Sometimes I just want to play something dumb.
That’s partly the reason I keep playing Call of Duty; it’s the definition of “turn off your brain” kind of entertainment. But this also extends to experimental games their either throw convention to the wind (like the entire frustration game genre) or just those whose premise is silly enough to entice me. So is how I came across Snakeybus, a new take on the game which made Nokia phones the brand to have back when I was in high school (errbody wanted that snake action). You probably won’t play it for long, nor will you have to try especially hard to get most of the achievements, but it was pretty much exactly what I needed: a silly, short game that provided some good distraction between the myriad of AAA titles that have been banking up on me.
The premise is simple: you pick up passengers, deliver them to a destination and based on the number you deliver your bus gets longer. Initially this poses no challenge but you’ll quickly end up with a bus so long that you’ll be tripping over yourself in no time. So begins the challenge of figuring out strategies to ensure that you can make your way around the map without running into yourself whilst still being able to pick up and drop off passengers. Unlocks come fast as they’re just based off the number of times you play any level or some random currency that you get awarded far too much of. In a nutshell this is a game that does what says on the box and doesn’t make any attempt to stop you from playing it out as quickly as you want.
Snakeybus has simple graphics and each level has its own unique style. The initial level is kind of what you’d expect for your run of the mill indie title, but the later levels include one with cel shading, an outrun styled Miami and even a rotating space structure. At the time of writing performance was unfortunately pretty poor given its simplistic graphics although it appears that the developer has been feverishly at work attempting to rectify the problem, netting everyone a 20%+ performance improvement. The game could also use some more and varied sound tracks to go with it as it becomes repetitive quite quickly, even when you’re only spending a few short minutes in each session. Overall Snakeybus’ graphics are passable which, honestly, is exactly what you’d expect.
The core mechanic is pretty fun and quickly becomes quite the challenge, even in levels where you’d expect to have quite a lot of freedom to move around. Strategies in one level will likely not work in others as their layout will dictate what you can get away with. The above screenshot for instance is all about managing which side of the road you’re using because, if you don’t and snake around everywhere, you’ll have no room to move. Other levels though, like the space one, work best if you weave around like you’d do in the original snake game. Honestly I originally just tried to make sure I took the longest route I possibly could before working out that each level had its own strategy.
Of course part of the attraction of games like this is unintentional shenanigans you can get up to with a less-than-great physics engine implementation. The below screenshot is just one example of me getting into a situation which honestly should have been game over but the physics engine couldn’t really figure out if I was stopped or not. So instead it ended up with this weird tangle of buses all on top of themselves, seemingly flitting in and out of existence before righting themselves again. This cuts both ways of course as there were many times when my bus was only just barely stopped and the game cut me off. Whilst this is technically an issue really it doesn’t detract from the game play. In reality it’s a core part of it.
Snakeybus is the kind of title you play when you don’t want a game that asks too much of you. It’s B-grade implementation, OK graphics and numerous rough edges are all part of the charm of games like this. Sure every single part of the game could be done better but it doesn’t need to be. Snakeybus exists to explore the core game mechanic and little more beyond that. In that mission it succeeds in spades, providing a fun little distraction that you’ll likely play for a couple hours before putting down for good. In the end it’ll come down to whether or not you’re willing to part with a few dollars for something as silly as this. For this old gamer it was very much worth it.
Rating: 7.5/10
Snakeybus is available on PC right now for $14.50. Total play time was 92 minutes with 88% of the achievements unlocked.
