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Snake (video game genre)

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This article is about the video game genre. For the Nokia phone game in that genre, see Snake (1998 video game).
Snake on a TRS-80

Snake is a genre of action video games where the player maneuvers the end of a growing line, often themed as a snake. The player must keep the snake from colliding with both other obstacles and itself, which gets harder as the snake lengthens.

The genre originated in the 1976 competitive arcade video game Blockade from Gremlin Industries where the goal is to survive longer than the other player. Blockade and the initial wave of clones that followed were purely abstract and did not use snake terminology. The concept evolved into a single-player variant where a line with a head and tail gets longer with each piece of food eaten—often apples or eggs—increasing the likelihood of self-collision. The simplicity and low technical requirements of snake games have resulted in hundreds of versions, some of which have the word snake or worm in the title. The 1982 Tron arcade video game, based on the film, includes snake gameplay for the single-player Light Cycles segment, and some later snake games borrow the theme.

After a version simply called Snake was preloaded on Nokia mobile phones in 1998, there was a resurgence of interest in snake games.

Gameplay

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A single-player game, where both the head and tail move, and each item eaten makes the snake longer

The original Blockade from 1976 and its many clones are two-player games. Viewed from a top-down perspective, each player controls a "snake" with a fixed starting position. The "head" of the snake continually moves forward, unable to stop, growing ever longer. It must be steered left, right, up, and down to avoid hitting walls and the body of either snake. The player who survives the longest wins. Single-player versions are less prevalent and have one or more snakes controlled by the computer, as in the light cycles segment of the 1982 Tron arcade game.

In the most common single-player game, the player's snake is of a certain length, so when the head moves the tail does too. Each item eaten by the snake causes the snake to get longer. Snake Byte has the snake eating apples. Nibbler has the snake eating abstract objects in a maze.

History

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Snake on an IBM PC rendered in a text mode
Snake on a Telmac 1800, CHIP-8, published 1978[1]

The Snake genre began with the 1976 arcade video game Blockade[2][3] developed and published by Gremlin Industries.[4] It was cloned as Bigfoot Bonkers the same year. In 1977, Atari, Inc. released two Blockade-inspired titles: the arcade game Dominos and Atari VCS game Surround.[5] Surround was one of the nine Atari VCS launch titles in the US and was sold by Sears under the name Chase. That same year, a similar game was launched for the Bally Astrocade as Checkmate.[6] Mattel released Snafu for the Intellivision console in 1982.

The first known home computer version, Worm, was programmed by Peter Trefonas for the TRS-80 and published by CLOAD magazine in 1978.[2] Versions followed from the same author for the PET and Apple II. An authorized version of the Hustle arcade game, itself a clone of Blockcade, was published by Milton Bradley for the TI-99/4A in 1980.[7]

The single-player Snake Byte was published in 1982 for Atari 8-bit computers, Apple II, and VIC-20; a snake eats apples to complete a level, growing longer in the process. In Snake for the BBC Micro (1982), by Dave Bresnen, the snake is controlled using the left and right arrow keys relative to the direction it is heading in. The snake increases in speed as it gets longer, and there is only one life.

Nibbler (1982) is a single-player arcade game where the snake fits tightly into a maze, and the gameplay is faster than most snake designs. Another single-player version is part of the 1982 Tron arcade game, themed with light cycles. It reinvigorated the snake concept, and many subsequent games borrowed the light cycle theme.

Starting in 1991, Nibbles was included with MS-DOS for a period of time as a QBasic sample program. In 1992, Rattler Race was released as part of the second Microsoft Entertainment Pack. It adds enemy snakes to the familiar apple-eating gameplay.

