Reviewed By: Sir Ducky (Derek)
Date: 5/24/2023
If you are like me, then you will have most likely played and enjoyed a survival game at some point in the last decade and a half; Whether it be Minecraft, Terraria, 7 Days To Die, or Subnautica, the genre has been prevalent year over year with new iterations, styles, and settings, which has allowed these games to maintain a modern and fresh feel. However, as time moves on, I begin to wonder what, if any, new perspectives will reignite my love and excitement for the various new survival games in development. I often find that the approach to new titles in this genre are similar to other experiences that already exist, only with some added modifications and Quality of Life changes. It isn’t too often that a truly great survival game like the ones I listed above comes along. Well… allow me to introduce you to the map-modular world of Above Snakes.
For some context, Above Snakes is a game developed by Square Glade Games and published by Crytivo where you create your own world in a Wild West-inspired survival RPG.
At its foundation, Above Snakes utilizes the core gameplay mechanics that you’ll find in any survival game, including resource gathering, crafting, and base building. You’ll often see these components in survival titles, because what is “survival” if it doesn’t include living off the land. That being said, the feature in Above Snakes that I can’t stop thinking about is how the map operates, as it is one of the most unique takes on “procedurally-generated” maps, or rather, “user-generated”.
I’ll expand more on this in a few moments, but to summarize, as you play you’ll unlock map tiles that each have their own biomes and utilities. In order to expand the map you’ll need to place down these tiles, properly transitioning from one biome to the next. The end result is an enjoyable puzzle as you attempt to maximize your map’s efficiency while making something that looks appealing. It’s almost as if Settlers of Catan, Heroscape, and Age of Empires merged into one giant playable virtual puzzle and I can’t get enough of it. Let’s dive into some of the finer details of Above Snakes.
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A revolutionary development in how we see maps...
Tiles
As I stated earlier, Above Snakes’ use of a modular-map is its crowning achievement in my eyes as it puts more control into the player’s hand while still maintaining a sense of wonder and discovery as you branch out to new locations. When you first start playing, you are locked to a single tile, where you can interact with some trees, rocks, and bushes which act as the stepping stones for progressing forward. As you expand, you’ll begin to unlock researchable tiles that you can place on your map through the use of the Cartography Table. While playing, I would consistently run back to my Table with the hopes of unlocking a new tile to use, but the game cleverly restricts you from quickly placing as many tiles as possible. From what I can tell, most of the tiles are locked behind progressing through the story, so if you want to research some Lake or Snow tiles, then you should look at investing some time into the “Unique” map pieces, which often lead to story events, allowing you to advance further.
Now, you may be asking yourself, “Why would I want to make my map larger”? The simple answer is exploration, but with each new tile comes new resources, enemies, and utilities that you can use to grow your homestead. While there is nothing wrong with staying on your single tile, you may find yourself looking beyond your 4-sided boundary as you repeatedly chop down the same tree each day. As with any survival-focused game, there is a drive to push into the unknown and find out what enhancements and foes remain shrouded in the unexplored map. If you have the necessary resources, you’re able to set up camp anywhere, which lets you create multiple checkpoints as your game world grows in size. Even if you don’t have your dream lake house in real life, Above Snakes lets you build wherever you want, so your vacation getaway is just a few tree chops away.
Strategy
For all those Sim-City fans out there, Above Snakes’ map building requires a level of planning in order to successfully plot out the land in the most efficient way possible. It appears that each tile consists of 4 quadrants that are designated to specific biomes. They operate in a similar fashion to the game, Dominoes, where you have to pair up the number of dots between 2 pieces.
For example, if you have a tile that has 2 quadrants filled with the forest biome and 2 quadrants filled with plains biome it can match up with another tile that has either a forest or plains biome in one of their quadrants. These pieces are crucial for transitioning from one biome to the next, as if the transition doesn’t happen on the tile, you won’t be able to pair up 2 separate tiles that have different biomes.
