The undead get into everything given half a chance.  Shopping malls, space stations, fantasy kingdoms and even the wild west all have their share of shambling reanimated human corpses infesting the place, making life difficult for anyone looking for a nice spot to settle down.  In Above Snakes the prophetically-named town of Corpse Creek got bombarded with glowing green meteors and nothing good can come from that.  Now the town is a ruin and its survivors scattered, and the real issue is the lost souls roaming the wilderness.  It wasn't safe before, because nature has never been a romantic paradise, but adding zombies to the mix isn't helping.

The western-inspired world of Above Snakes may be seeing some rough times, but it's still a survivable place for someone willing to get their crafting on.  A young woman starts out on a single large tile of land in a pine forest with nothing more than the clothes on her back, a bottle of water and a stick to help beat on things with, and that's all that's necessary to get started seeing as nature is generous when you know what to look for.  Berry bushes are plentiful and while you can't chop down a tree with a stick, it's possible to knock a few more twigs loose and use them to create a basic axe.  Axes lead to logs, logs help create the first pickaxe, and from there the world starts opening up.  How it opens up, though, is down to choice.  Crafting isn't just for inventory items but also generating the tiles that build your custom-created world.

The pine forest is a four-sided tile and you can explore further from each edge.  Hitting the M button shows the forest in an isometric grid of potential, with each new square being the possibility of a different biome.  Prairie, mountains, canyon, graveyard, tribal village and more are all out there to be found, at the cost of a few crafting materials to generate the next section of the world.  The farther from the start you go, though, the more expensive it will get, but the tiles also level up with better rewards as they go.

All that exploration takes a toll and that's where home base comes into play.  Starting off with a low-level workbench there's not a lot you can make, but turning logs and sticks into a couple of walls, floors, doors and a roof is a good place to start.  The pieces snap together in a modular fashion, making it easy to build a basic home and letting the more creative people generate impressively creative buildings.  Craft a bed and you've got a place to crash when night comes, and a basic table and chairs are easy enough that home can be at least a little comfy.  As in any good crafting game, though, there's a lot more to do to thrive in Above Snakes' wilderness.  A little iron found in the mine or mountain biome becomes an anvil, clay and coal are needed for the smelter, and none of those resources are going to show up without adventuring.

While exploring the world is fairly free-form, there are points of interest on the map to direct you to the plot if you can spare a minute from building a little house on the prairie.  The version I've gotten to play is pre-alpha, so it's hard to say how much plot will be kicking around the map, but the hunter's cabin and a section of Corpse Creek were both available and each with people needing help completing some basic quests.  There are rewards for helping out and it provides a nice change from harvesting every chunk of the landscape that isn't nailed down, providing a little structure for the survival adventure.

Most of the time, though, will be spent generating and exploring the map, searching out just the right resource for the next upgrade and pushing on further than the last run.  Death is a mild inconvenience, setting you back at home base with the map wiped clean, but in standard roguelike fashion, all upgrades and loot retained and ready to use.  It makes for a good gameplay loop, especially seeing as half the fun is exploring, and it doesn't take that much in the way of resources to create a new layout.  Staying healthy involves keeping an eye out for water and food, keeping rested, and trying not to let the zombies land too many hits.  Food in particular takes a bit of attention, because while berries are plentiful, they aren't particularly filling and are much better used as an ingredient.  Eventually you can even create a farm back at home base, growing wheat, pumpkin, various fruits and just about anything else you might scavenge in the abandoned buildings and fields surrounding Corpse Creek.

Above Snakes is currently running on Kickstarter and has already cleared its funding goal.  The pre-alpha goes live for qualifying backers soon after the campaign ends, and while I found a few bugs and glitches, it's remarkably stable for this stage of development.  There are plenty of environments to explore and it doesn't take long to get a sense of which ones contain what resources, and you can never go wrong building a cozy little home in the safe part of the undead-infested landscape.  It's weird the way the biomes fit together, and the main character being Native American feels like it could be an issue if not handled correctly, but all told Above Snakes is off to a great start.  It's a big wild world in the western-inspired biomes, with zombies and wildlife and people in need of assistance, but with a bit of care and crafting you can tame the landscape and make it your own.