Dragon Snake (Android) Review

Snake games follow a simple formula. The player controls a singular dot at first, which moves around the screen and must collect other dots in order to gain length. The catch is that the player can only change the direction the snake is travelling; the snake is always moving, and progressively picks up speed. The gameplay ends when the player runs into a wall. To its credit, Dragon Snake nails the core mechanic, as it is playable, and achieves the goal it sets.

There isn't much story involved, and the only sound comes when the player fails. There isn't much depth from an artistic standpoint, as the absence of any story or sound makes the experience rather bland. It really feels like a lot was left on the cutting room floor, and some of it may have been labelled "Personality," as it is severely lacking in that department. It's odd that the only noise in the game is reserved as a failure sound effect, but audio isn't the only place personality is lacking.

Visually, the game is enchanting, but it doesn't hold up beyond the first glimpse. While the adorable characters seem rife with depth, they are never animated or even shown with different expressions. It's like the character models were ripped off the business card for a traveling magician, and each dragon looks consistently stagnant.

This could be forgiven, if the game was fun to play. Mobile games have a rough time when it comes to controls, especially if the game requires more than a finger press. Dragon Snake falters trying to deliver a control scheme that feels even quasi-natural, as the controls are grouped into vertical and horizontal. This requires using one side of the screen to move up and down, and the other side to move left and right. This would've made more sense grouped as a four-way D-pad, but what is there is awkward and clunky.

As far as the main gameplay, there is absolutely no deviation from the classic snake formula. The player must change directions to collect dots and avoid running into the wall, and the game gives a way to track progress through a level by filling up a picture in the background. The picture is of one of the titular dragons, and it fills with colour as the player moves faster and eventually, it is implied, will fill completely. Unfortunately, there's no real way to gauge how quickly it is filling, and honestly, the game picks up pace too quickly to matter. For all it tries, Dragon Snake always feels hard, and never fair.