Snake Tale by Akuta Zehy
TL;DR
Tale = Tail.
A whimsical Snake-inspired game featuring 5 tutorial levels, 3 challenging levels, and 1 infinite level.
Platform to Play
Windows.
Time to Play
The game is designed to be finished in 5 mins if you are clever enough.
—— I mean, one of the mechanisms is not designed to be understood easily.
I think a time no longer than 15 mins is acceptable.
Control
Arrows/WASD: move
Screenshots
Thoughts
My interest in making my own game has been growing steadily, but I’ve been struggling with the heavy pressures of daily life.
The moment I got the theme “collector”, my first thought was inevitably Snake—for programmers, it’s as simple as it gets, yet full of charm. LD58 here is my first attempt at creating a game that feels somewhat complete, encompassing programming, visuals, and sound. By the way, this year is also the Year of the Snake XD
Sometimes when playing puzzle games, I find myself frustrated by the lack of elegance in the puzzle design. But when I reconsider this issue from the perspective of a game creator, it becomes clear that this isn’t something easily solved by criticism alone. It requires some metaphysical force, like mathematics, and perhaps even a sudden flash of inspiration. Of course, during this game jam, I simply couldn’t come up with anything better. Designing puzzles that require brute-force computation would be putting the cart before the horse, so I decided not to add any more levels.
Spoiler: If you’re stuck on Level 8, you should first finish Level 5. They were designed to potentially unlock simultaneously; otherwise, you won’t be able to play Level 6.
I’d be truly appreciate it if you’d like to leave a comment, no matter it’s the design of the game mechanics themselves, the art, or the sound effects. However, I’ll likely be diving back into demanding work soon, so it’s unlikely I’ll have time to make any improvements to the game 😞
| Source Code | https://github.com/AkutaZehy/snake-tale |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/snake-tale |
Ratings
| Overall | 94th | 3.468⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 42th | 3.645⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 110th | 3.242⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 125th | 3.452⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 192th | 2.583⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 140th | 2.796⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 82th | 3.121⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 123th | 3.177⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 26🗳️ | 44🗨️ |
You pointed out the lack of feedback on poison, and that's true; I forgot it😳
Thanks for your time and long comment, glad you like it!
Although it borrows the gameplay from Snake, it also "lets the player's own actions hinder future movement, so as to make the player think about the path of his own movement." In this respect, it is the same to Sokoban :)
In the infinite level, there is actually no boundary, and the only condition for death is hitting yourself or taking too much poison(which is almost impossible). I guess you're talking about that you're hitting yourself because you can't see where to loop, which is really just laziness on my part, and that's all I can do because of the resizing adaptation issue.
Anyway thanks for your time, glad you like it :)
That's is a bit over-expected to have my game to be made to an animated image! I have checked your game and you definitely have a great sense of humor.
In fact, this little guy was originally designed as a rabbit, which would be frightened by a snake and crash into a wall to die (from the idiom "waiting for the rabbit by the tree"). However, that would only encourage players to mindlessly scare the rabbit to death and then eat it. To add a little more fun, I changed the algorithm slightly and replaced it with a mouse, giving it the ability to escape, in a sense similar to the game "Sokoban". You explored this and I am really glad to see it :)
很有趣的游戏！打通了，小老鼠也很可爱（也很可口）
bro我想问一下，制作人员名单里面不是有BGM吗！为什么游戏里面不放哈哈！
🐟 🐟 🐟bro的个人主页很酷🐟 🐟 🐟
条件上第五关是在第四关完成之后解锁，我觉着可能是遇到bug了
机关（在代码里面这玩意是“I型压力板”）对应一次性机关，解锁条件是“总重大于计数” && “每个压力板都被踩着（包括蛇头、蛇身、老鼠）”，条件达成后对应的门永久解锁。
事实上在Level 3应该可以注意到总重为5时踩下其中一个压力板没反应，不过对于老鼠占压力板这一个条件可能并不明确，这一个机制只有在Level 5才有说明（这也是为什么建议玩过Level 5之后再去玩Level 8）包括老鼠会被蛇的直线逼近吓走这个机制实际上也做的并不算太好，也算是预料之内的情况。
另外原本考虑了更复杂的设计，比如说多只老鼠+多个I型板构造类似于推箱子那种感觉的、蛇完全踩不到的谜题，不过实在没想到比较好的就没做进去w
BGM其实做的比较仓促，我并没有完整的48h时间制作整个游戏（是的国庆要加班），写完第一首后我觉着它和整体的游戏风格其实不太搭，加上unity实际没用过几次做音量控件自己估计会比较花时间，最后就只做到Credits里面当彩蛋了w
@nekobones 感谢游玩XD
Sorry for the delayed reply. The problem that you cannot access level 5 may due to the unlock system here, maybe complete level 4 again could help.
