There is a subgenre of games that takes the age-old Nokia Snake game and turns it into something else. Mechaconda is the latest entry, and it takes Snake and turns it into a bullet hell action roguelike. You’ll need to survive waves of enemies and then select what new body part to attach to your snake. Each snake part comes with its own skill or buff, but the longer the snake, the trickier the movement becomes.
Mechaconda has two very distinctive main game modes. Campaign puts the player in largely predetermined levels, with a selection of enemy patterns that will spawn into the single-screen arena. Whilst enemies can’t screen wrap, you can, and this becomes a tactical advantage to move around the screen. At the start of a level, you’ll begin with just one simple gun body part. Moving around the map using your left stick or D-pad lets you circle around, run away, and screen wrap away from both enemies and their enemy fire. Only the head of the snake needs protecting, as that’s all that takes damage. The game uses autofire, but you’ll have a jump ability to leap over traps on the screen. Once all the enemies are killed in a wave, you’ll be taken to the upgrade screen.
Between waves of enemies, you’ll get the option of three potential snake body part upgrades to choose from. Depending on what you pick, your snake will grow both in size and usually in damage, too. Some body parts increase the snake’s speed or add a shield, but the vast majority add a weapon. These range from guns to missiles to shurikens to mines, and the more you have, the more powerful you’ll be. The snake gets longer, though, and aside from getting hit by enemies, the only other way to get hurt is to run into your own body. This can happen more often than you think, especially when navigating traps. Whenever you hurt your head, all your body parts explode out across the screen, and a couple will go missing forever. You’ll need to scoop them up by running over them to rebuild your snake. If you get hit again whilst only being a small snake or just a snake head, it’s instant game over. Recovery from getting hurt is the biggest key to survival in Mechaconda.
Campaign mode runs across four worlds, each with four levels. Each level ends in a boss battle, and these battles are varied and fun. From a mutating chess piece that attacks in chess movement patterns to a cat throwing around a ball of yarn, each boss is well crafted and thought out. They aren’t all the same level of difficulty, but in campaign mode, the 16 bosses have their dedicated place on the campaign. The final boss is also memorable, with multiple forms to survive and conquer. The second mode is a roguelike mode. Here, you’ll take on four randomly generated levels (one from each world), taking from all the attack patterns from campaign mode, with four randomly assigned bosses before the final boss. The other big change is that your snake body carries over from one level to the next, unlike campaign where you’ll always start from zero. This means the builds you get in roguelike mode can be huge and all-powerful if you are careful. Roguelike mode is easier as a result of this design decision. I recommend you start with roguelike mode first.
Controls are tight. Graphics are crisp and clean, with the bosses being the main cartoonish surprise. Music suits the mood. Collision detection is fair, consistent, and visually aligns with what you see on screen. Sometimes the bright colour palette can make things visually busy, but it is a price I’m willing to pay for bold and playful designs. There’s a boss rush mode for additional challenge. Everything in Mechaconda works well to provide a twist on the Snake formula that isn’t entirely new, but is extremely replayable. It might not look like much on the surface, but this is a game that clicks immediately upon first play, and doesn’t let go until you’ve seen all the snake parts and beaten all those damned bosses. Fun!
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