Snail Story: Love Edition is an upcoming visual novel developed by Squish Potato that let’s players date human/snail hybrids (yes you read that right snail people). Follow our heroine, Ms. Escargot, a snail person living in Shelltown as she embarks on a journey of self-discovery as she learns what it truly means to be a snail, and maybe find love along the way.

Game Details

• Fantasy | Supernatural | Dating-Sim
• Demo Length: 30 minutes – 1 hour
• Where to Play: itch.io | Steam
• Support the Kickstarter

Story

What if a snail can’t accept herself for who she is?  Ms. Escargot believes that she will be happier joining the humans, and so she enrolls for a prestigious human university. She gets accepted, which gives her more reason to leave Shelltown. Her quest to break out of her shell begins. 

Unfortunately, things don’t pan out as smoothly as she thought they would. She meets many potential love interests as she learns more about herself and her past. Mysteries are unraveled, and they make her question what it truly means to be a snail person. 

Is Shelltown really as peaceful as it seems? 

Who will Ms. Escargot fall in love with?

And will she get to touch the snailor’s barnacles?

 Your choices will determine what answers are discovered and if our main character gets the happy ending she deserves. 

Characters

The Heroine

Romanceable Characters

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Snail People Need Love Too… Yeah…

I don’t think I have words for how insanely entertaining Snail Story: Love Edition is, but I’ll try to string a few together. I’ve played games where you date pigeons, a t-rex, human faced horses, and now snails and my life has been made all the better for it! In the game you play as Ms. Escargot (name changeable), a young snail woman who has recently graduated from high school and is about to embark on the next phase of her life. However, unlike her fellow snail people, she hates being a snail and wants nothing more than to leave her hometown of Shelltown for greener pastures in the Human world(?). She gets her chance when she is accepted into the prestigious Human university, Marvard. There’s just one hitch Ms. Escargot needs to save up enough money to get leg transplantation surgery, so she can finally shed her shell for good and live her best life as a human.

But, before she can start her new life, Ms. Escargot finds herself embroiled in a string of mysterious disappearances plaguing her idyllic hometown. All is not as it seems in Shelltown, what secrets lurk in the shadows? As she delves into the mysteries of the town, Ms. Escargot meets a series of attractive suitors who cause her heart to waver–the current build lets you date the Spanish speaking himbo snailor, Jefe and the snail justice abiding detective, Bobby. And I never thought I’d say this, but, these snail people are hot af (Jefe even has snail abs…snabs and I just… wow). Hunky snailors aside, my heart belongs to the gorgeous detective, he’s sweet and funny and just the snail next door to make my heart go doki doki, also his “snail justice” mantra is frickin hilarious. Jefe on the other hand is all brawn and isn’t one for intellectual conversation and I had some issues with him; he’s a Spanish speaking dock worker who can’t read and the implications of that had me squirming during my interactions with him. The devs have confirmed that there is more going on with the character, even hinting that he may not be what he seems, but, as it stands the jury’s still out on Jefe.

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There are a couple of other side characters that make an appearance in the demo, there’s Clarice Crawler, the classic mean girl who has made it her mission to stop out Ms. Escargots happiness and her father, Dr. Schneil, the “benevolent” leader of the town. There are plans to give Clarice a route in the final release and there are a few choices in the demo that seem geared towards building a relationship with her. But, given how nasty she is to Ms. Escargot, I spent most of my playthrough wanting to yeet her into the ocean.

Aesthetically, Snail Story is a really well made game! It takes skill to make the horror that is snail people look attractive and damnit they did it. The character designs are gorgeous (and lowkey horrifying), from the torso up the characters have human features, everything else is all snail–shell and all. The sprites have neat animations and they’re so expressive too, when Bobby smirked I swooned. I love that each design is distinctive to each character–Jefe is a sailor, so his shell has barnacles on it, while Bobby’s shell is smooth and positioned upright (for speed?) and don’t get me started on the feelers. They even secrete slime… mucus…??? and there are snail nipples…snipples?! The loading screen displays fun snail people facts, most of which are punny as hell, but there was one about snail people being able to change their sex at will that raised some questions. After wracking my brain over the logistics of snail anatomy, I kind of just had to stop and just accept the fact that I found snail people attractive and even considered the prospect of snail sex intriguing…don’t judge me.

There are the usual in game choices to guide your playthrough and when combined with the snail puns and jokes, it’s clear the game doesn’t take itself too seriously (snerd being my favorite). Snail Story is just self aware enough to be fun, there’s a parody-esque vibe to the writing that isn’t afraid to poke fun at itself while also going all in with the story, even if it’s honestly ridiculous. I have to give it to the devs for owning the hilarity of it all–the snail people own little snails called snaillies as pets, that you can collect throughout the game.

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Overall, I had a lot of fun with Snail Story: Love Edition, I first played it for the lolz but as delved deeper into the story I found myself more and more intrigued by this strange snail world. There was clearly a lot of work put into building out this world and the characters, Snail Story is a labor of love and I can’t wait to see what happens next! The version of the demo I played was a special version with partial voice acting and the performances were amazing (Mylo Reid made Bobby for me) and now I really need to know who they get for Jefe. I need more sneeple! So, if you have been on the fence about a snail dating sim, slide on over and give the demo for Snail Story: Love Edition a play, you won’t regret it (and support the Kickstarter)!

Find Squish Potato

• Support the Kickstarter
• Official Website: snailstoryloveedition.com
• Twitter: @SnailStoryVN
• Instagram: @snailstoryvn
• Steam: Wishlist on Steam
• Discord: Discord Invite

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