Will You Snail, by Jonas Tyroller, is out now on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and the Nintendo Switch. It’s a challenging platformer where you go up against an evil A.I. (there aren’t many benevolent ones out there in gaming, it seems) who learns from your behavior, and we played it on a PlayStation 4 Pro.
At first sight, Will You Snail looks quite bit like a cross between platformer Inside My Radio and puzzler Pix the Cat with its bright, neon-infused minimalist look. This one, with some challenging platforming and action elements, leans more to the ‘hardcore action platformer’ side of things though, with plenty of lasers, traps, enemies and bosses to try and take you down. Playing a surprisingly fast and agile snail, you go up against Squid, an AI entity who loves to taunt you and watches your every move.
His taunts aren’t just of the verbal kind though – Squid dynamically changes levels to put things in your way based on where he thinks you’re going, so you need to always be on your toes and react quickly. While this can cause frustrations, Squid isn’t an entirely cruel master either – he’ll adjust the difficulty level for you automatically as well, even though he’ll rub it in when he’s determined you’re not quite good enough yet for a certain challenge.
Will You Snail features over 50 levels, many of which have optional puzzles, collectables and alternate routes you can take. In addition to the dynamically changing levels, this creates replay value and made us enjoy the gameplay design choices here even though some scenes felt particularly brutal. There are story sequences that break up the action as well, providing much-needed breathers and infusing Squid with even more personality and background.
The campaign is divided up into five worlds, which differ from one another both visually and in terms of the challenges and gameplay elements they contain. Some sections put you underwater, while others feature tons of verticality. While most regular levels emphasize traditional platforming gameplay, boss fights usually feature temporary weapons. But although the change of pace is appreciated and bosses are well designed, we would have also liked more bosses that can be taken out creatively through platforming and by using traps against them.
Audiovisually, Will You Snail isn’t the most impressive game out there, though the trade-off is that it runs brilliantly, even on a less powerful console like the Switch. It’s visually too much like games that came out almost a decade ago though, so where the game shines most is in the personality it instills in its main characters. If you enjoy a challenging platformer with a lot of variety and replay value, then Will You Snail has covered.
Score: 7.9/10
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