The home page is a grid snake with solid walls. There is no wrap-around and no second snake. The sections below follow one run: the opening, each step, scoring, and the buttons. Try it on Play now; routing habits are on Snake strategy.
What the opening looks like
The body lies near the middle, head facing right. Slow 12×12 starts at three segments. Normal, fast, and turbo start at four. One red dot sits on a cell the body does not already occupy.
The header shows this run’s score on the left and length on the right. The four side numbers are the same run: score, length, current grid, and the high score saved in this browser. Sound stays off until you tap the speaker on the status card.
How a step works
The snake does not wait in the middle of a cell. After you pick a speed it advances on a fixed gap: about 0.22 seconds on slow, 0.16 on normal, 0.11 on fast, and 0.075 on turbo. Your input only chooses the direction of the next step.
Use arrow keys on a desktop. On a phone, swipe on the board. The head enters a new cell. If that cell is not food, the tail vacates its last cell and the length stays the same. Diagonal steps and two-cell jumps are not moves.
No instant reverse
Left while the snake is moving right is dropped, and that step still goes right. The same applies to up and down. To fold back, turn sideways first, then take the opposite direction on the following tick. Two key presses before the next step keep only the last legal turn.
Food, score, and length
When the head lands on the red dot, the score goes up by one and the body gains one segment. The tail does not shorten on that tick. A new dot appears at once on an empty cell. It never overlaps the snake, and a second dot never appears beside it.
The score counts food only. Time alive, speed preset, and steps taken do not add points. Ten dots on slow and ten dots on turbo are both a score of 10, and both add ten segments to the opening length.
When the run ends
The next cell past any edge ends the run. Walls on this site are solid; the head does not reappear on the opposite side. The next cell that already holds your body, including a segment you just grew, ends it too. The board then shows Game over and the automatic steps stop.
Play again, or New in the side panel, returns that speed’s opening layout with the score at 0. Pause after a crash does not bring the snake back.
The four speeds
Slow is 12×12 and the longest gap. Normal and fast are both 20×20; only the gap changes, and the page opens on normal. Turbo is 28×28 with the shortest gap. Switching preset discards the run in progress and does not carry the current score onto the new board.
Best in the side panel is one number shared by all four presets. An 8 on slow and an 8 on turbo compete for the same record. A refresh keeps it. Cleared site data, another browser, or another device does not.
Pause and New
Pause during a run leaves the snake on its current cell. Score and length stay, and the button label becomes Resume. Resume continues in the direction you had; it does not take an extra step for you, and it does not undo a crash.
New is available while paused and after the run has ended. It restarts the current speed only and does not change the preset you last chose. That preset is stored in this browser, so the next visit opens on your last speed rather than forcing normal every time.
