It’s the year 50,000. You’ve got ten days left to live, a farm to run, and a bizarre business plan that involves buying snakes, beating them to death with gardening equipment, then selling their oil and teeth to fund an even bigger snake problem. Forget growing vegetables or raising chickens. There’s serious money to be made in the snake business, provided you survive long enough to spend it.
Welcome to SNAKE FARM, a gloriously absurd action roguelike from solo developer HEATHER FLOWERS that takes the escalating chaos of Vampire Survivors and throws in a healthy dose of greed, questionable agricultural practices, and gardening tools that were never designed for this sort of punishment.
Released in September 2023, this strange little indie has earned a Very Positive rating on Steam, with 94% positive feedback from approximately 390 user reviews. That’s a pretty enthusiastic reception for a game about making terrible financial decisions in the world’s most dangerous vegetable patch.
Buy Low, Sell High, Die Horribly
Most farmers would consider a field full of angry snakes a serious problem, but not in SNAKE FARM. You begin by purchasing snakes, watching them burst out of the ground, then fighting them for their valuable remains. Sell the oil and teeth you’ve collected, invest your earnings in stronger snakes and better equipment, then repeat the process until you’re either fabulously wealthy or very, very dead.
Rather than waiting for the game to decide when another wave of enemies should appear, you’re the one buying the creatures that will eventually try to kill you. A modest investment may keep things manageable, but bigger, nastier snakes promise better rewards. The temptation to spend everything on an enormous batch of dangerous reptiles is always waiting. It’s capitalism with fangs, and your accountant probably isn’t going to approve.
Gardening Tools Have Never Been So Violent
Your agricultural arsenal is another reason SNAKE FARM deserves a closer look. There are 40 upgradable pieces of equipment to experiment with, transforming ordinary farming tools into surprisingly effective instruments of reptilian destruction.
Fancy taking down snakes with carefully aimed pitchfork headshots? That’s an option. Prefer setting your own oil supply on fire and watching the resulting explosions tear through the field? You can do that, too. There’s even a high-powered hose capable of freezing enemies, along with deadly throwing trowels and tractors that seem to have developed a serious attitude problem.
The variety gives you plenty of room to experiment with different builds. You could focus on dealing heavy damage to individual targets or develop something capable of clearing enormous groups of snakes before they surround you.
Finding combinations that work together becomes increasingly important as your farm fills with creatures you’ve personally paid to make your life miserable. It’s difficult to feel sorry for a farmer being overwhelmed by snakes when they’re the one who ordered them.
Ten Days to Make Your Fortune
There’s another small complication with your agricultural ambitions: you’re dying. You’ve got ten days to live, giving every run a fixed window in which to build your fortune, improve your equipment, and chase the highest score possible. That ticking deadline gives you another incentive to push your luck. Playing cautiously may keep you alive, but it won’t necessarily earn the sort of score that gets you climbing the leaderboards.
The game also features four themed modes, offering different ways to approach its strange mixture of farming, combat, and financial self-destruction. With so many equipment combinations available, there’s plenty of opportunity to discover new strategies and see just how far you can push your increasingly ridiculous snake empire.
Death means starting over, but each attempt teaches you a little more about which purchases are worth the risk and which ones are likely to leave you buried beneath several tons of angry reptiles.
A Snake Oil Business Worth Investing In
SNAKE FARM has been available since September 5, 2023, yet its relatively modest Steam review count suggests plenty of roguelite fans still haven’t discovered this bizarre little experiment. With 94% positive feedback across roughly 390 reviews at the time of writing, it’s clearly found an audience that appreciates its unusual take on the survivors-like formula.
The appeal comes from having direct control over your own impending disaster. Every additional snake represents another opportunity to earn money, improve your equipment, and climb the leaderboard. It also brings you one purchase closer to being overwhelmed by the very creatures you’re supposed to be farming.
There are 30 Steam achievements to chase, too, for anyone determined to squeeze every last drop of entertainment out of their ten remaining days. Your only lasting legacy might be a high score, but at least you’ll have spent your final days building a thriving agricultural business.