Hebi Hebi
A downloadable puzzle game for Windows and macOS
"Mean Bean Machine" meets "Snake" in a mind-bending puzzle game!
A solo dev project by Taylor Ritenour @superoven
How to Play:
The GIFs can explain it far better than I can with words. But I'll try:
Navigate your snake to leave the ground and break into individual blocks. Align at least four of the same color together in a group to pop them. Try to arrange chains of these groups so that when one pops, it causes another to form!
Controls:
Arrow keys or WASD to Move
Z to Undo
X to navigate back through menus
ESC, Q or P to Pause
Features:
- 70 levels! (and counting)
- Endless Arcade Mode. Assemble large chains with random snakes!
About the name:
"Hebi" (蛇「へび」) is "snake" in Japanese. It's doubled up in a similar fashion to "Puyo Puyo" ("Dr. Robotnix's Mean Bean Machine" was a western version of Puyo Puyo). The icon for the game is one of the snakes arranged like the hiragana character 「へ」.
This game is in active development and open to feedback!
Any levels have you stumped? Any seem too redundant? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter!
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- v0.2.1: New Level Type and "Challenge Mode" Preview!Feb 05, 2021
- v0.2.0: "Confirm Drop" option, Level balance and moreJan 02, 2021
- v0.1.1: Patch Arcade UIDec 18, 2020
- v0.1.0: Arcade Mode Rework and Level Shuffling!Dec 16, 2020
- v0.0.4: More user-friendly undos!Dec 05, 2020
- v0.0.3 - Minor FixesNov 26, 2020
- v0.0.2 - Bug fixesNov 20, 2020
Comments
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I was recommended this game once, played it, couldn't screenshare it so I stopped, forgot about it, found it again today, and couldn't stop playing.
After all this time, I can conclude that this game is very good and something I'd recommend to any enjoyers of Snakebird or Puyo Puyo.
Thank you! I'm glad people are still finding and enjoying the game!
This game is going to steal hours from me, it's awesome! I've been a fan of tetris/puyo puyo-type puzzle games for awhile and man this scratches that itch so good.
I also really appreciate the sound design. I think the kinda spaced out techno style is perfect. Specifically, the music is really good at getting you to focus and think out your moves.
Thank you! Yeah, I wanted to emphasize that this game is turn-based unlike tetris or puyo puyo. It lets the player take the time to understand all the possibilities without being under the pressure of a time limit
Absolutely genius game!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed!
this is really a good game, like it a lot
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
That's awesome! I'll have to whip out Google Translate to read it!
We just discussed your game on our podcast! Come check us out!
Episode 34: Works in Progress
http://scrachingtheitch.libsyn.com/
Very cool! I'll check it out when I get a chance!
Cool discussion, I liked the comparisons you made to Pokemon Puzzle League, that was definitely one of the inspirations for this game, and I revisited it as part of developing this!
It is awfully challenging to describe this game with words, as I'm sure you noticed while trying to break it down in a podcast format lol.
For more information on the direction this game is headed, I've written a good amount about it in the development logs thus far.
puyo puo
I gave the game a try to level 10,
Very good and creative. I think this is the 1st legit game I played made in this engine and its a good one
Thanks for playing! Yeah, Godot is a very solid game engine nowadays. Looks like the tutorial levels were going quite smoothly.
You're welcome and I tried it before but I should look into it again,
I tend to use Fusion and RPGmaker MV the most,
I do rarely use Contruct2 and GameStudio to test and try things out
lv 47 is very difficult
This one is tricky for sure. The key is to carefully consider the order you want the colors to break in. The second snake heavily limits what options are available.
i already beat it with the random mashing techique
lol okay. That's good
This is too cool, im streaming this rn
Link
That's awesome! Glad you are enjoying!
This is a fantastic puzzle game. You can tell that a lot of effort went into the puzzles. Kudos to the dev.
Thank you so much!
this game looks so fun! I’ll try it out later today! Love the music in your trailer
Awesome! Hope you enjoy! The music is by Eric Matyas: https://soundimage.org/
This is a fun game. Thanks for making it :)
Thanks for playing!
Also I was playing and wondering if you had any plans for adding more levels or modes to the game. I was thinking you could add new objectives like maybe one where there was a bomb at the top of the level and you had to navigate it to the ground or one where you had to break specific blocks in order to win or something like that.
Anyway thanks for sharing this game with us.
Hm, those might be interesting, I may toy around with ideas like that. Yes, I plan to expand the game and objectives, but primarily towards the arcade mode. I am currently focusing on how I can get players onboarded to be able to enjoy it as that mode can be quite daunting.
I agree that mode is hard to get the hang of. YOu have to think very hard about what moves to make next.
Yeah, exactly, I see it as a "chess-like" experience where the player needs to very carefully think through the ramifications of their moves to succeed.
Thank you!
No, thank you!
i wanna say lot of things
but my question is how this idea first came in your mind
thats mind blowing
very cool game.
Haha that's a great question! I think I will write a devlog on that in detail at some point, but I can give a quick sparknotes beyond my description above (which basically summarizes that, it took a lot of iteration, brainstorming and pivoting to come up with what you see now).
At the very beginning, I was inspired by this video from Game Maker's Toolkit:
I saw Snakebird and was like "I love it, I wanna make that". After like 7 months of development, I was disappointed that the game could simply be completed and there's no remaining replay value. Around that time, I saw this video: Which talks about the concept of making a "home" within a game. The idea is that there should be something to do in the game that isn't the strict progression of the main quest. I thought about how endless puzzle games like Tetris and Puyo Puyo have this. So, I tried to blend them together with my game somehow. I failed to make Tetris interesting, but Puyo Puyo's mechanics were deeply compelling, so I rolled with it!tldr;
It's hard, and I tried a lot of things and took lots of different forms of inspiration until I found something that works.
Sorry if this is posted twice somewhere (I thought my review would appear here):
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What a fun and challenging game! Thanks for sharing it!
Of course, the foundation of a good puzzle game is a solid core mechanic, but I also feel like the overall presentation is just as important: I need encouraging audio and visual feedback to keep me interested in tackling each puzzle. And this game has it all!
The core gameplay was definitely a challenge for me; it took me a little while to wrap my head around how to best position the snake (especially the requirement to bring the snake off the ground to place the blocks), but the smooth visuals, the encouraging sounds, and the branching levels kept me motivated!
Even though I'm terrible at it, I especially like the "Arcade" mode. Excited to play more!
Thank you so much for taking the time to play it and let me know how it was!
Yeah, the beginning levels have been refined quite a bit to make sure that players can get the hang of what's happening since it's all rather foreign. I'm glad you were able to get a good way into the game!
Very glad you think the sound and visuals are sufficiently well constructed lol, that's probably the hardest part for me to get right, I was experimenting a bunch with shaders for this game.
Yeah, the arcade mode is definitely for players after they have more or less gotten the hang of the game. I see the arcade mode as the "real game" in a sense and that the campaign is like a giant tutorial for it. It takes a bit of time to get used to, but its really satisfying when you get to the point that you can consistently improvise your chains.