Snake Modes and Levels
Every game is a choice of mode and level. The mode decides what the walls do, and the level decides how fast the snake moves. You can play any mode on any level.
Classic and Y2K
- Classic: walls kill
- Touch the edge of the board and the run is over. You have to watch the walls and your own body at once, and the edge takes away room just when a long snake needs it.
- Y2K: no walls
- Leave one side of the board and you come back on the other. Your own body is the only danger, and an apple may be closest across a wall. Your body can also wrap around, though, so a shortcut can drop you straight into your own tail.
Y2K is the more forgiving of the two, but only slightly. In our test games, a bot that heads straight for the apple averaged 309 in Y2K and 260 in Classic.
Easy, Mid and Hard
The level sets how fast the snake starts and how fast it can get. Each apple shaves 2.5 milliseconds off every step until the snake reaches its top speed. Speeds below are in squares per second.
| Level | Start | Top | Reached at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 5.9 | 10 | 28 apples |
| Mid | 7.7 | 13.3 | 22 apples |
| Hard | 10.5 | 18.2 | 16 apples |
So Hard is not only faster from the start, it also reaches its top speed sooner. Past that point the snake stops speeding up, and only its length makes the game harder.
Apples score the same on every level, so a higher level earns no bonus. It just makes the same score harder to reach, which is why each level keeps its own record.
Snake designs
Before a game, use the arrows above the snake on the setup screen to switch between Snake, Blocks, Circles, Hollow and Solid. The design only changes how the snake looks, so it never affects your score. On the Snake design, the mouth opens as an apple comes within reach, which can help you time a turn.