Clid the Snail preview (PS4/PC)

We recently took a look at Weird Beluga’s upcoming game Clid the Snail, which is heading towards a release in the near future. Here’s what we came away with.

What we know

Clid the Snail is a top-down shooter that takes places in a future version of our world in which humans are no longer around – scenery elements like forms merely reminding us of the past (and giving us a sense of scale). Featuring a collection of insects and creepy crawlies, you’re Clid. Named after the mathematician Euclid, you’re a snail who was just exiled from his home, the Snail Citadel.

Joined by your firefly friend Belu, you set out into the world and quickly discover that it’s full of dangers, as you meet enemies, friends and find yourself immersed in a story of friendship and betrayal amidst a slug plague that’s spreading across the world. While twin-stick shooting is a big part of this narrative-driven adventure, it also features puzzles – often granting access to optional collectibles.

Developed by Weird Beluga, the game was also part of the PlayStation Talents initiative in Spain. Clid the Snail comes out this summer as a PlayStation exclusive, but will also launch for PCs near the end of the year in Q4.

What we saw

We attended a live demo for the game where the developers at Weird Beluga talked us through the background of the game before showing us narrated gameplay to show us some of the basics of Clid the Snail. After this session, we went hands on with a 45 minute demo of the game, containing some of the early levels as well as a boss fight. This demo was played on a PC.

What we thought

The game world in Clid the Snail is certainly a striking one, with highly detailed environments that merge biological elements with architecture and interesting character models. At the end of the demo, you meet other outcasts in a group that calls itself Alastor, and it happens at a moment when things are just getting interesting. The other members of Alastor are all different animals, from a bat to a hedgehog and a turtle – hinting at different game regions than the one we had just seen.

The Clid the Snail demo we played was a bit of a slow starting affair anyway, as the early stages of the demo had some very straightforward twin-stick shooting where levels were mostly linear and you could just back up and keep firing when encountering an enemy. Later foes were stronger, could fly and/or had projectiles of their own, making things far more interesting – something that’s especially true for the boss fight we did. Suddenly, we had a need for those additional weapons and that ammo we picked up.

The demo also had one or two puzzles to solve, which was a nice break from the action, but our biggest question mark lies with the narrative. Clid and the other characters only speak gibberish and thus you’re mostly reading text off the screen, which doesn’t bring the characters to life. Our only closeups of the characters in the demo happened in the last five minutes as well, so we’ll have to wait and see if developer Weird Beluga can breathe enough life into their creation when the full game is here.

With solid twin stick shooting, a visually interesting setting and the promise of plenty of diversity throughout the campaign, there’s certainly plenty of potential – we’re hoping to go hands on with the full version once it becomes available to find out more.