Snake

How to play Snake

Snake is one of the oldest arcade games — and still one of the best. You control a growing snake on a grid. Eat the red food to grow longer and score points. Don’t bite your own tail, and on the harder modes, don’t crash into a wall. The bigger you grow, the harder it gets to avoid yourself.

Controls

• Arrow keys (or W / A / S / D) — turn the snake’s head.
• Swipe on touch devices — drag inside the play area in the direction you want to turn.
• On-screen D-pad — tap the arrow buttons below the board.
• The snake will not let you make a 180° turn directly into yourself — that’s a safety against accidental self-collision.
• Snake button at the top — start a new game on the current difficulty.

Scoring

• Every piece of food is worth 10 points and adds one segment to your tail.
• The leaderboard tracks highest score, so longer survival with more food eaten wins.
• The timer doesn’t matter — there’s no penalty for playing carefully. Speed only matters because the snake moves automatically and won’t wait for you to plan.

Difficulty levels

• Easy — 15×15 board, slow tick, walls wrap around. Forgiving for beginners — you can’t lose to a wall, only to yourself.
• Medium — 20×20 board, faster tick, walls kill on contact. The classic arcade experience.
• Hard — 25×25 board, fast tick, walls kill. Long runs are possible but require constant planning ahead.

Strategy tips

• Plan the next 2-3 turns, not just the next one. The snake moves on a fixed timer; you can’t pause to think.
• Stay near the edges early. When the snake is short, hugging the perimeter leaves the open middle for later, when you’ll need it.
• Don’t chase food directly. Sometimes it’s safer to loop once and approach from a safer angle.
• On Easy, use wrap-around. Driving off one edge and re-entering on the opposite side is often the fastest path.
• On Hard, keep a long “escape corridor” behind your head. If you ever find yourself with no room to turn into, you’re done.

Offline play

Once this page is loaded, everything runs in your browser — no servers, no internet needed. Your best score is stored on your device and uploaded to the leaderboard the next time you reconnect (only if you’re logged in — guests play for fun and their scores stay local).