Snout,  a very promising, cute looking Gameboy game hit kickstarter and actually finished it’s campaign a little over a year ago. Everything was looking great, the author was highly motivated and dedicated to get the campaign over the finish line, funding succeeded.

A little over 400 people, including myself, fell in love with the little pink Snout – and I guess you can hear where things are heading? Well things were great, everyone visiting the kickstarter even had the opportunity to download a working demo of Snout, 3 working areas of the game already playable in some day – backers were even promised that a large part of the game was already finished and that the money were going to be used to finish the game and get a physical release.

You play as a Pig accidentally summoned to a mysterious world of dungeons, caves and mazes. Explore this treacherous place and find your way back home, while avoiding deadly traps, fighting dangerous creatures and terrifying bosses. Acquire special Snout Powers that will aid you on your quest. Search for hidden treasures and look for secret areas for extra challenge.

The game was/is being developed by Saan, a small studio out of Salamanca, Spain. Formed by Kamil Korolczuk and Weiwei Leung. Saan had already one other game in the works, called Aaling the Ghost, and this was probably the first red flag missed, because Aaling the Ghost was funded way back in September 2023, but has yet to be released. Weiwei is mainly responsible for the project though and still frequently updates backers about progress and, well just shows a sign of life, which is great.

Weiwei is an artist, and very good at it too it seems, but while Kamil isn’t directly mentioned on the Aaling the Ghost kickstarter, they are both mentioned on the Snout kickstarter, and I am guessing here, but I would expect Kamil to be involved in Aaling the Ghost too.

Unfortunately unlike Aaling the Ghost, all updates for Snout came to a halt after only 2 updater, after funding was successful. The first update, mid July 2025, about level designes being done and all graphics “almost” done and a new demo that should be available soon.

The second update, late October 2025, first came with an apology about the silence surrounding the game, about a “randomizing system” that had been completed and finally that sound now was in the works. So everything was going great, so far.

Because as the time of writing this, April 3rd 2026, there has been no updates to Snout since late October, and backers are starting to wonder if Snout will ever see the light of day.

And that leads us, in my oppionion, back to Aaling the Ghost, which has been in development since 2023 and yet to be released, a game that seems like a much bigger task than Snout. So the Saan team has two projects on their hands, Snout which is almost finished, and Aaling the Ghost that was supposed to be done a long time ago, but at least updates are frequent.

Rather than finishing up Snout and get it out the door, I think a lot of energy has been put into Aaling, but that it’s purely me guessing – being a 2 person team with two big tasks, in your spare time I might add, is a huge task.

Backers of Snout are getting impatient though as the game was promised to be almost ready, but still nothing has happened. I do not think, like many backers have concluded, that the author took the money and ran, sure it has been seen on kickstarter multiple times, like the NES game that has been in development for over 14 years and has yet to be delivered, although the author has changed the narrative of the campaign a few times now…. Anyway, that’s not what it’s about this time – back to Snout.

I still hope that we eventually will see Snout being released, it might take a little longer than anticipated, but when you’re asking for peoples money it’s so important to be transparent about things, setbacks happen, it’s cool, but be open about it – but it gets problematic when you complete the funding for your “product” and then disappear.

So I completely understand that people are getting frustrated, I am frustrated – I want to play Snout too, but I sincerely hope that the person(s) behind the kickstarter are doing well, nothing too crazy happened, I wish you the best – but please keep backers in the loop, if something happened, like the source code having been eaten by your cat, though it’d have to be a digital one I guess – life just happened, other project ate your time, the funding no longer covers the cost of physical items, be transparent about it, let us know.

Team Saan, I hope all is well, but please find some time to notify backers of what’s going on. Let’s keep a positive view on this one, the project was funded just shy of 24.000 euros which is not a crazy amount of money, but to each backer it of course matters that promises are kept.

Anyway, that’s it from me, I hope Kamil and Weiwei are doing well - please show us that Snout still lives.

The Snout Kickstarter can be found here.