the Jeep takes that thing down in like two hits. And that's just one example of kind of the what I imagine would be a lot of situations where you have to be kind of yelling at each other like, hey, get that thing, get that thing.
I'm going to go up here. You know, you have the advantage of the more maneuverability with the helicopter and the advantage of maybe some better firepower, I guess, with the with the Jeep. And you're maybe in less danger with the Jeep. So you have to really work together and communicate. And it almost reminds me of this is this is only in in in the feeling of it reminds me of like a way out. If anyone's played that or no, absolutely. That came out after that. It takes two.
Yeah. Which I've never played all the way through. But it's like it's designed to be a co-op game. And it's not just you're both doing the same thing. There's like you have to do. I think it take two even more so than a way out. But but both of them, really. And yeah, it's like it's like the little bit of the the seed of that kind of idea. Yeah. I think you're giving it a lot of credit, though. I mean, sure, that is definitely an overstatement. But I did feel a similar thing that this is a game like a cannon lynch or an army of two. If we're going to go back like a couple generations or even to the modern gamer, something like lethal company or among us where it's not so much like you.
Where it's not so much like, oh, it's a multiplayer game. You can you need to play this multiplayer. But or like it's just a co-op game. You need to play this co-op. It's just a game that bots don't work in. And so you it's a game that was designed for multiplayer, but can't be really that well adapted for single player. Like even something as simple as Unreal Tournament could have bots and you could still have something to do where this is a multiplayer game that you kind of need two people to really experience.
I think that's interesting because I'm not sure I have the same takeaway, but I'm not disputing the claim there either. I guess what I'm thinking is, is like for it to truly be like, oh, the cooperative one is the real one, other than the fact that it intends for you to be able to control both at the same time, is that it would actually require moments where like the Jeep and the helicopter work in tandem in a way that isn't just, well, now you can clear enemies off the screen faster. Because remember, that's all this game is.
Sure. It gives you even a way to shoot enemies so quickly that you basically just hold down the B button and it's for the first time ever. I'm like, is autofire a bad thing just because of how like simplified it makes an already pretty simple game when you're playing it single player?
When you're playing it with two, it's like now because of the way that they made it that you could play it single player with either or they've removed any of those cool possibilities of like, man, if the Jeep and helicopter are working together, then like the helicopter's got to squeeze through this space on the upper level. And dock here to turn on something so that the Jeep's gate can open up and go through the garage. Right. Like, sure.
You're right. Like that. You're right. It's not like truly, it's not truly you need to. I guess that was an overstatement on my end. But obviously the experience is truly lackluster compared to if you're playing with another person. And I guess that sort of takes away my examples where, yeah, you can play those games single player, it's just going to suck. Like, I guess this falls more into that.
Yeah. I'm thinking of it more also as like, you, you, you of course can play this game single player and, and, and it functions fine, but it's just the, the star of the show is multiplayer. How big of a star it is TBD, but it was just the first example that I remember seeing of kind of an asymmetrical co-op game. I guess the only other ones that we've seen, and again, you're right with co-op, but this isn't, this isn't count for that, but obviously playing, uh, Jeopardy alone is going to be a different experience than playing Jeopardy with people. But like, these are just like, you know, garbage bag, uh, game show games.
Well, Duck Hunt had some asymmetrical, not co-op. Sure. That nobody ever knew about as far as I know. Right, right. Uh, so what do you think about like, um, I don't know, broader topics like difficulty progression or replay value?
Like, was the game, was the game building on anything here or is it, does it feel like it's just the background changes between levels? I was surprised that throughout most of the game, uh, you can fight back with almost all of the, um, missile projectiles, especially for some of the bosses. That was like nice to be able to like fire those things away rather than forcibly dodge them. Um, I think it does provide some, um, some light spins on, on like what we've seen in shmups, even if it is just a pretty standard, um, a shmup. But the, the level to level really did just feel like a, uh, a palette, uh, swap for me.
Not, not even like, yes, the backgrounds are more intricate, but the locations even kind of don't really change in extreme ways where like it makes any sense of like, oh, we're, we're getting somewhere. Like it just kind of is taking you to different landscapes and then all of a sudden you're in a computer hall. It's very nice wallpaper.
