SnekromancY: the game of Snake possessed by an undead, and it is a brilliant idea

It takes a certain nerve to take the most basic game in history, the Snake of your old phone, and graft on a horde of undead and a rain of projectiles. SnekromancY does it without shame, and the most surprising part is that the marriage stands up. Behind its concept that smells of a game jam joke hides a roguelite far craftier than it looks.

The context

SnekromancY is developed by SlightlyMadman and published by Final Screw, available on PC via Steam with a free demo to get a taste. It is a roguelite dungeon crawler that combines classic Snake movement with bullet heaven combat and progression. The master idea, the one that changes everything: instead of upgrading weapons, you summon undead minions who ride on your back and attack, in automatic or manual mode. An absurd concept on paper, a real mechanic once in hand.

The gameplay

The heart of the game lies in a brilliant tension inherited from the original Snake: your snake grows, and its length is both your strength and your danger. Every undead you add, zombie, skeleton, ghost, lengthens your body, increases your firepower, but also makes your movement more perilous in dungeons where biting your own tail remains fatal. This duality, where growing in power literally encumbers you, is what elevates SnekromancY above a simple bullet heaven: it is not just dodging, it is piloting an ever-longer serpentine army through the chaos.

The necromancer angle adds the customisation layer that gives the roguelite its zest. Composing your horde, choosing which undead to bring along based on their attacks, switching between automatic and manual aim to hit priorities, it is a genuine tactical playground. Over the runs, you unlock upgrades and relics that allow increasingly deranged builds, that escalation toward controlled nonsense that keeps the genre restarting again and again. Surviving the hordes, felling the bosses and watching your snake-army become a grinding machine, the loop is satisfying and pushes experimentation.

The game does not entirely escape the limits of its ambition. The concept, clever as it is, revolves around a single core mechanic, and its real depth eventually shows its edges once you have gone through the main builds. Readability can also suffer when the screen fills with both enemy projectiles and a snake grown endless, turning some difficulty spikes into slightly unfair chaos rather than a manageable challenge. These are the rough edges inherent to a game betting everything on one strong idea, not fatal flaws, but they bound the experience.

The retro arcade aesthetic, owned and coherent, adds to the charm but also recalls the project's modesty. SnekromancY does not aim to be a roguelite behemoth, it aims to execute a precise idea efficiently, and it largely succeeds. It is a game you restart in short sessions, for the instant pleasure of an absurd build, more than for dozens of hours of meta-progression.

The tech

Technically, SnekromancY owns its retro arcade dressing coherently. The pixelated dungeons, expressive undead and sharp action make up a whole that is legible in its calm phases and deliberately chaotic in its spikes. The controls respond well, which is crucial for a game where piloting your snake's path to the pixel makes the difference between survival and a bitten tail.

The technical reservations join the design ones. When the number of enemies and the length of the snake explode simultaneously, readability hits its limits, and a few visual clarity options would be welcome to distinguish dangerous projectiles in the melee. Nothing that breaks the pleasure on a normal run, but a point to watch in the most intense moments.

The verdict

SnekromancY turns a concept joke, Snake crossed with a necromancer bullet heaven, into a clever and endearing roguelite. The tension inherited from Snake, where growing makes you powerful and vulnerable at once, is a find that gives the game a real identity, and composing your undead horde offers the experimentation ground the genre demands. It is original, sharp and far deeper than its zany pitch suggests.

Its limits are those of a game built on a single idea: the depth eventually shows its edges, and readability suffers in the chaos spikes. But for its price and its ambition, SnekromancY delivers exactly what it promises, a fresh and clever roguelite pleasure, to savour in short sessions. If you are looking for a new idea in a genre saturated with clones, this undead snake is worth taking the bait for.

Snake resurrected as a necromancer roguelite, absurd on paper and surprisingly clever controller in hand.

Score: 7/10

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Reviewed on the PC version.