Have you played... Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.

No, seriously, have you? I'm asking because I did about twenty years ago, but I've scarcely seen it or heard it mentioned since.

Sometimes I wonder if I hallucinated the whole thing, not least because Entomorph was a very strange game. It's a top-down RPG in the Ultima mould, but it takes place in a fantasy world where all your dragons and orcs and elves are scooped out and replaced with a thrumming hive of insects and creepy-crawlies.

I don't recall that many specifics, apart from the fact that you could punch giant beetles so hard their carapaces would burst open in a shower of vibrant-green insect goo. But I do remember being simultaneously entranced and bemused by Entomorph. It was one of the very first RPGs I played, and I didn't really understand the concept of a game where you could explore the world with a relative degree of freedom, or where there could be other characters milling about that weren't necessarily enemies to be slaughtered.

Hence I ended up wandering around the first few areas not knowing what to do, punching a lot of possibly-not-evil giant insects to death. That's probably why Entomorph sticks in my mind, although the combination of its lo-fi graphics and insectoid theme made it a distinctly unsettling experience, which likely contributed to its memorability.

A quick Google reveals that I didn't imagine Entomorph, and you can pick up this obscure RPG relic on GOG for less than a fiver. I've no idea how good the actual game is to play now, but the music is surprisingly excellent for an off-the-wall RPG from 1995.