Um, and because it's wallpaper, like it'd be cool if there was, if it actually felt like a place that you were driving through that had like variations in, uh, what you're seeing from like screen to screen. Uh, and not just level to level, but no, it's just wallpaper. There's no, like, there's nothing environmental going on. And I think they really missed an opportunity to differentiate themselves. Like most shmups have been able to differentiate themselves, which is in boss design, where these are just sort of like vehicles that vaguely look futuristic.
And that's it. With the boss designs, I can like picture like a, like a Rorschach test version of each of these bosses. And they're all kind of just like these like vague, like pixelized machinery things. Yes. Like they do not stand out in any way to me as like, oh yeah, there's the, the, this boss or the, that boss. It's all just like, oh, pieces of machinery with weak spots floating around in different ways. Um, and, and, you know, as far as the backgrounds, they're very pretty backgrounds, but yeah, I agree. They, they didn't really like tie into, tie into the progression too much. Did you guys notice also, do you ever feel like the game was like cheating in your favor?
You mean with your, with your hurt box? Yeah. Like bullets would go right through me like all the time. I was like, damn, I'm good at this game. But like, I was just like, I mean, it was just, I'm like, okay, that definitely hit me after a while. I'm, I'm, I'm noticing. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that you can only get hit if you get hit like square in the middle of like the cockpit or, uh, something along those lines. It, it, it feels, it feels good. It may be a little cheap at times. And again, in your favor, but it feels more like a, a real like bullet hell, like a more modern bullet hell than, uh, what we are, what we're used to.
Yeah. Also, just before, before I forget, uh, I'm watching footage of it and I'm, I just got to the final boss, which I did not reach in the, uh, actual game. And that boss does not fall into the criticism I just had about, about, uh, bosses all looking the same. It's actually pretty cool. Yeah. That is a really cool boss. Yeah. Rightfully so though. You need your final boss to be cool.
Yeah. Uh, it is, it is also fine in a game, uh, of the NES level where like the glowing thing is what hurts. Like I, I'm totally, I mean, I'm fine with that even in modern games really. Right. Like, um, we were, you know, we still have tells in our enemies too, of like to know like, oh, if this shines yellow, like, yeah, right. Exactly. So I, I'm fine with that part.
I totally agree that the rest of the game, I mean, even the enemies do change between levels, but not on a meaningful scale. And they're all shooting the same missile, which doesn't help. Like that doesn't make it feel different enough when they're all just shooting the same kind of projectile. Where are the guys who shoot like, uh, like, I don't know, even the projectile path could be a little different, right? Like it shoots down and then goes straight or something.
I'm making stuff up. The game feels very much at times like it was just kind of thrown together because as we mentioned, there are power ups, but there's only two of them. There's this whole thing about badges, but they're just like a UI like flare thing that just, uh, basically. Yeah, I could never really understand what that was doing. Yeah. So the way, the way that works, cause I think it's a little interesting, but they just didn't take it far enough. Right. Is basically, uh, you start with the N sign badge. You can't not get this one. You just start with it. And then after you pick up five of the bonus items, be they power ups or other kinds of point based things, you're promoted. And so now your badge is Lieutenant, right?
And then from Lieutenant to Commander and finally Captain. Captain does make it so that, um, that, uh, that power up that you get where your firepower is doubled up. Uh, that makes it like permanent. So now you can't lose that, which is a pretty cool, like perk, but why not do that for all the badges? And if you need to, because it's such a short game, just lengthen out like the time between badges. So this way it's not, uh, like, you know, you just automatically get like all these permanent upgrades, but I feel like the badges should mean something other than just the last badge. Like it, it's, it's, it's not even like a point based thing where you get like points for being, uh, that kind of badge. It's just a, it's like a badge of honor.
And it's like, who cares about, you know, like give me a grade at the end of the level instead. Right. Tell me I did S rank for percentage of accuracy on my shots when I clearly was just using auto fire the entire time shooting into the void because enemies can only appear, uh, you know, to in specific places for me anyway. So I might as well just continuously shoot in those directions.
