David Johnston has now started work on the sequel to his platformer, Super Snail, with the advent of the much improved Super Snail 2. The new version will improve upon the original in a number of areas. One issue which certainly needs addressing is the price; the original Super Snail lost valuable review marks due to its high price considering the fact that it is really only budget release material. Let's hope that David's publishers, 4th Dimension, re-think their pricing policy before his new title is released!
Anyway, on with the game... David has kindly sent me some info on how the new game will work and also some development screenshots which you can see scattered about this page. One of the main areas of improvement is the enemies. Their movements have been made more complex and they no longer just move in straight lines as they did in the original game. There are already 20 different types of enemies and although the game is still at an early stage in development, your character is now able to fire back at the nasties.
The main elements of the original game will remain with improved graphics and more sprites in the game giving such niceties as butterflies which flutter away when disturbed and waterfalls which trickle onto your snail's shell as you pass under them. Incase any of you didn't come across the original game, it's a simple platformer where you must guide a snail (of all things!) around the levels collecting the 5 magic spheres which were stolen by some magic force!
There are currently 4 sub-games included and the author is working on including more during the development. As can be seen from the screenshots, one of these is a 'Game Guy' tetris clone which must be completed in order to open a door to progress onto a later level. A games arcade is also planned where your snail friend will be able to squander his hard-earnt credits on playing video games to his heart's content.
No firm release date has yet been set for Super Snail 2, we'll let you know as soon as we hear something!