About this game Snake Online
Development notes
Both snakes move at once
Each step is decided on the board as it stood before anyone moved, then applied together; resolving one snake first would hand contested cells to whoever goes first. So two heads entering one cell both crash, and a boosting snake checks its two cells separately and cannot hop a body. When both returned on the same step, picking spawn spots in turn split 2,000 test games 1,730 to 270 by player order, so they now restart face to face.
Difficulty is eyesight
My first AI levels mixed in random turns, but a random turn in Snake is nearly always fatal: Easy won 0% against Hard. Difficulty is now how far ahead the AI counts open cells, so it loses the way people do, in a pocket that becomes a dead end. Boosting whenever food was near lost 93% of 300 games, so it now boosts only in open lanes.
Why the Finale is HP-based
In 300 AI-versus-AI games none reached three minutes (Normal-vs-Normal median 58 s), so a clock-based Finale would rarely appear; 400 HP triggers it. Raising all damage by half cut the rest of the match from 25 to 11 seconds; food ×0.7 with crashes ×1.5 gives 19 and lifts the trailing snake's comebacks or draws from 20% to 28%.
Apples are not red
At their real 46-pixel size, red apples could not be told from the red opponent's head, and rushing a 'food' that is a head means a head-on crash. Apples are now small teal orbs, and golden apples are drawn as stars so gold can be judged from afar.
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