"The search for hope..."

Greetings anyone and everyone reading this! Except for you, yeah you! Way in the back, a little to the left- no that's too far, ah yep, you! You know what you did.

Anyway, Void Worm

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW

Today I bring forth an utter monstrosity, something so incredible, incomprehensible to the human mind, a creature of lovecraftian size and proportions the likes of which this website has not seen before. What other game... could I possibly rely on to provide such a steady source of ideas and unique things, other than RainWorld?

Yes you heard me right, this enormous mile long beast is from RainWorld, the funny Slugcat endless cycle of life and death buddhism hyperbole 2D platformer game of chaos. Again MAJOR SPOILERS btw, if you are currently playing RainWorld and/or plan on playing it, and have not beat the game yet.

Ok, last warning for spoilers!

Alright, epic. So, you may be wondering just what the hell you're actually looking at. This gargantuan creature here is called a Void Worm. Native to the Void Sea, far below the ground's surface in the world of RainWorld, they reside in this underground sea of corrosive, yellow, breathable fluid, called Void Fluid. Normally they need this liquid to survive, but are theoretically capable of surviving outside of it for extended periods of time, so long as they don't dry up. Void Worms are huge, some can be thousands of ft long. The largest ones can get over a mile in length, like this one. Despite their impressive size, they are ridiculously fast, capable of swimming through the void sea at many hundreds of miles per hour. The largest ones aren't the fastest, there tends to be a sweet spot in size where Void Worms can be as fast as possible. This Elder Void Worm here can comfortably reach speeds of roughly 300mph, but the fastest ones can swim much quicker.

These are RainWorld screenshots of what the Void Worm(s) actually look like:

What do the Void Worms do? How do they survive? I'm so glad you asked!

Void Worms serve an essential purpose in the world of RainWorld. Despite their somewhat terrifying nature, they are entirely benevolent creatures, seeking to do no harm to anyone or anything they come across. Instead, they desire quite the opposite, to bring life, a higher state of existence, to ascend. If you enter the Void Sea and stay a while, you'll eventually be greeted by a Void Worm. Recognizing the unfathomable and perilous journey it took to get where you are, the Void Worm could not be more happy to oblige in its sole purpose. Latching onto you with one of the many hooked tentacles located near the front of its body, it brings you to a better place at incredible speeds, literally shaking the Earth as its body undulates back and forth with extreme force.

Void Worms have a life outside of ascending those it meets, of course. They eat and survive just the same as any creature, they too, are part of this never ending cycle of life and death. Void Worms are said to feed on bad memories and nightmares, forgotten dreams and history long lost. They consume what has been, not what is. The Void Fluid keeps them alive, just the same as water and air keep us alive. Aside from the slightly different diet, we are one and the same.

It helps to think of the Void Worms as sort of the gods of RainWorld. They don't exactly have divine power over everything in the universe, but they do ultimately decide the eventual fate of all that surrounds their Void Sea. In RainWorld, there exists a fundamental element of the soul of every living being, Karma. Your Karma determines your fate, how things react to you, what you can and can't do, etc. Void Worms have the highest Karma of all creatures, far surpassing anything inside and above the surface, even Echoes. So much Karma in fact, that its energy literally radiates outwards from their head, illuminating and enlightening everything nearby in both a physical and psychological sense. Remember that cycle of life and death, never ending and never slowing? As the Void Sea corrodes and eats away at the inner Earth, new Earth is formed on top, slowly burying what lies in the surface, eventually sending it all the way down to the Void Sea to be destroyed. The cycle continues, until there is nothing left to be changed. Entropy.

One theory suggests that once this Entropy hits, the Void Sea converts all that is left into Void Fluid, turning an entire planet into one enormous ball of Void Fluid over the span of millions of years. If other planets, perhaps all of them, have their own Void Sea and Void Worms in their core, then theoretically over billions and billions of years, the majority of the universe could be Void Sea, sending the entire realm of existence that we know of into an ultimate permadeath, the cycle finally ends, the Void Worm's job is done.

