I didn't even know what roleplaying was until I experienced this bizarre '90s B-game where you slowly turn into a bug

Here's a question. What's the most important game in your life you don't think anybody else would mention as having a significant influence on theirs? To be clear, I don't mean the most obscure game you've ever played, although there's a chance it might be that. I'm referring to the most unusual game you've crossed paths with that had a noticeable impact on your existence.

For me, that game is Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall. Released in 1995, Entomorph is a top-down, Ultima-coded RPG developed by the long-defunct Cyberlore Studios. It puts you in the role of a hero named Squire Warwick stuck in a fantasy world overrun by giant insects, with the gimmick that Warwick transforms into a giant insect over the course of his adventure.

I'm not sure exactly how well known Entomorph is, though I'm confident if you asked any random person to list 100 RPGs, Entomorph wouldn't feature. For me, though, Entomorph is an incredibly important game. Not only is it the first RPG I ever played, I didn't even know what an RPG was until I played it.

As a kid, my family were fairly ahead of the curve with PCs. My dad was always intrigued by computers and the Internet, albeit mainly as tools, while my uncle was obsessed with both PCs and PC gaming—particularly first-person shooters. When it came to tabletop games, though, we were staunch traditionalists. Chess. Monopoly. Cluedo. Connect 4. Our shelves were filled with games that would make any tabletop enthusiast implode through boredom.

Needless to say, tabletop RPGs were unheard of, and I didn't encounter a dungeon or a dragon until around ten or eleven years old. Then, out of nowhere, dad randomly gave me and my brother a copy of First Quest, a D&D starter set. He never explained why he bought it, or what it was. To be honest, I don't think he fully understood what it was. I think he just recognised the name and figured it might be something we'd enjoy.

Now, First Quest is specifically designed to introduce players to RPGs. But when the most conceptually adventurous board game you've ever played is Mousetrap, the idea of a game where you make up what happens can be difficult to grasp. I tried to read the manual, but it might as well have been a book on particle physics.

Nonetheless, I figured it couldn't be that different from the other board games I'd played. It came with figurines and dice (a lot of dice) and a grid-based paper dungeon that resembled a board. Which is how my brother and I ended up trying to play Dungeons and Dragons as a roll and move game. You could argue this was the first RPG I played, but I can imagine the look of horror on a D&D diehard's face at the prospect of someone rolling a D20 and then moving twenty squares, so I think we can all agree that this doesn't count.

Anyway, sometime after this, I got my own PC, assembled from the leftover parts from my dad and uncle's computers after they upgraded. I had a few new games for it, like Tomb Raider 2, Quake, and uh, a digital version of the boardgame Battleships. But I also had a couple of Megapaks, compilations of 10 or so PC games, typically (though not always) B-tier games from the previous year.

Entomorph was included on Megpak 5, alongside games like Flight Unlimited, Terminal Velocity, and the original Jagged Alliance. I can't remember what drew me to Entomorph, but I probably just tried it because I had it.

What I do recall, though, is being baffled by it. Unlike the First Quest fiasco, I'd argue Entomorph was equally to blame here. Entomorph is a deeply weird game, essentially Ultima by way of David Cronenberg. The first thing that happens in Entomorph is your character gets lectured at by a giant spider that controls time, which then teleports you to a desolate island dotted with ruined wooden huts and littered with corpses.

We are saved!

When you walk into the nearest hut, you're immediately attacked by two zombie-like creatures wrapped in bandages. When you punch them to death, they burst in a giant pool of blood and bones. Frankly, it was probably that which led me to stick with Entomorph. Having just had my mind opened to the concept of "gibs" by Quake, I was fascinated by games that depicted gore. So any game that let me explode a man with my fists was going to grab my attention.

Even so, I distinctly recall how difficult it was to get to grips with Entomorph. Every game I'd played up to that point was linear, whereas Entomorph let you explore its maps freely. The idea of going where you wanted in a game was surprisingly intimidating, especially when there are no explicit pointers regarding what you're supposed to do.

Moreover, I can't emphasise enough what a peculiar vibe the game has, especially in the opening section. The goal of the tutorial is to resurrect a shaman from the dead, which you do by soaking up the blood of a mosquito from a sea sponge and squirting it on the shaman's desiccated corpse. When the shaman arises, he summons a giant octopus god out of the sea. His job done, the undead shaman promptly explodes as a man cries "We are saved!". It's a moment that has been seared in my brain for the best part of three decades.

Prior to writing this, I hadn't played Entomorph since my original encounter with it. But it's readily available on GOG, so I decided to risk ruining my memories of it and downloaded it. The GoG version is not particularly well optimised for modern machines, but it does run.

Playing it now, Entomorph is much simpler than I remember it, almost as much of an adventure puzzler as it is an actual role-playing game. Perhaps, counterintuitively, this made it an ideal first RPG, challenging enough to expand my horizons, but with a scope that I could ultimately grasp. Some might argue that a 2D Zelda game might have offered the same thing with a more suitable tone. I'd argue that exposure to exploding undead corpses is just what a healthy growing boy needs.

Crucially, Entomorph remains every bit as weird as I recall. One thing I'd forgotten is how much heavy lifting the moody, evocative soundtrack does, especially with how much the visuals have dated. It's also surprisingly well written for a game about fighting giant bugs while turning into a giant bug.

But how good Entomorph is or isn't ultimately doesn't matter. What matters is that it furnished me with a basic understanding of how a role-playing game works. I didn't use this knowledge again until The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind came around. But when it did, I recognised it as a bit like Entomorph (not least because it's also a game with a bit of a giant bug fixation) and that was enough of a foothold for me to learn about character stats and levelling and all that roleplaying jazz. So thanks, Cyberlore Games, for cracking open the door to this particular gaming genre.