~~既然你诚心诚意的发问了，那我就勉为其难地告诉你目前老鼠的机制吧（中二脸~~
上面也没回复+没人问过，看着离jam结束也不久了，写一个老鼠目前机制的详细说明吧：
1. 首先，预期的常规关老鼠的惊吓机制（老鼠-蛇-地形交互逻辑）如下：
1. 由蛇的直线指向引起惊吓，在3格内开始生效——非直线的指向不会引起老鼠逃跑，这一步骤旨在~~降低函数运算量~~给予玩家一个稍微明确一些的反馈
2. 老鼠按蛇方向-蛇右手方向-蛇左手方向的优先顺序策划逃跑路线，例如，在没有任何阻挡的情况下，老鼠和蛇保持一致的运动方向，而受到阻挡后，顺位考虑下一个移动方法，除非无路可走那么就会被蛇吃掉，蛇变长一格；引起阻挡的情形包括墙、蛇头、蛇身、~~老鼠~~——是的，老鼠可以穿门
3. 如果蛇头下一步不再指向老鼠，那么老鼠不再移动——如指向后蛇左转、右转
4. ~~事实上在多老鼠这块程序已经崩了~~当有一个老鼠跑向自己的周围8方向一格的范围，会引起连带的惊吓，所有连带老鼠保持同一方向，如果无法移动，按2的优先级调整，直至无路可走，~~实际测试发现老鼠会叠一起就很麻烦了所以最后关卡里面没有~~
2. 老鼠可以吃掉食物而不受其影响
3. 老鼠踩上I型压力板，视作该压力板踩上并减少1重量需求；踩上II型压力板，视作一次踩上
对于这个惊吓，上面有个gif应该能说明问题，可以看到始终是右转。level 5强制只有使用惊吓方法才能解决，而且设计了一个跨格而非贴脸的惊吓，level 8的话“检票口——保持距离”，也是有点为了这碟酱油包的饺子的意味了，level 8是双II门，虽然都是II型但是不是全局影响的，麻烦很大当时调了半天，结果level 8的难度反而没有level 5大了/笑
本来计划是做多鼠的~~原计划是复刻一个华容道出来的~~，程序不给力最后删了；另外这个3格其实还能做隔墙吓老鼠的题目，不过由于时间原因没想到特别好的题目就放弃了
inf就比较简单了，30秒后和毒药随机在场上生成，不会逃跑，用随机的四方向移动取代了，吃了变长
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敲这么长一段也是有感而发，关卡设计确实还是挺麻烦，程序不好就更要命了w
因为技能点全点设计谜题上了美术和音乐差太多了，实际上对这次jam的谜题设计还是不太满意，不过毕竟第一次参赛有个印象也好以后有空再来打
感谢游玩和支持
I think what I was looking for while playing it was a little more complexity or chaos, that I think would just naturally come up if you were designing slightly larger levels, where you're solution to earlier steps introduced some variance to the setup for the final steps.
The sound, UI and design all come together very well for a complete experience.
I have to say games like "The Witness" or "Understand" are good games and they provide a pattern, which guides the player to think about and choose the right possiblity of rules, rather than telling them directly. I tried to apply it to this game, and I am quite delighted to have someone's comment about the idea and the potential to make larger puzzles. It's a pity that I hadn't came up with an elegent one in the 2 days of compo.
I am glad that you like the other parts of the game, thanks for your comment.
It turned out great, but I couldn't complete all the levels, unfortunately, haha.
Good luck!
By the way, if you like games with a slightly quirky atmosphere, you might also want to check out our game 🥴