Temple of Snek

Temple of Snek is Snake with exploration.
The game is rythm-based, Snek moves automatically and you just have to make them turn at the right moment like the classic game.

You start as a baby Snek, awoken for their slumber to protect the temple from the greedy intruders. Your goal is to find and eat them; each time you eat someone, your length increases by 1.
Temple of Snek is not an open world though, it’s divided into several chapters that each make you go through an area. Those areas can be quite open but the game is always linear, so you have to figure out the correct places where you have to go and what to do.
You have a map to help you, with markers on it that tell you if you have the correct length to reach a place. If you don’t, the markers also indicate the length needed.
The rooms are all puzzles with buttons and traps, you have to navigate through them without bonking against a wall or yourself (it kills you).

On paper, Temple of Snek has an extremely good concept and I was looking forward to play it.
My final feelings are a bit mixed though, I’ll explain.

I think the game is flawed and will discourage a lot of people; taking the full Snake gameplay wasn’t the best. Though I completely understand the idea, it actually results in a slow and frustrating gameplay.
The base speed of Snek is low, and you’ll probably immediately put it to the max in the options. The problem is that you won’t have a lot of time to think, and the puzzles in this game often require long nearly-perfect setups.
Fortunately, there are checkpoints very regularly so dying is never too punishing, just annoying.

There’s a step-by-step mode, but it doesn’t feel good because the game was not meant for it. However, this mode can be fixed with 3 changes that could greatly improve the experience: remove bonking, add an undo button and further increase Snek speed.
I really think the game is too frustrating for the average player, these changes would remove all the non-puzzle difficulty and could actually incite more people to persevere.

The checkpoint system also means that you can softlock. You go where you want and you can cancel up to 7 checkpoints, so if you make a fatal wrong move and realize it’s too late to rewind… well it never happened to me but I guess it could be bad.
What happened to me though is that I softlocked in a deathloop. The dev thought about that fortunately and implemented a system that detects deathloops and edits your save to bring you back right before.
Not much could’ve been done about it though, that’s the drawback of the freedom you’re given. Just know that you have to be careful with what you do; if something seems wrong, cancel it.

And yet, despite everything I’ve said, the game is still good. Progressing through the temple is very enjoyable and is even quite addictive. The first half of the game is normal, but you’ll regularly be lost in the second half though.
The puzzles are harder and you have to figure out how to use unknown mechanisms in the most clever ways to progress. They are very interesting and solving them is incredibly gratifying.
That’s why you don’t want to be bothered by ridiculous deaths by bonking or deaths because you didn’t react fast enough… some of the puzzles are already very hard to understand and need a lot of tries and patience, so those frustrating features just make people quit. And that’s a shame because lots of efforts and polish went into the puzzles, the progression through the temple is very well thought out.

So yeah, Temple of Snek is a very good game, but the experience is a bit tarnished by the artificial difficulty. Offering a smoother and easier gameplay alternative is, in my opinion, the best way to improve the game.

Recommended for patient and persistent people.

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Developer: Aetheric Games
Publisher: Pixeljam
Platforms: Steam, Itch – Windows/Linux/macOS
Release Date: February 15, 2023