Save the Snail
Far away are times when we used to attack pigs in role of furious birds, far away are times when we used to try help to alligator with his out-of-water shower. Because the time has come, the time for saving the snails! And will it be at least as entertaining as the famous birds and showering alligator? Just read more.
Enthusiasts from Alda Games touches at current standards of casual games, however, young studio from Brno tries to come up with their own new idea and concept in the area of smartphone gaming industry. Their goals are quite ambitious – heading to position of leader in mobile entertainment industry in Czech Republic and also want to achieve position in top 25 game charts all around the world. Well, they could manage it, but it demands really huge amount of work. At least, they have the will and spirit.
Back to game. Save the Snail is puzzle game in which the player has to fight against time limits and the obstacles of environment in actual level. Also has to avoid deadly scorching sunlight, falling rocks or tacks spread scattered on the ground. To save the snails will serve various objects like buttons, pencil and so on. Each of these objects is predefined in current level and your task is dropping them into their proper places so you can get a snail hide or create barricades.
Introductory levels are perhaps too simple, but this has its cause. It is the ideal way how to learn control the game. And honestly, control is the first thing of which I am little bit disappointed. The concept itself is great, easy to understand but I ran into a problem (in my case) that from time to time the control was inaccurate – a situation in which the object is right positioned but after dropping it just does not fit is quite common and especially at the higher levels, where you are forced by time (if you want to obtain all stars). This is sometimes quite irritating.
Difficulty is escalating from level to level. However, I think that a little bit more advanced levels can handle a child about ten years. It might not reach the highest score but still… What I appreciate is the levels are not repetitive and each brings a slightly different challenge for the player. On the other hand, there could be more than 24 levels. This amount is relatively small and it does not take much time to pass them all in just one evening.
Graphically the game is trying to differentiate from the competition by using something really unique (in nowadays perspective) – hand-drawn graphics. Ales Kriz, a major developer and head manager of Alda Games in a press release mentioned two main reasons why did Alda Games use this style. The first one was nostalgia for good old times when games did not contain bombastic effects and explosions. Behind the second reason was the idea to bring the game to the widest possible audience – children and adults as well. If this concept does work, you decide, but as for me, I was impressed.
Unfortunately, what really does not work is sound design and music. In fact there is not music at all and sound effects are quite poor, just few repetitive samples. Thanks this, the game experience is somehow “empty”, or trying to use the right words, something is just awfully missing.
In conclusion, Save the Snail is a game with great potential, it is an original and fun. Despite the lack of coherent soundtrack, playing Save the Snail is definitely not wasting of time and in my opinion, it is a great game for nice family evenings. Thanks to localization into multiple languages (English, German, French, Spanish included) everybody can enjoy it. Save the Snail is for free and it is available for download from Google Play.
