Slither.io

The objective of the game is to control a snake, also known as "slithers", around a wide area and eat pellets, defeating and consuming other players to gain mass to grow the largest and longest in the game. These pellets that remain from "death" of an avatar will correspond to the color of the avatar itself, and are both brighter and bigger than "normal" pellets, which spawn naturally throughout the world. When the button is released, or the finger on the touchscreen on mobile, the snake will stop using its boost. The mass that is lost from the boost appears as a line of small pellets where the boost was used. A common strategy is coiling the player's snake around a smaller opponent's in a loop, until the opponent, trapped in the tightening loop, crashes into the player. On the mobile versions of the game, there is a "play versus AI" mode where all the other snakes are computer opponents. These players also appear in normal servers, to a lesser extent. Their names consist of various preset ones followed by "(bot)". There are various other differences between standard and AI matches, including player speed (faster in AI matches), skins of computer players (only solid colors in normal matches vs any default skin in AI matches), and pellet spawning (large ones from player deaths spawn on their own in AI matches). Customization As of January 2026, there are 66 default skins to choose from, consisting of various solid colors and patterns as well as ones designed after national flags and YouTubers. If a skin is not chosen, the player will be assigned a randomly chosen solid colored skin each time they join a server. The player may also choose to create their own skin, with a tool known as "Build a Slither", which shows the different colors that an avatar can be made of, that can be placed on the snake upon clicking. Previously, in order to unlock custom skins in browser mode, players were forced to share the game on Twitter or Facebook using the external links found on the website. By June 2016, the ability to add skins was also added to the iOS and Android versions. There are also 32 cosmetics and 19 map backgrounds to choose from. Players can choose their own name to be shown underneath the snake's head and on the leaderboard, up to 24 characters. This system has been criticized for flaws in its moderation. == Development ==

According to game creator Steven Howse, he was inspired to create the game while he was experiencing financial problems. As a result of these financial issues, he had to move from Minneapolis to Michigan, where he realized the popularity of Agar.io. The most difficult part of the development was in making each server stable enough to handle 600 players at a time. Howse struggled to find space on servers with enough space in regions where there was more demand and tried to avoid cloud services like Amazon Web Services, owing to the high cost that these services would incur based on the amount of bandwidth used. The only way Howse could make revenue was to display advertising in the app after the player's snake died; this option could be removed for US$3.99. He chose not to sell virtual currency or power-ups so that those who paid would not have an advantage over players who did not. In the weeks following the release, Howse worked on updates to stabilize the game and provide a better experience for players. In addition, he planned to add new features, such as a "friendly mode" that allows people to set up teams, and a way for the player to choose a server to play on. As of December 2025, the latter has been added to the game. Howse said that two major gaming companies had approached him to buy Slither.io. He had considered the idea, since he felt that it was stressful to maintain the game. == Reception ==

Soon after release, Slither.io reached the top of the App Store sales charts in the free software category in several regions, including the United States and the United Kingdom. By the end of 2016, Slither.io had become Google's most searched video game of the year in the United States. Patricia Hernandez of Kotaku said that the game's low barriers to entry and similarity to Agar.io explained Slither.ios popularity. She noted the game's fast pace. Brandt Ran, writing for Business Insider, said that "despite running into some technical hiccups—the game can lag heavily at times—I doubt Slither.io will be leaving my home screen anytime soon." TechCrunch Felicia Williams praised the designs, getting "pleasantly surprised" with the variety of skins for customization. Lian Amaris of Gamezebo found the game to be "far more interesting than Agar.io" because it involved "an ever-growing languid body rather than just a flat circle", and praised "the dark environment with neon worms," which gave the game a "retro arcade feel." Amaris also compared the concept of Slither.io to that of Agar.io and stated that Slither.io was reminiscent of the classic arcade game Snake. Shortly after the release of the mobile versions, the game was in first place in the ranking of games of the App Store. Despite Slither.ios popularity, it received mixed reviews. Scottie Rowland of Android Guys praised the gameplay and graphics but criticized the ads that pop up on the screen after the end of the game, calling them "extremely annoying", and finding the payment to remove them "a bit pricey". Popularity By July 2016, the browser version website was ranked by Alexa as the 250th most visited site worldwide, but then experienced a decline in popularity, dropping below 1,000 by October 2016 before remaining mostly constant at approximately 1,700 by January 2017. In April 2017, Slither.ios global rank then started declining further, reaching 2,800 by September 2017. By that same period, the game had already been downloaded more than 68 million times in mobile applications and played more than 67 million times in browsers, generating a daily income of US$100,000 for Howse. Snake.io dispute Snake.io is a clone of Slither.io available on web, mobile, and other platforms, including Netflix Games. Slither.io is suing Snake.io for trademark infringement due to the similarities in their logo. On X, Slither.io has openly criticized Snake.io, Netflix, and Google's Gemini AI for copying and spreading misinformation about Slither.io. Others have, in response, criticized Slither.io for its use of generative AI for its ingame backgrounds. == See also ==