We’ve pushed a new version of the server.  Several bugs related to score reporting, fairly handling head-to-head collisions, and server stability have been fixed.

For those of you who felt deceived by the bots with random human names, bots are now named “Botn“.  We generally keep 8 bots in the game so that it’s not entirely boring when only one person is playing.

We’ve also changed the game so that if another snake dies by running into your snake, your snake grows.

As you’ve probably noticed, we’re experimenting with personalized snakes, specifically color selection for now.  Opinions about snake colors have been mixed.  We’re planning to make it possible to disable enemy colors for those who don’t like the feature.  Thanks to your feedback we think we’re aware of most of the major areas of improvement in the game.  Watch for more changes over the next few weeks.

After receiving an initial round of feedback, we’ve added several new features to the game, including:

• A points system. 5 points per kill (when another snake runs into you, or you eat the other snake — more on that below), -5 points for death, and 1 point for food.
• Single-unit snakes are food.  So be careful when you spawn — you might get eaten and lose 5 points.  Conversely, longer snakes no longer have to worry about randomly dying when small snakes spawn in front of them.
• Rounds.  Each round lasts 5 minutes and is followed by a 15 second intermission during which the top scorers and your stats for the round are displayed.  Your performance will no longer go unrecognized!
• More food per map size.
• Larger map per amount of players.

In the coming weeks, we will be working on reducing game lag and fixing some backend performance issues.  Stay tuned by subscribing to the RSS feed for this blog, and please continue to provide feedback on the game.

After a few weeks of coding, Multisnake is up and running.  We’re still working on reducing network latency and adding gameplay elements, so expect the game to improve in the near future.  We would appreciate any feedback and suggestions.