Push Me Pull You: Co-op physics meets sumo soccer

If you can successfully watch the alpha gameplay trailer for Push Me Pull You without either laughing hysterically or squirming in abject horror, then you have my sincere congratulations.

Folks, forget your burning desire of becoming a contortionist and/or joining the cast of The Human Centipede: The Musical. Marketed as “a video game about friendship and wrestling”, Push Me Pull You is also a multiplayer sports game where you control elongated human worm hybrids and try to keep the ball in your court; and now, it has an exciting new alpha gameplay trailer. The fact that you can’t move the ball on your own is a smart gameplay mechanic that both encourages teamwork, and bolsters the weirdness factor of this game.  Winning is simple: All you need to do is keep the ball on your half of the playing field until it becomes completely colored. The Melbourne-based developers state on their blog that although they wanted to create a sports game, they wanted to draw on elements found in traditional sports without emulating any specific real-life sports. They also wanted to make something funny:

It seemed pretty clear that there there was a very strange joy in trying to co-ordinate the movement of a wriggling two-headed worm alongside a friend.

 

And make something funny they did. PMPY has even spawned its own plasticine artwork figurines, which I’m happy to report are far more adorable than they are disturbing.

Push Me Pull You is coming to home computers in 2014. (Just be sure to warm up by playing multiple rounds of Twister before you give it a go.) Of course, don’t forget to follow IGM on twitter for more worm hybrid goodness, and other upcoming indie game news.