Are you ready to play
Snakes! ...to the Death? Of course you aren't. That's why I'm going to explain it to you!
Summary
In
Snakes! ...to the Death, you control one snake situated on a grid with a bunch of other enemy snakes, controlled by other players. This grid is called "
the snakepit"
. You want to be the last snake alive in the snakepit, or in other words, you want all the other snakes to die before you do. Snakes die when they run out of space into which they can move. Kinda like lightcycles in Tron, if you are familiar with that.
The Snake Page
You might want to open
the Snake Page in another window or tab. That's the page used for both viewing the snakepit and issuing commands to your snake. You'll see a text box for entering and updating "
Your Pending Moves"
, and there are two dropdown boxes for selecting a snake head of someone who is either alive or dead.
If you are registered as one of the snakes in the snakepit, entering text into "
Your Pending Moves"
can affect your snake's movement in the game. Otherwise, anything you enter here doesn't really do anything. Before you start entering commands though, let's consider what your snake will do if you don't enter any commands for him at all.
Game Elements
These are the game elements that you can see inside of the snakepit.
snake - The snake occupies multiple squares. You can't move into a square occupied by a snake, but you can jump over his body. You can jump over a snake's head only if it is dead.
snake head (alive) - You can't move into or jump over an alive snake head.
snake head (dead) - You can jump over a dead snake head, but can't move into it.
box - You can jump over a box, but can't move into it.
wall - You can't move into or jump over a wall.
clear squares - You can move into clear squares, but can't jump over them.
The movement rules are described in their entirety below, but the above list is provided to give you a gist of how things work.
The Unattended Snake
Every 2 hours your snake will attempt to move to a new square. If he is successfull, you will remain in the game. Otherwise your poor little snake will die, and the game will be over for you. How does an uncommanded snake move? He tries, in order, one of seven movements and performs the first that is possible. The movements are:
1. Head moves forward 1 square.
2. Head turns clockwise and moves forward 1 square.
3. Head turns counter-clockwise and moves forward 1 square.
4. Head jumps forward 1 or more squares.
5. Head turns clockwise and jumps forward 1 or more squares.
6. Head turns counter-clockwise and jumps forward 1 or more squares.
7. Head u-turns 180 degrees and jumps forward 1 or more squares.
The non-jumping movements 1-3 are possible if the square your snake moves into is clear, or in other words, does not contain a wall, box, snake body, or snake head. The jumping movements 4-7 are possible if there is a square along the column or row of travel that is clear, and no walls or
living snake heads are between your snake's head and that square. Note that jumping over a
dead snake head is permitted.
When your snake moves, the length of his body grows to reach the new square. In the case of jumping, your snake will cover two or more squares in one turn. Once your snake's body occupies any square, it will occupy that square for the rest of the game.
Jumping and Bumping--Commands for Your Snake
So that describes how the snake moves by default. You can influence your snake's movement by issuing "
jump"
and "
bump"
commands. Put as many as you like in the queue of "
Your Pending Moves"
--"
J"
for jump, "
B"
for bump. Whenever there is an obstacle in front of your snake's head at the beginning of a turn, the first (leftmost) command is removed from "
Your Pending Moves"
queue and used to decide how the snake should move.
If you've specified jump ("
J"
), then your snake will try to jump with attempts made in this sequence: forward, clockwise, counter-clockwise, u-turn. If there is no obstacle to jump over in an attempted direction of movement, your snake will undramatically move just 1 square in that direction without passing over obstacle squares. If your snake can't jump in any of the four directions, then he'll die with no moves available to him.
If you've specified bump ("
B"
), then your snake will just follow the normal sequence of movement attempts (Moves 1-7 shown above).
If bumping just makes your snake do what it would normally do, why even put bump commands in your "
Pending Moves"
queue? Typically, you will need to plan the jumps for your snake hours in advance so that they can be performed while you are away. You might need to sleep at some point, right? You can specify the place you want your snake to jump by counting the bumps that will occur before he reaches the jump point. I.e. entering "
BBBJ"
means that you want your snake to jump after he has bumped three times. You might need to wait hours or even days for your planned jump to be made, so having the ability to specify a jump well in advance with bumps preceding the jump is useful.
There is also the possibility that your plans will go awry. Snakepits are chaotic places, after all. One of the other snakes might jump in front of you and turn you off in an unexpected direction, making your commands choose a completely different path for your snake. You just have to predict as well as you can. Sometimes if your commands depend on what another player will do, you can schedule yourself to look at the snakepit after his critical move and revise your commands based on it. But many times, you won't be able to get to your computer to check. It's not always fair, but everyone else will be having the same kinds of problems.
