Snake (or if you’re OG, Blockade) is one of gaming’s universal experiences. Almost anyone who has played games has spent some time with something like it. Start as a segmented serpent in a small grid. Eat nondescript pellets to expand. Fight the timer and keep going faster before finding inevitable death via your own tail. It’s right up there with Tetris and Breakout from the early days. A format-defining experience that offers simple yet addictive action to anyone with a Nokia in their pocket. Serpentes builds on Snake and its many iterations to create something great. No longer a simple distraction, this is a rapid-fire high score chase that I cannot get enough of.
Rereleased for its 10th anniversary, Serpentes greatly improves on its no-frills inspiration. This is Snake, but with strategic depth that allows players to decide their own challenge. Who knew that adding Call of Duty-esque perks and loadouts would work so well for this arcade classic?
When you start, you pick two “gifts” to give your snake. These include an expanded timer, a smaller body, and the ability to grind on walls and avoid easy deaths. Once you’re in the game, your snake’s goal is to consume fruit. Each fruit unlocks a tier of powers, bringing predictable rewards and punishments. Each bite of the apple, banana, or pineapple changes things up. One fruit might add to your snake’s length. Another might add hazards to the board or give your snake new abilities. You can even unlock mini-games that you play alongside your Snake run.
All these new additions take a few runs to absorb. This is a game in the style of classic arcade cabinets after all. There is no tutorial stage to guide you through everything. Instead, you can learn about each fruit’s mechanics on a screen off to the side from the gameplay. The rest of the mechanics are best laid out on the game’s store page. This could be a problem, but you know how to play snake, and you can have a good time even if your only goal is to eat more fruit. Still, once you get a grasp on Serpentes’ hidden depth, you’re playing an entirely different game.
Serpentes’ masterful presentation and pacing help in capturing the attention of first-time players. Catchy techno beats from Pentadrangle keep you engaged from run to run. This is key since you can complete even the most successful of runs in a handful of minutes. In a game with higher stakes, the times when you get stun locked and rammed into a wall would be too frustrating to bear. Thankfully, runs here are so quick that your deaths simply fuel your forward momentum. It’s all progress toward unlocking more fruit, more perks, and more chaos for your snake to overcome.
In a world of expansive multiplayer shooters and unwieldy AAA releases, it’s great to know that a game like Serpentes can still tap into what makes interactive entertainment truly wonderful. Simple, repeatable gameplay loops. Challenges that encourage players rather than driving them away. Kickass tunes that drive you forward. This is arcade gaming at its best and sold to players at a reasonable price. Especially when compared to the number of quarters I would have thrown away on this in the good ol’ days.
Serpentes: 10th Anniversary Edition was reviewed on PC via itch.io with a key purchased by the reviewer. It will eventually be available on Steam.