🐍 Serpent Bites - Classical Snake Game

A polished, feature-rich implementation of the classic Snake game built with C++ and SFML. This project showcases clean code architecture, smooth gameplay mechanics, and engaging visual effects.

🎥 Demo

Featuring particle effects, smooth animations, and polished gameplay

✨ Features

Gameplay

• Classic Snake Mechanics - Grow by eating food, avoid collisions
• Toggleable Wall Collision - Play with or without boundary walls
• Progressive Difficulty - Speed increases every 5 points
• Screen Wrapping - Snake wraps around edges when walls are disabled
• Persistent High Score - Your best score is saved between sessions

Visual Effects

• 🎆 Particle System - Sparkle effects when eating food
• 💥 Death Explosion - Dramatic particle burst on collision
• 📊 Score Popups - Floating score indicators
• 🎨 Smooth Animations - Polished transitions and effects

User Interface

• 🎮 Main Menu - Clean, intuitive navigation
• ⚙️ Settings Toggle - Enable/disable walls from menu
• 📖 Instructions Screen - Clear game controls and rules
• ⏸️ Pause Functionality - Pause/resume with 'P' key
• 🏆 High Score Display - Always visible during gameplay

🎮 Controls

Key	Action
Arrow Keys	Move snake (Up/Down/Left/Right)
P	Pause/Resume game
Enter	Start game from menu
R	Restart from game over screen
M	Return to menu from game over
Mouse	Navigate menus and click buttons

🛠️ Technical Details

Architecture

• Object-Oriented Design - Clean separation of concerns
• Component-Based - Modular game systems (Snake, Food, Score, Particles)
• State Management - Robust game state system (Menu, Playing, Game Over, Instructions)
• Memory Optimized - Pre-allocated vectors, efficient particle management

Key Components

├── Snake       - Player-controlled entity with collision detection
├── Food        - Spawning system with grid-based placement
├── Game        - Core game loop and logic coordinator
├── Score       - Scoring system with persistent high score
├── ParticleSystem - Visual effects and particle physics
├── UIManager   - Menu system and user interface
└── UIButton    - Interactive menu buttons

Code Highlights

• Predictive Collision Detection - Checks next position before moving
• Smart Food Spawning - Avoids snake body with infinite loop prevention
• Visual Effects - Sparkle effects, death explosion and score floating effects
• Comprehensive Comments - Well-documented code for easy understanding

📋 Requirements

Dependencies

• SFML 2.5+ - Simple and Fast Multimedia Library
• CMake 3.10+ - Build system generator
• C++17 Compiler - GCC, Clang, or MSVC
• MinGW-w64 (Windows) - For compiling on Windows

Platform Support

• ✅ Windows (Primary)
• ✅ Linux
• ✅ macOS

🚀 Building the Game

Windows (MinGW)

1. Install Dependencies

   # Install MSYS2 from https://www.msys2.org/
   # Open MSYS2 MinGW 64-bit terminal
   pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc
   pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake
   pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-sfml

2. Clone and Build

   git clone https://github.com/swati048/snake-game.git
   cd snake-game
   mkdir build && cd build
   cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles" ..
   cmake --build .

3. Run

   ./snake.exe

Linux

1. Install Dependencies

   # Ubuntu/Debian
   sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake
   sudo apt-get install libsfml-dev
   
   # Arch Linux
   sudo pacman -S base-devel cmake sfml

2. Clone and Build

   git clone https://github.com/swati048/snake-game.git
   cd snake-game
   mkdir build && cd build
   cmake ..
   make

3. Run

   ./snake

macOS

1. Install Dependencies

   # Install Homebrew from https://brew.sh/
   brew install cmake
   brew install sfml

2. Clone and Build

   git clone https://github.com/swati048/snake-game.git
   cd snake-game
   mkdir build && cd build
   cmake ..
   make

