SNAKEYBUS
Bend it like bus ’em
Bendy buses are a sight to behold. Forgoing the classic double-decker structure, these articulated vehicles instead double capacity by being even longer than a regular bus – two carriages with a concertina-like bit in the middle enabling them to take corners. Who hasn’t been on one of these and thought “what if instead of two carriages there were hundreds?” Well, Snakeybus is the only videogame that allows you to live out that fantasy.
The title tells you the basics. It’s the classic game of Snake, but with a bus. As you play each map your bus increases in length until eventually, ouroboros style, you end up eating your own rubber and crashing out. It’s a Speed type of situation, and while you can speed up your constant forward momentum with i (and slow it down again with p), you’ll fail if you stop moving for more than a couple of seconds.
SNAKE EATER
Classic mode has you picking up passengers at bus stops before dropping them off at the landmark dictated, be it the Eiffel Tower on the Paris map, or maybe even “Another Starbucks” in Seattle. There’s only a handful of maps, but each one features routes that ensure it feels distinct. They range from low-poly districts of real-world cities like Paris and Miami to abstract spaces filled with strange loops, like the Museum or the Dorm (where you are presumably a miniature bus, or in a giant’s dorm room).
Before too long you come up against the tail-end of where you’d already driven the bus, and find yourself hoping you weren’t foolish enough to leave no room to the side. Drive too close to the edges of the road and you’ll end up cutting yourself off later, while if you don’t think ahead to that narrow alley you’ll get there and realise the back of the bus is still taking it. Spicing things up, however, is a limited-use jump boost that refills over time. Tapping it gently gives you a jump arc based on your speed. After a while you’ll have created a nightmare maze of bus to navigate, filled with carriages looping back on themselves and arcing overhead. Drifting with q means you can take some tight corners, and fold ever in on your own trail. It’s a sight to behold, and after you crash a flycam allows you to observe the chaos.
Beyond Classic mode is the Time Race mode. It’s essentially the same thing but against the clock, extra time being added as well as your bus’s length increasing, which means things get Crazy Taxi levels of frantic. Endless mode flips it the other way around and allows you to chill out without consequences, driving your long bus around these spaces listening to the lo-fi hip-hop soundtrack. For a game that can be terribly stressful, it’s also surprisingly zen.
VERDICT
Like Snake, it’s simple and addictive in all the right ways. We’d have liked more maps to choose from, but what’s here is an arcadey joy that’s a delight to get lost in. Oscar Taylor-Kent
“AFTER A WHILE YOU’LL HAVE CREATED A NIGHTMARE MAZE OF BUS TO NAVIGATE.”