The rather enjoyable Snake Pass was an immediately zen-like experience for me with it’s excellent, unique physics based platforming mechanics and it’s utterly chilled no rush level structure. The game feels both modern and classic, at the same time it’s beautiful art style is reminiscent of Nintendo-Rare era gems like Banjo-Kazooie creating a nostalgic aesthetic that blends beautifully with modern day gameplay.
Snake Pass is a joy to play. It’s simple premise is to collect a series of gems and wisps scattered around it’s increasingly challenging worlds allowing you to progress world to world the more you collect. The fact that the game has no enforced time limit – though could be an incredible speed-running challenge – makes solving the physics based puzzles a relaxing and thought engaging experience.
The true uniqueness of Snake Pass comes from playing as, well, a snake. Unlike most other traditional 3D platform games of this ilk, you’re not a small centrally focused character. What this means is that you have to take into account the length and movement style of a snake. Want to go faster you have to slither left to right, just like a snake would as moving directly forward is otherwise rather slow. Couple this with mechanics that allow you to coil around objects for climbing and in some rather challenging instances effectively tie yourself around moving obstacles to grab collectables or traverse to higher ground and you have a gameplay experience like no other.
Physics in Snake Pass are without a doubt the foundation of both the gameplay and the beauty of the world. With environments designed with incredible lighting, epic verticality and a variety of challenging terrain it all melds together to create something magnificent. With real attention to detail applied to things as minute as the grass, which I must say looked excellent, slithering through as your character it bends and flows with incredible realism.
During my hands on with the game I was able to talk with lead designer Seb Liese, who explained how the game came to fruition through the winning of an internal game jam at Sumo Digital in a search for the studios first IP. With it’s unique premise and play style that’s no surprise. I was also pleased to discover that the game will have, as Seb described “Awesome Music” that’ll really capture that nostalgic gaming that Snake Pass invokes.
I really can’t fault Snake Pass, for me it looks set to be a phenomenal experience and one I truly can’t wait to get my hands on when it releases. We’ll certainly be keeping an eye on this at GAMR so be sure to check in for more on the amazing Snake Pass.
Ben Corbett-Mills | @benleopards