Grappling Worm



Grappling Worms (also known as Grapple Worms) are small, tubular creatures found in Chimney Canopy and The Exterior. They are especially common in The Leg and Underhang, where they serve as an utility, allowing the Slugcat to make it past the many platforming challenges located in these subregions.

Appearance
Grappling Worms are small & tubular in shape, being widest in the middle, and slightly narrower around the ends. Their bodies are made up of uneven blue/green & black stripes, which shift around during movement.

Utility


Grapple Worms can be grabbed and held in one hand slot, without any mobility loss on land or in water. Pressing the 'jump' button mid-air while holding one causes it to release a sticky pink line upwards. This line sticks to the nearest surface or pole above the worm (if there is one), holding it and the up. Pressing 'jump' again will retract the line. Dangling from left to right before doing so may also boost the Slugcat's horizontal momentum upon retracting the line. This trait is very helpful, and in a few places necessary, for getting across the large pits found in The Leg and Underhang.

Taming
Dead Grapple Worms can be fed to. Note that they can't be thrown, and must be dropped by pressing the 'grab' button while holding down.

Abilities & behavior
Grapple Worms are completely passive, ignoring all creatures they come across.

Grappling
Grapple Worms traverse areas by shooting a sticky pink line from the ends of their bodies. Once the line sticks to a surface or pole, the Grapple Worm can move across it. Upon reaching the end of the line, Grapple Worms often shoot out a new one, and continue moving. In case the line fails to grapple onto anything, Grapple Worms quickly retract it back into their bodies, and try shooting it out again. Lines may also stick to creatures if they happen to be in the way, effectively restricting their movement to a small area around the Grapple Worm until it decides to let go. Though unlikely in normal gameplay, this means that even large predators such as can get tethered, rendering them much less dangerous. Fortunately, if the Slugcat gets tethered, simply grabbing the Grapple Worm is likely to make it let go.

Variants & attributes
Grapple Worms' stripes can take on various bluish shades.

* Notes:
 * While the palette does display all hues, saturations, and lightnesses, it does not show all the possible ways they can be combined in-game.

Trivia

 * Grappling Worms can very easily drown, as they're incapable of releasing the line when submerged.
 * Grapple Worms often don't retract both ends of their line when hit by or s, meaning that they may hang above the ground after death.
 * Additionally, killing a Grapple Worm that's attached to the Slugcat, and then grabbing onto it while its still attached has an unusual effect on the player's movement. This quirk of the physics engine affects all airborne moves, but is only beneficial when it comes to extended instant hops and crouch hops, which (with proper inputs) tend to be much faster compared to their normal counterparts.
 * Grappling Worms used to weight the Slugcat down when held, slowing movement and causing it to slip down poles. This was changed in update 1.5.