How to play Sssnake online
- Move your gun along the fortress walls: arrow keys
- Fire: Space bar
- Player 2: T/F/G/H to move, A to fire; Player 2 presses A to start their turn
- Choose game 1 or 2: F11 (the consoleās Select switch)
- Start or restart a game: F12 (the consoleās Reset switch)
Gameplay
Your gun, a Cluster Gun, runs on a track inside the fortress and always fires away from the centre. Outside, pterodactyls and trachodons (a kind of duck-billed dinosaur) roam, and each one you hit is worth one point, even if one blast takes out several. The score goes back to zero after 99. Red squares stand for bricks, petrified trees and other barriers, and your shots cannot pass through them, so you have to aim through the gaps.
The snakes are the danger. They cannot be killed and give no points, but hitting them can shorten them or break them into pieces, which makes them easier to avoid. Some are faster than others, and some are harder to damage. In game 1 the snakes are fast and come from one direction only; in game 2 they are slower but come from two directions.
Tips
- Hold the fire button on snakes. The manual says keeping it pressed while aiming at a snake improves your chances of knocking off segments.
- Donāt waste shots on bricks. They block your fire and score nothing. Line up with a gap first.
- Start with game 2. The slower snakes give you more time to learn how the gun moves.
History
Data Age was a small company from Campbell, California, founded in 1982. Its first games, Sssnake, Airlock, Bugs, Encounter at L-5 and Warplock, all appeared in October 1982. The company lasted only about a year before filing for bankruptcy in 1983. The programmer of Sssnake has not been identified in the sources we checked. The game was also released in Europe by Game World.
