Word Snake

What is Word Snake?

If you've ever played snake, you already know half of this one. Your snake moves on its own across a garden grid 12 squares wide, and you choose when it turns. Hit the edge of the garden, a rock or your own tail and the run ends.

The other half is spelling. A sign at the top shows a word, and that word's letters are scattered around the garden as berries, along with a few decoy letters. Eat the berries in the order the word is spelled. Finish the word and a new one appears. It's free, plays in the browser on phone, tablet or computer, and there's nothing to install.

How to play

• The snake waits until you make your first turn, so take a second to read the sign and find the letters.
• Eat the next letter on the sign. The sign highlights which one you need.
• Eat a correct letter and the snake grows by 1.
• Eat a wrong letter and the snake grows by 2, you hear an oops, and that berry pops up again somewhere else.
• Finish the word to score a bonus and shed up to 2 tail segments.
• The snake gets a little faster with every word.

Decoy berries are never letters from the current word, so if a word has two of the same letter, both berries are real. Words start at 3 letters, move to 4, then mix in 5 and 6 letter words as you go.

Controls

Phone and tablet

Swipe up, down, left or right anywhere on the garden to turn. You can line up two quick turns in a row, which helps when you need to double back around a berry.

Computer

Use the arrow keys or W A S D. Space, P or Esc pauses. Enter starts a new run from the menu.

Like every snake game, you can't reverse straight back into yourself. To go the other way you need two turns.

Scoring

Perfect streak combo

Spell a word without eating a single wrong berry and it counts as perfect. Each perfect word raises your combo by one, up to x4, and the sign shows your current streak. One wrong berry drops the combo back to x1. At x4 a 5 letter word is worth 1,000 points from the finish bonus alone, so clean spelling is how big scores happen.

Modes

Endless

Keep spelling until you crash. Every 2 words a new rock appears in the garden, up to 8 rocks, so the space gets tighter while the snake gets faster.

Daily Garden

A fixed course of 10 words that's the same for everyone that day, with 6 rocks already placed. Finish all 10 for a 500 point bonus. It resets at midnight UTC, and playing on back to back days builds a streak.

Both modes have a leaderboard. Sign in to post your score, or just share a quick result line with your points and words.

Snakes to unlock

Every word you finish, in any mode, counts toward new snake skins. Choose one from Snakes on the menu.

Tips and strategy

• Plan the whole word before you move. The snake waits for your first turn. Use that pause to trace a route through all the letters in order.
• A wrong berry costs more than time. It adds 2 segments and breaks your combo. Take the long way around a decoy rather than cutting through it.
• Hug the middle. Walls end runs. Loop back toward the center after grabbing a berry near the edge.
• Leave room for your tail. As the snake gets long, the classic snake trick still works: travel in wide, tidy lanes and don't box yourself into a corner.
• Finishing words shortens you. Every completed word sheds up to 2 tail segments, so a quick finish can get you out of a tight spot.
• Watch for repeated letters. In a word like BOOK, both O berries are correct. You can grab either one first.

For another word game with an arcade feel, try Letter Storm. If you'd like something quicker and calmer, Vowel Vanish is a one minute missing vowels game.

Questions