But, that's just a theory. A GAME TH- gets shot

END OF SPOILERS

Anywho, that's Void Worms for ya. Sure this one here technically wouldn't survive in our world, nor can they fly like this one. But I figured making it fly in the same way they can swim would be a fun game mechanic, that definitely totally doesn't bug out sometimes. Yep, couldn't ever. Wouldn't. Haha, ha... hah.

Controls:

Very simple controls, really nothing confusing I'd hope. Throttle to go forwards, ideal throttle percentage is 75% to 85%. Pitch and Yaw control exactly what you think they do, as does Roll, but roll is limited and quite frankly usually not needed. Deactivating AG-8 disables the large beacon light inside the Void Worm's head, if you want to turn off the Karma effect. It does look really cool at night from far away, though.

This Void Worm can reach speeds of over 300mph at maximum thrust, but due to the nature of the creation, can also fly incredibly slow without falling out of the sky. I recommend using a ground takeoff, preferably Wright Airport, as it has ample space behind it for the Void Worm's body to load in. Taking off is simple, throttle up and pitch up. It can pitch up any speed, but yaw does become more responsive at lower speeds.

How did I get the Void Worm to fly like it does here? There's a unique trick you can do using drag in SimplePlanes, where giving a part a ridiculous amount of drag and zero weight can actually make it float in the air, just barely being affected by gravity. Using this technique, combined with connecting many parts that share this attribute by winches, you can get a structure that can snake around and move through the air without deforming everything behind itself. Essentially, it stays in the same orientation as it moves, following the path the front of the creation initially took. There was a build from a few years ago I saw that used this technique, it was a flying snake I think. The unique function of this build inspired me to make a Void Worm in SimplePlanes that uses this same flight model, as I figured it would work perfectly. And perfectly it did work! Heck, it even has naturally occurring undulation and swaying movements, which wasn't even intended but absolutely desired. This gives it a much more fluid and biological feel, oddly enough though this swaying stops happening once you reach a high enough altitude. Perhaps it's because the air is thinner as you go higher, so there's less drag. But idk how that would cause the whole creation to stop undulating back and forth, I truly don't know.

Important things to note with this creation:

• Ideally used anywhere below 10,000ft, higher than that and for some reason the Void Worm loses its undulating effect.
• Don't try to make consecutive aggressive turns on the pitch or yaw axis, due to the buggy nature of this game's physics engine the Void Worm will accidentally ascend itself, reaching a state of existence far beyond that which any mortal or immortal being could ever begin to comprehend.
• Don't touch the water. The Void Worm will think it's the Void Sea, and freak out because it realizes it's not, but by then it's too late. Its already gained knowledge even it was never meant to understand.
• Despite the enormous part count and performance cost, this build should theoretically run pretty ok on most devices, even some lower end ones. The part count is huge, but the drag count is not, and most of the parts on the Void Worm have their complicated physics and collision factors disabled, making it easier to run.
• Don't fly into your own tail, it might not necessarily end poorly, but sometimes it does. Think of it like the original snake game, in that you should avoid your tail. Crashing into the ground also results in the same less than desirable outcome.

Anyway, I think that's about it. I have another thing on the way, it's actually just about completed, I just need some... community input. Before it's truly done, y'know? And what do you know, it'll be yet another thing that I'm confident that the SimplePlanes website has not seen before. That's the only hint you get, now go conspiring, SP community!

Oh, and have fun with the Void Worm!

I promise he doesn't bite. No seriously, it can't. It doesn't have a mouth. It does appreciate chin scritches and headpats, though. He likes long walks through the churning bowels of insanity, sometimes gets scared by fireworks and car horns, and his favorite color is #FAEB4D. His name dubbed by the RainWorld community is "Jerry", but you can name him whatever you want.