How to play Snake
A complete guide: the rules, the controls on a phone and on a computer, how scoring works in this version, and the habits that keep a long snake alive.
In one paragraph. You steer a snake around a square field. Eat a fruit and the snake grows one segment longer; hit a wall or your own body and the game ends. Every fruit is worth 1 point on Easy, 2 on Medium and 3 on Hard, and the golden star that appears after every fifth fruit is worth five fruits at once. The only real opponent is the snake's own tail.
The rules of Snake
- The snake never stops. It moves one cell at a time in the direction it is facing. You cannot halt it - only turn it left or right. Turning straight back into its own neck is not possible.
- Eat to grow. One fruit is always on the field. Steer the head onto it and the snake gets one segment longer, your score goes up, and a new fruit appears on a random free cell.
- Walls and tail are fatal. The field has solid edges. Moving into a wall, or into any part of the snake's own body, ends the game. The very tip of the tail is the one exception: it moves out of the way on the same step, so you can follow right behind it.
- Fill the field to win outright. If the snake ever grows so long that there is no free cell left for a fruit, the field is beaten. It is rare, and it is the best result the game has.
Controls
On a phone or tablet
- Swipe anywhere on the field in the direction you want the snake to go. Short flicks work; you can also keep your finger down and draw several turns in one continuous gesture.
- D-pad - the four arrows under the field react the moment you touch them, not when you lift your finger, so they keep up even at Hard speed.
- Pause is the round button in the middle of the d-pad. Tap the field or any arrow to carry on.
- The field never scrolls the page while you swipe, and it sizes itself so the field and the d-pad fit on the screen together.
On a computer
- Arrow keys or W A S D steer the snake.
- Space or P pauses and resumes; Esc pauses too, and closes a dialog.
Turns are buffered: if you press two directions in quick succession between two steps - say, up and then left to make a tight U-turn - both are carried out in order instead of the second one being swallowed.
Difficulty levels and points
All three levels use the same 17 × 17 field and the same rules. The difference is speed - and because speed is what makes Snake hard, the faster levels are worth more per fruit.
| Level | Time per step | Speed | Per fruit | Bonus star |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 165 ms | ≈ 6 cells per second | 1 | 5 |
| Medium | 115 ms | ≈ 9 cells per second | 2 | 10 |
| Hard | 78 ms | ≈ 13 cells per second | 3 | 15 |
Points are added the moment you eat, so a game that ends early still counts everything you collected. The header shows your total points, your best score on the current level and the number of games you have played.
Fruit and bonus stars
Twelve fruits take turns on the field - apple, pear, orange, lemon, banana, watermelon, grapes, strawberry, cherries, peach, kiwi and pineapple - and the same one never appears twice in a row. They all score the same; the variety is there to make a long game nicer to look at.
After every fifth fruit a golden star appears next to the regular fruit. It stays for six seconds of play, with a shrinking ring showing how much time is left, and it blinks just before it disappears. Eating it is worth five fruits but does not count towards the next star, and pausing the game pauses its clock too.
Strategy: how to get a long snake
1. Stay near the edges early
While the snake is short, there is plenty of room and speed matters more than planning. Once it is a third of a row long, stop cutting across the middle of the field: a snake that runs along the walls leaves the centre open, and an open centre is where you will need to turn later.
2. Never enter a pocket you cannot leave
Before you dive into a gap between the wall and your body, count: is the gap wider than the snake needs to turn around? If the only way out is the way you came in, the fruit in there will cost you the game. Wait for the body to move - every step frees one cell at the tail.
3. Follow your tail
The tail is the one moving part of the field that is always about to leave. When you are unsure where to go, steer towards it: the space right behind the tail is guaranteed to stay free. Long games on Hard are mostly an exercise in chasing your own tail calmly.
4. Zig-zag when the snake is very long
Late in a game, the safest pattern is to sweep the field in long parallel lines, turning at each wall, and to take fruit only when it lies on or near your sweep. It is slower, but it keeps the body in neat rows and the free space in one piece.
5. Use the turn buffer for U-turns
A 180° turn takes two presses - for example up, then left. Press both quickly and the game carries them out on two consecutive steps, which gives you the tightest possible turn. At Hard speed this is the move that saves you at a wall.
6. Pause before you panic
There is no penalty for pausing. If the field is getting crowded, stop, look at where the body is and where the tail will be in a few steps, and plan the next turns before you continue.
A short history of Snake
The idea goes back to the arcade game Blockade (1976), in which two players steered ever-growing lines and tried to make the other crash. Home computers turned it into a single-player game about eating and growing through the late 1970s and 1980s, and in 1997 it was installed on Nokia mobile phones - which made Snake, for a whole generation, the first game they ever played on a phone. The rules have hardly changed since: a field, a fruit, and a tail that keeps getting in the way.
Frequently asked questions
Is this Snake game free?
Yes. Every level is free, with no account and no purchase. The site is paid for by the advertising described in our Privacy Policy.
Does it work on a phone?
That is what it was built for. Swipe on the field or use the on-screen d-pad; the layout keeps the field and the controls on one screen, and the page does not scroll while you steer.
Can the snake go through walls?
No. In this version the walls are solid, as in the classic game. Touching a wall ends the game.
Can I pause the game?
Yes - the middle button of the d-pad, the Pause button on a computer, or Space. The game also pauses by itself when you switch to another tab or app.
Is my progress saved?
Yes. A game in progress, your total points, the number of games played and your best score on each level are kept in your browser's local storage. Close the tab and the snake is waiting, paused, when you come back. Clearing your browser data or playing in private mode erases it.
What is the highest possible score?
A snake that fills the whole 17 × 17 field. There is no other cap: points keep adding up across games in your browser. They are a personal counter, not a ranking, and have no monetary value.
Can I play offline?
Once the page has loaded, the game itself needs no connection - everything runs in your browser. Only the advertising and the measurement need the network.