Just A Normal Snake
You're a snake.
A normal snake.
Get to the tunnel.
Eat some apples.
Don't touch spikes.
Being a snake is tricky!
Also on the Lexaloffle BBS
Made for Thinky Puzzle Jam 5
Download
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Development log
- Just a Normal Snake v1.414 days ago
- Just a Normal Snake v1.317 days ago
- Just a Normal Snake v1.219 days ago
- Just a Normal Snake v1.121 days ago
Comments
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Wow, you smoothed out the difficulty curve a lot. Nice improvements
This was quite challenging and fun! We enjoyed playing it on stream!
awesome game, but level 29 seems kinda impossible without a proper hint. the current one does good to show the position you need to be in before the final move, but does nothing to push the player in the direction to get there
Thank you! Hmm, that’s actually supposed to be a hint on some of the first moves to take. Though I can see it does also illustrate the idea of the final move. I’m planning on updating the hint system to allow more hints for the longer levels.
oh really? then I guess the most confusing part is that there is a movable element that could be anywhere on the screen after reaching that position
a hint for the hint: Lbh arrq gb cbfvgvba gur nccyr orsber gur uvag.
Wow, that's tricky. But oddly after a while your mind kinda gets how to move. Nice how levels teach you advanced moves! It's quite technical, but once you're hooked it works really great.
dang. this is original. thx for the tutorial.
I adore this but I have to ask, are level
25 and26 even possible?Thank you! Yes, the level 26 (last) is possible, but quite difficult. (tunnel isn’t necessary, if you didn’t pick that up)
(now level 29 in v1.3)
Still frustrated by level 29. I can get into the position for the hint but by the time I do I've pushed the apple away, so presumably that's no longer a helpful position. perhaps the hint needs a red dot to show the position relative to the apple?
Edit:
Finally solved it but it had zero resemblence to the hint.
Sounds like an alternate solution. Can you get a screenshot? I’m curious if the snake can be even shorter for that level.
I can't remeber how I did it and haven't been able to solve it again since. All I remember is making a g shaped hook and having to push the apple off screen to get it into the right position.
man the game is silly but the mechanics are so hard!!😭
Nice puzzle game. Menu is so cool.
amazing game, had me clawing my eyes out on level 3
stopped on level 5, wtf is the hint system just dont give me one at all at that point
sounds like ur bad at the game honestly
Hmm, what would you suggest for a better hint system?
The version I made, giving the position of the snake that is used at some point of the solution, was a simple one that I was able to add within Pico-8’s restrictions. In addition. I tried to make sure to add these hints to all levels (even if the level really shouldn’t need one), otherwise have people asking why a hint isn’t given in the first place.
ok.....? only thing i was getting at was looking at the hint given was hard to figure out where to go next, just thought pressing hint agian would give me a different hint is all, but its whatever
I gave up 😆
What an absurd movement mechanic! Very silly haha.
Cool movement! Very tricky puzzle.
Thanks for adding hints!
snake do be moving like dat
This is confounding
I went from being frustrated by not understanding the movement mechanic to being mind blown when the penny dropped. Very cool game, well done!
Thank you for this comment. I wouldn't have stuck it through if it weren't for this :)
What do you think you were getting stuck on? I’m looking for ways to make it easier to learn since people seem to be getting stuck pretty quickly.
Hmmm, that's difficult.
I think that one of the problems is that people don't often encounter a mechanic like this, it's pretty unique. That might be it's strength and it's curse, because since I wasn't used to it, it wasn't intuitive to play at first. I got the rhythm of the game eventually, but it took a while.
Something that might have helped me was if there was a tutorial section, where you have very simple levels displaying the basic mechanics, such as the spinning (which was very cool, congrats) and getting used to the pushing, and possibly a combination of both. At the end there might be a slightly more complex level, which would get ppl ready for the real levels.
I'm really not a game developer, so idk much at all, but it seems to me that the difficulty ramp was very sudden. Maybe if you
smoothed it out a bit, and took it tiny steps at a time, it might be easier for ppl to grasp.
EDT: I read some of your comments below, and I totally get why you'd want to make it more of a discovery thing, it was definitely very satisfying for me when I figured it out. So, idk really. I've just put my two cents out there, hope it's helpful
Thanks for the game!! :)
Thanks for the feedback! I did upload version 1.3, which splits 1 of the earlier levels into 3, so hopefully that helps a bit more.
One of the things I love about these styles of puzzle games is the discovery of how the mechanics work … Which might be a bit of the game’s downfall. Where most games usually show the gameplay or selling point up front.
Since this was for a game jam, I didn’t have that much time for testing. Though for the little that there was, people were struggling a bit. Unfortunately, I’m working in pico8 and decided to limit it to a single “cart”. There probably isn’t much more that I can do to fix the tutorial issue.
I do somewhat envision expanding this into a full game. Though definitely will get more testing if I attempt to.
This is so weird, but so cool ! Completed 20 levels so far, I like it a lot
You need to make the special movement rules more explicit. This is a terrible experience and trial-and-error does not give enough feedback for random players.
its not “you can normally move but stay in place sometimes”, but actually “you don’t normally move but can sometimes”, that might help you figure it out
Thanks for the feedback. I updated the first few levels to try to smooth out the learning a bit. Also a hint system if the players are still struggling a bit. Hope this helps!
I was going for a more discovery approach, since the movement system is so obscure and satisfying when the player discovers what’s going on.
Genius at work...incredible
i love the movement, i love the animation polish, the circles YOMMY! Sometimes I get stuck at tiles and ccannot move forward like there is a wall there though, pretty frustrating for my green normal snake