Why a garden hose?

When we sat down at home to make our own version of the snake game, the first question was what the snake should be. A snake that gobbles things up didn’t feel like ours. Then we thought about hoses. Hand any kid a garden hose and they will water every pot in sight, then the path, then the wall, then whoever is standing nearest.

So the snake became a garden hose. The head is the nozzle, and each thirsty sprout you water bursts into a flower and makes the hose one piece longer. You’re helping things grow instead of eating them. The only things to dodge are wilted plants and your own hose. Gentle mode lets the hose wrap around the edges, so younger players don’t hit the fence every ten seconds.

A bit of real snake game history

The snake game started in the arcade. In November 1976, Gremlin, an arcade maker in San Diego, released a two-player game called Blockade, designed by Lane Hauck. Each player steered an arrow that left a trail behind it. Crash into a wall or a trail and the other player scored. Blockade was copied so often that the copies came to be called snake games.

Home computers came next. The first known home version, Worm, was written by Peter Trefonas for the TRS-80 and published in 1978. In 1982, Snake Byte came out for Atari 8-bit computers, the Apple II and the VIC-20, with one snake hunting apples around the screen. That is close to the version most parents grew up with.

Then it moved into our pockets. Nokia announced the 6110 phone in December 1997 and put it on sale in 1998 with Snake built in. It was the first Nokia phone to carry the game, which was programmed by Nokia engineer Taneli Armanto. Nokia later said some 350 million phones had Snake on them in one form or another. If you owned a Nokia around the year 2000, you probably played it.

The garden ladder

Every plant you water scores a point, and your score earns you a garden title. Gentle and Classic keep separate best scores.

• Seed Sower: where everyone starts.
• Waterer: at 5 plants.
• Gardener: at 10 plants.
• Head Gardener: at 20 plants. By now the hose is long and the bed is getting busy.
• Garden Legend: at 35 plants. Get here in Classic and you’ve really earned it.

How to play

• Pick Gentle or Classic, then press Start watering.
• Steer with the arrow keys or WASD, swipe on the garden, or tap the big arrow buttons under it.
• Guide the nozzle onto a drooping sprout to water it. It blooms, the hose grows one piece, and you score a point.
• Every 4 plants you water, a wilted plant appears. Bumping into one, or into your own hose, ends the run.
• In Gentle mode the hose comes out the other side when it reaches an edge. In Classic mode the fence ends the run.
• The hose speeds up a little as your score climbs. Press P or the Pause button to take a break.
• Sound is on to start. Tap 🔊 to mute, or 🎵 for music.

Tips from the garden

Plan two turns ahead. The game remembers your next two presses, so a quick up-then-left lets you squeeze around a corner.

Hug the edges early. While the hose is short, loop around the outside of the bed. It keeps the middle clear for later, when the hose is long.

Watch for the wilted ones. A new wilted plant never lands right next to the nozzle or straight in front of it, but it can land where you were planning to turn.

Start in Gentle. With no fence to hit, younger kids can learn to steer first. Move to Classic once turning feels easy.

Your turn

The sprouts at the top of this page are thirsty. Grab the hose and see how many you can water.