Gaming is a great way to be part of adventures we couldn’t possibly do otherwise. Although there are some things we can surely do, like going out into the wilderness and trying to survive off the land … I wouldn’t recommend that at all. Best do it in gaming, and likely survival games are a dime and a dozen nowadays. The genre has become one of the most popular in recent memory and it’s not slowing down, despite the hundreds of games already. However, it takes something special to stand out in the crowd, and the immense survival scene today, but I may have found one of the most innovative, compelling, and chilled of the genre!
What is Above Snakes?
Above Snakes is an inspired isometric survival game inspired heavily by the harsh times of the American Frontier, where resources were low, exploration could mean certain death, and worst of all, in this world, the undead walk the Earth.
You play as a lone Native Woman named Ayiana, a brave and fearless soul who finds herself lost in the wilds and far from home. Things are made worse when on a still sombre night, from the midnight sky came a bright green light, followed shortly after by flaming stones which landed in the town of Corpse Creek. The devastating incident took the lives of many townspeople, but not long after this horrific event, the undead raised from their graves and ran havoc across the town. Soon enough, survivors fled the town to find safety, but the undead followed and the land around Corpse Creek became even more dangerous.
Ayiana’s goal is simple, survive the harshness of the frontier where danger, disease, and the undead roam and find a way to stop the madness from spreading outside of Corspse Creek. Scavenge the land to collect vital resources, help those in need who fled from Corpse Creek and deal with the undead before they consume your flesh. You can build your own home, harvest resources from the land including timber, berries, fibre, stone and much more, and defend yourself with an arrangement of hand-crafted weapons against the undead.
Above Snakes has all the right elements of a classic survival game but manages to bring in some neat ideas and dynamics which were the reasons I became thoroughly immersed in the world and gameplay.
Building your very own harsh frontier 
Above Snakes takes the guise of your everyday survival experience, being that it gets you to chop down trees, gather non-poison berries from nearby bushes, do some fishing, and of course build your very own luxury home, which no millennial who’s not a YouTube star could do. It has all the very familiar elements any solid survival game has, plus a rather enticing setup, with an interesting world infested not only by old Frontier deathtraps but also zombies!
But the main dynamic Above Snakes has to offer is allowing players to craft the very world they wish to explore and survive in. The game world is tile-based, with each segment of the world, whether it be a grassy plane, dense forest, dry desert, body of water, or town, will be contained within a square and easily placed down. With different objects in the environment, various terrains, points of interest, and story objectives too, players can fully create a world of their choosing to fit their style of play, and how best to meet their needs.
What you start off with is a very simple landscape, with grass, trees, rocks and common plant life. As you explore, cut down trees, harvest fibres and other items from the surrounding area, you fill up an experience meter. Each time this meter is full, you can reveal a new segment of the world, by selecting a tile and placing it on the map. As you continue to explore and complete small tasks, the more the world expands.
As you expand the world, new main objectives will come into play. You will be tasked with carrying out actions that pretty much all survival games revolve around. You’ll need to craft tools and weapons, cut down trees, mine stone and hunt for food. Then of course, build a shelter with the resources you’ve gathered, cook meals to satisfy your hunger, look for water sources and so forth. With your progression, new tiles will become ready to use, containing rivers allowing you to drink fresh water and fish, denser wildernesses where you can find animals and items such as beeswax, and harsher/hotter environments which have more exotic plant life, allowing you to craft more items that benefit your exploration massively.
This sense of freedom does indeed make Above Snakes very interesting the deeper you progress into the campaign. Building the world around you means having to tactically think about what to place, where and why. You could indeed build a river allowing you to fish and drink fresh water but hinder the ease of making it to the other side of said river. You can create a massive dense forest where you can hunt and gather rarer ingredients for meals, but you will likely come across more dangerous elements of the environment, including the undead. There are plenty of risk and reward factors in play and building this expansive world will mean more travel time and setting up various camps to shelter yourself away from the cold nights.
There was something truly engaging with building my own world, factoring in the placement of rivers, resources, and potential dangers to gain those rewards and resources I so sorely needed often. And as the game story progressed, so did the tiles and their levels of resources and threats offer, from bees to the undead. Everything from the early access version of Above Snakes mostly carries over, aside from one significant aspect.
