Snake is a popular game genre that, believe it or not, doesn't actually refer to any specific title. The first snake games were not the ones that game preloaded on old Nokia phones! The concept of the snake game goes far earlier than this, all the way back to the arcade games of the 1970s.

The earliest known snake game was an arcade machine titled Blockade, released in 1976. Atari, Inc. released an unofficial port titled Surround, for the Atari 2600. The first snake game for personal computers was released in 1978, ironically titled Worm, for the TRS-80 computer. Other versions popped up for the Commodore PET and Apple II.

We could continue this history lesson, because the history of snake games is really quite long and extensive, but let's continue. As we all know, snake games saw a massive surge in popularity when Nokia preloaded their early cell phones with a snake game, officially titled Snake, which has led many to believe that Nokia originated the snake game. Nokia also released many sequels and updates for the Snake game as their phones advanced in technology.

In modern times, the concept and gameplay of the snake game genre continues to evolve. This is because a basic snake game is actually quite simple to program, so it's a great exercise for beginner game developers. In fact, perhaps unintentionally ironically, creating a snake game is recommended as a way to learn the Python programming language.

Because the basic gameplay of a snake game can be programmed in literally just a few hours, from scratch, many game developers have figured out ways to make their snake games more attractive with modern graphics and gameplay elements.

One of the most popular snake games in recent times is Slither.io, which similarly to Agar.io added MMO (massively multiplayer online) elements to the core snake genre gameplay. Not only are you hunting for pellets to grow your own snake, but you're competing against 50 other players. You need to be careful not to run headfirst into other snakes, which introduces some strategies such as encircling other players to force them to crash into you.

One other modern example is Little Big Snake (see on CrazyGames) which builds on popular multiplayer snake games like Slither.IO, but introduces entirely new gameplay elements, such as transforming into a beetle and flying above the action, then landing to collect pellets.

And of course, many developers take a unique approach to the snake genre, crossing it with other genres. For example, Snake vs Block! has you dodging falling objects which will shrink your snake, while collecting pellets to grow.

Another unique title is Snake Pass, which is an action-puzzle platformer set in an entirely 3D world, available for all of the major gaming consoles.

There's no doubt that the snake genre will continue to evolve for many years, as its a simple game concept that can easily be adopted to modern technology.

We've already seen numerous snake games in virtual reality, and augmented reality is soon to follow.