In Snake Pass you play, who would have guessed, a snake. But the uniqueness lies especially in the control scheme, as you direct the head in 3D space and then contract and release the body in order to slither forward or climb up some scaffolding or reach over empty space. And the snake is so goofy looking, you just have to love it! Here is a video showing it in action.
The game gives you a few abilities over the play time of around 7 hours , but mostly it’s just about how well you can master this control scheme. The art design is mostly similar: vague Aztec/Maya themed with a few different accents depending on four classical elements, but since the game isn’t too long, it’s fine in my eyes. There is not really a story besides some alibi plot why you need to clear the levels, but I enjoyed my time with this unique and charming platformer. Haven’t played anything similar, so if you know similar unique concepts, I would love to learn about them!
Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
There’s an entire subgenre of indie games based around controlling weird things like this. Sadly most of them aren’t very fun (it turns out inventing entirely new control schemes is hard, who would have guessed?), but there have been a few I’ve enjoyed.
The most famous of the past few years is Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, where you play a man in a pot trying to climb a mountain. Its whole schtick is being as frustrating and unfair as possible, so it’s definitely not for everyone.
My personal favorite would be Yoku’s Island Express, which is a cute Metroidvania-lite using pinball of all things. It’s way better than it sounds, though it’s kind of easy if you have any prior experience with pinball games.
There’s also I Am Bread, which is more typical of these types of games in that it’s just being weird for the sake of being weird. In it you’re a sentient piece of bread who has to flop around a messy house, trying to complete the steps to turn yourself into delicious toast without getting inedibly dirty in the process.
And of course the granddaddy of them all, the Katamari Damacy series. I haven’t played any since the original on consoles so can’t speak as to whether the modern ones are any good.