Now during the early access release of Above Snakes, there was a rather compelling gameplay mechanic and now it has been removed. The mechanic in question was something I didn’t notice during my first preview as it triggers only upon death, and I didn’t die during my time playing the preview. The mechanic in question would reset the world upon your death, making Above Snakes an interesting roguelike/survival hybrid. So, all the tiles you laid out will be done upon death, meaning you must build the world from scratch once again.
This is a really neat idea and one which would add a nice layer of tension and tactics but could present some problems. On the one hand, it’s an ultimate punishment that takes away everything you worked and thus resources need to be planted once again. Or potentially a way to exploit the game if you wish to reset the world and make it more fitting to your status.
I can also see this becoming a tad bit tedious, especially as the game is much slower in pacing like most survival games. Whereas Roguelikes, or the best ones, are often very quick in their general pacing, getting you right back into the action as quickly as possible after defeat. I do think this would have been a great addition nonetheless, and as far as I’m aware, this is not an extra mode currently you can unlock. But it really should be!
Snakes, Zombies and the Horror of no Wi-Fi
Above Snakes is a tale where the harshness of the old Frontier meets the brutal insanity of the dead rising from their graves to feed on the living. It’s kind of like if Dances with Wolves met Day of the Dead.
As Diana, a loner in this relentless environment, you only have yourself to rely upon and the skills you develop over the world of the game. Building and exploring the world will reveal points of interest, such as a survivor camp, an abandoned wagon train, an old outpost or the cabin belonging to a fearless lumberjack looking to help our fearless hero. With each encounter, you grasp an understanding of what has happened to the world around you and the mystery of Corpse Creek.
The story elements are also intertwined with the tile system, and players will have to physically place the events in the story within the map once they’ve been revealed. To reveal these story elements, players will have to complete a few smaller objectives, as previously mentioned with creating hand tools and upgrading the workbench. Doing these actions along with general exploration will eventually unlock new story tiles and exploring these and completing the requested action will progress things along.
During the preview, there were some cool titbits of a mystery that kept me invested, not more so than the actual gameplay itself, but enough to keep me wanting to reach the end. I did feel there wouldn’t be anything too enthralling as the story progressed and guessed the usual stuff we’ve seen before. And I was mostly right, but there were some cool events during the story which perked my intrigue more so than generic stuff happening in the game. Plus, there are so neat cosmic horror/spiritual elements which felt more so fleshed out than they needed to be.
I will also give Above Snakes for implementing cool set pieces, such as one near the end which features a deadly meteorite shower, or exciting side quests which flesh out the backstories of various NPCs, and the world. But also had some decent boss battles, some of which felt more like side objectives you could randomly stumble upon. There was more than enough here for the core of the game, but the developers clearly wanted to make the world as engaging as possible, with plenty of depth, activities and hidden discoveries that make you feel rewarded for exploring.
The story is nothing to shout out, but I generally liked the pacing, the various weird characters you meet, and the more cosmic elements which really felt thoughtful and fascinating. I will add that the story could be slow to deliver as you need to plant tiles which push the narrative forward, but many of these aren’t a grind to unlock whatsoever, but something to keep in mind if you’re really vibing with the plot.
Make the world your own … and survive it!
Among the dead and selectable tiles, Above Snakes has all the tropes and drippings of a good old survival game.
You’ll be making tools to cut down trees, fishing rods to fish, weapons to defend yourself and building a new home (or several) with all the comforts, including a well, smelter, defensive fences, and a comfy bed for when you’re done killing off the undead. Aside from the tile system, there are some cool world features which will dynamically affect your play, such as environmental temperatures and making sure you have the right clothing to venture through them. So light clothing for hotter areas, and thicker, warmer clothing for the colder ones. It’s simple yet a nice touch, adding to the complexity of survival and item management.
It’s all quite familiar, but what I liked most was the elegant pacing, with objectives being pushed through at an organic rate, never feeling overwhelming or disjointed. The world-building is a vastly completed concept and works beautifully well with the survival mechanics. But grasping the nature of the world, each tile and what you need to deal with your hunger, thirst and restfulness is very easy due to the beautiful presentation and clear visualisation of important items.
