Temple of Snek

Temple of Snek is a stepping adventure game about a snake goddess sent to defend a temple by eating up intruders and avoiding traps. The snake needs to angle her body and step on pressure plates in order to unlock doors and reach new rooms. Building up on the classic Snake formula, Temple of Snek offers a complex experience that mixes puzzles, rhythm gameplay, interconnected rooms, and eating conquistadors.

A group of priestesses summons you, the titular guardian snake of the Temple of Snek, and your mission is to protect the temple compound from invading forces. The snake moves in grid-based rooms, trying not to bonk obstacles and growing ever longer as she munches on enemies. Many rooms contain pressure plates which can be connected to spike traps or to an exit door. Some puzzles are self-contained, while others span multiple rooms. You may backtrack to previously solved rooms, though it gets harder as the snake fills more and more space. There’s a map of the temple in the pause menu, and at times the game can feel like an open-world, but progression is largely linear.

An unusual feature of Temple of Snek comes from the mixing of puzzles with rhythm and action elements. The snake moves to the beat of the music, and you have to time your movements around it. Certain hallways require direct reflexes, and enemies act according to turn-based behaviors. There’s an option to deactivate rhythm and move at your own pace, but no matter which mode you select, you can’t undo your steps. If the snake hits a wall or gets hurt from spikes, the game will reset to the last checkpoint.

Puzzles are deceptively easy at first, but become more obscure and difficult as you head deeper in. Both spatial visualization and timing skills are required to get across each level safely. In case you’re stuck, there’s a hint mode that roughly reveals the path you are to take to solve the current room. Optional challenges are hidden away in specific rooms and will grant you a handful of collectibles. As for the musically inclined, there’s something for you to discover…

The visuals are reminiscent of early PS2 games in a charmingly retro way. Each room is full of details that weave a fantasy-influenced story set in a Mesoamerican temple, and the atmosphere is complemented by vivid adaptive music. Also included in the game is “Make-a-Snek,” an option to customize the scale patterns of your snake, as well as a level editor. Finally, a fair warning for gore, since the game shows blood effects when the snake chomps on enemies or gets hurt. These effects are part of the default settings, but they can be deactivated at any time in the menu.

This description was written by Hira.