Was reading a 2022 article about Indie titles inspired by King's Field. I gotta tell you, perhaps add a subtitle or something to the name. Even knowing it was called "Snail!" I found absolutely no sign of it on Google until I typed "Snail Aesir," which took a couple of searches. Gotta get that SEO!
This was fun and my thoughts on it are going to be somewhat unorganized. I really enjoyed the way the item system was used. how some things you picked up didn't have any clear use or any use as far as i could find, and I loved the surprise moment where you go to examine a rabbit picture and the kid kicks you out of their house, (although not being able to apologize or at least give the picture back was strange.) If the rolling mechanic is ever explained I managed to miss it. there was a strange moment where traveling through a cave i was sent to the church without dying for some reason. going back to talk to the villagers after events was rewarding. the combat system wasn't good and i normally enjoy Zelda style combat, I have no idea why the stamina system even exists in the game. the misty village was interesting although the enemy npc's didn't seem to fit in. when time restarted, i thought there was going to be a timed mechanic like in Majora's mask this was both exciting and stressful so figuring out that wasn't happening i simultaneously felt disappointment and relief. The courage items felt sort of gimmicky given how little kinds/amount of use they had.
In terms of improvements, the most frustrating thing for me was actually getting the character through doorways. I had to turn him around a lot to try to get the correct positioning to go through doors or narrow areas. I also couldn't tell if I was actually hitting enemies sometimes. I couldn't tell when I was getting hit either other than the dropping of health. Maybe a knockback animation would help here.
I thought the story was intriguing, and the overall pacing was good. I especially liked the school and lighthouse. There are enough things in the environment to foreshadow what might be to come in the story. I also liked the music.
Not sure if this is an issue, but since the kid had a picture of a rabbit, I tried releasing the tutorial bunny in the house, but I released the rabbit and picked up the picture at the same time, so I got kicked out and that rabbit is now trapped forever. It's a good thing there's an extra bunny. I do feel slightly betrayed that I got kicked out when I gave the kid a real rabbit.
What a ride! Since you've asked for feedback I'll happily share my (spoiler free) thoughts.
Starting with what I didn't like / could be improved:
- Like other have already said the movement feels a bit weird at times which for me comes down to two issues: collisions are a bit off at some points and I'm not a big fan of those tiles where you move slower. Basic traversal feels totally fine though
- The combat didn't feel very challenging or rewarding. Which is probably because of the very simple enemy AI and the fact that there's very little feedback on hits and no death animations. I've also never really had to use the shield. The roll was also more of a tool to get faster from point A to B.
- Some of the SFX is really jarring. Especially the sound of the bug net is so loud and high pitched that I had to turn the volume way down. I really don't mind these retro sounds in general but I would prefer them to be a bit quieter and not so high pitched
- There are some inconsistencies with how interactibles are handled. Some doors, for example, say that they're locked to indicate that they can be opened while others say nothing. This can get quite confusing because there are quite a few doors that can't be opened at all.
- There's a point in the game where you can get to a place you aren't supposed to go to yet. While it's fine to block this area off, I didn't like how it was done ("invisible wall")
Now to the things I liked:
- The numerous references are quite obvious but everything has its own twist which was cool to see and very well done
- The overall atmosphere, world building and story was very interesting and kept me hooked until the end. This is undoubtedly the biggest strength of the game
- Exploration felt rewarding and I did enjoy all of the puzzles
- Pacing and progression was great. I never got stuck while it also hasn't felt too easy at the same time (this is very hard to get right, good job!)
- The scary parts were great! Even got me jumping at one point
- While the art is nothing too fancy it works great. Later areas are actually quite nice to look at
- The music is really awesome!
Overall I must say that this game, even in its current state, is really great and enjoyable from start to finish. I can't wait to play the final product. Good job! :)
I loved the atmosphere (music, environment/structure, and story presentation/characters) and felt that the gameplay itself was simple but felt very good/right (E.g., combat, movement, and the puzzle/story engagement). Overall, I would say that the biggest thing I was left wishing for was incentive to play well (or to be pushed to use the healing items). The combat felt fine, but I was rarely left hurting, and when I was it was often just as easy for me to die as it was to use healing items. I also never felt incentivized to use the shield or rolling (except for moving more quickly). Lastly, I liked having significant action sound effects - but without an ability to adjust volume of these effects vs the music, the action sound effects came across as too loud for me. Despite the majority of this paragraph being critical - the first sentence in it is what has stuck with me the most - it just felt "right" as an experience overall and I had a lot of fun with it!
Issues/grammar:
!!!WARNING!!! *****Includes some story stuff****** - Would have loved to cover it, but there is no option to do so here.
