Screen Snake is a customizable game of Snake that uses whatever's on the screen as its backdrop. It keeps a high score, although the scoring rules are never explicitly stated, and it supports (barely) a second player at the same keyboard. Auto-saving and the ability to"mirror" (turn the snake around in a single move) are available as in-app purchases.
The application has customization options for both appearance and gameplay. The screen is subdivided into a grid, which can be made fine or blocky, thereby changing the arena size for the snake. Then the snake takes off automatically, turning towards mouse clicks or responding to one of several directional keyboard command schemes. While a second player can be added in on a different part of the keyboard, the current version requires one selection of "QSDZ" in order to get the "ASDW" layout, and vice versa. There's nothing unusual about the game once you get it to set up except for the ability to monitor other windows simultaneous to playing. There are quite a few cosmetic adjustments that can be made, including "Disco Mode" to turn the snake into a spasming rainbow, and there is also the option to constantly increase length and add (invisible) walls to the edge of the screen, although such options usually make for a short-lived game.
Sam's Protip: Want to fast forward a bit to controlling a longer snake? Turn on constant-grow and then turn it off before the snake wraps around the screen completely.
v4.0 [Apr 18, 2013]
Feature requests can be done whenever you want at http://korion.net. I've replied to many e-mails lately.
Many persons seem to have problems with quitting the app if the interface is hidden. If you can't focus the app anymore, you can use Activity Monitor to quit it (Activity Monitor is pre-installed and can be found in /Applications/Utilities/).
Some people ask me how they can uninstall the app. I don't know what is meant by uninstalling, but quitting the app should work fine.
N.B. Please note that some features are not free. It took a lot of work to make this app. This is a chance for you to donate. The app itself will remain free.
Features (features marked with an x are only available in Screen Snake Plus or by buying the features in-app) :
x Mirroring - Allows you to turn the snake around by steering him in the opposite direction
- Multiplayer - Play with your friends
x Multi-Screen - Go from one screen to the other
- Mouse-Controls - Control the snake with mouseclicks (only works if 'hide on click' and 'quit on click' are disabled)
- Quick Hiding - Allows you to hide the snake more quickly by pressing 'h'
- Zooming - A pinch on your trackpad changes the size of the snake
- Constant Growing - Makes the snake grow constantly (the tail doesn't move)
- Timed Gaming - Every 100 ticks, the food dot changes posiiton
x Saving - Upon quitting, your game is saved
- Grid - Draws a grid on your screen
- Optional Highscore Notification
Bug fixes :
- Game color is remembered, and an exact color can now be chosen from a dropdown menu
- Keep on top & Hide on click cannot be enabled at the same time anymore
- Food does never appear underneath the status bar anymore. Because drawing over the status bar would make the interface buggy, I decided not to do so.
Changes :
- Snake size is adapted better to every screen by using rectangles instead of squares (this means some
less common screen resolutions are supported too)
- Quicker collision detection (uses more memory)
- Brought the old icon back because it seemed to be popular
- Only one highscore
- Brought old interface back (no sliding out of the status bar, but quicker, simple screens)
- Levels will not be implemented anymore. It's usually very buggy and/or slow
- Game immediately restarts upon game-over, unless you got a highscore and chose to get notifications
- Multiplayer 'winner' is not reported anymore, because it is unnecessary and would necessarily make it a competition
