Snake (or
Snake 2) in
multiplayer mode is available on most new
Nokia phones over an
infrared link. Although it's difficult to find others to play with amongst everyday phone users (those £5 phones rarely include infrared sensors), once you do you're guaranteed hours of fun, sort of anyway.
The basic idea of the game is slightly different than everyday Snake, because if your snake hits your opponent's snake, you lose. If both snakes collide head-on, you both lose. Some tips and observations are listed below:
- To play 2 player Snake, simply go to your phone's Game menu, select Snake, and select the 2-player option.
- While we're on the obvious stuff, remember that the two infrared sensors need to be pointing towards each other.
- A good distance is about 1-2ft away (.5m); closer is OK, but a distance helps prevent a break in communication after any sudden movement of the phones.
- There's no need to activate your phone's infrared link before going into the game; the phone does this automatically for you.
- Make sure Snake on both phones is set to the same difficulty level, otherwise there could be problems.
- Your snake will flash to show you which one it is. I think that one player's screen is flipped horizontally with respect to the other, so that to both players, it appears as though their snake is the bottom one (this may be phone-dependent).
- If it's uncomfortable to play head-to-head (eg. in a car), you can both sit beside each other and hold your phones pointing toward one another horizontally. The direction keys will still work as normal - try it!
- If the connection is broken (ie. line of sight is lost between the phones), the game will freeze. Provided you re-establish line of sight within a few seconds, the game should resume after a few seconds. Since games don't tend to last long anyway, this isn't usually a major problem.
- The faster levels are much more fun, especially when drunk. But you'll probably only ever want to play the game for novelty value anyway..