Which Snake Moves First?
The order that snakes move relative to each other is assigned at the beginning of each game and stays the same for the entire game. The leftmost snake head on the first row is snake #1, and then order is assigned #2, #3, and so on to snake heads travelling clockwise along the perimeter of the snakepit. You can tell what order has been assigned to snakes by looking at the numbers next to player names in the dropdown box on the Snake Page.
If snake #1 and snake #2 are both travelling into the same square, snake #1 will get there first and force snake #2 to take a different path (or perhaps die). More accurately put, snake #1 will move first and after his movement is complete, the square he has moved into will be considered blocked to snake #2 and all other snakes.
From this explanation you might gather that it is desirable to be a lower-numbered snake. You can take the initiative and snatch space from competing snakes. Certainly, this is an advantage.
There is also a corresponding disadvantage to being a lower-numbered snake. If a number of snakes die on the same turn as you, you will be considered to have died before the higher-numbered snakes. That can definitely affect your final standing in the game.
So do the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out perfectly? I would be a lucky game designer if they did. I'm not really sure how to weight these advantages yet. I can tell you from the test games I ran that the lower-numbered snakes didn't tend to survive longer than higher-number snakes in any substantial way. But I suspect with human players, the advantage of a lower number will be heavier. To what extent? I'm just not sure.
I am going to assign positions based on when people entered the contest (submitted Jumping Snake Puzzle solution). Earlier entries get earlier positions. In future games, we might come up with some kind of handicap for the earlier positions. A little post-game analysis by someone clever might give us a good handicapping formula.
The Contest Snakepit
The
snake screen is currently showing a demo snakepit where all snakes are left to wander without receiving commands from players. This snakepit is updated every 10 minutes to show new moves. It's just there to entertain and inform.
We will start the contest snakepit with real human-controlled snakes on:
Local Time:08-13-2006 at 01:00 AM
The above time is shown in whatever timezone is set for your account. You may want to check your profile to make certain your timezone is set correctly. Then all the times related to the contest will be shown accurately for you.
The contest snakepit will be updated every 2 hours until only one living snake remains. It won't have the same layout as the demo snakepit being shown now. It may be larger or smaller, with more or less snakes in it.
There will be one very simple "
Initial Test"
built into the beginning of the snakepit designed to weed out anybody who isn't really playing or paying attention. You'll need to enter a command for your snake within the first 24 hours of the contest to keep him alive. If anyone is seriously interested in participating in the contest but will be unavailable in the 24 hours after the contest start, then e-mail me and we can work something out. Note that you only need about 5 minutes in that first 24 hours to look at the situation and decide what you want your snake to do.
After your snake passes the initial test, he will enter a "
Pair Chamber"
with one other snake (presuming the other snake you are paired with survived his initial test). This chamber is designed as a warm-up exercise to allow you to become comfortable with how snake movement works, especially when there are other snakes involved other than your own. It's possible but difficult to die inside of the Pair Chamber. In fact, you can only die as a result of your own initiative. So this isn't a dangerous part of the snakepit; it is just a place where you can learn.
After passing through the Pair Chamber, you will arrive in the General Arena with all the other snakes that made it past their own Initial Test and Pair Chamber. The General Arena is divided into smaller subarenas, which tend to keep snakes in one area of the snakepit. A large part of your strategy is figuring out which area of the snakepit is the best to be in. There will be trap areas which a snake should never enter. There will be bonus areas where if a snake is able to enter there before any other snake, he can have a few days of safe coiling before he's returned to the chaos of the General Arena.
No other game elements will be present beyond what has been described.
Entering the Contest
I think it will be frustrating if we have too many people entered into the contest that don't understand the rules. For that reason, I would like people to provide a solution to a Jumping Snake Puzzle I've posted in
this other topic. You can reply with your answer there, and that will be considered your entry into the contest.
If you understand how to solve this puzzle, you will understand most of what you need to play a good game of
Snakes! ...to the Death.
Winning
Last snake standing gets 100 rank points and any item of his choosing from the
Prize Pile.
The 2nd and 3rd place runners-up get 50 and 25 rank points, respectively.
Oh Man, That Was a Lot of Typing
Alright, let the questions begin!
-Erik
____________________________
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[Last edited by ErikH2000 at 08-13-2006 12:34 AM]
