Snake IIClassics·Free to play
Snake
Eat food to grow the longest snake you can without hitting a wall or yourself.
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SnakeScore0
Your best0
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Keyboard & touch controls
Arrow keys / WASDSteer the snakeSwipe (mobile)Change directionPPause
How to play Snake
Point the head, not the tail
Use the arrow keys, WASD, or a swipe to set the snake's direction. The head turns instantly; the body follows the exact path the head took, one segment at a time.
Eat the glowing food
Each piece of food adds one segment to your body and points to your score. A new piece appears somewhere on the grid the moment you swallow the last one.
Respect the walls
The board edges are solid. Touch any wall with the head and the run ends immediately, no matter how long your snake is.
Never cross yourself
Your body is the real enemy. If the head touches any segment of your own tail, the game is over - Most long runs die this way, not at a wall.
Survive the speed-up
Every few pieces of food, the snake moves a touch faster. The longer you last, the more your route planning matters and the less your reflexes can save you.
This is our browser edition, adapted from ARCADENOW. Its artwork, tuning and controls may differ from other games with similar rules. Guest personal bests stay in this browser. Signed-in players can also save scores and play history to their private dashboard; there is no global leaderboard. Read about controls and local storage.
Choose a related challenge
If the wall ends your Snake run, compare it with Snake II: its wrapping edges change your escape routes, while maze bricks still demand careful turns.
What Snake is like to play
Snake is the purest arcade idea ever shipped: you are a line that eats, and everything you eat makes you longer. Steer your snake around the board, grab the glowing food, and watch your tail stretch behind you like a growing to-do list. The walls end your run. Your own body ends your run. Nothing else will - which means every single game over is your fault, and that is exactly why people have been replaying it since the Nokia 3310 made it famous. Our version keeps the classic grid feel, adds silky keyboard and swipe controls, and speeds up gently as your score climbs. Each food is worth more as the snake grows, so greedy play and tidy play are the same thing here. Chase your personal best, which this browser remembers for you between games.
Snake at a glance
| Genre | Arcade Classics |
|---|---|
| Challenge | Easy to learn, brutal to master |
| Pace | Starts calm, ends frantic |
| Original era | 1976 (Blockade) / 1997 (Nokia) |
| Players | Single player |
| Controls | Arrow keys / WASD, Swipe (mobile) |
| Cost | Free, with no account and no download |
Where Snake came from
Snake's family tree starts in 1976 with Gremlin's arcade cabinet Blockade, a two-player game where each player laid a growing wall and tried to outlast the other. The single-player 'eat and grow' twist arrived through dozens of home-computer clones in the late 1970s and 1980s, when the game was a rite of passage for anyone learning to program.
The species-defining moment came in 1997, when Nokia engineer Taneli Armanto built Snake into the Nokia 6110. Suddenly the game was in pockets worldwide, playable in any queue, on a monochrome screen with four buttons. For a whole generation, Snake was not a video game - It was the video game their phone happened to contain.
Snake has since been rebuilt on essentially every platform ever made, from graphing calculators to smart fridges, and its multiplayer descendants turned the formula into a battle-royale genre of its own. The version you are playing keeps the classic solo grid, because twenty-five years later, nothing has improved on eat, grow, don't die.
Ways people play Snake
- Nokia rules
- The phone classic: fixed speed per level, walls always deadly, and the famous 9-level speed select. Level 9 remains a badge of honor.
- Wrap-around Snake
- The edges teleport you to the opposite side instead of killing you. Runs last longer, and the only threat left is your own tail.
- Obstacle boards
- Maze walls appear inside the play field, turning the open grid into corridors. Route memory matters as much as reflexes.
- Multiplayer arena
- Dozens of snakes share one giant board and grow by eating fallen rivals. The modern battle-royale spin on a 50-year-old idea.
Snake questions and answers
What is the goal of Snake?
Eat as much food as possible to grow your snake and your score. The run ends when the snake's head hits a wall or any part of its own body.
Can the snake game ever be finished?
In theory, yes - If your snake fills every tile of the grid, there is nowhere left for food to spawn and you have beaten the board. In practice it is one of the hardest perfect games in all of arcade gaming.
Why does the snake speed up?
Speed is the game's difficulty curve. Every few pieces of food shave a little off the movement interval, so a long snake demands faster decisions in tighter space.
Can I reverse direction instantly?
No. A 180-degree turn would drive the head straight into the neck, so the game ignores inputs that point directly backward. Turn in two 90-degree steps instead.
How is my Snake score calculated?
Each food is worth points that scale with your current length, so a snack eaten at length 40 pays far more than one at length 4. Surviving longer is always the bigger win.
Where did Snake come from?
The idea dates to the 1976 arcade game Blockade, but Snake became a household name in 1997 when Nokia preloaded it on its phones and put the game in hundreds of millions of pockets.
Does the food appear in the same places each game?
No. Every game places the food afresh, so the trail is never one you have eaten before. Only the speed ramp is the same each time.
Can I play Snake with a touchscreen?
Absolutely. Swipe anywhere on the board in the direction you want to turn; the snake responds to the swipe exactly like an arrow key.
If you like Snake, try these next
Four games from the same shelf, each with its own pace. The one-line summaries are how their own pages describe them.
| Game | What it is like | Pace | Play |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snake II | Snake grew up: portals, maze bricks and golden bonuses. | Speeds and thickens every level | Play |
| Paper.io | Draw the loop. Close the loop. Own the floor. | Short raids, big claims | Play |
| Tron Light Cycles | Two light trails enter, one rider leaves. | Arena shrinks as trails grow | Play |
Snake: save some room for the way back.
Plan a legal next step, an exit after food, and a different route for Snake II’s wrapping board.
