Smooth Snake

[remvst]

I had a dream, that I could one day make the most original game ever. Unfortunately, last night I couldn't sleep, and I came up with a snake clone within a few hours instead.

You can try the game at http://snake.tap2play.io/

This could have been my second entry for JS13K after Virtual War, but I consider that competitions should be clone-free, unless they do bring something new (I was too angry last time when somebody beat me with a clone...).

 

The game is aimed for mobile devices mostly, but works on desktop as well. So before you say it is too slow, keep in mind that it has to remain playable on mobile.

All you have to do is to swipe towards the direction you wish your snake to go.

There is also a leaderboard, so you can try to get the high score.

 

Play the game

I am open to feedback of course (otherwise I wouldn't post here).

If anyone is interested in pathfinding algorithms, I would be curious about if there is a simple method to find the path even when the tail is moving (I use A* in the menus). So far the algorithm considers that the tail will always be there, and therefore the path is not always the shortest, which sometimes leads to a failure. My guess is that for each node keep the updated matrix in memory, but I'd rather avoid that.

[alex_h]

Just curious as to where the path finding comes into the game?

[BdR]

it's okay, but too easy. The leaderboard is pretty good, I've got the #1 spot right now  (104 points). Btw I can't scroll down on the leader board, I can only flip to the next 30 entries, is that a bug? Never mind, you have to drag over the list to make it scroll. I was clicking on the sidebar on the right, and trying PgDnPgUp buttons.

 

But the game just goes on endlessly which is a little boring, you could break it up in levels. For example after you picked up 25 yellow bricks, a door opens up at the top that goes to the next level. And the different levels can have walls in different patterns.

[remvst]

Just curious as to where the path finding comes into the game?

Only in the menu, there's a snake that automatically picks up the items. It was more to practise pathfinding and because I was (really) bored.

Regarding the levels thing, I will consider it but I like to keep the game as simple as possible (aka complete clone of the original). I'll probably make it go faster every 10 items or so, since it doesn't change the core game that much.

And for the difficulty, it's really because I aim for mobile devices. I'm aware it's crazy easy on desktop, but that's not my main target. That probably answer your question about the leaderboard. I assume people will be able to drag to scroll.

[alex_h]

Only in the menu, there's a snake that automatically picks up the items. 

 

Ah, I must have skipped straight through to the game so quickly that I didn't even notice!