Video Game / Snailiad

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The plot: You're a snail named Snaily Snail who has to set out to rescue the missing snails.

Play it here.

Tropes used in this game:

• Abnormal Ammo: A pea shooter and a boomerang sort of make sense (though it begs the question of how Snaily holds the gun/boomerang), but rainbow waves?
• A Dog Named "Dog": Snaily and Sluggy.
• Airborne Mooks: A lot of the enemies in this game fly. Among others, the Sky Viper, Chirpy, Batty Bat, and Ghost Dandelion.
• Alliterative Name: The stage names, such as Lux Lirata and Spiralis Silere.
• Always Check Behind the Chair: It's a Metroidvania game. It comes with the genre.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The battle with Giga-Snail, as the background changes color depending on the boss's attack.
• An Ice Person:
  • The Iceballs, which move like Sparks from the Super Mario Bros. series.
  • Snaily himself after getting the Ice Snail powerup.
• Apathetic Citizens: The snails of Snail Town leave everything up to you.
• Babies Ever After: It takes a while for this to happen, but the way it does is when the psychic snail in Snail Town predicts this of Snaily after getting the Golden Ending. "I can see the future, Snaily! I see you having 18,000,000 baby snails!! Congratulations!!"
• Boss in Mook Clothing: The Devil (red) Blob. It moves very fast, shoots tons of energy ball... things, and takes way too many hits to die! Thankfully, there's only one in the entire game.
• Boss Rush: And dear God is it hard.
• Boss Subtitles: Although there's no descriptive sentence; it's only used to display the boss' name.
• Bowdlerise: To avoid negative associations, an update changed a character's name from Isis (after the Egyptian goddess of the sun) to Iris (after the Greek goddess of rainbows).
• Catching Some Z's: Snaily's idle animation. The final boss has it too, but he uses it as an attack.
• Ceiling Cling: Snaily can crawl on ceilings as well as walls, although he can't get around corners until later in the game.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Most of the snails could qualify.
  "Cave Snail scares me! I'm staying over here!" [Beat] "Do you think Cave Snail is single?"
• Completion Meter: There is a percentage of items collected and map explored. Upon defeating the final boss, each region will also show the number of items collected.
• Credits Gag: Downplayed. The credits amusingly lampshade the trend of putting "And You" at the end of their credits.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Snaily Snail.
• Dramatis Personae: At the end; the credits show a list of the characters' names, and said list is the only source of some characters' names.
• Electric Jellyfish: They're an Invincible Minor Minion, at least until you get the Devastator.
• Energy Weapon: The eyes on the walls in one section of Lux Lirata fire these.
• Everything's Better with Rainbows: The Rainbow Wave, an item obtained in the middle of the game. It improves the boomerang.
• Excuse Plot: Snails are disappearing. Go find them. Subverted towards the end, though; the plot doesn't get very deep, but a semblance of one does form. Your mission of finding the disappearing snails is also referenced quite frequently.
• Flash of Pain: Snaily flashes when he's hurt.
• Golden Ending: Achieved by getting all 30 helix fragments. Moon Snail becomes Sun Snail again and all is well.
• The Goomba: The Blob (purple slime). This enemy just jumps sometimes.
• Goomba Stomp: Stompy seems hellbent on doing this to you.
• Gravity Screw:
  • The Gravity Shell powerup allows you to do this, by choosing the falling direction at any time.
  • The Gravity Turtles can also do this.
• Green Rocks: The helix fragments.
• Guide Dang It!: Occasionally rears its head, a prime example being the Shrine of Iris' location, which is inside another hidden area in Snail Town!
• Hailfire Peaks:
  • Mare Carelia could be either Green Hill Zone, or Underwater Level.
  • Amastrida Abyssus combines Lethal Lava Land and Underwater Level (again).
• Hammerspace: Just how is Snaily holding all those boomerangs?
• Heroic Mime: Snaily, in keeping with the 8-bit theme.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Health is replenished by green and pink grass, with pink providing a bit more than green. Snaily is also a hungry eater, eating even at full health.
• Idle Animation:
  • Snaily falls asleep in his shell.
  • It gets used by Giga-Snail as an attack.
