Golden Apple Snake puts a cartoon snake with googly eyes on a 24 by 18 grid. Every red apple makes it one segment longer, and every point makes it move a little faster. Once you have a few points, a golden fruit can pop up with a countdown ring around it, and it pays five times as much as an apple if you reach it in time. There is also a VERSUS mode against a computer snake. Frank Force wrote it for his LittleJS Arcade.
How to Play Golden Apple Snake
Choose PLAY to start the normal mode. Your snake begins in the middle of the board, four segments long and moving right. Turn it toward the red apple. When you eat it, you get 1 point, the tail grows by one segment, and a new apple appears somewhere else. You can’t turn straight back on yourself, so a quick reverse press is ignored.
Once you have 5 points, each apple you eat has about a one-in-five chance to bring out a golden fruit. The bottom left of the screen shows its value and the seconds left.
The run ends when your head hits the outer wall or your own body. Your score and best score appear on the game over panel.
VERSUS adds a pink computer snake on the opposite side. Two apples sit on the board at a time, and the first snake to eat 10 wins.
Golden Apple Snake Controls
| Action | Keyboard | Mouse | Touch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steer the snake | Arrow keys or W A S D | — | On-screen direction pad (bottom right) |
| Pause | Esc | — | — |
| Choose a mode | — | Click PLAY or VERSUS | Tap PLAY or VERSUS |
Tips and Strategies
- Hug the walls early. With a short snake, travel along the edges and keep the middle open for later.
- Plan the route out before you go in. An apple in a corner is easy to reach and easy to get trapped beside.
- Skip a golden fruit that is too far away. It disappears after 6 seconds, and a rushed turn is the most common way to crash.
- Leave a lane next to your tail. Unless you just ate, the tail moves away every step, so the square it leaves is safe to enter.
- Cut off the rival in VERSUS. The computer goes for the nearest apple it can reach safely. Steer across its path so it has to turn away.
Features
- Two modes: a classic score run and a race against a computer snake.
- Timed golden fruit worth 5 points and two segments.
- Speed ramp in the classic mode that tops out at 20 points.
- Saved best score and VERSUS win count.
- A live demo where the computer plays silently behind the title menu.
Tested and updated:
