Snake

Snake is a single-player arcade game built around one simple rule: every piece of food you eat makes you longer, and the longer you get, the less room you have to move. You control a snake crawling across a 20×20 grid. Food appears at a random empty square, and reaching it adds a segment to your tail and speeds the snake up slightly.

There is no level to finish and no boss to beat. The only thing standing between you and a bigger number is the board filling up with your own body. Most players die somewhere between 15 and 25 segments, not because the game gets harder to read, but because the safe path stops being obvious and you have to start planning two or three moves ahead.

1. Press Start to begin. The snake starts three segments long and immediately moves to the right — it never stops, so decide your first turn early.
2. Steer into the yellow food dot. Each one is worth 10 points and adds one segment to your tail.
3. Every time you eat, the snake speeds up. The interval between moves starts at 140ms and drops toward a floor of 70ms, so late-game runs are roughly twice as fast as the opening.
4. The run ends the moment your head touches a wall or any part of your own tail. Your best score is saved in your browser.

Desktop: use the ← ↑ ↓ → arrow keys or W A S D to change direction. Press Space or Esc to pause and resume.

Mobile and tablet: swipe anywhere on the board in the direction you want to turn, or use the on-screen arrow pad below the game. A swipe needs to travel about 24 pixels to register, so short taps will not turn the snake by accident.

You cannot reverse straight back into your own neck — a 180-degree input is ignored rather than ending the run. Up to two turns are buffered, which means you can queue a quick right-then-up combination at speed without losing the second input.

• Hug the edges early. Circling the outside of the board keeps the middle open, and the middle is where you need room once your tail gets long.
• Never turn into a gap you cannot exit. Before entering a corridor between two body segments, check that there is a way out at the far end. This is what kills most runs past 20 segments.
• Use the pause. Speed climbs steadily, and pausing to read the board costs you nothing. There is no timer.
• Approach food along a wall when you can. Eating in open space leaves your new segment somewhere awkward; eating against an edge keeps your tail compact.
• Plan the turn after the food, not the turn into it. Beginners aim at the dot; strong players already know which way they are leaving.