Yeah. I guess I don't really have a, uh, any response to that because I didn't know what they did to begin with. Uh, but that, that does seem silly. Yeah. I also was not really clear, clear on that, but it just seemed, it seemed simple to me. And I was just like, I guess I'll just kind of go with whatever it gives me. Well, the clear thing is a good point too, though, because so you're, you're right.
That it's not clear like what they do. And the last one only does anything, but it's not even clear from like a, uh, a coolness perspective, what they were going for with the UI. Right. Like instead it's just like things that are just now on your screen. Like you can't even explain what they are unless you're looking at the manual and then you'll be like, oh, that's it. Yeah. Everything else is so, it is clear. It's just like, all right, you're the helicopter. You have like four lives. You have this many points. And then here's a cool little picture.
Right. It's like, put that in the pause screen or something with my, with my ID or something. Right. Yeah. Also, I didn't even think about this, but when you're playing in single player on the UI, they don't take, if you're playing as a helicopter, they don't take Jeep and the Jeep score off the screen.
I mean, maybe it's a drop in, drop out kind of thing. I don't know. Oh, can you drop in? I don't know. That's it. I don't know. Don't tell, don't put words in my mouth. I think you could drop it. You're saying, you're saying, you're saying, this is a drop in, drop out thing. Maybe. Don't put words in my mouth. Okay, so definitely it is, is what Sean said. I was trying to find an answer for that, and I can't. So, I'm pretty sure you can't just drop it. It would, it would stand to reason. Sean, you said you could drop it and drop out. It would stand. Here's the hint section for the game. You tell me if these are any useful, okay?
Okay. Avoid contact with all indestructible enemies, especially the silkworm and venom missiles. Just say helpful or not. I avoid contact with all enemies, even the destructible ones. That sounds good. That sounds like a good plan, Joe. Sean, you said helpful? Very. Okay. Here's the next one. Silkworm missiles can be avoided by the helicopter if it flies at the very bottom of the screen. This does not apply against the main enemies at the end of a wave.
Like, that sounds helpful, but it also sounds like a cheese. It sounds like a cheese that they shouldn't be telling the player about. It is weird that, yeah, they're telling you, like, hey, just so you know, we didn't program missiles to go to the bottom of the screen. But incredibly helpful. Yes, definitely helpful. But yeah, it's like saying, like, hey, there's this secret spot in the boss battle that you just can't get hit. That's exactly what I'm talking about with the jeep, though, too. Like, it just doesn't get hit by the missiles. And so it's like, what's the point? Like, as long as you destroy what's in front of you, you're basically just cruising. It's absolutely helpful. It's so helpful. All right. Here's another one.
Try to rapidly shoot the second vehicle of the MH and C2 snakehead before it actually forms. With a little practice, you will be rewarded with two bonus items instead of only one. Hmm. That's helpful. I didn't know that. Actually helpful. I do that every time. Out of maximum helpfulness on a scale from not helpful at all to maximally helpful. I'd say that that is incredibly helpful.
And the final hint, I have to mention this one because it does bring up another point that I didn't have on my notes here. The hint, and then I'll go on my topic from here. The helicopter is especially effective against the main enemies which descend from the top of the screen. Simply match your descent and keep firing head to head. Are they calling the bosses the main enemies? Is that a term that was ever used in any other video game before? And did the AI write this?
Maybe, yeah. Maybe the other things on the screen aren't enemies at all. They're just like civilians trying to escape the main enemies. And you're shooting them down. Yeah, that would explain why they're leaving. Well, first of all, very helpful. But was there a time in the past where the shorthand in video games wasn't like boss, but it was like employer? Right. Or like direct report? Was that sort of like before we got to agree on boss? Yeah, I think in Adventure, it was always direct report. Right, right. You think the boss is hard? Wait till you get to the president. Ooh. That's what we're going to call the final boss of any game is the president.
