Developed and published by Falling State Inc., ‘Earl Vs The Mutants is a top-down, bullet hell roguelike with some cool features thrown in between. Diving into the mutated swarms, the pest control business has never been so interesting and busy!

Earl Vs The Mutants has a simple premise and story attached but I am so grateful for it. The lands are in a post-apocalyptic downturn but luckily Edna’s Pest Control survives like an ironic cockroach in the ashes of a nuclear blast. Edna’s Pest Control stands against the mutant warlords that plague cities across the lands and sends our hero, Earl, out into the wastelands to clear out the mutated scum in his trusty pest mobile. I appreciate the low-key narrative attached as it peppers in a little bit of spice to drive the gameplay distracting away from the overall simplicity.

While the controls are simple, the game can be a fun fast-paced ride to master. Objectively, you must survive waves of increasingly stronger enemies for ten minutes in your pest control van till a suped-up, juiced-up revhead of a boss tries to take you down.

Picking a vehicle with different stats at the beginning of the run, you must drive around a wasteland, running over enemies, and collecting any XP orbs or cash they drop. Filling up XP bars, you unlock a choice of one of 3 stats which will upgrade your vehicle in a range of creative ways. These range from common to epic in quality and increase the stats of a plethora of elements that can shift the tides of the game, such as pick-up range, bullet rate, Max HP or boost strength, to name a few.

The cash picked up along the way can be used to re-roll your upgrades, or saved to use in Edna’s Garage. As you defeat bosses from each of the 3 landscapes, you will unlock 4 different vehicles. Each is dope, from a beefed-up muscle car to a tricked-out school bus; they are epically cool to look at. These can be upgraded using coins to make them more hardy as you up the difficulty. The inclusion of an RPG-like customisation system is impressive as it feels like it has an impact on the endurance of your vehicle.

My only gripe is the game is short. It has only 3 levels and 3 difficulties. After 7 hours, I had completed all the trophies on each as the bosses aren’t very difficult to defeat with predictive attack patterns. On the plus side, I did often come back after to muck around with builds, a testament to how addictive this little indie title is.

The art style is cartoonish in toxic colours of greens and yellows to outline the stark nuclear-esque landscapes that the mutant hordes inhabit. Other than your vehicle and the different types of enemies there isn’t much to look at in each of the three maps, as the terrain is minimal for driving through and most things are too small to take in.

While I wish there were more to look at, I understand keeping the driving zones clutter-free and you are often too fast to look at anything anyway. The music is generic but high-octane; perfectly suited to the ambience of the graphical stylings. What would have been some icing on the cake, would be some voice acting to match the kick-ass atmosphere this game exudes.

Earl Vs The Mutants is an addictive and satisfying adventure that albeit short is surprisingly an entertaining ride. Smashing your tricked-out monster truck through hordes of mutants may seem like a simple idea but it is executed so well it’s genius. I wish there had been more. Join Earl and eradicate one mutant at a time!

Written by: Stacey