 |
|
 |
|
Please support this independent developer!
|
|
|
 |
SnakeWorlds
Game Name: Snakeworlds
Developers: Patman & others
Price: €7.95
Release Date: Out Now!
Review by Andy Yates
|
|
 |
|
Snakworlds is a modern remake of the classic Snake game.
What? You've never played Snake? Really?
 Okay some of you may have done, especially if you ever owned a Nokia 3210, used MS Dos in the old days, or played the mini game that came with FastTracker 2, or...well, blimey it's been everywhere! So to bring anyone else up to speed, the basic premise with classic snake is to direct a "line" of some kind around a grid to pick up as many items as possible before crashing into yourself or any scenery that's lying around.
Of course these older games were very blocky affairs so it was about time someone took the concept and thrust it back upon us, which is exactly what has happened here.
Snakeworlds, as the name suggests, takes place on small planets rather than the traditional two dimensional grid. You control something that actually resembles a snake and must traverse each globe eating edibles such as pineapples and bones until you have filled up your food bar. At this point you move onto the next planet which presents a bigger challenge than the last, usually in the way of additional obstacles and smaller planetary sizes. Of course you need to eat as quickly as possible because the food bar decreases slowly over time.
The difficulty curve is a little exponential, as the game starts off quite easy with very few obstacles and then soon gets devilishly hard. Because there is no fixed grid alignment you can direct your snake with fair precision, the problem with which being that the obstacles are also placed in quite unusual collections that makes judging their position quite tricky. Although this does help with the overall look of the game. The first collection of worlds, for example, is a seaside theme and contains collections of sandcastles and deckchairs that would have looked quite strange if arranged too neatly.
Because of the spherical nature of each level you have to be mindful of latitude versus longitude in your snake's movement. If you are near either of the planetary poles your longitudinal movement space is far shorter than when you are nearer the equator. This often proves for some interesting manoeuvres to avoid obstacles! There's also the option, when you've eaten enough, to burrow into the ground and avoid all obstacles for a short time. This is great when you realise you've cornered yourself, but make sure you come back up in a good spot! More than once I've come back up and immediately crashed into a sandcastle.
This does relate to my major problem with the game play, which is it's collision detection. I found it to be terribly unforgiving, deducting a life if my snake imperceptibly brushed a sandcastle with it's cheek. This caused me to play in a far less daring manner that I probably needed to progress to further worlds.
|
|
|
|
Thanks for visiting! Please Let me know if you spot any errors (eep!) please let me know! |
|
|
|
|
