Video games come, video games go, some stay, some change and adapt and we still remain gamers, playing them and finding new ones to play. Browser games weren’t doing all that good for the first part of the 2010s. They became a bit better in the second part, as the io domain was becoming more popular and gamers started taking notice of that.

New browser games began to pop up, using Javascript and HTML5, or even other services, like WebSocket, which is a protocol that allows browsers to run games.

This leads us to Slither.io, or simply Slither, a game where you play as a snake, competing against other snakes, 600 of them, to see who will be the largest snake. This game became immensely popular, and it was released in 2016. 

As a browser game, how did it become this popular?

Here is a take on it.

Slither.io – Another Snake Game

When you build something that has been built many times, you need to outdo yourself and everyone else, but still offer something interesting that nobody actually had seen prior to that. Slither was designed and built by Steve Howse, a developer who had an idea and he turned it into reality.

The game was supposed to be developed in Adobe Flash, but given the status of flash at the time, Howse didn’t want that, and found a solution after almost dropping the game entirely. 

The solution is the aforementioned WebSocket, which allows HTML games to run in a browser, with little to no latency. When he built and tested the game, Howse found that the biggest obstacle in the game running well was to have stable enough servers to handle 600 people at a time.

The game was launched in March of 2016.

What is Slither?

As a snake game, Slither doesn’t stand out until you start to play it. It is then you realize that Howse is a genius. The game is a snake game, but you compete against other snakes. The goal is to be the largest snake in the game. The game is played on a board, albeit a large one, and if the player hits the border, he dies.

The object of the game is to collect pellets and grow in mass. You can accelerate your snake and lose mass, but this way you can catch stronger or chase pellets. You can die if you hit another snake’s body. If another snake hits your body, they die. If you die in this way, you will turn into pellets that other snakes can pick up and become larger.

The game can hold up to 600 players simultaneously, in one instance. There is a leaderboard that displays the top snakes in the lobby.

How it Exploded

When launched, the game was played by many popular personalities on the internet. When you see people like PewDiePie and Jacksepticeye play the game, you know that the game will explode. However, not all games have exploded, just look at Raid: Shadow Legends, which was advertised heavily.

Slither exploded because it was simple and fun, colorful and interesting. You could play it during a break and you could have a good time. The game was also basically advertised on every Twitch stream when players would play it, for example, when in queue for a high level match in any game.

Snake games never get old and if Slither is anything to go by, they actually get better over time. Released in 2016, Slither.io is one of the best browser games that we have seen in a while.