I was just about to write this game off as "just another snake clone" until level 1 ended and I realized...I'm playing a level based snake game! I think the main gimmick that Wiering was going for was the light gimmick, though the one that stuck with me were the levels. It seems simple enough, because all games have levels right? We typically don't see that in snake which instantly makes this stick out amongst a sea of other snake games. Normally the main point of challenge comes from avoiding your own ever increasing body, but the variety of stage designs make this a memorable game to play.
I think if more snake games took this route we could have possibly seen a different evolution of the genre than the current timeline we're in where it seems that Snake has all but died off in favor of more developed game design. Aside from Slither.io of course that shit still smacks.