At least that's what I remember it being called on my old PC. I'm sure there's plenty of modern variations of it but the old one is the only one I've ever played, and I really enjoyed it.
The concept is pretty simple. Using direction keys (up, down, left, right) you control an ever-moving snake around the playing field to eat apples. When he eats enough apples the 'golden apple' appears and, eating that, the doorway to the next 'room' is opened, and when you go through it you make it to the next level.
The difficulty is that the more apples he eats, the longer he gets, and if he runs into himself (or an obstacle) it's game over. With each new room the playing field grows more challenging as well. What started as just one or two walls to be avoided becomes a full-fledged maze.
Now, my idea for turning this into a Flight Rising appropriate game would be to bring in the dragons' hoarding habits. The player would guide their dragon through the field, avoiding obstacles and gathering treasures that are lying on the field, waiting for the 'key' to appear and unlock the passage to the next area. Each area would be more difficult than the next, and the payoff would improve with each difficulty increase, kind of like with Runestones.
My idea for the treasure payoff is to make the treasure and items that the player picks up the actual reward for the game.
The only thing is there'd have to be a set limit to what each level can give or there's nothing stopping a person from just staying in the first level endlessly gathering treasure. A time limit would prevent this, I think.
There could be a set amount of treasure given for each level (the amount needed to make the key appear), with treasures of higher value appearing after the key drops, tempting the player to try to gather those before time runs out. Maybe there could be rare item drops as well? And the treasure and items would only be added to the player's hoard after making it through that level.
Thoughts?
The concept is pretty simple. Using direction keys (up, down, left, right) you control an ever-moving snake around the playing field to eat apples. When he eats enough apples the 'golden apple' appears and, eating that, the doorway to the next 'room' is opened, and when you go through it you make it to the next level.
The difficulty is that the more apples he eats, the longer he gets, and if he runs into himself (or an obstacle) it's game over. With each new room the playing field grows more challenging as well. What started as just one or two walls to be avoided becomes a full-fledged maze.
Now, my idea for turning this into a Flight Rising appropriate game would be to bring in the dragons' hoarding habits. The player would guide their dragon through the field, avoiding obstacles and gathering treasures that are lying on the field, waiting for the 'key' to appear and unlock the passage to the next area. Each area would be more difficult than the next, and the payoff would improve with each difficulty increase, kind of like with Runestones.
My idea for the treasure payoff is to make the treasure and items that the player picks up the actual reward for the game.
The only thing is there'd have to be a set limit to what each level can give or there's nothing stopping a person from just staying in the first level endlessly gathering treasure. A time limit would prevent this, I think.
There could be a set amount of treasure given for each level (the amount needed to make the key appear), with treasures of higher value appearing after the key drops, tempting the player to try to gather those before time runs out. Maybe there could be rare item drops as well? And the treasure and items would only be added to the player's hoard after making it through that level.
Thoughts?