Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Easier to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Light strategy
More strategic control
How it plays
How does it play?
Program a squad of weapon-wielding snails, blast apart layered islands, and be the last faction sliding.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Dice Rolling
Roll dice to introduce uncertainty into actions, production, movement, or resolution.
Action Queue
Place actions into an ordered queue that resolves now or on later turns.
Area Movement
Move pieces between connected regions rather than along individual spaces.
Command Cards
Use cards to issue orders and determine which units or actions can activate.
Drawing
Create visual clues or representations for other players to interpret.
Read the full game description
Snails is a gleefully destructive skirmish game in which each player commands a faction of four armed mollusks across stacked islands. At the start of a round, everyone secretly programs five action cards and assigns the squad members who will carry them out. The plans then resolve in order, creating the comedy and tension: a carefully aimed bazooka may find its target has moved, a mine can turn a safe route into a trap, and an opponent may demolish the ground beneath your attacker before its action arrives. Terrain is not scenery; layered hexes are excavated and destroyed, revealing gear, hazards, crabs, toxic barrels, and eventually the polluted water below. Heroes provide asymmetric faction powers, while an arsenal of weapons and special actions creates volatile combinations. Six-round scenarios and alternate modes keep the battles bounded and varied. It is tactical enough to reward good programming, but it embraces the spectacular reversals that make a cartoon artillery battle memorable.
