Google Snake Game

The one everyone has already played

Three segments, one apple, and a grid pressed into pale clay. You know how it goes. What is worth saying is how the difficulty here comes entirely from your own success, because every apple makes the board smaller by making you longer. Nothing chases you. You are the obstacle.

The body is coloured in a repeating cycle of four purples with a dark head, so at length twenty you can still read the shape of the tail at a glance rather than staring at one long single tone worm.

Four settings that change everything

Speed cycles through slow, normal and fast. Fast is genuinely hard on the small board because you get one grid cell of reaction time. Slow is the one to pick if you are trying to fill the board rather than test reflexes.

Opening the walls turns the edges into portals, so leaving the right side puts you back on the left. It sounds easier and it is, right up until you wrap into your own tail from an angle you were not thinking about.

The bigger board swaps the 20 by 15 grid for 28 by 21 with smaller cells, which gives long runs somewhere to go. It restarts the game when you press it, so finish your run first.

Where people stall

Length twelve to fifteen is the first wall, usually a careless turn into the tail. Past thirty you should be running the perimeter and only cutting inward for an apple you can leave from cleanly. The google snake players who fill half a board are all doing the same boring, patient thing.

Controls

Arrow keys, WASD, or a swipe on a touchscreen. A tap starts the game if it is not already running. Reversing straight into yourself is blocked, so a mistimed left press while moving right does nothing rather than killing you instantly.

If you want something with an opponent

google pac-man gives you three ghosts with different habits. space invaders google gives you forty things that shoot back. the dinosaur runner keeps the one input simplicity but adds a speed curve you cannot control.

For a break from anything that can be lost, try underwater google or google gravity. Full list at google easter eggs.