Snake guide

Goal

Eat as much food as you can while the snake grows longer behind you.

How to play

• The snake moves continuously; you only steer it.
• Eating food grows the snake by one segment and places new food on a free cell.
• With walls on, running into a wall ends the run. With Wrap Walls on, the snake leaves one edge and comes back at the opposite one.
• Running into your own body always ends the run.
• You cannot reverse directly into yourself - a turn has to be to one side or the other.
• Filling the whole board ends the run on the highest score there is.

Controls

• The arrow keys or W, A, S and D steer. Two turns pressed in quick succession both count.
• An arrow key, Space or Enter starts the run, and Space or Escape pauses and resumes it.
• On a touch screen, swipe on the board or tap the on-screen arrows; the middle button starts, pauses and resumes.
• The run pauses itself when you switch to another tab or window or open a dialog, and waits for you to resume.

Technique

The danger is never the food, it is the tail you are building. Move in tight boustrophedon sweeps rather than cutting across open space, and always leave yourself an exit - the run ends the moment you seal off the square you are heading into.

Scoring

• Each piece of food scores, so the score tracks length.
• There is no time limit, but the snake speeds up with every food, from one step every 120 ms to one every 40 ms.
• Walls and Wrap Walls rank on separate leaderboards, each with its own best.