- Jail door in starting town remains locked after returning from the boat outside of the snail village and touching the darkness... you can return into the caves and climb back up to the upper jail, but the door remains locked. I was able to get out by using error keys, but otherwise would have been trapped.
- Captain’s diary: Says "We must bring back specimen to study" - seems it should say either - "bring back a specimen to study" or "bring back specimens to study".
- The light house on the marsh is climbable from its left side, but not its right... intentional?
- Broken bridge between swampwich south and north has some weird pathing/collision, making it possible to cross the broken portion but in an odd way... and once crossed you seem to be out of the map, as you are able to walk freely across swamp, bridge, and homes in south swampwich.
- Just after reading the "final entry" in the snailery, you can grapple hook across the gap to the right, but you cannot use it to return back to the platform with the "final entry", I had to use error keys for this.
Quick question - would you like feedback on any bugs or grammar? If not, I completely understand. I have jotted down my thoughts and also recorded some issues I had run into (if you don't want the above feedback, I will still post my thoughts! - which are very much positive).
Some bugs I know about and are mostly a polishing issue I decided weren't necessary to fix for the testing phase but you might have found something I didn't so I'd love to hear about it
hey, feedback: prefer no sfx over harsh sfx, got lost in the spider cave without knowing with what my purpose was, but the atmosphere was good. Maybe focus more on that, than the combat?
I really like the eerie atmosphere, very bloodborne-esque but maintaining its own personality. Man the school section was intense. I will critique the controls, they were a bit clunky, but nothing gamebreaking. By the end i just wanted to keep playing to see where the history was going. Keep up the good work!
Have run into an inventory issue. After picking any item up and using/dropping it, the weight that it had "taken up" remains in the inventory. This causes you to "run out of inventory space" even if you do not have anything in your inventory.
That aside - what I have experienced so far has been very cool. But the inventory problem prevents progress.
← Return to game
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Was reading a 2022 article about Indie titles inspired by King's Field. I gotta tell you, perhaps add a subtitle or something to the name. Even knowing it was called "Snail!" I found absolutely no sign of it on Google until I typed "Snail Aesir," which took a couple of searches. Gotta get that SEO!
This was fun and my thoughts on it are going to be somewhat unorganized. I really enjoyed the way the item system was used. how some things you picked up didn't have any clear use or any use as far as i could find, and I loved the surprise moment where you go to examine a rabbit picture and the kid kicks you out of their house, (although not being able to apologize or at least give the picture back was strange.) If the rolling mechanic is ever explained I managed to miss it. there was a strange moment where traveling through a cave i was sent to the church without dying for some reason. going back to talk to the villagers after events was rewarding. the combat system wasn't good and i normally enjoy Zelda style combat, I have no idea why the stamina system even exists in the game. the misty village was interesting although the enemy npc's didn't seem to fit in. when time restarted, i thought there was going to be a timed mechanic like in Majora's mask this was both exciting and stressful so figuring out that wasn't happening i simultaneously felt disappointment and relief. The courage items felt sort of gimmicky given how little kinds/amount of use they had.
For more information about the game, please check out the following video:
🐌🎮
And of course, enjoy the descent!
Bunny 💕🐰🐇😭
Bunny indeed
The "Swam'd over Dungeon" is swamp'd over with "Fun-geon" (fun)
♥
i'm going to need a lore video on this, preferably hours long.
😄
Loved the First Demo...
When will there bei a new one? {:
Snail is a self contained little experiment I did to see how my code worked together when assembled.
The final game will hopefully be releasing late this year :)
nice.
Maybe im gonna LP it {:
If you do, let me know, I'll post about it :)
I played the game!
In terms of improvements, the most frustrating thing for me was actually getting the character through doorways. I had to turn him around a lot to try to get the correct positioning to go through doors or narrow areas. I also couldn't tell if I was actually hitting enemies sometimes. I couldn't tell when I was getting hit either other than the dropping of health. Maybe a knockback animation would help here.
I thought the story was intriguing, and the overall pacing was good. I especially liked the school and lighthouse. There are enough things in the environment to foreshadow what might be to come in the story. I also liked the music.
Not sure if this is an issue, but since the kid had a picture of a rabbit, I tried releasing the tutorial bunny in the house, but I released the rabbit and picked up the picture at the same time, so I got kicked out and that rabbit is now trapped forever. It's a good thing there's an extra bunny. I do feel slightly betrayed that I got kicked out when I gave the kid a real rabbit.
What a ride! Since you've asked for feedback I'll happily share my (spoiler free) thoughts.
Starting with what I didn't like / could be improved:
- Like other have already said the movement feels a bit weird at times which for me comes down to two issues: collisions are a bit off at some points and I'm not a big fan of those tiles where you move slower. Basic traversal feels totally fine though
- The combat didn't feel very challenging or rewarding. Which is probably because of the very simple enemy AI and the fact that there's very little feedback on hits and no death animations. I've also never really had to use the shield. The roll was also more of a tool to get faster from point A to B.