• Item Get!: The game briefly pauses and plays a particular theme when collecting weapon and ability items.
• Invincible Minor Minion: The Jellyfish and the spikeballs. Subverted when you get the Devastator.
• Jungle Japes: Snail Town is something like this.
• Killer Rabbit: The Kitty. It looks like the harmless Snelks that randomly roam the areas, but it bounces around at a fast pace and shoots a bunch of bullets in between jumps.
• Lampshade Hanging: One of the snails in Snail Town asks "Don't you think it's weird that we all live in treehouses?"
  • Another snail in Lux Lirata quips, "Amazing work, Snaily!! Say, how'd we get into space, anyway?"
• Level-Map Display: There's both a minimap in the corner, as well a full screen map brought up by pressing one key.
• Medium Awareness: Don't be surprised to see snails reference the fact that they are in a game. Particularly notable in this quote:
  "Don't moon snails live in the ocean? Hey, this game isn't realistic!! What gives??"
  "I hope the next game has more weapons. This game could have used a flame whip!"
• Minus World: The world in question is ???, with its weird glitchy walls and strange music. It's actually the passageway to the Shrine of Iris.
• Mirror Boss: Moon Snail. Aside from changing his own gravity, he uses Devastator-style boomerangs and dark-colored waves in his first form. As Giga-Snail, he uses bigger Rainbow Waves, as well as using the Devastator-peashooter bullets. He even uses the idle animation as an attack; the Z's fly off in your general direction.
• My Name Is ???: The only thing in the game with this kind of name is ???, a hidden area which contains the Shrine of Iris.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: One snail in Snail Town manages to eat a pizza offscreen, after telling Snaily he would for nearly the entire game.
• One-Winged Angel: The Final Boss, Giga-Snail.
• Palette Swap: Many of the enemies come in different colours, often with different abilities. Lampshaded with the red Gravity Turtle, which is called Gravity Turtle (Cherry Red Finish).
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: There are several snake enemies.
• Reverse Shrapnel: The Angel (white) Blob, amongst others.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter:
  • The snails. In particular Snaily's idle animation.
  • The snelks may also qualify.
• Secret Character: Sluggy Slug (hero of Slug Mode). Unlocking this character involves unlocking Slug Mode.
• Seers: One snail in Snail Town can see the future. His words often describe what to do next.
• Shout-Out:
  • "Up, up, down, down, left, right... wait, never mind, that's for some other game."
  • The Boss Rush version of the Space Box is called "Time Cube". Both versions also turn blue when they go berserk.
  • "I hope the next game has more weapons. This game could have used a flame whip!"
  • Upon starting a new game in Slug Mode, a fake password screen appears, which is filled out by an unseen person with "JUSTIN SNAILY".
  • "It's dangerous to go alone!"
  • Snail Town has a turtle that informs you "Once this game is over, I'm going to go get some pizza!!"
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Spiralis Silere. Said world is full of blue and pink ice.
• Sound of No Damage: This is a quick metallic-like tick. It also applies to destructible blocks.
• Space Zone: Lux Lirata becomes this near the end.
• Species Surname: All the snails (Cave Snail, Moon Snail, Snaily Snail) and Sluggy Slug.
• Suspicious Video Game Generosity: Pre-boss rooms are usually full of pink grass. The snails will outright tell you when there's a boss coming up, though, so it doesn't come as much of a surprise.
• Turns Red: Every boss does this, literally (though the Space Box actually turns blue when it goes berserk).
• Unique Enemy: Two of them. One's a cat listed under Killer Rabbit above, and the other's the Devil Blob. It's called that for a good reason.
• Underwater Level: Mare Carelium is partly underwater, with no gameplay changes compared to being above water.
• Upgrade Artifact: The Devastator, which upgrades all three of your weapons.
• Walking Spoiler: Moon Snail, who went on a journey at the beginning? He's the Big Bad behind the snails disappearing. Said character carries a lot of secret information about the game's story, including a major part of the story's conflict.
• Wall Crawl: A starting ability, due to being a snail.
• You No Take Candle: "I are Cave Snail! Thorgle borgle!!!!"