On the sequels and spinoff side, Silkworm was ported to many other, or not even ported necessarily. I think they originated on computers and kind of made their way over to the NES. So we're finding a lot of these lately where they're computer games that it's like, sure, the NES sold how many consoles? We'll port our game over there. No problem. Who knows assembly on the team? You? You're porting the version. You know? It's like one guy gets the whole job. But this was in the notes on Wikipedia that Silkworm inspired a game called SWIV or SWIV, which is not a direct sequel, but it is another helicopter Jeep shmup, which is weird that there's two of them.
But this one is a vertical shmup instead of the horizontal. That seems weird. Interesting. Yeah, that's hard to do. I think that just makes it worse, though, right? Because the whole thing about making it cool for horizontal is that the Jeep was landlocked and the helicopter had so much real estate of the screen. Whereas now, the helicopter and the Jeep share the same things, and it's just what they're able to take down, right? I imagine. Is it like how we've seen in some of those overhead shooters where it's like there are things that are in the sky, even though perspective-wise it's hard to tell? That's what I'm thinking. Yeah.
I'm thinking that the helicopter can only shoot the aircraft vehicles and the Jeep can only shoot the land vehicles. That could be interesting in a totally different way, then, where it's just taking away the Jeep helicopter thing. You could just have, hey, here's a game where one player can only shoot one type of enemy and the other player can only shoot the other type of enemy. I guess that doesn't make sense to me, though, because then you're just playing two shmups on top of each other. Yeah. Unless the other enemies can still hit you. Yeah. I think there still needs to be some kind of synergy there.
I think there should be all games just on top of each other, just not related to each other at all. I'm watching the game and it doesn't matter. The helicopter can destroy tanks without pressing a different button, even. So this is bad.
But it's on the Amiga, so computers, again. Suck. But you know what doesn't suck, Sean? I don't know. The Essential Games List. Oh. And I got to say, I'm starting to hit my breaking point here on, like, these computer games that just get ported over to the NES. I understand that computer games aren't inferior to the NES. And, in fact, there are certain games that are on the Essential Games List that I said the computer version would probably be the Essential one, not the NES one. So I stand by computers. I just don't stand by this idea of port it all at any cost because I think Silkworm could have been fine in 86, maybe even 87.
It's an outlier here in 1990, which is funny because it's actually part of a crew of outliers where the outliers are starting to outnumber the good stuff. And we're having a lot more skippets lately, as predicted by a lot of our listeners who have told us that the NES just gets worse with time. And maybe Super Mario Bros. 3 was the grand finale all those episodes ago.
However, I have not given up faith on the shmup genre. There are plenty of great shmups on the system. I expect plenty more. I just think, at this point, what Silkworm's putting down is interesting enough to fill an episode where we mostly talk about a feature that we didn't even try. And the rest of the game is not worth talking about. So it's not essential. Joe? Yeah, I mean, I think that alone, as a single-player game, no chance that this is essential. It's just too basic of a shmup. We've seen too much more already, and this is going backwards in a lot of ways. Just in, like, I don't know. It's just boring as one player.
As two-player, I still would not say it's essential in any way. I do think that it could be worth a play. It could be worth trying it as two-player because it's an interesting idea, and I think it could be fun. Again, this is coming from someone who didn't play it in two-player. But, yeah, I agree that I think the whole thing is just there's not enough going on in it. But I'll say that once Sean confirmed that there's a drop-in and drop-out mode, I maybe would switch it to essential. But I think even with the confirmed drop-in, drop-out mode, not essential.
Sean? one other thing uh like why is the game called silkworm i don't know uh is that it's not like a military term is it i noticed something that you said mike when you were like reading oh like the hints or something it said like when the silkworm missiles are coming at you is that just saying like the missiles oh it's literally there's something called a silkworm missile so it's just that well there it is i guess it's from china about that now so is that the end of the podcast
uh i should have used this as the back of the box the the manual starts with a solution has turned into a problem oh that's that yeah that's pretty good man's solutions man's solution to war the artificial brain mhc2 has somehow overridden its programming and is turning our own weapons against us wait guys this is supposed to happen at the beginning of the episode uh okay yeah so then we'll just stop we'll just stop we'll just stop oh joe do the thing silkworm silkworm i'm gonna start record stop recording okay
