Now ten years old, Snakes on a Plane was raised to be a cult classic, but history didn’t quite turn out that way. It was an otherwise run-of-the-mill, SyFy-channel-esque film with a wild premise—it’s right in the name. It starred a foul-mouthed Samuel L. Jackson. Its soundtrack made waves through online fan communities (at least the ones I dwelled), since it hosted a cacophony of mid-2000s pop-rock bands from the Pete Wentz-helmed label Decaydence Records (at the time an imprint of Fueled By Ramen). Unfortunately though, Snakes on a Plane was ultimately forgettable beyond a few pop culture callbacks over the years. And this new VR Austin 2016 Game Jam-born experiment lies just among those references, reminding the world once more of the long-forgotten movie.
the virtual plane of existence
Luckily, Snakes on an Extradimensional Plane is actually nothing like the film it draws its own title’s inspiration from. The plane in this game isn’t one high in the sky, infiltrated by snakes. It’s in cyberspace, plagued by neon cybersnakes. Or, the virtual plane of existence. In Snakes on an Extradimensional Plane, the player directs jetpack-enabled mice from escaping angry, fuchsia-hued cybersnakes.
Evading eventual consumption isn’t easy though. The cybersnakes constantly twist and turn, always hot on the mouse’s (literal) tail. The longer the player outlasts constricting death, the higher their score grows. But as the score climbs higher, as does the speed of the cybersnakes. Though, in terms of fairness, there are power-ups the player can retrieve to slow their enemies’ pace once more.
Despite not being the actual extradimensional Snakes on a Plane that maybe its title jokingly alludes to, Snakes on an Extradimensional Plane is still a worthwhile arcade romp for virtual reality. The game was created at the VR Austin 2016 Game Jam over the weekend of November 12th to 13th by developers Fox Buchele, Timothy Johnson, and Andreas Jörgensen.
You can download Snakes on an Extradimensional Plane for free here, playable with any SteamVR compatible headset. Also take a trip down memory lane, and “kiss me goodbyyyyyyyye.”
