P0 Snake by Anonio Savona for the Commodore 64
I believe they should call this game button masher or thumb destroyer or maybe even carpel tunnel accelerant. At first glance this seemed like a fairly simple game, one maybe not even worth too much time to ponder about. However after having watched the game demo and seeing the various level designs, it quickly became clear that this was no ordinary game of snake. I have to admit when I first tried this game I was puzzled as to how to play it. You see in most snake games you can control the snakes direction by pressing the direction you wish the snake to move. Not in p0 snake.
Check out the nice detail in the Title Screen Artwork
In this game, the snake is already always turning in one direction, clockwise, and you can counter that by pressing the fire button which changes to the counter clockwise, opposite direction of travel. As with most snake games, you must collect a predetermined amount of pills or dots to complete a level. With each dot collected your snake grows a little bit longer. The games programmer, Antonio Savona, has created a total of 30 levels with varying degrees of difficulty for p0 snake. Antonio was the winner of a competition held by rgcd.com to develop an original game. Antonio has thrown in several homages to original arcade games, including space invaders and pac-man, an extremely nice touch. The space invaders level includes a computer controlled player that moves left, right and randomly fires missiles at you. This is a difficult level that originally I was only able to complete because the computer controlled enemy occasionally glitches out, sticking to one side of the map. I am not sure if this is a glitch or intentional, but I am leaning toward glitch, because of the way the paddle moves back and forth at a high rate of speed while stuck in the corner.
I would like to speak to the overall polish of the game. When I first placed the cartridge in the slot and powered on my C64, I was amazed to hear the opening screen speaking clearly to me, “rgcd”, with a female voice. Then the main title screen starts up. There a lot more voice synthesis throughout the game, including the intro screen where a female voice exclaims p0-snake. She even has the perfect intonation. I am impressed by the artwork used in the packaging and title screens. The letter ‘P’ and letter ‘0’ appears as if drawn by the snake shape. There are arcade characters sprinkled in. I also appreciate the nice background information provided by the games creator and programmer that is included with the games instructions, under the title ‘Post Mortem’. In it he describes a lot of technical details regarding the game including the fact that he used the built in C64 hardware sprite collision detection. He adds, the shadow areas on the level maps are not part of the graphics which allow P0-Snake to travel through the shadows without triggering a collision.
Check out the smooth scrolling text, rolling over the fire button…
At the top of the screen, there is a level indicator as well as a Dots required quota, a numerical value which indicates the number of dots that must be collected before completing the current level. At the bottom left portion of the screen, your free Snakes available are indicated with a Snake Head for each available Snake.
Check out the indicators at the top of the map and free Snakes available on the bottom left
As you play P0 Snake there are nice details including the floating multi-colored “Get Ready”, “Game Over”, along with the digitized speech to go with it. After completing every even level, you will be given a password that will allow you to start back at that level at a later time. The password displayed is a combination of eight directional arrows that must be pressed in the proper order on the title screen in order to swap out the current playing level.
The game just feels well polished with all of these details and the terrific title screen including the right to left scrolling text which smoothly roll up over a graphical image of the fire button. The game is a simple concept, easy to learn and very addicting. Each time I lose a snake, I know I can get further than the last time. Most of the time I am proved wrong, and have to start a new game until my thumb can no longer take the abuse. I cannot recommend it enough. This is a terrific game, I love it.
*****
Where to download:
http://rgcddev.itch.io/p0-snake
Youtube Original Post Date: 09/12/2015
Since posting this Antonio Savona has continued showing his greatness with top tier releases for the Commodore 64 with titles such as; Planet Golf, L’Abbaye des morts, Chopper Command, Frostbite, Crackpots, etc., and more. – GRD – 09/26/2020
Check out the indicators at the top of the map and free Snakes available on the bottom left