As you grow your map and gain new and complex tiles, you’ll sometimes have to find the correct pieces to make a specific series of tiles work. This is where the map building gets very enjoyable and complex. As I was building out my map, I unlocked an important dock piece that I was excited to add to my lake I was constructing. Fishing in games is one of my favorite past-times, so I made sure to build the lake right next to my house so I could quickly catch a bass or bluegill when I got hungry. When I went to add the dock tile to my lake, I discovered that 3 of the 4 quadrants were forest tiles, which at a first glance wasn’t a problem as I had grown a forest nearby… However, no matter how I changed the tile’s orientation to fit between the lake and forest, it was impossible to line it up correctly due to the neighboring plains. Of course, I could always build a new lake somewhere far away from my house… But, I wanted the dock right next to my home. I thought that my world was ruined now because of my own ill planning, but alas, Above Snakes knew that we as players would want a chance to remodel our world.
The feature that makes the modular-map come full circle is the ability to “un-explore” map pieces with the use of some ink, which you can easily craft from the abundant berries scattered around the plains.
I’m not sure of the real world application for this, but apparently in Above Snakes, you’re able to blot some ink over your map, which in turn deletes the terrain from existence. The thought of it is quite humorous, but it is a life saver when it comes to reformatting your world when your tiles don’t line up properly. In my personal example above, I was able to replace a few of the tiles surrounding the lake with new tiles that better supported the dock that I was trying to put in. At last, my dream lake was complete and right next to my house! While it may not be the most realistic utilization of a map, I’m ecstatic that this trick is something that I can use at a later point in time if I run into a similar issue or for when I need to clean up my map.
Hunt, Gather, and Craft to your heart's content...
Although Above Snakes’ unique take on map generation is a fantastic, unexplored area in games, it alone would not be enough to make this title what it is in its current state. After all, it is first and foremost a survival RPG and needs to maintain a solid level of consistency across the core mechanics that come with the genre. I can happily and confidently say that the elements of Above Snakes are fluid, crisp, and polished. I can only think of 1 or 2 issues that I’ve encountered during my playtime, 1 of them being a game crash, which if we are being honest 50% of the time when a game crashes it's the user’s computer at fault, so I won’t put too much blame on the game. To me, this experience is an excellent example of an isotopic survival game that should be enjoyed by all. It is a game with a diminutive amount of flaws and the only people who may not enjoy it are those that aren’t fond of an isotopic perspective or survival games. If you are a fan of RTS games like Age of Empires, survival games like Don’t Starve Together, or dungeon crawlers like Diablo, then you will most likely find a good time in Above Snakes.
Resources
A survival game thrives and falls with how well it incorporates resource gathering into your daily tasks. In my opinion, there should be a level of “hard work” that goes into collecting your resources as this further builds on the “survive the lands” theme, however, collecting materials can sometimes take away from the other tasks that you are working on. This is not the case for Above Snakes. You’ll still have to go out and chop trees, mine stone, and harvest mint among other things, but the game determines all of this as “exploration” which is required to unlock the ability to place more tiles on your map. Every time you do a “gathering” action on the land, your exploration meter goes up, pushing you one step closer to getting to place another tile. It is a feature that I greatly enjoy as it gives me this sense of multi-tasking. If I’m low on wood, I know that I can spend the day out in the wilderness chopping down trees while still advancing in other areas as well.
Speaking of chopping wood, a cool little mechanic in the game is that you can use a falling tree to knock down other trees. When you are cutting down a tree, stand on the opposite side from where you want it to fall; If you aim this towards another tree, it will come crashing down onto it and result in the 2nd tree getting knocked down… You can also do the same thing if you aim it towards a rock. This is a great way to speed up your gathering as you can hit 2 birds with 1 stone… or tree.
It should go without saying the importance of gathering resources as they contribute towards constructing tools, armor, buildings, and cooking. I want to applaud the simplicity of the cooking in this game on its straightforward approach for discovering new recipes. Not only are you able to construct a cookbook that will show you pictures of all the recipes in the game (giving you a hint at the ingredients needed), but if you select 3 ingredients at the fire pit, it will tell you if it is going to create a new meal or not. I truly appreciate this feature as I spent a lot of time perfecting the “Dubious Food” meal in the 2 recent Zelda titles due to not knowing how to make anything. In Above Snakes, I’ve found myself eating a bowl of berries 90% of the time, but as I play more, I’ve obtained new ingredients, ranging from meat to mushrooms, which I can use to make other unique meals!
