MAMBA

1989 · Bert Uffen

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Arrows to steer · S sound · P pause

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    Why this remake

    I grew up as a fan of Bert Uffen's 1989 MS-DOS Mamba, and spent countless days competing over highscores with family and friends (and maybe secretly manipulating high score files). The most fun about this particular snake game is that the snake molts, leaving a wall behind in which new, more valuable pellets can spawn.

    What I always wished for was a place where those scores could live together: a shared leaderboard, not just a list on one PC that could be manipulated. So I remade the game for the web in the same spirit, with local boards for guests, and global boards plus multiplayer mode when you sign in.

    Controls

    • Arrow keys: steer
    • Enter: start / restart (also "Play again" after an online match)
    • P: pause (doesn't work in multiplayer)
    • S: sound on/off

    Multiplayer adds two more:

    • Enter: also toggles Ready while you're waiting to start
    • Escape leaves the room.

    Scoring

    • Blue (pellet): 1 point
    • Green (candy): 10 points
    • Lime (block): some high number

    When you eat enough (random number between 12-22) pellets, you molt, and you enter level 2. From then on, blue pellets are worth 2 points and green pellets 20.

    This goes on until level 10 (where blue pellets are 10 points, and green pellets 100 points), after which the level increases, but the points per pellet stay the same.

    The score for the lime pellet is the square root of the level times a random number between 20-50. You need to react fast (0.5 seconds) to find the quickest way there, but it's theoretically always gettable (it uses the minimum Dijkstra distance).

    When you play against AI, the board score is your pellet points minus the opponent’s pellet points, plus your time bonus and win bonus (opponent time is not deducted). The top bar shows pellet scores, your time bonus, and net without the win bonus. Lime pellets spawn a bit closer to whoever just molted (about 5–10 path ticks nearer than the opponent).

    Online multiplayer plays it completely straight: no dice are rolled. You always molt at exactly 20 pellets (not the random 12-22 above), the lime pellet is always worth the square root of the level times exactly 20 (not a random 20-50), and your net score is just your own pellets plus your time and win bonus — your opponent's pellets are never subtracted. Same board, same rules, but nobody gets to blame the dice.

    Modes & boards

    • Solo: Classic single mamba
    • vs AI: Easy / Medium / Hard on a shared field
    • Multiplayer: Real online 1v1 — create or join a room by code, or watch anyone's public match live
    • Sizes: Small 11×20, Medium 22×40, Large 33×60

    For the 'classic' game experience, select solo mode on medium size.

    Multiplayer matches count for something: winning nudges your Elo rating up (losing nudges it down), and a sidebar tracks games won per player plus a breakdown of the last finished game, so bragging rights survive past a single match. Spectators get the same sidebar, plus a "join if a seat opens" toggle to jump into the next game.

    Multiplayer

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