3. Run

   ./snake

📸 Screenshots

Main Menu

Clean, intuitive menu with wall toggle option

Gameplay With Walls Enabled

Smooth gameplay with walls enabled and score display

Gameplay With Walls Disabled

Smooth gameplay with walls disabled and score display

Game Over

Game over screen displaying score and highscore with restart, menu and exit button

Instructions

Precise game control and rules instructions

📁 Project Structure

snake-game/
├── src/
│   ├── main.cpp              # Entry point
│   ├── Snake.cpp             # Snake entity logic
│   ├── Food.cpp              # Food spawning system
│   ├── Game.cpp              # Game coordinator
│   ├── Score.cpp             # Score management
│   ├── ParticleSystem.cpp    # Visual effects
│   ├── UIManager.cpp         # UI and menu system
│   └── UIButton.cpp          # Button component
├── include/
│   ├── Snake.hpp
│   ├── Food.hpp
│   ├── Game.hpp
│   ├── Score.hpp
│   ├── ParticleSystem.hpp
│   ├── GameState.hpp
│   ├── UIManager.hpp
│   └── UIButton.hpp
├── resources/
│   ├── snake_head.png        # Snake head texture
│   ├── snake_body.png        # Snake body texture
│   ├── food.png              # Food texture
│   ├── background.png        # Game background
│   ├── menu_background.png   # Menu background
│   ├── gameOver_bg.png       # Game over background
│   └── CherryBombOne-Regular.ttf  # Game font
├── .vscode/
│   ├── c_cpp_properties.json # VSCode C++ config
│   ├── launch.json           # Debug configuration
│   └── settings.json         # CMake settings
├── CMakeLists.txt            # Build configuration
├── highscore.txt             # Persistent high score
└── README.md                 # This file

🎨 Customization

Modify Game Speed

In main.cpp:

const float SNAKE_SPEED = 20.0f;  // Change block size/speed

Adjust Difficulty Curve

In Game.cpp:

// Speed increases every 5 points by default
if (score.getValue() % 5 == 0) {
    speedMultiplier += 0.1f;  // Adjust increment
}

Change Particle Count

In Game.cpp:

// Food collection particles
particleSystem.createBurst(position, 15, color);  // Adjust count

// Death explosion particles
particleSystem.createExplosion(position, 40, color);  // Adjust count

Modify Colors

In respective .cpp files:

// Wall color
wall.setFillColor(sf::Color(150, 75, 0));  // Brown

// Particle colors
sf::Color::Yellow  // Food particles
sf::Color::Red     // Death particles

🐛 Known Issues

• None currently! 🎉

🔮 Future Enhancements

• Sound effects and background music
• Multiple difficulty levels
• Power-ups (speed boost, invincibility, score multiplier)
• Obstacles and special food types
• Leaderboard with player names
• Theme selector (different color schemes)
• Multiplayer mode
• Mobile touch controls

📝 Development Notes

Design Decisions

Why SFML?

• Cross-platform compatibility
• Simple API for 2D graphics
• Good performance for particle effects
• Active community support

Why Static Linking?

• Single executable distribution
• No external DLL dependencies
• Easier for portfolio deployment

Particle System Design

• Used vector with reserve() for memory efficiency
• Lifetime-based particle removal
• Physics simulation (velocity, gravity, fade)
• Separate burst and explosion types for variety

Collision Detection

• Predictive checking prevents teleportation bugs
• Separate wall and self-collision logic
• Grid-aligned movement prevents sub-pixel issues

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to:

• Report bugs
• Suggest features
• Submit pull requests
• Improve documentation

👤 Author

Swati Thakur

• GitHub: @swati048
• LinkedIn: Swati Thakur
• Email: thakurswati048@gmail.com

🙏 Acknowledgments

• SFML Team - For the excellent multimedia library
• Cherry Bomb Font - Font used in the game
• Classic Snake Game - Original inspiration from Nokia phones

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Made with ❤️ and C++