Snake

About Snake

Snake is the game that taught a generation of Nokia owners about risk management. You steer a constantly moving line around a walled arena, eating apples. Every apple makes you one segment longer, and every segment you add is one more piece of wall you have to plan around. The snake never stops. You cannot pause your way out of a bad decision — you can only turn.

The elegance is that difficulty is entirely self-inflicted. The arena never changes and the speed only creeps up; the reason run number forty ends is that you built a maze out of yourself and then walked into it. Our version uses smooth grid-locked movement, an input queue so fast double-turns register correctly, and touch controls for phones.

How to play

1. Use the arrow keys, WASD, or the on-screen pad to change direction. The snake moves on its own, always forward.
2. Steer onto the red apple to eat it: your score goes up and your tail grows one segment longer.
3. You cannot reverse directly into yourself — pressing the opposite direction is ignored.
4. Hitting a wall or any part of your own tail ends the run.
5. The snake speeds up slightly as you grow, so late-game turns need earlier commitment.

Five tips that actually move your score

• Follow the walls early. Circling the perimeter costs nothing while you're short and keeps the whole middle open for when the apple spawns somewhere awkward.
• Never cut through a loop you just made. If your tail forms a closed shape, going inside it is how runs end. Route around the outside even if it's the long way.
• Think two apples ahead. Before you take an apple, check where you'll exit from. A perfect approach that traps you on arrival is worse than a slow approach with a clean exit.
• Use boustrophedon paths. Sweeping the board in tight up-down-up rows, like a lawnmower, is the standard technique for surviving past 60 segments — it guarantees you never seal yourself in.
• Buffer your turns. The input queue accepts a second turn while the first is still resolving, so you can pre-load a tight L-shaped dodge instead of hammering the key.

Frequently asked questions