How to play Snake
The game from the old Nokia: a snake that moves on its own, steered a quarter turn at a time to the food, growing longer with every bite.
- Players
- 1
- What you need
- A board of fifteen by fifteen
- How long
- A minute to half an hour a game
What Snake is
Snake is a game for one, played on a board of fifteen by fifteen squares. The snake moves a square at a time on its own, and you steer it to the food. Every bite makes it a square longer.
Most people here first played it on a Nokia, and the board here is drawn like that phone's green screen. The longer the snake grows, the harder it is to keep it out of its own way.
Playing it here
- A game waits for your first swipe or arrow key, so you can get ready before the snake moves.
- Swipe up, down, left or right anywhere on the table to turn. On a computer, use the arrow keys or W, A, S and D.
- Eat as much as you can before the snake runs into something.
Pause, or the space bar, stops the snake, and so does opening the menu or leaving the page. A swipe sets it going again.
Steering
Each swipe turns the snake a quarter turn, to the left or the right of where it is going. It can never turn straight back on itself, so a swipe the opposite way does nothing.
You can swipe twice quickly to turn twice, for a U-turn. The second turn waits until the first has been made, a square later.
Food and the beetle
Food is worth 10 points and makes the snake a square longer. A new piece appears in an empty square as soon as one is eaten.
Every fifth food brings a beetle. It is worth 50 points, does not make the snake longer, and goes away after thirty steps, blinking at the end to warn you.
The edges
At easy there are no walls. The snake goes out of one side of the board and comes back in at the other, and only its own body can stop it.
At medium and hard the edges are walls, drawn as a solid border. Medium is faster than easy, and hard is faster still.
How a game ends
The game ends when the snake runs into a wall or into its own body. Your score is what it ate and caught.
It also ends if the snake fills the whole board, which almost nobody manages, or if you press End, which keeps the score you have.
The game of the day
Each level has a game of the day. The food falls the same way for everybody in Nepal, so the luck is the same for everyone, and a new one comes at midnight Nepal time.
Once you have played it, the page opens on a new game instead. Your best score at each level and today's score are kept as your records.
A few tips
- Keep to the edges and leave the middle open while the snake is short. Room to turn is what you will need later.
- Do not chase food into a corner the snake cannot turn out of.
- When the snake is long, move in long lines back and forth across the board rather than cutting through it.
- A beetle is worth five pieces of food, but only if the way to it does not trap you.
Settings
The only setting is the level, which is the speed and the edges together. Today's game or a new one is picked on the game page.
| Setting | Standard | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Level | Easy, slow, no walls | Medium has walls and a step every 140 thousandths of a second. Hard has walls and a step every 105. |
Words
- Step
- One square forward. The snake takes one on its own every tick of the clock.
- Food
- The diamond. Worth 10 and a square of length.
- Beetle
- The bonus that comes with every fifth food. Worth 50, for thirty steps only.
- Walls
- The edges of the board at medium and hard, which end the game if the snake runs into them.
Every rule on this page is the one the app plays by. Change any of them on the game's own page before you start.