Snakebird

Snakebird (2015) is a puzzle game about movement, shapes and gravity. You control multiple snakes on a quest for fruit. You move around the world by directing each one to collect fruit. It looks simple, but the novelty is that you soon have to create specific shapes with your tail to work with the level, gravity and other snakes to get where you need to go.

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Play involves forming different shapes with the snakes so they can access the areas of the level with the fruit. This starts like a normal snake game, but you soon realise that you need to intentionally fall, hang and lift to get where you need to go. Gaining certain fruit give you additional special powers like being able to teleport and gain length.

As you progress the difficulty and complexity really ramp up. You have to work in tight spaces with your snakes, work with multiple snakes interacting and keep an eye on how you can push, pull, fall and coerce these creates where they need to go. There are over fifty challenging levels that open up as you progress through the non-linear world map. You work through several different zones each with a different style of puzzle.

Snakebird Primer is a separate game that offers an easier entry point into the puzzles. It's a good warm-up to the original game but also a great way for younger (or newer) players to enjoy the experience.

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Our examiner, Jo Robertson, first checked Snakebird 2 years ago. It was re-examined by Ellen Robertson and updated 6 weeks ago.