Ask anyone over twenty five what the first mobile game they played was and you can bet your bottom dollar they’ll say Snake. Some might even admit to buying a Nokia solely so they could direct the animated reptile around a 2-inch screen. What’s more, this much loved classic is still slithering into people’s hearts. So, in homage to its enduring popularity, and to celebrate 15 years on Nokia devices, we’ve unearthed ten fascinating facts about the world’s most popular game.
ONE. The snake concept is actually far older than the Nokia version. The very first Snake-type game was an arcade game called Blockade. It was created by Gremlin way back in 1976.
TWO. Its popularity grew throughout the 80’s when it made its way onto early Texas Instruments calculators, and home computers such as the Apple II, the Commodore 64 and the BBC Micro.
THREE. As there was no one owner of the game, versions of it were created for nearly all major consoles.
FOUR. Snake first appeared on a Nokia device in 1997 on the Nokia 6110. It was adapted for Nokia devices by Taneli Armanto, a Design Engineer, User Interface Software.
FIVE. Snake was one of three games introduced in 1997, the others were Logic and Memory.
SIX. It’s on over 400 million mobile phones and is now in its ninth version.
SEVEN. In 1998 Nokia 7110 owners could play a local two-player version using their phones’ nifty infra-red connections.
EIGHT. The maximum possible points on level one is 312 and on level 9 is 2008. The points formula is: bits on screen (212) X level (1 through to 9) + 100 bonus points for completing the level.
NINE. Snake Ex was introduced on the 9200 Communicator in 2000.
TEN. In 2005, Taneli Armanto, received a special award from the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) for his contribution to the growth of the mobile entertainment industry.
Think we’ve missed anything or want to share your stories of Snake addiction? Then drop us a line in the comments below.
TuomasT
Feb 2nd, 2012 at 12:50 pm
You sure know how to make someone feel old!!! This was i think the first game i ever got really addicted to. Prob because you could play it anywhere. Shows how graphics are not important but how good a game plays.
Joel.W
Feb 2nd, 2012 at 21:44 pm
Yeah it really is a fantastic example of the importance of playability of over eye candy. Sorry about making you feel old. I like to think that I’m making people feel experienced
Raghav
Feb 2nd, 2012 at 17:10 pm
My favorite game and I do play this sometimes. And not to forget the “Space Impact” game. It was too addictive as that of the Snake.
Joel.W
Feb 2nd, 2012 at 21:46 pm
I played it the other day and it was equally as tough to put down. Amazing how well it’s stood the test of time. Was Space Impact the one where you had to avoid meteors?
Raghav
Feb 4th, 2012 at 05:21 am
Yes. That’s the game. And there is will be large spaceship to be destroyed at the end of each level. I pretty much miss it these days.
DaDude
Feb 2nd, 2012 at 18:05 pm
I highly doubt that the 6610 was the first device with Snake. oO
It surely wasn’t on a device with color-display?
Maybe you mean the 6110? That would match 1997…
Joel.W
Feb 2nd, 2012 at 21:48 pm
Thanks a bundle for spotting that, DaDude! When I found the pic I was thinking that looks a lot more sophisticated than I remember, but I put it down to my tired brain and shocking memory.
stpnlr
Feb 2nd, 2012 at 18:21 pm
don’t you remember snake xensia? the super speedy thing? i love it
Joel.W
Feb 2nd, 2012 at 21:50 pm
No, don’t remember that one, Stpnir. Can you post a link to it? I remember the adrenaline racing as the original snake got faster. What amazed me checking it out the other day was how small the screen was. It was like playing on a postage stamp.
DaDude
Feb 2nd, 2012 at 19:27 pm
Thanks for correcting that mistake
Joel.W
Feb 2nd, 2012 at 21:50 pm
Thank you again for finding it!!
Robby
Mar 7th, 2012 at 09:33 am
I heard the sad news about Simone passing away and wish to ersxeps my condolences foremost to her family, but also her friends and colleagues. On the other hand also I would like to congratulate you us for having had the happiness of knowing her. From the little I knew her, she was a wise, brave and kind woman who probably died with more courage than most of us dear to live. What she taught with her way of being will live on in everyone she inspired.
