Snake (video game)

Snake is the common name for a videogame concept where the player maneuvers a line which grows in length, with the line itself being a primary obstacle. The concept originated in the 1976 arcade game Blockade, and the ease of implementing Snake has led to hundreds of versions (some of which have the word snake or worm in the title) for many platforms. There are over 300 for iOS alone.

After a variant was preloaded on Nokia mobile phones in 1998, there was a resurgence of interest in the snake concept as it found a larger audience.

The player controls a dot, square, or object on a bordered plane. As it moves forward, it leaves a trail behind, resembling a moving snake. In some games, the end of the trail is in a fixed position, so the snake continually gets longer as it moves. In another common scheme, the snake has a specific length, so there is a moving tail a fixed number of units away from the head. The player loses when the snake runs into the screen border, a trail, or another obstacle.

The Snake concept comes in two major variants:

The Snake design dates back to the arcade game Blockade, developed and published by Gremlin in 1976. It was cloned as Bigfoot Bonkers the same year. In 1977, Atari released two Blockade-inspired titles: the arcade game Dominos and Atari 2600 game Surround.Surround was one of the nine Atari 2600 (VCS) launch titles in the United States and was also sold by Sears under the name Chase. That same year, a similar game was launched for the Bally Astrocade as Checkmate.

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