I often worry about multiplayer centric indie games. Partly because I understand just how difficult it is to develop such a title, what with networking and such, but also because, as an indie game, it can often be too difficult to garner the amount of sales required to successfully sustain a multiplayer environment. Snailien Invasion is just such a multiplayer-centric indie game that I believe will ultimately suffer for it.

Developed by Manly Games, Snalien Invasion is a unique arena-based multiplayer game that features, you guessed it, snails! Each player plays as a different colored snail as they take on one of the multiple gameplay modes.

Now, Snailien Invasion is largely a mutiplayer game, but there is a single mode that allows you to play by yourself. It’s a simple mode where by you’ll just be fending off wave after wave of enemies. Through this mode, I suppose the game could survive even without a dedicated gaming community, especially if you and a few friends jump in on the action for some local co-op.

That said, however, the rest of the game is entirely a multiplayer affair (local, system link, or online) and I do mean multi player. There are no bots in this game so the option to play by yourself isn’t even there, which is kind of a let down. Still though, if you do manage to find some friends to play with, Snailien Invasion comes with three additional modes: deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag all in 8 player varieties. Each mode is exactly what you’d expect them to be. Anybody who has played any online shooter type game prior will know what they’re getting here.

The game comes with a variety of maps, over 30 unique weapons, as well as jetpacks and grappling hooks for all players. So, really, the game is quite feature full. In fact, the game almost plays like a sort of real time Worms game with both an art style that is reminiscent of the game as well as a weapons arsenal that acts like many of the same weapons used in Worms.

Snailien Invasion is available right now on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel for 240 MS points. If you’re looking for a fun, cheap multiplayer romp you could probably do worse than this.

[Try/Buy, Snailien Invasion]

[This is not a review. This is a "first impressions" piece based n less than an hour of gameplay.]

Trailer