snakes.run: multiplayer snake over ssh

Finally, a way to securely play snake online

I’ve got a new game. It’s massively multiplayer snake, played over ssh.

Open a terminal and type ssh snakes.run to play

ssh is an obscure but widely-deployed program - if you’re curious about its history you can learn more here. And if you want to know how the game works, check out my breakdown.

I’ve had a lot of fun testing this game - I hope you enjoy playing!

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Some other stuff I’ve made

I’m back to writing and posting after a long break. Here are a few more (smaller) things that I’ve made recently:

Are two heads better than one? is a short blog about a funny statistical quirk I ran into late last year. You can check the discussion on hacker news if you’d like.

Will AI pet my dog for me? is a little piece wondering whether LLMs will take away the things that I love about programming. Yes, I know, I’m sick of AI thinkpieces too.

Why does SSH send 100 packets per keystroke? is a fun debugging story that I ran into while building snakes.run. This was also discussed on hacker news and elsewhere, although plenty of the discussion is people being angry at me for using claude code lol. Don’t visit /r/programming, is a lesson I learned here.

tiny.christmas was a one-day project I built for christmas and a precursor to snakes.run

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I’m back?

It’s been several months since I’ve launched a new game (or posted anything here). Sorry about that!

Last summer I decided to take a break. I’ve found that thinking about attention on the internet is bad for your soul - but unfortunately to drive traffic to multiplayer games I have to think a little bit about attention.

I spent a while wondering whether it was time to do something else. I’m still thinking about that - if you’re doing something really interesting consider getting in touch! - but I’ve decided that for the time being, I need to make some more games :)

I’ve also got some exciting collaborations / galleries / shows coming up - nothing public yet, but I’m really looking forward to sharing more when I can.

Anyway, that’s it. Let’s keep having fun on the internet.