While there’s a lot of games out there, there’s not a lot that lets you play as a snail. If there is one, we doubt it lets you fire guns and take names. Well, that’s exactly what’s going down with Weird Beluga Studio’s Clid the Snail, which is a top-down, action game that lets you kick ass, and take shells! MP1st has been fortunate enough to have had the chance to talk to the studio about why they chose a snail, the chances of the game appearing on other platforms outside of those announced and more!

Talking to the site are Gameplay Design/Narrative Ricardo Chorques Mesa, and Darío Diéguez, programmer, and Sound Designer for Clid the Snail.

MP1st: Why a Snail? 

Diéguez: The idea for Clid the Snail was born in a game jam. The theme was”what home means for you?” So we came up with this metaphor that we are gonna choose a protagonist that always carries his home with himself, like a snail does. So it doesn’t matter if he’s expelled from his home, as long as he has his home with himself. Home is where you think you belong, where you feel you belong.

Chorques Mesa: We really liked the idea of the character, and everyone thought he was fun. Who doesn’t like to play in a gun world with a badass snail?

MP1st: How many weapons are in Clid the Snail?

Chorques Mesa: There are eight weapons, four shells, and three types of grenades.

MP1st: What’s the general tone of the story for Clid the Snail? Should players expect something dramatic, or does it lean more into a comedic role?

Diéguez: Our main focus is actually pretty serious, it’s just that Clid’s personality and also his relationship with his companion bellu, it’s this kind of funny relation. The main tone of the game is serious, but the main theme I would say is family and friends.

MP1st: So for a bit of comparison, looking at the Ratchet & Clank series, it’s pretty serious in it’s story, but it’s filled with a lot of character banter and such, would you say it’s a bit like that?

Diéguez: Yes.

MP1st: Any notable road bumps the studio had during development

Diéguez: We had a couple, the most difficult thing was to realize that we didn’t have enough pre-production for the game, but once we sorted it out it all went pretty smoothly. We spent a lot of time designing the characters and then the weapons, and we did more than a couple of iterations on the weapon, but it all came out pretty good. We feel we’ve created a set of weapons’ that are really cool and unique.

MP1st: If you could give us an estimate, how long of a playthrough should players expect for Clid the Snail?

Diéguez: Usually it’s 8-10 hours, but more or less it will depend on how familiar you are with the controls scheme of the game and how easily you can adapt to move with one stick and aim with the other if you play with a gamepad.

MP1st: Is there a possibility that we will see Clid the Snail released on either the Nintendo Switch or Xbox consoles?

Diéguez: There’s no plans for it, but we are obviously open to doing it. It is just a matter of how the game goes when it first releases on PS4 and PC.

MP1st: Will Clid the Snail offer different difficulty modes? What about puzzles, will there be hints for players who may find them to be difficult?

Diéguez: There’s only one difficulty level for all the players. As for hints, yeah sometimes, but it depends on the exact puzzle and usually they aren’t super complicated. They’re more of a pace changer, a moment to let the players breathe.

MP1st: Will Clid the Snail run at 60fps on PS4 or PS5 (via backwards compatibility)?

Diéguez: On PS5 the game like flies, it’s incredible. But on PS4 we tried to be as close as possible to 60fps, and I’d say we’ve managed to stabilize the play at more than 45FPS for most of the game. It never goes below 30fps, that’s for sure.

 The rest of the questions are from the group Q&A

Q: Are there any extra game modes apart from the main campaign?

Chorques Mesa: Not now. The extra parts that we have right now is that we have gallery mode and cassette mode. In the cassette mode you can enjoy the whole soundtrack of the game, which was made by one of the team. You can play every song that you will unlock as you progress through the story. The same thing goes for the gallery, you’re going to be able to see in the gallery, 3D models, turn them around and see them up close. And then you also have a lot of lore. For example, if you view a 3D model of a certain slug you’re going to find out what Clid thinks about the slug, what’s maybe the best strategies to kill it.

That’s with a lot of the enemies, all of the characters, some objects even. More or less, I don’t know if you’ve seen the gallery from The Last of Us Part 2 where you can see Ellie or Joel models, or even the Clickers and just read about them.

Q: Are levels hand crafted or does the game use procedural gen tech?

Diéguez: No, all the levels in the game are hand crafted to create this single-player story we wanted to tell.

We’d like to thank Weird Beluga for taking the time out for this interview, as well as Koch Media for arranging it. Clid the Snail is due for release this summer on PS4 and PS5, with a PC release set for later this year. You can read our hands-on impresssions of the game right here.