Snapchat’s disappointing ripoff mini-games ranked and reviewed

March 4, 2022 — by Sarah Zhou
Photo by Sarah Zhou
 My friend and I test out Snapchat’s “Tiny Royale” mini-game 
Constant glitches and cheating players plague Snapchat’s mini-games

During the previous year of online learning, I didn’t actually do as much learning as I could have. Instead, my friend and I spent most of our time testing almost every type of game on the social media app Snapchat.

Although Snapchat originally gained popularity as a photo-messaging app, it branched out and added games in 2019. Snapchat’s mini-games are recreations of classic and popular games, such as “Call of Duty” or “slither.io,” remade in lower quality and with more ads. 

The first — and arguably, best — game we tested out was “Tiny Royale,” the PG and (boring) version of “Call of Duty.” It’s the only game on the app that doesn’t get boring after two minutes, but if you’re looking to be at the top of the weekly leaderboard, you better start watching ads for extra coins to purchase power-ups because this game is rigged. The quality is terrible — half the time your character won’t be able to move due to an ongoing glitch, and the other half is a waste of time because someone who hasn’t encountered the glitch will have already killed you, forcing you to “spectate” them.

Next came “Bitmoji Party.” It’s fun, but get’s repetitive as there are only a few games that are played on repeat. If you’re planning on playing this, get 5 friends ready because winning in any of the games requires cheating. From the zombie apocalypse maze game to the dinner party food fight, it’s obvious that players come prepared to partner up and cheat. There’s no way that all five of the other players “randomly” decided to target me the first three rounds of the game. And I’m not writing this just because I’m salty.

Third, was “Snake Squad,” slither.io’s freaky cousin. The players on here are so annoying with their gigantic heads. It’s hard to mess up coding a snake game, but Snapchat’s glitchy remake seems to prove otherwise.

“Ready Chef Go!” is the rip-off version of the one and only “Papa’s Pizzeria” on Cool Math Games. It seriously needs to remove the exclamation mark from its name, because there’s absolutely nothing exciting about it. Some daily games are clearly far harder than others, and the competition matchups are always so unfair. I mean really? Putting first-time players against level 63 players? Not cool.

Following the low standards set by “Ready Chef Go!,” “Battleship” pales in comparison to game Pigeon’s Battleship. The game is literally the same as every other app’s take on Battleship but with cringe graphics. 

Next is “Bitmoji Tennis,” which is literally just a game to see how well you can swipe on a screen, a skill essential to any social media app these days. It’s only on this list because I won every single round and am still cherishing the glory of winning every single virtual tennis match against an actual tennis player. 

Taking sixth place was “Ready Set Golf.” Honestly, I’m surprised that Snapchat hasn’t been copyrighted by 10 companies already. This game is literally a remake of Game Pigeon’s mini-golf in lower graphics with strange music. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just not mind-blowingly awesome.

“Subway Surfers Airtime” is so bad, I would take the risk of getting a pesky “iPhone Storage Full” message and download the 259 MB actual “Subway Surfers” game. This game is literally the same except in Snapchat’s version, Jake looks a lot more questionable. Though dull and likely a copyright issue, this game still manages to be more entertaining than half the games provided.

“Color Galaxy” is just paper.io’s annoying and malfunctioning little sibling. The key to winning this game? Watch ads every time you die.

Last and definitely least is “Bitmoji Paint,” a place for you to take a look at the inappropriate messages Snap users around the world have drawn on multiple gigantic canvases. Oh, and don’t forget the panic you get when a random European user decides to follow you around the map asking for your snap. Always exciting.

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