Developed by Square Glade Games and published by Crytivo, Above Snakes offers a somewhat refreshing take on the crowded field of survival/crafting video games. This is a fun time-muncher that blends modular world building, exploration and cosy crafting into an immersive but also frustratingly easy journey. Taking place in a fictional American Wild West kind of world, this indie mixes themes of frontier exploration with a dash of supernatural horror – horror that’s sadly about as terrifying as a vampire politely asking if it can dine on your veins.
The Native American-esque heroine must quench her thirst, satisfy her hunger and get some shuteye, but the campaign will rarely if ever threaten her life. That extends to the combat aspect as well. The enemies that walk around the place are the result of a meteorite fall with a bizarre green aura, which turned the dead into the undead. The zombies that will be fought here, however, might very well be some of the least dangerous monsters ever – easy to avoid, and so weak that it’s usually better to skip dodge rolls, and just take the hit while the main character swings her axe at their shambling behinds. Story-wise, things do get a bit darker as more progress is made but expect zero tension when it comes to the survival aspect of the gameplay, as enemies as well as the various health meters are just small inconveniences.
This is a cosy, slow-burn crafting game. You are meant to take it easy and just start gathering raw materials to create all kinds of things, from the pieces that will make your structure, and the furniture that will decorate it, to the tools and weapons that will be used to do all that crafting, gathering and surviving. Time will melt away as the heroine chops down trees to make a nice little rocking chair, collects berries, carrots and meat to make a bowl of tasty stew, and so on and so forth. Occasionally it will seem impossible to find the missing resource that’s needed to do the next thing on the checklist, and it turns out that it’s something provided by a quest giver. Annoying, but it provides the incentive to go out there and do everything there is to do.
The unique thing about Above Snakes is that the adventure begins on a single tile of wilderness, with you being in control of the gradual expansion of the world. Each tile is “researched” by the player and placed manually, allowing a personalised, almost board game-like approach to…well, literal world building. It also adds a paper-thin layer of strategy, as one needs to consider how tiles are placed and connected.
As an example, if you want to hunt animals you’ll need forest tiles, and if you need water or fish, you’ll need a lake, but simply spamming tiles around won’t help. Instead, distance must be considered, and that biome transitions can happen only by placing specific tiles that act as the “borders” of each ecosystem. It’s important to note that the whole tile-based world-building mechanic, as with most aspects of this title, is satisfying, but in a low-key way.
There’s no need to stress over how to craft the landscape and no real threat out there – natural or supernatural – that will force anyone to be a better tactician. Depending on who is behind the gamepad that lack of challenge might be a good thing. There’s no constant pressure to explore or fight. You gather, you build, and you progress at a self-imposed pace, just because it is a joy to do so.
Is there a real, practical reason to create a larger, prettier house? No. It just looks good! The world is way too safe? Great! That makes it easier to enjoy the clean, minimalistic isometric landscape, beautifully complemented by neat, relaxing, ambient sounds. On the other hand, there’s a severe lack of incentive for those who prefer challenging themselves.
In terms of content there are two modes. Exploration lets one freely choose how to progress, yet as the whole thing is so easy, it leaves little need to experiment and try out different things. Adventure, essentially the Story mode, is probably the better pick, but it’s not without faults, with its structure feeling more like a long tutorial than a real adventure. There’s almost never a point where one will stop and think, “Hmm, maybe I need a bow to overcome this obstacle.” Instead, the game explicitly tells you what to do next, which makes progression feel scripted rather than organic. It doesn’t help that NPCs are as lifeless as the ones that can be found in the world of MMOs. They are there to ask you to craft or fetch something, and that’s it, with dialogue being very…skippable.
