Frankly I’m not a big fan of those maze / chase games as they are quite hard and requires forward planning to the max to discover the winning pattern. Of course the biggest, well known one is Pac Man – that yellow filled, pill chomping moving mouth that caught the world by storm. Of course there’s going to be a flurry of clones to get a piece of this Pac Man’s pie. However, there will be some that, even though uses the same formula, adds a certain twist that makes it stand out just enough to get noticed and one of them is Serpentine – that is, there’s no clearing out the maze filled with dots however it’s all about clearing the maze filled with enemy serpents.
So the goal of Serpentine is, and surprisingly enough, is not to gobble up dots scattered across the screen however it’s mainly concerned about survival instead. Up to three enemy serpents moving about in a random fashion and you, the lone blue serpent aim is to gobble up the enemy serpents before moving on to the next level. Also there’s no irritating timer counting down so practically you can stay on one level forever (as long you don’t die) and collect points as you go as all serpents are able to lay eggs, thus looping forever. Yet once you dispose all of the enemy serpents, then it’s time to move on to another level.
How to kill those serpents can be completed in two ways – chomping them from behind or hit them head on. The head on option only can be applied when your serpent is larger than the enemy’s. So you start off with three segments (two forming part of your body and one for your head) and you are able to grow by eating an enemy head on (which won’t be the case at the start as all three enemies are larger than you), chomp on a frog (which makes an appearance from time to time) or eat on an enemy serpent’s egg. Yet you can also lay an egg which causes you to lose a segment however once hatched, the little serpent will sliver back to home base thus gives you an extra life. Note that any eggs lying about, no matter if it’s the enemy or yours, is a beacon for the green frog. Also laying an egg is beyond your control – it just happens.
You know when you are just about to lay an egg is when the last segment becomes rich white then it eventually pops out an egg. Because the egg is valuable (i.e. giving you an extra life if it manages to hatch and slivers back to home base without being destroyed by an enemy serpent or the frog – and no you cannot control the hatchling), it’s best to lay it around the middle of the screen and in among a heavily congested maze as otherwise it makes it easier for the enemy serpent to chomp on the egg or, if you lay it near a border, the frog can easily get to it. Remember that both the enemy / your serpent can eat the frog at any time so naturally avoid the borders when laying your precious egg. Of course if the enemy serpent lays a speckle egg, snatch it straight away otherwise it too will hatch and an enemy serpent will arise. Also note that there can only be a maximum of three enemy serpents – meaning if there’s three slivering about, they won’t lay any eggs until they are reduced in numbers.
There are twenty levels in total with various levels of difficulty meaning it’s not really correct to say the first level is the easiest and the last most difficult. Actually the last four are quite easy to complete and once all twenty are done, the game repeats itself. A shame though as it would be a better option to give a congratulations sign in shape of the Broderbund Triple Crown symbol for example. Visually it’s quite smooth with nice animations yet the sound is minimalistic at best. Yet those serpents, when moving about, do sound like a steam train though. A challenging game to say the least however still quite enjoyable overall. So if maze games are your forte, then you’ll enjoy Serpentine.