The Snake That Eats Puzzle Game Mechanics is the latest from the Thinky Collective, a loose community of puzzle gamedevs who each take turns working on their puzzle game projects. (Not officially affiliated with our site, to be clear. I have contributed to some of these games in the past, but since nobody's making any money from these tiny experimental web puzzles, I'm not too worried about a conflict of interest.)
More than just a simple PuzzleScript game, Snake is a collection of single-screen games linked by small similarities: you can scroll through the level select right from the start, choosing to play your pick of more than a dozen distinct games. They feature lots of unique art, themes and mechanics, each game having some element in common with the one before and the one after.
So two games in a row might look similar, using a shared set of sprites, but the mechanics assigned to these objects may have changed. Or in some cases even the shape of the level may have been preserved, but a whole new look and context changes the resulting puzzle completely.
It's an interesting way to do a collaborative game project. Most of the games made by the Thinky Collective (see more on the itch.io page) are made by just passing around a big PuzzleScript project file, people adding whatever they're feeling inspired to: a new level, some new artwork, or a refinement of the mechanics or level curve.
This time was slightly different, as each dev received just one piece of the previous game and had to go from there, coming up with a miniature game consisting of just one level using the shared element they were given. (I'm pretty partial to one-level games myself, so I love this sort of format.)
It's fun to get 15+ new games all at once bundled together, and there's been some work done with the interface here to make it a smooth experience selecting what game to play. The whole thing feels pretty polished. As far as the games themselves go, I haven't tried them all yet, but a few that I've dipped into have definitely felt "PuzzleScript Hard" to me (on the more challenging side of little sokoban-style games.) This isn't much of a surprise coming from this enthusiast collective.
You can play The Snake That Eats Puzzle Game Mechanics in-browser on itch.io now, and check out the rest of the Thinky Collective's games on their itch.io profile. They can be tough, but it's a lot of quality puzzle content and all free to play.
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