Snake (Slither) game
The world-famous game Snake was developed back in the 70s and today belongs to the category of undying classics. It can be seen in a variety of variations: from a primitive pixelated version to 3D applications with additional bonuses and gaming features.
Regardless of the version, the principle remains the same: the snake moves around the playing field, eats fruits and grows in length, which makes it difficult to move further.
Winning this game is impossible, and this is exactly the case when the gameplay is more important than winning.
History of the game
The authorship of the idea belongs to the British company Gremlin Industries, which in 1977 released the "Snake" for Hustle slot machines. It could be played alone or together - directing snakes at randomly appearing targets and eating them.
To win, it was necessary not only to absorb as many targets as possible, but also to block the opponent's moves if possible. In 1984, Gremlin Industries ceased to exist, and her creation was ported to personal computers. First on the TRS-80, and later on the Commodore PET and Apple II.
Snake owes much of its popularity to the low system requirements that even the weakest computers could handle. For the gameplay, it was enough to use the ring buffer, erasing the snake's one-pixel tail and drawing its one-pixel head in one of 3 possible cells: in front, on the right or on the left - depending on the button the player presses.
Even the most low-powered processors easily solved this problem, making Snake an essential application for budget game consoles like the Brick Game, and then for the first push-button mobile phones with black and white screens.
Distribution on Nokia devices
By the beginning of the 90s, due to the rapid development of the gaming industry, the primitive "Snake" began to be forgotten, but the Finnish company Nokia gave it a second life. Or rather, her programmer Taneli Armanto. In 1995, he was given the task of developing a simple and low system resource game for the Nokia 6110 phone model.
Armanto's original choice was classic Tetris, but it had to be abandoned due to the stringent requirements of copyright holders who wanted to make a profit on every phone sold with the game installed. Nokia, which did not plan to keep a strict record of sales, abandoned the idea, and Armanto suggested another game - "Snake", which he played with his friend on an Apple Macintosh.
The original version of Snake for mobile phones turned out to be too complex, and even the developer himself could not score enough points in it. Then he added a few milliseconds of delay to the game, and in 1997 it acquired its final optimized gameplay, which was subsequently preserved in later versions. "Snake" became a real hallmark of Nokia phones, and made it possible to play together: on two devices connected via an infrared (IR) port.
A little later, the second version of the game appeared - Snake II, the hallmark of which was a seamless playing zone. Now the snake did not break, crashing into the edge of the screen, but appeared from its opposite side. But it was still impossible for her to crash into herself, and obstacles appeared on the playing field that had to be carefully bypassed.
In the second version, the players managed to identify a cheat, thanks to which the snake did not increase in size after eating the next fruit. To do this, it was enough to press the pause at the moment of their contact. In this way, it was possible to score a huge number of points - more than 20-30 thousand, although according to the game rules the limit was only 4.5 thousand.
Over the following years, Nokia released three more versions of the game: Snake Xenzia, Snake EX, and Snake EX2. The first was intended for budget monochrome phones, and the second and third for devices with color screens. Snake EX was already playable via Bluetooth, and the graphics were noticeably improved for the better. The first 3D version of the application appeared in 2005, when the British company IOMO developed it for Nokia.
The sixth version received the plural name Snakes, and in terms of graphics it was quite consistent with the PlayStation 1 console. It could be played by four people - via Bluetooth and with the ability to transfer to N-Gage.
The final versions from Nokia were Snake III and Snakes Subsonic. The last one was released in 2008 and became the final one. Push-button phones began to be actively replaced by touch ones, and it became uncomfortable and uninteresting to play the Snake on the latter due to the huge number of new games. Nevertheless, the game Snake still has a lot of fans around the world.
Even if you don't have a Nokia phone, that's no reason to stop playing. You can play "Snake" right now, for free and without registration!
