Still going through Game Pass games that are shorter but look neat, I tried out the coincidentally named Snake Pass today. Yet another 3D platformer (of sorts) in a jungle as an animal, it was a choice between this and Super Lucky's Tale the other day, and I'm glad in retrospect I didn't pick this one XP. Though it took me almost twice as long as SLT to get all the collectibles in (around 8 hours), I enjoyed my time with Snake Pass far less.

If you thought that Super Lucky's Tale had a threadbare and unimportant story, just get a load of Snake Pass! The story is so threadbare it may as well not even be there. Doodle the hummingbird comes to wake Noodle the snake after one of the stones to the warp gate in that area of their forest has been dislodged. Noodle and Doodle then go around from area to area putting the stones back and being given very obvious (and very unskippable) cutscenes of who dun it. Even upon replaying a level, cutscenes (the few there are) are unskippable, and the story is otherwise so unimportant to the game that it may as well just not be there and save us the unskippable cutscenes.

The gameplay of Snake Pass is you as Noodle the snake going around and collecting the 3 warp stones in each of 15 levels. Also in each stage are 20 wisps to collect and 5 gatekeeper coins (which are functionally identical. The coins are just usually harder to find/get to). Now you may be asking yourself, "but Pidge, only 15 levels, I know you went for 100% collectibles, but how is that an 8 hour game?" Well, fair reader, the reason is very simple: Noodle is a snake, and for better or worse (usually worse) he controls like one.

Holding RT moves Noodle forward, the left joystick moves his head, and holding A makes him look upward. Holding LT "tightens his muscles", which basically means that your friction increases to whatever you're clinging to, allowing for time for some more precise movements for when platforming gets tricky. The right stick also moves the camera around, and pressing Y makes Doodle grab your tail and hold it up for you (invaluable for lightening your weight if just your head is on a platform and you're desperately trying to get up and not fall). To give the game devs credit, Noodle does genuinely move like a snake. You can't just move in a straight line, as that's not how a snake moves. Winding from side to side makes you speed up, whether you're on the ground or trying to climb up one of the game's many bamboo climbing poles (or trying to Skyrim your way up a rock face you definitely shouldn't be able to but can regardless).

This game's level design is generally fine. The main issue the game has is that the control layout is inexcusably terrible. RB re-positions the camera behind you, sure, but your thumb has SO many jobs between A, Y, and the right stick that there were an uncountable number of times that I died because I couldn't simultaneously raise my head and call for Doodle, or keep my head raised and reposition the camera to see what I was even doing. There is absolutely no reason you cannot re-bind the buttons, there is no reason lifting your head couldn't also be LB, heck I think the B button literally does nothing, so who the heck knows why calling Doodle is bound to Y and not B (X is for diving in water).

The game's main challenge and conceit is that it's awkward and difficult to control, and the bad controller layout does not help that. But this isn't a game where awkward controls are part of the silly design of the game like Surgeon Simulator or Octodad. Ohhhhh no. This is just THE GAME. World 2 (out of 4) is probably the hardest part of the game because suddenly the game forces you, not even for extra collectibles, to master how to cross a horizontal climbing beam and the nearest checkpoint is quite far away. It does not surprise me even remotely, looking at the achievement stats, that so few people who play this game actually finish world 2, let alone beat the game (heck I think even beating world 1 is something less than 10% of players have done).

Most of what could be called the fun levels are the first four that make up the game's first world. After that, the kid gloves are off, and the game starts upping the challenge just enough with each stage that you constantly need to reevaluate just how well you've learned to control Noodle, and it's never not frustrating. Dying is an ever constant part of this game as you wrestle with the control layout, the control design, and the not always clear physics of how Noodle moves. The only saving grace is that respawns are so quick, but the pain in the butt is that checkpoints are not so frequent (although thank goodness you can reuse them as many times as you want).

Verdict: Not Recommended. Snake Pass feels like a student project about snake movement that was pushed into being a full-fledged game before they actually had the main meat of it fully thought out. "Surgeon Sim, but a challenging platformer" is a pretty bad look for any game, but it's really the only way I can describe this. If you have it for free through Game Pass like I did, maybe it'd be worth your time if you have genuinely nothing else to do, as conquering the game's awkward controls does feel rewarding (and that rewarding feeling is honestly the best part of the game), but I would never say you should pay money for Snake Pass. Your time and money are almost certainly spent on some other indie game, because Snake Pass is largely just a ticket to frustration.

Such a curious little platformer. Innovating the genre by making you play as a character that can neither jump nor run, you have to maneuver the body of Noodle the snake through hazardous elemental jungle gyms; wriggling over hill and dale, diving through labyrinthian ponds, avoiding dazzling magma pits and first and foremost fasten his body around every bamboo stick the developers could muster.

Moving Noodles head around feels really snappy; wrapping around the level structure and pulling his body after him just to find a safe hold on those wacky constructs you encounter, before already thinking about your next move, transferring from a stoney elevator to a bamboo Ferris wheel over a fiery pit or better, nothing but the endless abyss of the cloudy sky below you, feels unbelievably exhilarating.

Mastering the movement in “Snake Pass” can be quite the challenge, but thankfully the developers give you a very helpful ability to ease you into the gameplay loop: You can just strengthen the grip on Noodles body by the press of a button, making it easier to organize traversal over the more dangerous parts of the Gameworld as you don’t have to think as much about the gravity trying to pull on the weight of your character. Even so, holding the button down continuously makes Noodle quite reluctant to keep moving, so that you must find a rhythm in which you press and release the “grip”, “head lifting” and “going forward” buttons to successfully climb and wrap to the goal.

The more I played, the safer I felt to just ignore the existence of that “grip” ability, to just dance around those obstacle courses with ease, reaching the most difficult to get to collectibles without a sweat and cherishing the mastering of these unique platforming skills.

And although the sloppy camera can make maneuvering around from time to time a bit more of a hassle than it should be, even if and when you mastered the movement of Noodle, and the tension building story is ending in an absolute cop out, leaving me surprisingly disappointed on the narrative front, I really adore this twist on the platforming genre and hope to see many more developers try to innovate in the same vein as “Snake Pass” in the future.

червь в моей жопе такой

идея и механика змейки мне понравились, а техническая сторона люто отбивает в эту хуйню играть. управляется при лазании змейка хорошо, скилл нужен, честная игра в этом плане, а передвижение так заебывает, аж палец болел из стороны в сторону передвигать змейку

сраная помойка, в которой, я насмерть застрял уже два раза, выбраться нельзя и сука загрузиться с чекпоинта в меню тоже (поэтому разрабы тебя заставляют суициднуться в пропасть нахуй, если тебе нужен новый трай с ласт чекпоинта), только начать фулл СНА ЧА ЛА сраного лвла , а на уровне я собрал уже много душного дерьма, ну ладно пусть пропадут все предметы к хуям, ок, штош, увы

еще я решил зачем-то собирать все предметы на каждом уровне, ужасное решение для этой игры от меня, потому что я потратил аж 15 часов на нее. ребят, лучше возьмите и по фастику пробегите уровни и соберите то, что хотите, а 100% предметов на уровне вам испортят все, скорее всего, вот так я сам себя и задушил

был такой баг один раз еще: началась какая-то типа катсцена, и она будто остановилась на определенном месте, мол скрипт не сработал и дальше что-то не запустилось, игра не зависла, все норм, а в меню зайти нельзя, на управление не реагирует, ничего сделать нельзя и весь твой прогресс в мусорку, и конечно, нужно только убивать процесс игры. вот бы можно было начать с последнего актуального чекпоинта при перезаходе в игру, вопросов бы не было

(эти суки еще, конечно, не дают тебе скипнуть титры в их замечательной игре)

Suggested by @Drax for this list.

A while back I did a review of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. I specifically pointed out that one level featured no jumping, which I said was ridiculous for a 3D Platformer. Removing jumping in a game focused on 3D movement is a bold choice. Jumping is the players main and usually only way to interact with the Z-Axis in a 3D Platformer. Removing that interaction is a decision that the developers of Ty made rather flippantly.

