Snake Game
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Eat, grow, survive — the timeless classic reimagined
Snake is one of the most iconic video games ever created, with a history stretching back to the early days of computing. The game first appeared in 1976 as Blockade in the arcades, but it was Nokia's decision to pre-install Snake on its hugely popular mobile phones in 1997 that turned it into a global phenomenon. Hundreds of millions of people encountered Snake for the first time on a tiny pixelated screen, guiding a growing line of blocks around the board while trying not to run into themselves. That deceptively simple premise — keep growing, don't die — has proven irresistible across generations of players. The core mechanic is elegant in its simplicity. A snake begins as a short line of segments on a grid. The player steers it using directional controls, and the snake slides continuously in whichever direction it is headed. Scattered around the board are food items; when the snake's head reaches a food item, it eats it, gains points, and grows longer by one segment. The challenge deepens with every bite — a longer snake leaves less empty space on the grid, making it progressively harder to navigate without colliding with your own body. One wrong turn and the game ends. This implementation brings Snake to your browser with all the features you'd expect from a modern take on the classic, plus several differentiating touches. Three game modes offer distinct experiences. Classic mode is the traditional snake — eat food, grow longer, avoid walls and yourself, rack up points. Tron mode removes food entirely and makes the snake grow automatically with every tick, turning the game into a pure test of spatial awareness and planning as you fill the board without crossing your own trail. Two-Player local mode puts both players on the same board: Player 1 uses WASD keys while Player 2 uses the arrow keys, and the last snake alive wins. Difficulty is adjustable through three speed presets. Slow mode gives beginners more time to react at 150 milliseconds per move, Normal mode targets the sweet spot at 100 milliseconds, and Fast mode launches the snake at 50 milliseconds per move for a genuine challenge. Optionally, speed growth mode gradually accelerates the game as you eat more food — shrinking the interval by 2 milliseconds per food item eaten — so the difficulty ramps naturally with your score. The wall behavior is configurable. In the default Die mode, hitting any wall ends the game immediately, classic style. In Wrap mode, the snake teleports to the opposite side of the board, eliminating wall deaths and allowing more aggressive play. Combined with different board sizes — Small (15×15), Medium (20×20), and Large (30×30) — these settings give you fine control over the challenge level. Special food items add strategic variety to Classic mode. Regular food is worth 10 points and grows the snake by 1 segment. Golden apples spawn occasionally and award 30 points each. Shrink apples reduce the snake's length by 3 segments (minimum length 3) while giving 5 points — useful for escaping tight corners. Slowdown apples grant 5 points and temporarily reduce the game speed for 3 seconds, giving you breathing room in a crisis. Five color themes let you customize the visual experience. Classic uses a dark background with bright green snake and red food, evoking the Nokia era. Neon delivers a high-contrast look against pure black. Ocean gives a deep-blue board with sky-blue snake and orange food. Desert swaps to amber and warm tones. High Contrast is specifically designed for colorblind accessibility with maximum visual separation between game elements. High scores are stored in your browser's local storage, tracked separately per difficulty level and game mode. A top-5 leaderboard records your best runs including score, snake length, and date. The game also displays a live timer during play and shows a summary of score, length, and time survived when the game ends. Mobile players are fully supported. Swipe gestures control direction on touchscreen devices, and an on-screen D-pad appears during gameplay for tap-based control. The canvas scales to fit your screen width, maintaining the correct aspect ratio regardless of device size.
Understanding Snake Game
What Is Snake?
Snake is a single-player (or local multiplayer) video game where the player controls a continuously moving snake on a grid. The objective is to eat food items to grow longer and accumulate points, while avoiding collisions with the walls (in classic mode) or the snake's own body. The game ends when the snake hits a wall or itself. The longer the snake grows, the more difficult it becomes to navigate the board. Snake's origins trace to the 1976 arcade game Blockade, and it gained worldwide popularity when Nokia included it on mobile phones in 1997.
How Does Scoring Work?
In Classic mode, the snake earns points by eating food. Regular food awards 10 points and grows the snake by 1 segment. Golden apples (rare) give 30 points. Shrink apples give 5 points but reduce the snake's length by 3. Slowdown apples give 5 points and temporarily slow the game speed. In Tron mode, your score equals the number of extra segments added beyond the starting length — the longer you survive, the higher your score. In Two-Player mode, each player's score reflects the food they have eaten, and the player who survives longest wins the round.
Tips and Strategy
Experienced snake players follow a few key principles. First, avoid the edges early — staying near the center gives you more room to maneuver in any direction. Second, always plan your path at least two moves ahead; reacting only to the current frame leads to self-traps. Third, use a coiling or spiral strategy for high scores — methodically filling the board in rows rather than weaving randomly. Fourth, when using speed growth mode, the tempo increase after eating each item is subtle but cumulative — slow down your eating cadence if the pace is becoming unmanageable. Fifth, in wall-wrap mode, the opposite edges are effectively adjacent, so use the wrap to escape tight spots by exiting one side and emerging from the other.
Game Modes and Variants
Classic mode is the standard snake experience suitable for players of all ages. Tron mode is significantly harder because the snake never stops growing — even after one minute of play at Normal speed, the board becomes extremely crowded. It rewards deliberate spiral strategies over reactive play. Two-Player mode requires two people at the same keyboard and turns the game into a competitive showdown. Each player's snake occupies the same board, and collision with the opponent's body counts as a loss. Board size significantly affects all modes — Small boards fill up quickly making the game harder, while Large boards give more breathing room but also require longer navigation paths.
