Google Snake

Google Snake
The new version of Snake.
Protagonist(s): Snake Genre(s): Action Platform(s): Browser Android Release Date: September 27, 2017 Developer(s): Google Country: United States

Google Snake (or simply Snake) is an action game developed by Google and released for the Chrome browser and Android on September 27th 2017.

Gameplay

Works as a reboot of the original Snake; the player controls a long worm-like being that moves around a square-shaped map seen from a top-down perspective. In its quest to make itself longer by absorbing energy balls (in this game, Apples), it must be careful not to crash with the walls of the map or itself, as it can result in an immediate Game Over.

Why It Rocks

1. Perfect grasp of the source material. This game respects the classic concept of the vintage Snake genre and doesn't fear to take in some imagination and twist things around. Such idea may remind you of the hit Battle Royale.io, Slither.io, another awesome game presumably inspired by Snake.
2. Phenomenal and simple 2D graphics that evoke the soothing nature of Google Doodles. The environments, entities, UI and more received a spectacular enhancement in order to assemble a greater visual appeal. They're even updated regularly to stay up to date!
3. Snake's a super-likable, hilarious and adorable character, he crawls around the world harvesting all sorts of resources to prevent dying of starvation or far worse; disappearing by action of his own body which constantly shortens itself by nature. His redesign spills real personality, looks friendly and is extraordinarily detailed in all appearances (Main menu, in-game and UIs). A really cool attribute of his is the power to change his skin color as he grows larger, an oddity that's not easy to pull off for most snakes. Snake's funny expressions add up to his previous positives and emanate tons of effort behind each of them.
   • You can now see how the food travels through Snake's body as he munches!
4. You can customize the visuals as you desire, whether it be Snake's skin color, offering up to eighteen flashy variants from ten static colors to eight multicolor choices, or Food, with a number of twenty-one goods or the full bowl! Of course, then there's the random selection for both.
5. The biggest attribute that makes this game stand out from the original and other reincarnations of Snake is the addition of game changers which introduce a ton of new ways to play:
   • Speed Setting: Includes the Turtle Speed to play at a slower pace, Snake Speed as the normal mode and Rabbit Speed for a challenge of faster mobility
   • World Configuration: Has the Small World for shorter playtime, Medium World for a normal Snake experience and the Large World as the hardest difficulty and time-consuming condition
   • Food Diet: Allows to have one, three or the crazy count of five goods in the world to help boost the level progression a bit, or in unfortunate cases, lure Snake to a faster Game Over
6. Modifiers: Offer ten new ways to play Snake, and the choice to merge the gamemodes if the player wants to enjoy the absolute experience and create all sorts of combinations.
   • Wall: For every two goods that Snake eats, a random tile of the field is occupied by a wall
   • Portal: Every good has a duplicate, eating any good will teleport Snake's body gradually to the location of its duplicate counterpart
   • Dual Headed: For every good that Snake eats, Snake swaps his head and tail
   • Winged: Food moves around the tiles
   • Ying Yang: A negative clone of Snake is present in the arena. They mirror all your actions and can gulp food for you. Bumping into each other results in Game Over
   • Sokoban: The arena has a number of boxes depending on the food amount you've chosen. Those boxes must be pushed to the marked tiles for food to appear in their place. Pushing a box to the border of the map teleports it to a random location
   • Lock: Goods are replaced with shapes, Snake must consume them to reveal the goods. Similar to Sokoban, there are marked tiles, this time designed after the shape that must be eaten for them to break
   • Borderless: Removes the walls and loops the arena's borders back to their opposite sides
   • Cheese: Snake's body is cut every 2 inches, allowing you to pass through and food to spawn betwixt material inches
   • Venom Food: A determined number of goods are changed to monochromatic colors. Consuming the corrupted fruits makes Snake go nuts and move around random directions, leaving the player without control over Snake for the duration of the effect
   • Randomizer: Chooses 3 gamemodes to create a new unpredictable experience for Snake to brave
7. Fitting sound design and audio effects that give the game a nice Google Doodle-like nature. One famous example is how when turning to different directions, Snake makes sounds which can be used to create a melody.
8. Good degree of replayability brought up by the Randomizer.
9. Expands the universe of Snake with the unexpected appearance of other snakes in the game's world, implying that Snake was never the only vegetarian python out there and a good portion of his species is still trying to survive in a box with no escape, this leaves room for crafting wild theories.

Bad Qualities

1. Sokoban and Lock have to be the most boring and frustrating gamemodes due to requiring completion of long tasks to progress rather than fast-paced action, the initial intention of Snake.
2. Despite being made to be unpredictable, the randomizer can sometimes incorporate insane and questionable gamemode combinations that only players with inhumane abilities could complete, making them almost impossible without the help of an automatic bot.
3. There is no pause button in either the browser or mobile version.
4. Improvements to customization are subject to happen given how the world and obstacles don't have any color nor design variants unlike the other entities.
5. How the lore involves snakes dying all the time, then leaving few victorious competitors alive and having them still crawl away from fear of their own tale shrinking to the point of killing them might be too disturbing and complex for the game's E-rating.
6. Much like the other Google browser games, this one doesn't have a soundtrack or even a sample of background music to accompany Snake on his gastronomic adventures.

Reception

Snake broke multiple records universally, such as becoming the most played Chrome browser game and one of Google Play Games' most recognized successes. The game is popular for its speedrunning community that continuously creates clever speedrun categories based on the game's challenges and modifiers.

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