What Serpent Rush is
Serpent Rush is the snake game, which needs little introduction: you steer a line that grows every time it eats, and the run ends the moment it hits a wall or its own body. Two things sit on top of those rules. Eating again within about four seconds builds a streak multiplier, which climbs to a maximum of five times and drops straight back to one the moment you let it lapse. And every fifth orb is golden: worth five times as much, worth two segments of growth instead of one, and gone about six seconds after it appears.
The snake also gets faster as you eat. It starts moving about one step every 150 milliseconds and quickens with every orb taken, down to a floor of around 80 milliseconds, which it reaches after roughly forty orbs. The pressure therefore arrives from two directions at once: less room to move in, and less time to decide what to do with it.
How it plays
Swipe in the direction you want to turn. On a keyboard the arrow keys or WASD steer. Every orb you eat makes the snake longer, permanently. The walls are lethal and so is your own tail, and as the snake lengthens the second of those becomes far more dangerous than the first.
Getting better at it
Open space is the resource you are managing. A short snake fits anywhere, so early routes feel free, but the body left behind is permanent: a long snake needs a large clear area to turn around in, and the only clear area is the one you did not fill. One approach is to work the edges early and leave the centre open for later.
A golden orb is worth five times an ordinary one, adds two segments rather than one, and expires after about six seconds. Those three facts pull in different directions, so whether to divert for one depends on how clear the path already is. Letting one expire costs nothing you had.
Turning early rather than late is one way to handle the speed. At the floor of about 80 milliseconds a step, the margin on a tight corner is a single cell, so a wider turn trades board space for room to be slightly wrong.
Who it suits
The difficulty here accumulates from your own routing as much as from anything the game introduces. Orbs appear in random free cells, but nothing else is concealed: the speed, the streak timer and the golden orb's countdown are all on screen while you play.
Questions
How is this different from the classic snake game?
The movement rules are the same, but eating again within about four seconds builds a streak multiplier up to five times, and every fifth orb is golden — worth five times as much, two segments of growth, and gone after about six seconds.
Does the snake speed up?
Yes. It starts at roughly one step every 150 milliseconds and quickens with each orb eaten, down to a floor of about 80 milliseconds after around forty orbs.
Can I play it on a phone?
Yes. Swipe steering is designed for touch first, and the board fits a portrait phone screen without scrolling.
At a glance
- Genre
- Arcade, snake
- Players
- One
- Controls
- Swipe on touch; arrow keys or WASD on a keyboard
- Saves
- Best score kept in this browser
- Cost
- Free, no account, nothing to install