By comparison, Snake Pass feels much more deliberate. In a genre about moving around in 3D spaces, the simple act of moving forward can take some conscious effort. In the game, ground movement is fastest when you move in a zigzag pattern as opposed to simply moving forward. While not hard, it’s certainly more conscious to wiggle the control stick back and forth rather than just push forward. This mirrors real life, as many snakes themselves move in this zigzag pattern. This philosophy applies to the whole game, with the important note that it’s still a fantastical setting. Snakes can’t jump. They can do quick attacks that may look like jumps, but there’s nothing to attack in this game. The most vertical distance you can gain in this game is raising your head a small amount. As such, all platforming is done by climbing things. Wrapping around protruding surfaces and using them as foundation for more movement, extending from a platform to get a collectible or maybe take a slither of faith hoping you land on another nearby platform. Your other tools aside from slithering and lifting your head are a button to hold your grip and a bird friend that will lift your tail. That last one may sound a little overpowered, but the bird can lift only the tail, and it also results in no counterweight to the head when you’re dangling off of a pole or the like. It’s all fairly simple, but it allows for a decent amount of varied platforming and a little nuance. It’s almost puzzle-like in how it works, as often there’s multiple ways to tackle a challenge, but experimentation can find one particular way that works really well.

One interesting element of the level design is that the complexity of platforms actually decreased as the game went on. Earlier on, there were wooden structures with several protrusions one could use to pull themselves up with, but by the end, platforms had much less support. This isn’t to say the level design became lazy, it was consistently solid throughout. The game has a linear progression of levels, but the levels themselves are non-linear, and you can collect the three gems needed to proceed in any order. The first set of levels is pretty tame, which makes sense considering how unconventional this game is, but in due time you’re dealing with more and more moving platforms and diagonal structures. I was worried early on that the checkpoint system would create issues. It’s basic, with no lives and the simple system of respawning at the last checkpoint and losing all item progress. Generally I’m fine with this ’’’’outdated’’’’ system, but considering this game is all-or-nothing in terms of health and a movement system that could make excessive backtracking annoying, I was kinda worried. However, the game thankfully positions checkpoint near the most challenging segments, optional or not.

While I think the level design is good, it definitely feels a little monotonous to an extent. While the latter three worlds do feature at least one main mixup, the implementation of these is mixed. This game features some pretty solid sections in the water level, for example. However, the third world just introduces lava, which doesn’t really do anything the previous established threats of pits and spikes couldn’t. The last world’s gimmick is by far the most consistently present, being wind. It requires you to be very careful in many cases, but in others it allows for more speed and freedom than ever before. While we’re on problems, there’s these switches that you have to pull to activate platforms and the like. While pulling these switches with your snake body is initially novel, the utilization of these switches remain the same from start to end. More could’ve been done to add more unique environmental interaction here.

The problem of monotonous theming extends to the visuals as well. The game’s world are themed around grass, water, fire, and air. Already this is pretty underwhelming, but the individual worlds just look very similar. The most stark difference are just lighting and skybox changes. This comes with the tradeoff of very polished visuals. The wider game has a jungle ruins theme, and it’s all very bright and colorful. However I still feel the lack of visual variety is worth mentioning. We have some great music here though. That’s because the composer was David Wise, known for the first two Donkey Kong Country games, composed for this game too. I’m not sure if his soundtrack here is as strong as those two, but it’s great regardless. It fits the tone and theme of the game and is just generally very good.

This is probably one of the shorter reviews that I’ve done for this list, but Snake Pass is a pretty simple game. It knows exactly what it is and doesn’t bog itself down with unnecessary fluff. No combat, No pointless diversion, and little story. However, it’s also a very novel game throughout its short length. In that spirit of brevity, I’m gonna end it here. This was a very good game, and one of the better 3D Platformers I’ve played. 7/10, honestly close to an 8.

Snake Pass was a fun game that felt unique in its control scheme. The worlds are bright and colorful and the character designs really brought me back to early Rare titles. The levels were tricky and well thought out but very little was introduced outside of the normal snake and ladder gameplay. Pretty steep difficulty spike in the final three levels but nothing impossible. The highlight of it all was the soundtrack (David Wise Wins Again). Overall loved the game and would recommend playing just to feel like a snake while listening to smooth jazz.

Mechanically, innovative and unique. It is a good experimental study on movement-centered gameplay (comparable to Grow Home), having to weave and secure yourself around poles to move around effectively.

It's good to see innovation! And I don't necessarily think this game is a bad game. But I don't think it's fun to play. The gameplay loop of the movement is kind of repetitive and isn't particularly engaging. There's not much else in the game but the movement. It's much more important to be able to turn that newfound innovation into something fun.