- Pace82 · frantic
- The vine never stops: a drop, a sunbeam or a light to swallow every second or two, a shoot that speeds up from stage to stage, and no pause except the zooms.
- Difficulty69 · rather merciless
- Three buds per half-stage: every hit (your own young shoot, a flytrap, a mower, a car, the searchlight, fire, the cyclone, a flare) costs one, except the very first time a danger touches you. Lose them all and the shoot withers and grows back from the last knot, about forty seconds earlier.
- Tone70.9 · rather unsettling
- It starts in the warmth of a greenhouse, then you become the weed: mowers hunt the shoot, windows go dark under the leaves, the continent turns green in the night, and in the end the flower drinks the Sun.
- Story6 · silent
- Not a word of story: a title, a drawn hand for the first touch, a few words when a danger first appears or when the shoot withers. Everything is read in what the vine covers.
- Scale81.5 · cosmic
- From the opening you dive from space down to a pot in a greenhouse; then every stage pulls back at once, four times further: the greenhouse, the garden, the city, the continent, all the way to the Sun.
- Form20.5 · rather familiar
- The Snake everyone knows, in curves: lead the head, eat to grow, never cross your own shoot. Nothing else to learn.
- Look95 · lush
- A jungle that keeps thickening: hundreds of leaves unfurling, a flower at every drop, gold dust in the light shafts, then cities, clouds, flames and the Sun's corona. Toned down on old phones.
The theme
In a tropical greenhouse, on a golden afternoon, a vine sprouts in a pot. You lead it, it drinks, it grows, and the glass can't hold it: the greenhouse, then the botanical garden at sunset, the city at night, the continent at dawn, and at last outer space, all the way to the Sun. At every stage the picture pulls back at once, and everything you've covered becomes a detail of the next world. At the end, its flower opens on the Sun and drinks it, and a seed drifts off towards another star.
The mechanics
Snake, in curves: the vine's tip never stops moving and follows your finger, the mouse or the arrow keys. Every drop, sunbeam or light it swallows makes it longer and opens a flower; when the gauge is full, an exit opens at the edge of the world. The young shoot, the bright part, must never cross itself; the old wood can be crossed. Each stage adds its own danger, shown once without risk: biting flytraps, mowers, cars and then a searchlight, wildfires and then a cyclone, solar flares. Three buds per half-stage; lose the last one and the shoot withers and grows back from the last knot.
Palette
A tropical greenhouse at golden hour: terracotta tiles #9a5a3c, honey light #ffd27a, water-glass #cfeee6, iron #22302a, deep foliage #1f5a3a. The vine: a chartreuse young shoot #c8ff4a to #5ff08c, old wood #2a5a2f, heliconia #ff5a2c, passionflower #8a5cff and frangipani #ffe7a8 flowers, cyan drops #7fe7ff. Then a pink and orange sunset, an indigo city #1b1d33 with sodium windows #ffc35a, the ocean #0b2a4a and the line of dawn, space #03040b and the Sun's corona #fff1c2 and #ff9a3c. Danger in coral #ff4f3a. Fraunces italic. Lush, warm, more and more voracious.
