A Snail's Tale

About A Snail's Tale

A Snail’s Tale is a retro-inspired RPG from Retreaux Games, released in late 2026 on PC and Mac. It casts you as Samson Spligglebarp, a historian’s descendant chasing fame by joining a kingdom’s warrior challenge. The twist? You’re hunting an immortal snail terrorizing the king. The game blends traditional jRPG turn-based combat with quirky worldbuilding and meta humor about its own absurd premise. Think classic dungeon crawls, quirky NPCs, and a narrative that leans into its own weirdness. It’s a single-player story about legacy, obsession, and why snails should never win anything.

Gameplay

You’ll spend most of your time grinding through towns, dungeons, and overworlds while managing a party of Halite Warriors. Combat is grid-based and turn-based, with skills, elemental weaknesses, and limited resources. The snail itself isn’t a boss but a persistent threat that moves slowly across the map, forcing you to race against it. You gather allies, craft gear, and unlock Crystals of Power to delay the snail’s inevitable arrival. Mini-games like snail racing add oddball charm. The game scales difficulty as the snail closes in, pushing you to balance exploration with urgency. It’s a grind-heavy RPG with occasional bursts of darkly comedic lore about the snail’s decades-long vendetta.

What Players Think

PlayPile users rate it 87%, with critics at 92%. Average playtime is 18 hours, but 63% finish the main story. Community moods: 42% curious, 31% entertained, 22% impressed. Reviewers praise the “clever subversion of genre tropes” and “snail as a narrative device,” though some call it “overly slow for newcomers.” 47% of players collect all 100 achievements, with the hardest tied to defeating the snail in under 20 hours. Completion rate drops after the midpoint, suggesting pacing issues, but 78% say the ending “pays off the weirdness.” It’s divisive but has a cult following.

PlayPile's Take

A Snail’s Tale is a niche pick for fans of absurd humor and grind-heavy RPGs. Its price is reasonable for a 20-hour story with optional side quests. The snail’s meta-joke wears thin for some, but the lore and combat mechanics earn it a place in the genre. Skip if you hate slow pacing or want action. For $20, it’s a quirky, if flawed, experiment. 63% of players beat it, enough to say it’s worth trying, but not essential.

Storyline

It's called A Snail's Tale - that might lead you to believe that the snail is the main character, but nay, friend. The player takes control of Samson Spligglebarp, the noble descendant of a famed historian who is eager to make his own mark on the world. Samson travels to the Halite Kingdom to enter King Phillippe's challenge, competing against other adventurers for a chance to be a Halite Warrior. The King reveals that he is eternally pursued by an immortal snail who will never rest until he is destroyed. And so begins the quest of Samson and his intrepid companions, the Halite Warriors, to gather the three Crystals of Power and stop the snail before he catches the King.