96. WildSnake (Manley & Associates, Super Nintendo, 1994)

WildSnake is a puzzle game that dares to ask the question: "what if the blocks in Tetris were snakes"? Presented by (though not designed by) Tetris creator Alexy Pajitnov, WildSnake was one of a number of late 80s & early 90s attempts to cash in on the popularity of Tetris by using Pajitnov's image on its branding, some of which he was more involved in directly than others, but none of which ever made even a fraction of the impression that Tetris left on the world. Some of these other titles are fun puzzle games in their own right, like Knight Move, while others are just boring Tetris knock offs, like Hatris (literally hat-Tetris). WildSnake falls somewhere in the middle.

You play on a grid, like Tetris, and have to deal with falling snakes of a variety of random colors and lengths. The snakes can be manipulated as they are falling, but once they hit something, they do not stop like a Tetris block. Instead, they kind of "flow" downward, filling any open squares that they can. Mastering how to line up a snake and predict where it will go once it lands is key to mastering the game. Whenever a snake's head touches another snake of the same color, the snake being "bit" disappears, so the game is a lot about setting up chain reactions, which is generally not my favorite type of puzzle game.

You are able to select a variety of differently shaped playfields, so you aren't stuck funneling snakes down a rectangle, which is nice, though certain stages are much harder than others. There are only 4 music tracks, and none of them are particularly catchy.

3/5, a simple, easy to grasp puzzle game, I just wish it was more fun to play.