Playing Snake on a Nokia 3310

Snake came free on Nokia phones and turned the Nokia 3310 into a pocket arcade. The phone itself became famous for being almost impossible to break.

current mood: determinedcurrently listening to: ♫ the beep of Snake II eating a dot

Written by Daniel Rivera · October 9, 202656k: ~1 min

Snake was a simple game that came built into Nokia phones, where you steered a growing line around the screen to eat dots without crashing into the wall or yourself. A Nokia engineer named Taneli Armanto made the first version for the Nokia 6110, which came out at the end of 1997. Its sequel, Snake II, shipped on the Nokia 3310 in 2000, and that phone sold about 126 million units. For a whole lot of people, a Nokia with Snake on it was their first phone and their first handheld game rolled into one.

How Snake started

Armanto first wanted to put Tetris on Nokia's phones, but the company behind Tetris wanted a fee for every phone sold, so that idea was out. He needed something that could run on a tiny black-and-green screen with a few buttons and almost no memory. Snake fit.

The idea itself was old. Games where you steer a line that keeps getting longer go back to the arcade in the 1970s. Armanto's version was made for a number pad. You pressed 2, 4, 6 and 8 to turn, and the snake kept moving, ready or not. He even built in a tiny pause before a crash, so you got a split second to save yourself.

The Nokia 3310

Nokia announced the 3310 in September 2000 as the replacement for the 3210, and it became one of the best-selling phones ever made. It had a small monochrome screen, a big round button in the middle and a battery that seemed to last forever. Standby time ran for days, so plenty of people only charged it a couple of times a week.

It was also famously tough. People dropped it down stairs, off bikes and into puddles, and it kept working. The jokes about it being indestructible started back then and never really stopped. In 2015, Finland even picked the 3310 as one of its first national emojis, calling it "The Unbreakable."

What is Snake II, and how was it different?

Snake II was the version on the Nokia 3310, and it added mazes and levels on top of the original game. Instead of a plain box, you could pick different layouts with walls in the way, plus speed levels from slow and easy to almost impossible. The faster levels moved about as fast as the phone could handle.

The goal never changed. Eat the dot, get longer, don't hit anything. The longer you got, the harder it was to find room, and most games ended with the snake running straight into its own tail after a bad turn.

High scores and bragging rights

Snake turned into a competition the second two people had the same phone. You played in class under the desk, on the bus and while waiting for someone who was running late. Your best score stayed saved on the phone, which made borrowing a friend's phone a little risky, because they could see exactly how good you weren't.

Snake wasn't the only thing hiding under desks. Kids were also feeding a Tamagotchi on a keychain and hoping a teacher didn't hear it beep.

Some people swore by playing on the slowest speed to rack up length. Others went straight for the fastest level, where the dots were worth more and every turn had to be perfect. Everybody had a theory, and nobody could prove theirs was right.

The other games on the phone

Snake II had company, and so did the rest of the pocket gadget crowd, like Graffiti on a Palm Pilot. The 3310 also came with Space Impact, a side-scrolling shooter with tiny alien ships, Pairs II, a memory game, and Bantumi, a version of an old counting game. Some people liked Space Impact even more than Snake, and it had its own fans who could get through levels without losing a life.

Covers, ringtones and long texts

The 3310 had swappable front and back covers, called Xpress-on covers, and there were thousands of designs. Mall kiosks sold them in every color, with flames, flags, cartoons and see-through plastic. Changing your cover felt like getting a new phone for a few dollars.

You could also write your own ringtones right on the phone by typing notes into a composer, and people traded the codes for popular songs. The same spirit carried into the T9 texting on flip phones a few years later, just in black and green.

The 3310 even had a Chat feature that worked a bit like instant messaging over text, and it could send long texts of up to 459 characters by joining several together. That was a big deal when most people counted every letter.

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Things people forget about the 3310

• Your contacts lived on the SIM card, not the phone
• The call log only remembered your last few calls
• There was no camera, no Bluetooth and no Wi-Fi
• The screen glowed green when you pressed a button
• It came with a stubby little antenna hidden inside
• A dropped 3310 often came apart into three pieces, then snapped right back together

Is the Nokia 3310 still a thing?

Yes, the 3310 is still around. In 2017, HMD Global, the company that makes Nokia phones now, released a new Nokia 3310 with a color screen, a small camera and a new version of Snake. It cost about 49 euros at launch and got a lot of attention from people who missed simple phones. The original is still a collector's item and a favorite of anyone who wants a phone that does almost nothing.

The new one is fine, but people who grew up with the original say the old Snake had a feel that never came back. Maybe it was the buttons, or maybe it was being bored in class.

Where Snake went next

Snake was one of the first games a lot of people carried everywhere. It was easy to learn, hard to master and always there when you had a minute to kill. Soon phones grew full keyboards and swivel screens. Anyone who lost lunch periods to Flash games knows the feeling of one more try.

You can't play Snake on FriendCrib, but you can brag. Make a crib and put your best score in your About Me. Nobody can prove you wrong.

Vote: Which was better on the 3310?

Snake IIorSpace Impact

You'll need a free crib to vote.

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