Eating makes the snake longer, but also puts more of its own body in the way. Nokia’s Snake asks the player to keep finding a route to the next piece of food without hitting that body or the surrounding wall.
This entry concerns Taneli Armanto’s Nokia implementation. Snake-like games already existed: Armanto recalled playing a two-player example on his Macintosh before working on the phone game. He adapted an existing kind of play to a handset rather than inventing every part of the idea.
A game inside a phone
Armanto developed Snake for the Nokia 6110 in 1997. Nokia launched the handset late that year; its 1998 annual report records volume deliveries beginning early in 1998. That distinction explains why accounts attach both years to the game.
The game was included on the phone, so playing it required neither buying a separate cartridge nor downloading an application. In his 2019 oral history, Armanto described receiving responsibility for games while colleagues handled other phone functions. A small screen, limited controls and restricted program space shaped his choices.
Steering and timing
The 6110 manual specifies number keys 1–9, excluding 5, for steering. This is keypad direction control, not the one-button input sometimes claimed for the game. The manual also provides a difficulty setting, a high-score display, and pause and continue for single-player sessions.
Armanto described adding a brief opportunity to turn just before a collision. At high speeds, that small allowance helped players avoid a crash. It is a useful example of a simple-looking game having deliberate adjustments to its timing.
Nor was every game solitary. The 6110 supported two-player play over infrared, with the phones’ ports pointed towards one another. Armanto specifically identified that link as something the team wanted the game to use.
The playfield has a finite limit. Nokia’s 2009 retrospective gives maximum scores for the original game and a completion bonus, so “play forever until failure” is not an accurate description of its rules.
Distribution and later versions
In June 2005, Nokia estimated that around 350 million phones in the market contained Snake. That is a company estimate of devices, not a count of individual players or proof that it outsold every earlier game.
Nokia also developed later interpretations. Its 2005 announcement describes Snakes for N-Gage as a free 3D game with up to four players. The familiar idea could continue while its presentation, controls and multiplayer arrangements changed. Those later games should not be treated as identical copies of the 6110 version.
Sources
- Nokia, 1998 annual report, “Review by the Board of Directors”, p. 6: late-1997 launch and early-1998 volume deliveries.
- Nokia, 6110 User’s Guide, 1998, pp. 50–52: included games, keypad controls, collisions, pause and infrared play.
- Quinn Myers, “An Oral History of Snake on Nokia”, MEL, 12 September 2019: Armanto’s firsthand account of development, earlier play and collision timing.
- Nokia, “Snake Creator Receives Special Recognition From Mobile Entertainment Forum”, 16 June 2005: creator attribution, dated distribution estimate and N-Gage version.
- Nokia, “History of Nokia part 2: Snake”, 20 January 2009, now hosted by Microsoft: original game’s maximum scores and completion bonus.