Snake

A desktop Snake game built with Python and Pygame, preserving the original bright-green checkerboard and blue snake artwork with subtle interface improvements.

Snake-Game.mp4

Features

• Smooth movement: 60 FPS rendering, curved turns, and a two-turn input buffer.
• 72 ways to play: three board sizes (12×12, 16×16, 20×20), three speeds, 1/3/5/7 apples, and solid or wraparound walls. Each combination keeps its own record.
• Original artwork at its original size: the original blue snake and 40-unit cells keep their on-screen size. The window fits the selected map.
• Crisp Retina rendering: text and controls render at the display's full pixel density. Sprite pixels are replicated without blur filters, and pause/results panels preserve the surrounding board's colors.
• Subtle UI polish: consistently sized buttons, hover/pressed/focus feedback, a start hint, and pause/results panels over the board.
• Bite feedback: crunch audio timed to the visible apple pickup, with optional small particles. Choose Reduced effects to turn the particles off.
• Comfort controls: keyboard-accessible menus, Off/Quiet/On sound, a mute shortcut, and automatic pause when the window loses focus.
• Saved preferences and records: settings persist between sessions, and new records save during play. Invalid save data or unavailable audio won't stop the game.

Run locally

Tested with Python 3.11 and Pygame 2.6.1.

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python snake.py

On Windows, activate the environment with .venv\Scripts\activate.

If this checkout already has its virtual environment, run:

.venv/bin/python snake.py

Controls

Where	Control	Action
Menu	Click	Select options or play
Menu	Tab / Shift+Tab, or Up / Down	Move between settings
Menu	Left / Right	Change the focused setting
Menu	Enter	Start a round
Ready / playing	WASD or arrow keys	Start moving / steer; reversing into yourself is blocked
Playing / paused	Space or P	Pause / resume
Results	Space	Play again
Pause / results	Tab or arrow keys, then Enter	Choose a button
Any screen	M	Mute / restore sound
In a round	Esc	Return to the menu

The game stays paused after you return from another window. Resume when you're ready.

Project structure

• snake.py — movement, collision and scoring rules, input, sound, and persistence.
• ui.py — controls and text at the display's pixel density, the original board colors, and pause/results panels.
• display.py — SDL2 window creation and presentation at full Retina resolution.
• Graphics/, Sound/ — original artwork and crunch sound.
• tests/test_snake.py — headless gameplay, persistence, input, and rendering regressions.

high_scores.json and settings.json are local runtime files, excluded from Git. Existing per-mode high-score keys remain compatible. Saves replace files atomically; if saving fails, the interface shows a message and keeps the values in memory.

Checks

.venv/bin/python -m unittest discover -s tests -v

The suite uses SDL's dummy video and audio drivers, so it doesn't open a window or play sound. It covers all 72 modes, full-board wins, startup continuity, bite timing, turns and wrapping, record persistence, focus-loss pause, keyboard controls, mouse controls, original sprite preservation, 2× text rendering, and unchanged sprite colors under pause/results panels. Physical Retina output also needs a native-window check; the dummy driver cannot verify it.