That was nice ! Very very good looking and enjoyable to play. The snake eating himself mechanic was a bit confusing to me, as it seemed there's a delay before dying, but it looked like the death animation, so I was thinking there was nothing I could do until some point where I managed to survive, but it was still strange because the classic snake game dies instantly, and your game is so tied to it, that I was not thinking it was different.
Level design was also a bit strange imho, I was not really sure where to go and why, simply opening doors I could find and collecting orbs, but for no apparent reason. There is no score displayed on screen, so why should I collect orbs as it just makes the game harder and does not give my anything in exchange ? :p And last minor thing, I really don't like the almost forced death at the beginning. I do not think it is necessary, even to learn how checkpoints work, and it was just frustrating dying because of the level design and not because I did something wrong.
Congrats for the game ! Did not mention it, but the technical art is really strong with this one ;)
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Thanks for your very valuable feedback !
I agree with most of your points, level design is not my strong suit, especially in a jam where time is limited, but I'll keep working on it ! What happened is that I made something quite linear, but noticed it was possible to get softlock, so I added things to prevent that, which worked but allowed the player to do things in a different order, and might make the player feel a bit lost. I learned a lot during this jam, I'm sure I'll do better next time !
Unline the original Snake game, you don't die when you touch your tail, but when you get stuck and stop moving for a while. That is why the death animation felt long, you still can escape if you manage to move. I will remove the forced death, it was here to explain the death mechanic, but I agree it was done poorly. I'm still trying to find a better way to explain that without using too much text.