For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to G.E.R.'s Earthworm Jim (Genesis) maps.
This month brings spring, and soon the birds and the worms will be out and about again!
Psy-Crow is tasked with delivering Professor Monkey-For-A-Head's Super Suit to Queen Slug-For-A-Butt. The suit accidentally falls to Earth and lands on an earthworm, and this is the origin of the weird and wacky (and wormy) hero, Earthworm Jim!
Everything about this game is just as weird and wacky as its hero. The other characters are also bizarre, from his friend Peter Puppy with Hulk-like anger management issues, the bungee-jumping ball of snot that is Major Mucus, and Bob The Killer Goldfish. The game takes you from New Junk City to Heck to Level 5 (yes, that's its name) to Buttville, each with unconventionally-designed stages, lacking the "blockiness" of many platformers of this time and instead has a more freeform, cartoonish design. Fittingly, Earthworm Jim was adapted into an animated series, though Playmates Toys planned to have a franchise of their own (after the success with their license for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) but beginning with a video game - which was unusual at the time. But again, being unusual fits the overall theme...
Though this game also appears on the Super NES, which we also have maps for (by Tropicon), we recognize the Genesis version's maps (by G.E.R.) here since it is the original and has an exclusive stage, Intestinal Distress! You can also snag Earthworm Jim on the Sega Genesis Mini.
So to recognize the effort put into mapping this groovy game, G.E.R.'s Earthworm Jim (Genesis) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for March 2020.
