Sumo Digital shares a cut idea from Snake Pass

A portion of a Nintendo UK interview with Sumo Digital...

NUK: How has the game design changed from that original demo to now?

SD: When I presented the initial idea we were planning to make Noodle grow as you collect things, but as we started experimenting we realised that the length that he is now is the optimum length. It’s currently 35 spheres long and we’ve experimented with everything between one sphere, which is basically a head and a tail, up to maybe 70 spheres just to find when the climbing feels the best. We realised that as soon as you’re much shorter you can’t climb anymore, so we almost had to build a separate game for when you’re short, when you can’t climb. We didn’t have the time and the budget, initially, to realize that in a good way so it would not have felt good enough to really include. And the same thing applies when you make him longer; even five spheres more, the element of gravity pulling your tail becomes more and more present so it just becomes a nuisance, this long thing you’re constantly dragging around with you. We ended up landing on the optimum value of 35 segments. We maybe could have played it between 25 and 35, but in the game that would have only been a short amount, so it wouldn’t justify adding a wrong mechanic to the game.