Feed the hungry snake
Press Start, then steer with the arrow keys, the W/A/S/D keys, the on-screen pad, or by swiping the board. Eat apples to grow and score — but do not hit the walls or your own tail. Your high score is saved on this device.
- Score 0
- High score —
How to play Snake Drift
Quick start
- Press Start to wake the snake. It begins moving right straight away.
- Steer with the arrow keys, WASD, or a swipe. You cannot reverse directly into yourself.
- Eat the glowing apple to score 10 points and grow one segment longer.
- Hitting a wall or your own tail ends the run. Your highest score is saved.
How it works
Controls
- Mouse or trackpad
- Click the arrows on the on-screen direction pad beneath the board.
- Touch
- Swipe up, down, left, or right anywhere on the board, or tap the on-screen direction pad.
- Keyboard
- Arrow keys or W, A, S and D steer the snake once the board has focus. A turn is buffered until the next tick, so a reversal into your own neck is ignored rather than fatal.
Tips
- The board is 17 columns by 15 rows. There is no wrap-around: the edge is a wall and touching it ends the run immediately.
- The snake starts on a 130 ms tick and speeds up by 4 ms per apple, down to a hard floor of 70 ms. Roughly fifteen apples in, it is at full speed and stays there.
- Because turns are buffered to the next tick, queueing a turn slightly early is safe. Hammering two turns in quick succession is not — only the last one registers.
- Each apple is 10 points and one extra segment. The danger is not the speed so much as the length: leave yourself an exit before you coil into a corner.
Frequently asked questions
Do the walls wrap around?
No. The board is bounded. Running into any edge ends the run immediately, so there is no escape through the side.
How fast does the snake get?
It starts on a 130 millisecond tick and gets 4 milliseconds faster with every apple, down to a floor of 70 milliseconds. It stops accelerating after that.
How many points is an apple worth?
Ten points, and one extra body segment. There is no bonus fruit and no multiplier.
Can I turn back on myself by accident?
No. Your turn is stored and applied on the next tick, so a direct reversal into your own neck is simply ignored.
What ends a run?
Touching a wall or any part of your own body. Nothing else can end it, and there is no time limit.
Is there a slow or easy mode?
No, and we consider that a genuine accessibility barrier rather than a design choice. It is listed on our Accessibility page.
Does my high score sync between devices?
No. It is written to local storage in the browser you played in, so a score set on your phone will not appear on your laptop.
How big is the playfield?
Seventeen columns by fifteen rows, drawn at twenty pixels per cell. It is the same size on every device; only the display scales.
