As we enter the grey early days of winter, and as I seem to more frequently start each day with a Lemsip wafting restorative lemony goodness next to me, a game that offers the simple pleasures of bright colours and pleasing shapes is worth more and more. Inevitably, then, our game of the week is Snakebird Complete, a Switch compilation of brilliant puzzley brainteasers that see you moving your bright, charming snakebirds past a range of obstacles and towards each level’s exit goal.
Snakebird would be our game of the week even if it wasn’t grey and chill outside. It’s sheer playfulness and elegance, a game in which each level is a chance to experiment with the rules and learn more about the possibilities they contain. Like Blockade, or Snake, which the game seems to be deeply influenced by, your Snakebird grows as you consume items in the level, so certain levels with ask you to work out the correct order to consume things and move through the environment, while others will then turn your own growing body into the main obstacle to overcome.
But I can’t shake off the blast of simple joy I felt when I loaded the game up for the first time and my Switch’s screen was filled with those clear red, yellows and blues. This is a rainbow for the Switch, and in the chilly months it’s a bit like finding a handful of Opal Fruits in your pocket along with the bunched mass of old grey checkout receipts. The goal of each level is a portal that strobes through the full spectrum and looks like a glorious old time lollipop: you’d want to head for it even if you didn’t know you needed to. And the map – which I raved about earlier this week – besides being a very clever piece of design is just a lovely fantastical landscape to look down on. I want to go there!
