60
seconds
The snake moves on its own. Around its head sit small letter badges, one for each direction it can turn. Type the right letter and it turns. Type the wrong one and it keeps going, straight at whatever is in front of it.
Type Snake is the snake you remember from old phones and arcade cabinets, with one change: the arrow keys do nothing. Every time the head moves, three badges ride along with it (left, right and straight ahead). Type a badge's letter and the snake turns that way. The letters re-roll after every turn, so you cannot settle into a rhythm of pressing the same key. You have to read, then type, then read again.
Typing the letter straight ahead gives you a short surge, three quick cells at nearly double speed. It is how good players close the gap to a gem before the board gets crowded, and it is worth a few bonus points each time.
Most typing practice is long strings of words. Snake works the other way round, with one or two letters at a time, under a little pressure, with your eyes away from the keyboard. It trains the split second between seeing a letter and hitting the right key. The first gems use home row letters only (a, s, d, f, g, h, j, k, l), then the top row joins, then the whole alphabet. On Advanced the badges turn into common letter pairs such as th, er, in and ou, and you have to type both letters to turn.
Keep your fingers resting on home row and let your eyes do the work. Turn early rather than late: the snake moves one cell per tick no matter how fast you type, so a turn typed half a second before the wall is worth more than a perfect one typed too late. Once the snake gets long, sweep the arena in wide loops so there is always an open lane back to the middle. Your score, accuracy and real typing speed are saved on the results card, so you can tell if you got faster or just luckier.
No. Arrow keys are ignored on purpose. The only way to turn is to type the letter shown beside the head, which is the whole point of the game.
Nothing dramatic. The badges shake, your combo resets and the snake keeps moving in the same direction. Only walls and your own body end a run.
The snake starts faster, the letters move to the full alphabet sooner, and after a few gems the badges become two-letter pairs such as th or er that must be typed in full.