Abubakar
Mar 5th, 2012 at 19:49 pm
I agree with all the posts that this is the shittest dsehant I’ve ever owned. Oh how I wish I’d bought an iPhone! It crashes, the apps are pitiful and take ages to load/ use, all messages have been wiped, it never seems to connect to my emails 1st time, more like 10th attempt and often just hangs when trying to disconnect from accessing emails. This means when you try to go into any message function like to send a text it won’t let you. The Internet is ridiculously slow.. if you’re ever in a hurry to find something font bother trying! The 5mp camera is awful and often pictures are out of focus! All I use this high-tech overly priced useless gadget for is text messaging and calls. Anything else is too slow and just hard work I use black berry or iPod touch instead. Enough said![] – []
Stephens_Eloped
Feb 2nd, 2012 at 20:33 pm
The more fancy the game became in later Nokia models, the more I disliked it. The simple, early version on my 3210 was the best one. Now all we need is for them to port Snake 97 onto the N9
Joel.W
Feb 2nd, 2012 at 21:54 pm
Totally agree Stephen. In my opinion it didn’t make any difference how sophisticated the snake looked. It was the just-one-more-go-ness of it combined with the just turn on and play straight away convenience. That said, I remember missing trains because I was closing in on a new top score. Which obviously wasn’t very convenient!
Hmoda
Apr 9th, 2012 at 12:14 pm
Hi All,I’ve seen more than one post with users stating that the uenmsare and password for their dropbox account seems to be routed through the software author’s website.I have not noticed an official answer from the author, but I would strongly recommend you not use software that allows your sensitive information to be transmitted without security (encryption) and especially if it is routed to a third party.
wlcjmn
Apr 11th, 2012 at 02:36 am
TMequT fattrfmmasub
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Hama
Mar 6th, 2012 at 00:00 am
despairbring on October 20, 2011 The Twilight Game would be wsoaeme! You could play as sall the different vampires (Edward as the main character) and while you venture through the game, you find out about the secrets of the vampires, and battle some werewolves, Carnivores, Etc.The battling could be RPG Based, like final fantasy.or proper real-time combat like the Matrix.and you could have various missions on it for example: Kill 50 Werewolves in 3 Minutes.The game too could be combined with the movie clips.
Christian Kraft
Feb 4th, 2012 at 13:25 pm
The Snake game was really a great innovation, not least in the two-player version. The 6110 was actually the first phone with the two-player version, not the 7110 as the article says.
The very first game ever in a mobile phone was a Tetris game in 1994 for a mobile phone from Hagenuk/Cetelco. I will not mention who created this game ;o), but you can see more from Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_game.
Yes, I feel a bit old ;o)
Tero Piirainen
Feb 8th, 2012 at 17:58 pm
I can confirm, that Nokia 6110 was the first phone with the two-player version of the snake game. Can’t forget that, since it was one of the first major phone programs for me while working for Nokia.
The 6110 was the very first Nokia device with IrDa(c) connectivity, but actually the classic Nokia 2110 as well as Nokia 8110 a.k.a. the ‘Banana phone’ or the ‘Matrix phone’ already provided simple IR connectivity with a computer.
For 2110, there was a ‘Nokia Data Card Expander’ accessory with an IR transceiver, and for the 8110 there was a tiny IR accessory that could be plugged into 8110′s bottom connector. Don’t know how many such accessories Nokia actually sold those days. Probably not too many, since many computers didn’t even have any IR ports… However, one of my tasks during those days was testing the PC connectivity with the 8110 accessory and to verify it’s compatibility with a range of computers.
In 6110, the new use cases for IR were printing, mobile-to-mobile data transfer and the 2-player version of the snake game. For the connectivity features, the 6110 communicated using IrDA protocols, which was required to be compatible with PC’s, printers, etc. Since the data speed of the IR port was very slow, using that protocol for gaming was out of the question. The solution was to turn off the IrDA protocol during the game. That allowed to phone to shoot the commands directly from one phone to another without any delays. Admittedly, it wasn’t technically the most elegant solution, but the bottom line: we got the great game out, which became one important chapter in the Nokia snake game story.
I still own one 6110, but rarely there’s another old Nokia phone around, allowing us to a play a few rounds of the highly addictive 2-plyr snake.
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Samir
Mar 5th, 2012 at 00:26 am
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lorancou
Feb 9th, 2012 at 14:14 pm
ELEVEN: No the classic snake game is leveraged by the power of democracy: http://snakedemocracy.com/.
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Mar 8th, 2012 at 21:33 pm
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Bilal
Mar 13th, 2012 at 08:41 am
My phone nokia3110c ka baar baar softwere urh jata hai yeh kia masla hai
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