11th Sep2020

Digital Shorts: ‘Deleveled’ & ‘The Snake King’ Reviews (Nintendo Switch)

by Phil Wheat

In DIGITAL SHORTS we review some of the latest video games that are only available digitally (at least in the UK), in a short-form review format. In this edition we take a look at not one but TWO new indie puzzle games, Deleveled and The Snake King, both of which are now available on the Nintendo Switch.

DELEVELED

Deleveled is a momentum based puzzle-platformer inspired by Newton’s third law of motion. As an added twist, there’s no jump button – so all of your vertical movement comes from bouncing or falling. Conserve your energy by controlling two squares at the same time as you move through the level to hit switches, complete puzzles, and bounce your way to the perfect finish… Though with 120 unique levels and some frustratingly difficult ones at that, you might be stuck playing Deleveled for some time – which is great for those who want to get the most out of their hard earned cash!

The game starts out easy enough with some simple levels to get you aquainted with the style of gameplay and the control system – which is a basic left and right movement, everything else is down to gravity and momentum. But then Deleveled throws in a curve ball: an extra impass, a black too low to create enough motion to bounce you over the next block, buttons to press before you can end a level. Everything slowly builds in a crescendo-like way, making things trickier and trickier as the game goes on. But with that rise in difficulty comes the satisfaction of finally completing a level, succeeding where you may have failed tens (or even hundreds) of times before – the kind of satisfaction only really found in the best puzzle games. And Deleveled is one of the best. It may not be much to look at – essentially its line art and squares, that’s it – but when you’ve got a puzzle game as addictive as this it doesn’t need to be. Plus the awesome chiptune-esque soundtrack more than makes up for any visual flaws!

Deleveled is available on the Nintendo eShop now.

THE SNAKE KING

So how many of you out there had an old Nokia phone? One like the 3310 or 6110? You probably remember that game Snake right? Who am I kidding EVERYONE knows about the classic monochrome, highly addictive puzzle game Snake. Well now it’s back and back in the hands, literally, of gamers in a new and improved version – in the form of Yeta Games’ The Snake King on the Nintendo Switch; which takes everything you remember about the classic phone game and updates it for modern systems, complete with 3D graphics, superb use of the Switch’s rumble function and gameplay that is still as addictive as it was back in the day. Made by, essentially, a husband and wife team, this iteration of an old classic features 5 worlds, 150+ specially designed dungeons, mighty power ups and procedurally designed arcade levels. Not bad for a small dev team who’ve made the move from mobile game development to consoles!

Yeta Games obviously know what worked about the original mobile game and bring that same simple yet addictive gameplay bang up to date with graphics that are as simple and effective as they need to be to recreate the same experience the gamers had with Snake back in the early 2000s. And boy is this game simple: enter a dungeon, eat all the apples (which opens the exit) and move into the next room. Rinse and repeat. But it works. It really does. Yeta Games have even recreated the puzzle-like nature of the snakes movement from the original mobile game too – you really have to think to move pre-emptively, hit that left or right just BEFORE you need the snake to move; otherwise you’ll find yourself heading straight into a wall… or your own tail!

Simple. Effective. Addictive. Three words that were perfect to describe Snake and most-deservedly can be used to describe The Snake King. Honestly, this is the welcome return of an old video-game friend!

The Snake King is available on the Nintendo eShop now.

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