Snacko
Game Title: Snacko
Released: May 25, 2025
Game Length: 25+ Hours
Grade: A-
Development
History: Snacko is one of those games where learning about the developers is probably a more fascinating tale than the content itself. Amusingly at the moment of writing this, the entire website that contained all the data expired for roughly 24 hours. The team consisted of a gal who handles the art, writing, and business, a guy who handles the programming, and the cats who star as the main attractions of the game. They started demonstrations of their game back in 2018 before COVID. They shared their game at conventions, quit their job, started working on the game full time, and worked with income from their patrons in 2019. They had a kickstarter page in 2020 and worked on game assets in 2021. Early Access on Steam started in 2023 when improvements were made to almost every system. The magic system was only part of many changes made before release. The first patch a month after release included achievements (with rewards) and teleport system.
Dialogue: The one interesting thing about the developers is how they interact with players to the point where they ask for your saved file to investigate a problem. Options were added for players like zoom for someone who had motion sickness, achievements, auto-transfer system, and legacy double jump style that was originally in the game. Other accessible things are available in the main menu like a dark mode (where the UI is more black), auto-advancing dialogue, automatically swinging your tools by holding down the button, showing your stamina number instead of a kitty face, and the ability to turn off regrowth of resources. Future changes includes multiplayer and mod support beyond just sending items between players.
Quality of Life
Automation: Cozy games can have different kinds of difficulty. Snacko leans on the more easy side. In the very early portions of the game, you will learn of a number of tools that make you forget the simplest activities. You won't need to worry about eating after you start carrying around a lunchbox that automatically consumes the food you put inside it when you run out of stamina. A cardboard box allows you to sleep anywhere at any length of time by choice or automatically at midnight without becoming exhausted. You can teleport directly home at any time through a menu option or whenever you accidentally fall out of bounds or in deep water. If your inventory is full, you still collect resources and can find them in a chest by your house. You can save your game and load at any time, or the game will automatically save your progress upon the end of each day. Time is automatically paused whenever any sort of interface is up on the screen, even freezing enemies in the mine when accessing a terminal.
Quests: This might seem strange but the quest system might be a little too detached from gameplay. While the game does provide you some initial interactions with your friends, most of the quests will come in the form of guilds. As you progress in the game, guilds from the Capital City will start sending in requests from the Bulletin Board. You can obtain any packages inside the Community Center, deposit items in the chest to the left of the entrance, and then claim your rewards from the quest menu. This process is completely void of any interaction with the characters that appear on the island in text form from other characters who live far away. The quest menu shows all available quests, where to get them, and what will be available upon completing certain requirements in the form of a quest tree.
Village
Characters: One of the main reasons why the game can be finished in 25 plus hours is because there is an entire sub-system inviting people to the island outside the main questline. The few who contributed to the kickstarter were able to leave signs with random messages, design a recipe, create a painting, develop the tourists that randomly visit, name some livestock, design villagers, and one person who helped with a statue. There are a total of 32 characters. You will start with two cats meeting an older one on the island. Over the course of the game, you'll meet 6 different spirits. The game doesn't limit you to one character per vendor. In fact, there are quests where you invite each personality type available from your mailbox. Since you can only request one at a time, the entire process will take approximately one in-game month. Each character will request you to craft them a different building. Each one has a few lines of dialogue, carry out their duties at different times of day and week, receive gifts to build your friendship, and confess your love to most of them.
Vendors: While it is essential to buy resources from vendors, the price will scare you away from buying anything you can collect yourself. A grocer will probably be your first as they supply you seeds and crops. A carpenter will sell resources at a very high price. A restaurateur sells meals. Mail Clerks aren't necessary to use their services, but Date (the horse) is required to learn how to use a bow. Nobu Jr. will sell you farm animals. In addition, you can visit any carpenter - when they are physically there during open hours - to buy blueprints and expand your house.
Build Kit: Perhaps the biggest aspect of the game comes down to the ability to construct and place objects almost anywhere in the game. Each invited character will ask you to build a specific type of house. Empty houses of various types can also be crafted once you learn the blueprints from a carpenter. There are over 30 types of dye you can use on the roof and frame of any building as long as you have them available. There aren't that many objects that you can apply dye, but there are a large number of colored frames you can apply to your kart. There's about 250 total objects that cover various sets you unlock through quests (but still need to be purchased from the carpenter) that can be crafted from the resources you collect in the world.
Upgrades
Tools: What's odd is how the developer established two inventory pools. The first is your standard backpack where all your goods gather. The second is where your interactable objects will collect into a rotatable list in the corner of the screen. Half of these are not upgradeable but in itself a function like the wrapped lunchbox you can place food in that will automatically be consumed when you run out of stamina. Most will be provided to you in the very beginning of the game such as the axe, pickaxe, basic watering can, bobber rod, and hoe. Others will take a little more time such as the brush, summoning bell, and sword. With the help of a Jeweler's Table, you can slot gems you find in the world to increase a number of abilities at your finger tips. Each tool has their own specific upgrades like how the watering can will use less water or the bobber rod will increase the speed fish bite.
Gems: There are 8 different gems you can collect. While you can occasionally obtain the entire gem intact, most of the time you will want to obtain 10 shards from rocks and "craft" them whole. Citrine and Emerald are found in the introductory areas and provide the smallest buffs such as currency per hit. Lapez and Ruby are found in the desert that can add special properties such as widening your output or pushing the envelope in damage. Amethyst and Opals found among the mushrooms provide defensive and utility capabilities that modify your movement. Diamonds and Opals are in the last region with positive benefits across the board.
