Pocket Games
Snake
Snake is the game from old Nokia phones, and it has a quirk that sets it apart from every other reflex game: the better you get, the harder it becomes, because the obstacle that kills you is yourself, grown one segment at a time.
The rules
The snake moves on its own and never stops: all you decide is the direction. Every time it eats, it grows by one segment and more food appears elsewhere. The game ends when the head hits a wall or a part of its own body.
On Pocket Games
The playing field is a grid of 20×20 squares. The snake starts three squares long, in the middle, heading right, and stays still until you press “Play”. Each piece of food is worth 10 points and one extra segment, and the next one appears on a random free square.
The difficulty sets the starting speed and the top speed. Every 50 points, that is every five pieces of food, the time between one step and the next drops by 10 milliseconds, down to the limit:
| Difficulty | One step every, at the start | One step every, at most | Top speed at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 200 ms | 80 ms | 600 points |
| Medium | 140 ms | 60 ms | 400 points |
| Hard | 90 ms | 40 ms | 250 points |
The controls are chosen on the start screen and are remembered for the next games:
- Arrows: four directional buttons, the classic.
- Joystick: an analogue stick that returns to centre.
- Swipe: swipe anywhere on the screen.
On a computer you play with the arrow keys or with W, A, S and D. All the schemes are worth trying: with a long snake, where every turn has to land at the exact moment, the difference is enormous.
There is one record per difficulty. If you leave, or the app goes into the background, the snake stops and the game is saved; when you come back you find a “Resume” button, and the snake only moves again once you tap it.
How to survive
Move in a serpentine, not a straight line. Heading straight for the food is the most natural way to play, and also the fastest way to end up with your body scattered at random across the screen. High scorers cover the screen in parallel bands: up, one cell across, down, one cell across. The body stays tidy, and tidy means it does not cut you off.
Stay near the walls. The middle feels safe because it has exits in every direction, and it is the trap: a body running through the middle splits the screen in two, and sooner or later it will shut you into the wrong half. A body laid along the walls keeps the field open.
Watch where the tail will be, not where it is. The tail advances as you move: a space occupied now may be free in three moves. That is the reasoning that lets you slip into corridors that look closed. In practice you can always follow your own tail, because it moves out a moment before you arrive.
Do not take the food straight away. If it appears somewhere that would force you through your own body, ignore it for a lap and sort yourself out first. Food does not expire.
Tight turns cost you. Every change of direction leaves a corner, and corners are the places you later cannot get through. For the same route, fewer turns means more free space.
Why you always lose the same way
Nearly every game ends in one of two ways: you hit a wall because a direction came a moment late, or you close yourself inside a loop of your own body. The first is a reflex error and improves with practice; the second is a planning error, and it is what separates fifty points from two hundred.
If the second keeps happening, the fix is not to move faster: it is to stop chasing food diagonally, which the snake cannot do anyway.
Frequently asked questions
Does the snake wrap around the edges?
No: touching an edge ends the game. This is the classic version, where the screen is a closed box.
Can I turn back on myself?
No: a 180 degree turn is ignored, and it is checked against the direction of the last step actually taken, not the last command. So two quick taps, say up and then straight away left while you are heading right, will not turn you into your own neck: the second one is discarded. Turning back takes two turns on two separate steps.
Does the speed increase?
Yes: every five pieces of food the step gets shorter, down to the limit for your difficulty, as in the table above. On Hard the starting pace is already more than double that of Easy.
Does my record count on another phone?
Yes. The record for each difficulty is saved to your account: sign in with the same account and you will find it on another device, with the higher of the two kept.
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