- Some of the SFX is really jarring. Especially the sound of the bug net is so loud and high pitched that I had to turn the volume way down. I really don't mind these retro sounds in general but I would prefer them to be a bit quieter and not so high pitched
- There are some inconsistencies with how interactibles are handled. Some doors, for example, say that they're locked to indicate that they can be opened while others say nothing. This can get quite confusing because there are quite a few doors that can't be opened at all.
- There's a point in the game where you can get to a place you aren't supposed to go to yet. While it's fine to block this area off, I didn't like how it was done ("invisible wall")
Now to the things I liked:
- The numerous references are quite obvious but everything has its own twist which was cool to see and very well done
- The overall atmosphere, world building and story was very interesting and kept me hooked until the end. This is undoubtedly the biggest strength of the game
- Exploration felt rewarding and I did enjoy all of the puzzles
- Pacing and progression was great. I never got stuck while it also hasn't felt too easy at the same time (this is very hard to get right, good job!)
- The scary parts were great! Even got me jumping at one point
- While the art is nothing too fancy it works great. Later areas are actually quite nice to look at
- The music is really awesome!
Overall I must say that this game, even in its current state, is really great and enjoyable from start to finish. I can't wait to play the final product. Good job! :)
Thank you so much for the feedback :D
Thoughts overall:
I loved the atmosphere (music, environment/structure, and story presentation/characters) and felt that the gameplay itself was simple but felt very good/right (E.g., combat, movement, and the puzzle/story engagement). Overall, I would say that the biggest thing I was left wishing for was incentive to play well (or to be pushed to use the healing items). The combat felt fine, but I was rarely left hurting, and when I was it was often just as easy for me to die as it was to use healing items. I also never felt incentivized to use the shield or rolling (except for moving more quickly). Lastly, I liked having significant action sound effects - but without an ability to adjust volume of these effects vs the music, the action sound effects came across as too loud for me. Despite the majority of this paragraph being critical - the first sentence in it is what has stuck with me the most - it just felt "right" as an experience overall and I had a lot of fun with it!
Issues/grammar:
!!!WARNING!!! *****Includes some story stuff****** - Would have loved to cover it, but there is no option to do so here.
- Jail door in starting town remains locked after returning from the boat outside of the snail village and touching the darkness... you can return into the caves and climb back up to the upper jail, but the door remains locked. I was able to get out by using error keys, but otherwise would have been trapped.
- Captain’s diary: Says "We must bring back specimen to study" - seems it should say either - "bring back a specimen to study" or "bring back specimens to study".
- The light house on the marsh is climbable from its left side, but not its right... intentional?
- Broken bridge between swampwich south and north has some weird pathing/collision, making it possible to cross the broken portion but in an odd way... and once crossed you seem to be out of the map, as you are able to walk freely across swamp, bridge, and homes in south swampwich.
- Just after reading the "final entry" in the snailery, you can grapple hook across the gap to the right, but you cannot use it to return back to the platform with the "final entry", I had to use error keys for this.
Thank you!
I'll address all of these bugs in the next patch.
I dont currently have any menu systems programmed so I don't know when (or if) I'll get to giving audio options in this game.
I'm happy you found something to enjoy in spite of things :D
Quick question - would you like feedback on any bugs or grammar? If not, I completely understand. I have jotted down my thoughts and also recorded some issues I had run into (if you don't want the above feedback, I will still post my thoughts! - which are very much positive).
I wanna hear everything.
Some bugs I know about and are mostly a polishing issue I decided weren't necessary to fix for the testing phase but you might have found something I didn't so I'd love to hear about it
:)
hey, feedback: prefer no sfx over harsh sfx, got lost in the spider cave without knowing with what my purpose was, but the atmosphere was good. Maybe focus more on that, than the combat?
I really like the eerie atmosphere, very bloodborne-esque but maintaining its own personality. Man the school section was intense. I will critique the controls, they were a bit clunky, but nothing gamebreaking. By the end i just wanted to keep playing to see where the history was going. Keep up the good work!
I have updated the game to address the inventory issue and to clarify direction in the mid game.
Have run into an inventory issue. After picking any item up and using/dropping it, the weight that it had "taken up" remains in the inventory. This causes you to "run out of inventory space" even if you do not have anything in your inventory.
That aside - what I have experienced so far has been very cool. But the inventory problem prevents progress.
Thank you, I was notified of that issue and am working on an update
Looks almost like my most recent one. This looks so good and fun c:
I'm having trouble getting past the tutorial; is there something I am supposed to do with the rabbit?
At that stage, the Rabbit is just there to teach the basic movement scheme.
I'll keep exploring then.