Kart: After you complete the Grassy Plains to open up the mines, a number of logs can be read on computer terminals for a mobile device. More logs will provide you the basics for a drill attachment and trunk space. The mining guild will then provide you with additional chips that you can craft to further modify your newfound car with cosmetic changes and a hovercraft mode. These chips do not require the early versions to be crafted. Simply take out your machine, lift the hood, and slot them into the appropriate spot. If you wish to carry some goods outside your inventory, inspecting the trunk behind the kart will provide you alternative number of slots.
Staff: Literally added with Version 1.0 patch is a staff directly handed to you early in the game even if you never crafted a sword. You can use two different spells that manipulate the field as long as you have enough mana. There's also a craftable spellbook to switch between 8 different spells. These spells can be upgraded by converting Stellar Shards into Stellar Zeal.
Mines: Also added with Version 1.0 are computer terminals scattered among the 10 floors of the mines. Accessing them will give you an option to obtain a recipe at the loom on the floor level, a random item, or a buff that only exists in the mines. After you reach the very bottom of the mines, you will be given administration access to convert these temporary buffs into points towards increasing the initial amount of buff choices permanently. These modifiers can effect the damage of your pickaxe, when rare fish spawn, fuel efficiency of your kart, or offer a form of challenge mode in the mines. While it is possible to collect one buff per floor, a large number of converted points will be required before increasing that bottom number.
Mechanics
Stamina: The game does give you a certain amount of stamina but does something unusual when it comes to using your tools. How much stamina you consume depends on how long you hold down that button before each strike. A blue bar will appear where you can choose to wait just a hair longer to lift up your finger to save some stamina. There is no penalty for holding it longer than the limit. Stamina can be replenished by eating food or gem upgrades.
Interactions: Although you can access your game tips through the main menu, any sort of reading material in the world will do the same. A pinball machine is available from the grocer where you will receive one item from a free play or better items after using 200 cocoa beans. Hitting the colored bumpers will change what you will get once the ball falls all the way through. You can turn on and off lamps. There is fishing and taking care of animals. A large statue where the villagers will gather for events will provide you a random effect like more money or stamina. It takes Celestial Blessings in exchange for better benefits.
Cooking: The game doesn't automate what ingredients get placed onto the stove for a meal. You must access the cookbook tab in the main menu to learn whatever recipes you might have obtained. Lift up an ingredient from your inventory and place it onto the stove. Then either cook whatever ingredients are displayed or retrieve them. Upon cooking, a meal is received even if it is a dubious one not in the list. You then can repeat the process if you wish to make a large number of them.
Crafting: There are two very distinct ways to make items. The first and more known way is by accessing the crafting table. This enables to combine shards, build chips, and construct objects. The second is by accessing your build kit tool. You can manually craft objects to your inventory or automatically use what you need when placing the object in the world. Note that non-tangible objects cannot be made from the build kit.
Mines
Loom: In the entrance before you dive into the mines is a giant machine. This is the method you will use in breaking down the literal blocks of resources you find down below. In order to use it, recipes need to be obtained from any computer terminals you discover on the floors. The process is not immediate. Each block takes a split second to break down and generally gives you currency, resources, or rare product. These include dirt for fertilizer, sand for glass, stone for ore, geodes for gems, or crystals. There is an option to overclock to make the process faster, but the cost of using resources outweigh the results. Not all processes are beneficial compared to their crafting counterparts.
Enemies: The only foes you encounter in the game will be down in the mines. Other than bats that fly around, most will be of the slime variety - yellow attack, green heal, red shoot fireballs, and blue cast magic. Once their health gets low, they will divide into smaller versions. They do not respawn unless you reset the whole mine. As of this writing, a peaceful mode is being made.
Regions
Resources: Each region gets more difficult to break down as resources require more damage from your tools. Unless you upgrade your tools with gems, they cannot penetrate things like rocks and trees. How quickly the trees burn things in your furnace will depend on where you gathered the logs. There is no coal like in other games to use as fuel. Each region has their own exclusive resources for special material like mushrooms for fertilizer or bamboo for sprinklers. Whether you get earth, fire, air, or water fragments depends on the region too. Most objects from a region can be broken down to their elemental type but aren't always exclusively tied to a single fragment. Each region is permanently a season. You can grow crops outside the current season by placing them down in the designated area in each region.
Obelisk: Before you can fully explore a region, the miasma that blocks you must be cleared. Converse with the local spirit guardian to reveal the hidden area. An offering must be made inside with the region's fragments, myst crystals, and a few other progressional items. These give you a choice such as 50 bones or a guppy or basic ramen depending on what style of gameplay you prefer. You will occasionally need to complete small obstacle courses inside shrines. There are five available on release with another one with a "coming in a future update" notice as a teaser.
Summary
Review: There is quite a bit of love put into this game. The developers were clearly trying to assemble a unique game where the most creative and constructive players could build a town in an open space. As of right now, they are moving quickly to expand its features to accommodate their growing playerbase. Unfortunately, there are parts of the game where you can still sense its rough edges. A lot of features aren't properly explained through the quests or tip system. Because there are so many characters, there isn't a lot to explore beyond what's available in the main questline. Snacko might not be one of the best games to recommend, but there's certainly some charm for those who like making their own stories.