qrth-phyl

If your only criteria when judging a game is based on something as narrow as "oh, well there's better games now so skip it" then you are doing a disservice to the history of games development as a whole, but mostly a disservice to yourself since [b]you are bound to miss out on all of the thought-provoking classics that shaped the way for what we have now.[/b] For those of us who are truly fascinated by theories in game mechanics, games like [i]qrth-phyl[/i] are an absolute joy to play and revisit as well as [b]imperative to the learning process in understanding how gaming has arrived at the point that it currently is.[/b] [b]There isn't a single modern take on Snake as fleshed out or as interesting as qrth-phyl[/b], there may be more modern options like [i]Ms. Snake[/i] (which is a much messier 3D take on Snake) but they pale in comparison when you consider the time periods they were created in and the constraints developers had. For something made in 2012 before the big indie boom, [...

[b]The issue I take with [i]qrth-phyl[/i] is that the description written on the store page is misleading.[/b] Secondarily, I also think the core gameplay is a bit subpar considering the plethora of awesome arcade scorechasers out there. The game is self-described as a [i]'Arcade documentary of maze/dot/snake mechanic...'[/i]. I specifically interpret the use of the word 'documentary' in this context to sort of walk me through a vague history of [i]Snake[/i]-like games or the evolution of [i]Snake[/i]-like games (through playing using various versions and mechanics). I assumed levels would range from the most basic 2D pixels-as-big-as-cinderblocks to the whole 3D scene. I think this would have been super cool to experience. This is definitely not what I got. What I got was two specific [i]Snake[/i] variants. We have the hybrid 2D with multiple planes, and the purely 3D [i]Snake[/i]. To be fair, I don't find either one all that compelling on it's own, or when paired. It feels a bit ...

qrth-phyl is the rerelease of an Xbox Live Indie Arcade title originally released in 2012. qrth-phyl includes a variety of low fidelity, abstract effects including glitchy / chiptune-y music, pixelated particle effects in droves, lasers that cut across the entirety of the level and various other brightly-colored obstacles you have to quickly evade in order to continue chowing down on the PacMan esque pellets. If you've played any variant of the "Snake" games at some point you will know what qrth-phyl's general gameplay mechanic is: eating pellets, growing longer (oh myyyy), and dodging walls. qrth-phyl's perplexing (and frankly a bit asinine) claim of being an "arcade documentary" in is description is a bit overstated. While qrth-phyl is heavily influenced by games of yesteryear (the most obvious among these being the "Snake" games found on various handheld devices) its claim of being a documentary seems a bit generous as it includes no video footage nor much exposition on anything f...

Unique atmosphere and gameplay, Highly recommended.

I absolutely love this game. The aesthetics are working great for the retro-arcade style. The controls are responsive and the game is challenging. Also the hidden sequence adds yet another dimension to the game (pun not intended). I got this game years ago on IndieGameStand. That store doesn't operate anymore and I had the only .exe file I managed to download before they went out of business. And here we are, qrth-phyl finally safely in my steam library. I'm looking forward for future updates. Maybe VR support could be nice?

One of the gems of the old Xbox Live Indie Games program that has been resurrected on a modern platform. We already know it's good. Now it's just better. Thumbs up!

I'm usually not much of a fan of these proc-gen score chasing games, but qrth-phyl is something special. At its heart it's "just" a snake game with some neat 3D elements. What makes it stand out is the aesthetic. The music has an IDM-ish chip tune appeal, and the graphics do a great job of feeling like what we imagined games to be in our heads back in the vector graphics days. If you're a child of the 80s it should all make perfect sense. Looks aside, it's a fine game too. Dying doesn't come across as cheap, and it doesn't feel as frustrating. Definitely a fun game to fill some spare minutes here and there.

Fantastic action arcade game. To say it's 3d snake is to undersell. Sometimes something so simple is bigger than the sum of its parts.

qrth-phyl falls in the class of games like Lumines or Space Invaders Extreme that offer simple, familiar mechanics, carefully tuned and immaculately presented. It's a love letter to snake-like arcade games, with easter-egg tributes to the genre's innovators. You alternate between snaking around the outside of rectangles or rectangular prisms and free-movement 3D snaking inside those prisms. The idea of 3D snake worried me initially, seeming like a potential camera disaster, but the implementation is rock solid and I haven't had a death that didn't feel like my fault. Playing well increases "corruption," which increases the difficulty of the proc-gen levels but offers more dots and a higher chance of encountering the treasured blue dots, which turn your tail into dots for you to consume like Pac-Man CE:DX's satisfying ghost trains. The dynamic difficulty system persists between runs, and it feels like one of the best such systems I've encountered, quickly dialing in a consistently engag...

An interesting approach to the old snake in 3D perspective. Game for 2-3 hours if you want to have fun remembering the old snake and try it out in a new design. And if you want to get all the achievements or break someone's records, then it's 6-10 hours.