This is great, as you will have to deal with the traditional elements of any survival game including health, hungry, hydration … and sanity. Hungry and hydration you can guess what you need to do there, as finding food and drinking water is critical in any survival game and it’s no different here. But by finding things such as berries, crops and more, you will be able to quench your hungry, but elevating your skills as a cook, making bigger means and combing resources will mean you can do so more effortlessly. It’s about trial and error with the food combinations normally, but you can discover recipes easily with experimentation.
Sainty will be affected by different aspects of the environment, including lack of sleep, seeing the undead and taking damage. Sleeping, staying warm and keeping healthy will help with your sanity high and avoid death. Sadly not much is done with the sanity meter, from what I saw. With the cosmic elements at play in the story, I was hoping there might be some terrifying sights and visuals if you had low sanity, yet nothing really stood out. If it were more visually engaging like another recent release, Dredge, where lack of sleep and prolonged exposure to night will make you hallucinate, this would have been a great layer of tension and threat for the meter. But it just leads to death and nothing much else. I may have missed some visual trickery and events when low on sanity, but nothing stood out as I could see. Although this could change in an update maybe?
I do wish there were more changes during the nighttime, ones which you usually take for granted in a game, like NPCs going to bed and shutting shop, limiting access but also maybe presenting some new ventures. Seeing shopkeepers out in the middle of the night, just like they are in the day is a little odd. And I feel there could have been more dynamic elements when nighttime drops, aside from the freezing cold that bathes the land. Like strange new animals, special plants to gather and so forth. I do feel having greater differences, risks and rewards for the day/night cycle would’ve given more meaningful exploration.
However, there are still great touches with different terrains giving specific resources, meaning you need to venture out of your comfort zone plenty of times to get what you need to progress. And the unpredictable nature of what you might find when laying down a tile and going back to it after some time, also keep the momentum of exploration and backtracking alive and well.
A cosy survival experience? I will say it, Above Snakes with all its frontier harshness, undead, and madness is quite a chill game overall in my humble opinion. While not a massive survival expert, I have played a fair few to gauge the level of intensity you should expect, and while Above Snakes does have moments of dread and hardship, it’s a mellow game overall.
This is not a bad thing at all, as I personally love the fact you can pick this up, play, go explore and engage with a decent story without feeling the crushing harshness you might expect from a survival game. It could be due to the removal of that feature I mentioned earlier, that now removes a massive penalty for death, or the fact items and weapons don’t have a durability meter. Which I really like actually, as I’m not a massive fan of item durability in games!
It is nice to play, and a great introduction to the genre for anyone who doesn’t normally play survival games. But having harder game modes included in the future wouldn’t be a bad idea at all!
Overall?I’m not the biggest lover of survival games, but something about Above Snakes really clicked with me and kept me thoroughly engaged throughout. I had fun through the preview and was really ecstatic to see that same level of engagement, fun and challenges present in the final game.
The presentation, thematic elements, and the world-building through player choice really are compelling dynamics which I can see being used in other games. While the chilled tone, lack of layer to the sanity meter, and minor issues did crop up, Above Snakes still was one of the refreshing and enjoyable gaming experiences I had this year. If you enjoy dabbling in survival games, this is a no-brainer and a high recommendation from me. And for those who’ve never tried out the genre before, Above Snakes is a nicely woven game with some phenomenal gameplay dynamics which will really immerse you in the long run.
I am also incredibly hopeful that new content will be added in the future, as the developers are very passionate about evolving and refining Above Snakes, with fixes, improvements and new elements. There are already two game modes, the campaign and the exploration mode, which is nice. And there will hopefully be more!
++ Compelling tile-based discovery and world building
+ Visually pleasing and great presentation
+ Easy to learn, very welcoming survival formula and design
+ Cool world events and story beats that are interwoven with the world building
- Too chilled and easy for hardcore survival genre veterans
- Some gameplay elements could have been expanded upon like sanity, and nighttime effects
A Steam key of Above Snakes was kindly provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review
