This retro-inspired point-and-click game looks like a Rick and Morty cartoon

British indie studio Size Five Games has been around since 2008 (originally going by Zombie Cow Studios), known for its comedic point-and-click adventure games, including a series where you actually play as the developers Dan Marshall and Ben Ward themselves, mostly recently Lair of the Clockwork God. In comparison, the studio's new game Earth Must Die resembles more of an adult cartoon you might stream on Netflix.

As Size Five founder, writer and director Marshall tells me, there's a very simple reason behind the leap from its previously more lo-fi titles: "It's the first game where there's been an actual art budget!"

"Indie development has always been that I do it, and I'm not an artist. I could just about string a few pixels together, but I'm not good or talented at art," he explains. However, with Earth Must Die as a partnership with indie publisher No More Robots, who could also cover an art budget, Marshall now says his role is in making the decisions that shape the direction of the final product.

"My one memory of the Phantom Menace was the DVD had this amazing behind-the-scenes feature where all the concept artists had done this huge wall of characters, spaceships, planets and buildings, and George Lucas is basically just going through with a big stamp with the word 'no' on it. That was very much what my job was on Earth Must Die because I'm the guy putting it all together."

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Being bad feels good

That image of power and authority is somewhat apt, as Earth Must Die is a sci-fi game where you play as the vampiric-looking V'Valak Lizardthang and his rise to power as the ruler of an alien empire. Given its adult and vulgar sensibilities, Rick and Morty was an obvious inspiration, but given the genre, so was The Jetsons when it came to creating a retro-futuristic world that also had a simplicity in design. These were discussions Marshall had with lead artist Tom Waterhouse, who defined the overall look of the game, and two additional artists Raquel Grisales and Anna Obrecka were then also brought on board to realise that style.

"It's about trying to explain to the artists in as succinct a language as I can what the vision is and then working with them to sort of finesse it into so it's as close to my imagination as possible," Marshall explains, though he clarifies it's definitely not like he's being an overlord about it. "Sometimes you say what a guy, a spaceship or a planet should be, and they will come at you with a much better idea, and you just go, it's not what I was thinking, but it's better, so we'll run with that. That's the joy of working with talented artists."

The protagonist's appearance takes some inspiration from Flash Gordon's Ming the Merciless, specifically a parody of the character in the surreal BBC sketch show Big Train. More importantly was the challenge of creating a playable villain who stays irredeemably unpleasant.

"Quite a lot of things wimp out of it, as Despicable Me gives them a heart and a redemption arc, and we didn't really want that," Marshall explains. Much easier, however, was writing a story that revels in being very sweary and vulgar, including one scene set in an alien sex shop. "It's my sense of humour, I think. It's a lot easier to write adult comedy than it is safe comedy where you can't resort to swearing, sex, violence, or body parts exploding."

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The Return to Monkey Island influence

While the intent is to give the impression that you're playing a cartoon, which means having art going towards bespoke close-ups and cutaways or having subtitles at the bottom instead of as a text box or speech bubble, Marshall says under the hood, it's still a point-and-click adventure at its core. Some inspiration is also taken from more modern versions of the genre, as he says Earth Must Die "rips off" how Return to Monkey Island regularly cuts to close-ups whenever you're interacting with an object.

"We use Unity and Adventure Creator, which is a plugin," he says. "One of the good things about making a point-and-click adventure is it is such an established genre that the skeleton of the game is pretty set up - we're going through environments, we're walking to and we're looking at things, we're talking to people, we're picking up inventory items, and we're using them against each other - that is a sort of relatively fixed set of rules, which is really helpful for making a game very quickly. The majority of Earth Must Die was made in just over a year, which is pretty good going for 2025."

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As for whether the process could have come together any quicker, such as the use of AI, with some developers also citing its usefulness in concept stages, Marshall gives a graphic example coming from the scene in the alien sex shop.

"I needed some clutter on this desk, and Raquel comes back with the most awkward-looking dildo ever seen in your life," he explains. "She says, 'You're an alien, I figured there'd be an alien dildo on the desk.' I don't tell an AI to do that. What am I going to get back from an AI? That requires a person with a sense of humour and experience in drawing cool and weird shapes. AI can't even get close, and it would just be an insult to the quality of the work that actual people do."

Earth Must Die is releasing on PC in Q1 2026 and you can play the demo now on Steam.