In 1998, the mobile game Snake was released for Nokia 6610.[8] The game was popular, and Nokia released a series of reiterations, including Snake II, Snake EX, Snake EX2, Snake III, Snakes, Snake Xensia and Snake Subsonic. As the game graphics and gameplay evolved, it became less popular.[9]

In 2002, Peter's GameBox Pocket PC made snake available for download.[10] In 2004, TIM made Snake available for download through the Tim Wap Fast system.[11] In 2010, YouTube added Snake as a hidden game inside of their video player.[12] In 2013, Google launched snake doodle as an easter egg for web browsers. The game was so popular that Google decided to make it permanently accessible.[13] In 2016, Steve Howse launched Slither.io as a way to mimic the success of Agar.io. The game is an online version of Snake.[14] In 2019, Google added Snake inside Google Maps as an April Fools' Day prank.[15]

Legacy

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In 1996, Next Generation ranked it number 41 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time", citing the need for both quick reactions and forethought. In lieu of a title for a specific version, they listed it as "Snake game" in quotes.[16]

On November 29, 2012, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City announced that the Nokia port of Snake was one of 40 games that the curators wished to add to the museum's collection in the future.[17]

References

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  1. ^ Tieturi, February 1985. ISSN 0780-9778
  2. ^ a b Gerard Goggin (2010), Global Mobile Media, Taylor & Francis, p. 101, ISBN 978-0-415-46917-3, retrieved April 7, 2011
  3. ^ Rusel DeMaria & Johnny L. Wilson (2003). High score!: the illustrated history of electronic games (2 ed.). McGraw-Hill Professional. p. 24. ISBN 0-07-223172-6. Retrieved April 7, 2011.
  4. ^ "Blockade video game, Gremlin Ind, inc. (1976)". Arcade-history.com. April 4, 2008. Archived from the original on June 11, 2011. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
  5. ^ Blockade at the Killer List of Videogames
  6. ^ Rusel DeMaria & Johnny L. Wilson (2003). High score!: the illustrated history of electronic games (2 ed.). McGraw-Hill Professional. p. 48. ISBN 0-07-223172-6.
  7. ^ "Retrogaming Times Monthly 7". My.stratos.net. January 1, 2005. Archived from the original on September 22, 2011. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
  8. ^ Wright, Chris (14 March 2016). "A Brief History of Mobile Games: In the beginning, there was Snake". Pocket Gamer. Archived from the original on 25 March 2025. Retrieved 25 March 2025.
  9. ^ Banerjee, Praseed (13 June 2017). "A brief history of Snake". Digit. Archived from the original on 25 March 2025. Retrieved 25 March 2025.
  10. ^ "Veja programas gratuitos para Pocket PC". Folha de S. Paulo (in Brazilian Portuguese). 23 January 2002. Archived from the original on 26 March 2025. Retrieved 25 March 2025.
  11. ^ "Confira programas disponíveis pelas operadoras para celulares". Folha de S. Paulo (in Brazilian Portuguese). 7 July 2004. Archived from the original on 26 March 2025. Retrieved 25 March 2025.
  12. ^ Greenfield, Mattew (28 July 2010). "Snake game hidden in YouTube: Procrastination squared". CNET. Archived from the original on 25 March 2025. Retrieved 25 March 2025.
  13. ^ Baker, Shane (4 October 2024). "Exploring the Timeless Appeal of the Snake Game, from Nokia to Google". Expert Beacon. Archived from the original on 26 March 2025. Retrieved 25 March 2025.
  14. ^ Needleman, Sarah E. (17 June 2016). "As 'Slither.io' Goes Viral, Game's Creator Scrambles to Keep Up". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 21 March 2025. Retrieved 25 March 2025.
  15. ^ Boom, Daniel Van (1 April 2019). "Google adds Snake to Maps for April Fools' Day gag". CNET. Retrieved 25 March 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  16. ^ "Top 100 Games of All Time". Next Generation. No. 21. Imagine Media. September 1996. pp. 55–56.
  17. ^ "MoMA | Video Games: 14 in the Collection, for Starters". Archived from the original on September 8, 2015. Retrieved March 24, 2016.
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