How to Play Snake
Choose Your Mode and Settings
Select Classic, Tron, or 2-Player mode using the tabs at the top. Open Settings to choose your color theme, board size (Small 15×15, Medium 20×20, Large 30×30), difficulty speed (Slow, Normal, Fast), and wall behavior (Die or Wrap). Your preferences are saved automatically for next time. Click New Game when ready — a 3-second countdown gives you time to prepare.
Steer the Snake and Eat Food
Use Arrow keys or WASD to change direction. On mobile, swipe in any direction or tap the on-screen D-pad buttons. The snake moves continuously — you are only changing its heading. In Classic mode, steer your snake's head toward the food item on the board. When you eat it, the snake grows longer and a new food item spawns. Special food types — golden (more points), shrink (shorter snake), and slowdown (speed reduction) — appear occasionally with different colors.
Avoid Collisions
The game ends if the snake's head hits a wall (in Die mode) or its own body. In Wrap mode, hitting a wall teleports the snake to the opposite side. With Speed Growth enabled, the snake moves faster after each food item — plan your path further ahead as the pace increases. In Tron mode there is no food; the snake grows every tick automatically, so the challenge is purely about not running into yourself. In 2-Player mode, colliding with the opponent's body also ends your run.
Chase High Scores and the Leaderboard
Your best score is saved per difficulty and game mode. After a game ends, click Leaderboard to see your top 5 runs including score, length, and date. To maximize your score, use a spiral or coiling strategy to fill the board systematically rather than weaving randomly — this minimizes the chance of trapping yourself. Golden apples are worth 3× regular apples, so prioritize them when safe. Pause anytime with Space or P if you need a break.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between Classic, Tron, and 2-Player modes?
Classic is the standard snake experience — eat food to grow and score points, avoid walls and yourself. Tron mode removes food entirely; the snake grows automatically every game tick, so the challenge is purely about surviving as long as possible without crossing your own trail. Your score in Tron equals your snake's extra length beyond the starting 3 segments. Two-Player mode puts two snakes on the same board simultaneously — Player 1 uses WASD and Player 2 uses the arrow keys. The first snake to collide with a wall, itself, or the opponent's body loses. It is ideal for playing against a friend on the same keyboard.
What are the special food items and what do they do?
Four food types appear in Classic mode. Regular apples (red) award 10 points and grow the snake by 1 segment — the standard food. Golden apples (yellow) are rarer and award 30 points with the same 1-segment growth, making them three times as valuable. Shrink apples (purple) award only 5 points but reduce the snake's length by 3 segments, minimum length 3. They can be strategically useful for escaping a tight spot by making yourself shorter. Slowdown apples (blue) award 5 points and temporarily reduce the game speed for 3 seconds, giving you extra reaction time. Special foods spawn randomly with probabilities of 10% golden, 5% shrink, and 5% slowdown.
What does Speed Growth do and should I turn it on?
Speed Growth gradually reduces the move interval by 2 milliseconds for each food item eaten, with a minimum interval of 50 milliseconds. This means the game starts at your chosen difficulty speed (150ms, 100ms, or 50ms) and becomes progressively faster as your snake grows. With Speed Growth on, a snake that has eaten 25 food items moves 50ms faster than it started. This adds a natural difficulty curve that rewards playing it safe and discourages rushing. Beginners may prefer to turn Speed Growth off and stick to a consistent speed. Advanced players often prefer it on Slow or Normal difficulty as a way to self-calibrate challenge over a long run.
How does wall wrap mode work?
In Wrap mode, when the snake's head exits one side of the board, it immediately reappears on the opposite side. Exiting the right edge brings you in from the left edge at the same row. Exiting the top brings you in from the bottom at the same column. This eliminates wall-collision deaths entirely, making the board effectively toroidal (like a donut shape with no edges). Wrap mode is generally easier for beginners because wall pressure is removed, but it introduces a new hazard: it is easy to accidentally run into your own body that is traveling along the opposite wall. Tron mode does not support Wrap — it always uses the die-on-wall-hit rule.
How are high scores saved and how does the leaderboard work?
High scores are stored in your browser's local storage, which means they persist between browser sessions on the same device and browser, but are not shared across devices or browsers. Scores are tracked separately for each difficulty level (Slow, Normal, Fast) and for Tron mode. The leaderboard stores your top 5 all-time scores for each difficulty in Classic mode, recording the score, snake length reached, and date of the run. To view the leaderboard, click the Leaderboard button that appears after a game ends. Clearing your browser's local storage will erase all saved scores.
What is the best strategy for achieving a high score?
The most reliable high-score strategy is the systematic spiral or coiling technique. Rather than steering randomly, move in a consistent pattern that covers the entire board in rows or concentric loops. Start by traversing the perimeter of the board, then fill inward row by row. This approach guarantees you never create a dead-end trap for yourself, because you are always traveling in a predictable direction with known exit paths. Prioritize golden apples when they appear safely along your path — they are worth 30 points versus 10 for regular food. In Speed Growth mode, accept that the pace will increase and plan your spiral tightly so you spend less time navigating. Shrink apples can be deliberately eaten when you are in a tight spot to reduce your length and buy room to maneuver.