Tools & Crafting
Above Snakes implements a somewhat controversial feature with how tools operate. Axes, Pickaxes, Bows, Fishing Poles… None of these tools have durability or the ability to break (at least from what I can tell). I typically enjoy having to recraft my tools, however, there is so much to work towards in the game that it is nice not having to repeatedly reuse my resources, which allows me to re-allocate them to unlocking new tiles or expanding my house. That being said, there is an upgrade system for your tools that enhances their capabilities. Your axes and pickaxes do more damage to trees and rocks and each tier comes with additional crit chance while your fishing pole has a heightened chance to catch increasingly rare items. In addition to specific stats, there is a passive stat per tool type that increases as you use them, which makes them more effective the longer you play.
To top all of this off, there are a variety of armors and trinkets that you can equip which will increase your stats and survivability in harsh weather. It is a relatively straightforward system, but it works really well and every level up or new tool is a satisfying accomplishment.
The crafting recipes that you learn throughout the game include tools, furnaces for smelting ore, and aesthetic furniture for your home. During your time in Above Snakes you are able to upgrade your Workbench which provides you with some additional items to craft. Some of these items are purely for decoration while others are necessary in order to continue progressing through the game. I ended up creating a little workshop with a roof to house my tool benches as the building in this game is simple but perfect.
Base Building
The construction in this game was a pleasant surprise and I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface of its expansiveness. Right now, there isn’t much purpose to building up your house, but then again, there isn’t really much of a purpose to do it in Minecraft either. You build your home because you want to build a home, it is as simple as that. I ended up building a quick “C” shaped manor and put my fire pit in the middle courtyard.
As I said, there isn’t a specific point to this, but it adds an extra flavor of home when I return at night after spending the day chopping down trees or hunting. There are different materials that you can build your walls out of, including wood and stone, as well as some decorative items such as fencing and planters. Its simplicity fits the entire theme of the game incredibly well and I would love to see how far some people go with their homes as I’m sure someone will come out with an impressive and sleek design.
Work together with the locals to survive the wilderness...
Freedom Around The Set Narrative
While you are exploring the land and picking up every piece of cotton or mint that you walk by, you will encounter a wide variety of NPCs that will aid and support you in your quest of survival. They often request that you run an errand or 2 for them and in return they will teach you a crucial life tip about living on your own. These story moments are incredibly important for progressing through the game, as not only are new upgrades, recipes, and map tiles locked behind the interactions, but each character has information relating to the overarching story elements that have plagued the land of Above Snakes.
It is definitely a requirement that you research and build the map tiles relating to these story events if you want to progress forward, however, I appreciate that you aren’t necessarily “forced” into this choice. If you should choose to stay in the primitive age and use your starting axe and pickaxe to take advantage of the lumber and stone at your disposal, while harvesting the local herbs and berries positioned around your hut, then more power to you. There is absolutely a narrative that drives the game, but it is fun to just live off the land and be a happy, casual pioneer.
The end of the review, but not my time playing...
Personally, I think that phrase is the perfect way to summarize this game. A Happy, Casual Pioneer. Above Snakes is a special take on an over saturated genre and is one that I greatly enjoyed. If there is anything that I would re-emphasize as a reason enough to play the game, it would be the modular-map. I haven’t seen anything quite like it before and it satisfies a lot of different aspects that I look for in games. If you’re on the edge of trying the game then at the very least you should try the Above Snakes: Prologue which gives you free access to the first 1-2 hours of gameplay. I found myself enjoying the game by this point, so I will defend that it is a great early representation of what is to come at later points in the full release. I plan on putting more time into the game, so you can expect to see some updates from us in the future!
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Disclaimer:
Please note that while we did receive this game for free, we have not been paid or promoted for this review, and are not affiliated with Above Snakes or its developers officially in any way. All thoughts are based on our own genuine experience of the game. All footage is based on the Game in its current state as of 05/24/2023 and is subject to change or be completely omitted in future patches at the developer's discretion.
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