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Above Snakes
May 11, 2026 at 04:17 PM
Remove outlet names from coverage paragraph and interview attribution
Above Snakes is a Western-inspired survival sandbox released on May 25, 2023 for PC via Steam. It was developed by Square Glade Games and published by Crytivo. Built around an unusual tile-based world that players assemble themselves, Above Snakes was the studio's debut title and the project that laid the foundation for its next gameOutbound. The game was primarily the work of founder Tobias "Tobi" Schnackenberg, with developer Marc Vogler joining during production and composer Tyler Zane providing the soundtrack.
Above Snakes is set in a fictional American Old West struck by a mysterious plague that turns people into the living dead. Rather than dropping the player into a procedurally generated map, the game asks players to place isometric tiles to construct the world as they go. Each tile represents a patch of terrain drawn from a library of over 100 pieces spanning multiple biomes and biome combinations. Players must balance resources between their own survival and reinvesting them into exploration by crafting new terrain to the edges of the map.
The core loop combines survival mechanics (hunger, thirst, fatigue, and state of mind), a crafting systema base building systemhunting, fishing, farming, and combat against the shambling plague victims that roam the frontier.
Above Snakes launched on Steam on May 25, 2023 (Steam app ID 1589120) on Windows, following a free demo titled Above Snakes: Prologue. The game received a "Very Positive" rating from Steam users and was covered broadly in the indie-press circuit. Reviewers highlighted the unusual tile-placement hook and the relaxed Western atmosphere, while noting that the pace was deliberately slower than many survival games in the genre.
An Original Soundtrack album by composer Tyler Zane was released alongside the game as a separate Steam product (app ID 2326940).
Above Snakes shipped first on PC via Steam, with platforms and release plans for console versions confirmed by the studio after launch. The Windows version remained the primary build throughout the game's post-launch support.
Unlike most survival games, Above Snakes does not hand the player a finished map. Instead, the world is grown outward one hexagonal-isometric tile at a time. Each new tile costs resources, so progress literally requires the player to "build" the land they want to explore. In a 2022 interview, Tobi explained that the tile-based design "started out as a compromise" driven by the constraints of a small team, but evolved into the core identity of the project.
Over the course of a run, players maintain four vital needs (hunger, thirst, sleep, and mental state), gather resources from the terrain they place, craft tools and weapons, build and decorate a home base, and fight or avoid undead enemies. The game does not include multiplayer; Above Snakes is a single-player experience, and the developers have publicly stated that Multiplayer and Co-Op were never in scope for this title.
Above Snakes began as a solo project by Tobi Schnackenberg, who founded Square Glade Games as the vehicle for the idea. Early in production the game was a very small, almost hobbyist effort, and the tile-based structure emerged as a way for one developer to produce a visually detailed world without having to hand-author a massive open map. As the project grew, Marc Vogler joined the team, and Tyler Zane came aboard as composer. The studio's development history page tracks how this small group scaled up from Above Snakes into the larger Outbound team.
During the run-up to release, Above Snakes took part in a Steam Next Fest event with a playable demo. The demo was widely shared by streamers, and popular Twitch creator CohhCarnage played it to his large audience, giving the project a significant visibility boost ahead of launch.
The Kickstarter campaign for Above Snakes launched on January 20, 2022. Tobi set an initial goal of EUR 26,000, which the project cleared inside its first ten days. By the time the campaign closed, it had raised EUR 56,173 from 1,756 backers, more than double the original goal. The overfunding unlocked stretch goals including Spirit Shrines, which was hit just two days after the base goal was reached.
The Kickstarter served both as a funding source and as an early community-building exercise for Square Glade Games, and many of the backers later followed the studio into the Outbound project.
Above Snakes was published by Crytivo, an indie games publisher with a catalog focused on simulation, survival, and building titles. Crytivo handled storefront relationships, marketing, and localization support for the game, and continues to host an Above Snakes product page, devlogs, and post-launch news on its own site. The partnership with Crytivo was Square Glade Games' first experience working with an external publisher, and it shaped how the studio approached launch logistics, press, and community management on later projects.
The soundtrack for Above Snakes was composed by Tyler Zanea freelance composer and sound designer who specializes in atmospheric music for indie games and films. Zane's score leans on acoustic guitar, sparse percussion, and ambient textures to evoke a lonely frontier mood that matches the game's slow-paced survival loop. One of the game's pre-launch trailers used a separate, more upbeat Zane track that sat apart from the main in-game music.
The Above Snakes Original Soundtrack is available as a standalone product on Steam and on streaming services. The Outbound composer has not been publicly attributed.
Outbound is not a sequel to Above Snakes, but many of its core ideas are rooted in lessons the team learned from their first project. The cozy, slower-paced survival loop, the emphasis on crafting the world around you, the light-hearted art direction, and the idea that a player's home base can be an emotional anchor all carry forward. Outbound's signature feature, a fully customizable camper van that doubles as a mobile home, can be read as the logical next step from Above Snakes' idea of a portable, player-built living space.
Several continuities tie the two games together directly. The Outbound composer has not been publicly attributed; whether the same musical identity carries over will be confirmed when in-game credits are publicly verified. The studio also carried forward its working relationship with Crytivo and the contacts it built during the Above Snakes Kickstarter, which helped when it came time to run a new campaign for Outbound. Many of the technical systems Tobi and Marc built for Above Snakes, including the art style and aesthetic pipeline and core survival framework, became the starting template for Outbound's systems. Outbound also leans into a stronger sustainability themereframing the reinvest-resources idea from Above Snakes around renewable energy, gardening, and self-sufficient living.
Above Snakes proved that a very small team could ship a polished, commercially viable survival sandbox with an unusual hook and a distinctive visual identity. It gave Square Glade Games the runway, credibility, and audience it needed to announce a bigger second project, and it demonstrated that their brand of slower, cozier survival design had a real audience. For Outbound fans, Above Snakes is worth a look as the clearest window into how the studio thinks about worlds, pacing, and player agency, and as a reminder that the team behind Outbound has already shipped a complete game once.
Above Snakes remains available on Steam and continues to receive occasional patches while the studio's main focus shifts to the May 2026 launch of Outbound.
