Snake

Eat the food, grow longer, and stay out of your own way.

How to play

Snake is one of the oldest video games in the world. You steer a snake around a square field. Every piece of food it eats makes it one segment longer and adds to your score. The game ends if the snake runs into a wall or into its own body - and the longer it gets, the harder that is to avoid. The snake also moves a little faster as you score more points.

Controls

• Desktop: arrow keys or W / A / S / D.
• Mobile: the on-screen direction pad, or swipe on the board.

Strategy: how to get a high score

Think in loops, not chases

Beginners steer straight at every piece of food. That works while the snake is short, but once it covers a third of the board, direct chasing gets you trapped. Instead, move in wide, lazy loops around the edge of the field and let the food come into your path. A snake that travels a predictable route is a snake you never crash.

Leave yourself an exit

Before every turn, ask: if I go this way, can I still get back out? The classic death is boxing yourself into a pocket between the wall and your own tail. When in doubt, take the long way round along the border - the edges are the safest part of the field because only your body can block you there.

Don't panic at speed

The game speeds up as you score, and most late-game crashes come from rushed double-turns. Remember the snake can only turn ninety degrees at a time and cannot reverse into itself - if you are moving right, pressing left does nothing. Make one deliberate turn per beat and trust your loop.

A short history

Snake began in 1976 as the arcade game Blockade, where two players left trails behind them and tried to make the other crash. The single-player idea of eating to grow longer became a genre of its own, and the game reached a whole new audience in 1998 when Nokia built it into its mobile phones - for many people, that little monochrome snake was the first video game they ever played. This version keeps the classic single-player rules.