Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Play Snake On YouTube. Why? Cos You Can

By John Walker on July 24th, 2010 at 10:10 pm.

That's Snake alright.

Here’s a strange thing. Did you know you can play Snake in a YouTube video? And no, I promise this isn’t a practical joke, despite the instructional video below feeling like it’s going to become one. It really is the case that if you click Up and Left on your cursor pad at the same time, you can play Snake over the top of the video you’re watching. There’s a video explaining this below, over which you can play Snake while you’re watching (but only if you’re watching it on YouTube’s site).

I’m fairly sure this only works on videos playing in YouTube’s newer player, as in the one below. And other rumours suggest it only works so long as the video is loading, but I’m fairly sure I’ve had it working despite that.

It’s awkward to get started. And since for whatever mad reason YouTube don’t use their more recent player on embedded videos, it won’t work on the one below. But click on it to reach YT and you’ll see that it does.

Which is something to do while watching a crappy video someone’s linked to you insisting you watch it to the end.

Big thanks to Matthew Old for spotting this one and letting me know.

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54 Comments »

  1. 24/07/2010 at 22:13 Carra says:

    Eep, there’s a snake in my tube.

  2. 24/07/2010 at 22:15 Demon Beaver says:

    This is odd, but strangely amusing

  3. 24/07/2010 at 22:17 Simon says:

    First Google-Pacman now Youtube-Snake..

  4. 24/07/2010 at 22:18 Skusey says:

    It’ really hard to play snake over a video of someone playing snake.

  5. 24/07/2010 at 22:22 TeeJay says:

    pfft. twit my youfarm villetube spacebook here we come

  6. 24/07/2010 at 22:25 SpinalJack says:

    lol, at first I was all like, this is fake… but then I had a go and it took me a couple tries but there it was XD

    Pro tip: Don’t play on light coloured videos because the white dots get pretty hard to see XD

  7. 24/07/2010 at 22:29 fallingmagpie says:

    Slow day, huh?

  8. 24/07/2010 at 22:34 Shadrach says:

    And its a bloody hard game of snake as well o.O

  9. 24/07/2010 at 22:39 Land says:

    This is pretty cool, thanks for pointing that out!

  10. 24/07/2010 at 22:52 Skinlo says:

    Good to see Googles employees time is well spent (no seriously, it is).

  11. 24/07/2010 at 22:55 Jonathan says:

    That person is shockingly bad at Snake. That should be a basic skill for all gamers.

  12. 24/07/2010 at 23:17 Fumarole says:

    I have had it with these motherfucking snakes in these motherfucking videos.

  13. 24/07/2010 at 23:30 Sigma Draconis says:

    UPDATE: You only have to hold the Left Arrow key until the loading animation dots trail off to the left to let you know your game of Snake has started.

    This is a pretty neat Easter Egg.

  14. 24/07/2010 at 23:30 Clovis says:

    Is there some way to restart the snake game without restarting the video? I keep dying way before the video is over.

    • 24/07/2010 at 23:39 Hidden_7 says:

      Just do the same thing you did to start it the first time.

    • 25/07/2010 at 01:07 Clovis says:

      Yeah, but when you hit left on the keyboard it restarts the video. I want to keep playing snake while my video keeps playing.

      Actually, I don’t want to do that at all. I really don’t even know why I asked this question. Snake blows.

    • 25/07/2010 at 01:27 Hidden_7 says:

      Hrmm… it doesn’t restart the video for me, just momentarily sets it back a second. Different youtube configuration options? I wasn’t even aware I had configured my youtube!

    • 25/07/2010 at 12:03 Wulf says:

      @Clovis

      That may be true, but Pizza Worm is and will forever be awesome.

  15. 25/07/2010 at 00:09 Xercies says:

    I seem to be only play this game while its paused and once in like 50 times.

  16. 25/07/2010 at 00:12 Insectecutor says:

    Snake? Snake?! Snaaaake!

  17. 25/07/2010 at 01:15 Crabtacular says:

    Try playing it full screen. I find the game speed becomes a lot easier if you watch a video in 1080p, then again, maybe that’s just my PC.

    • 25/07/2010 at 01:32 DarkNoghri says:

      Speak for yourself. With the most recent flash update that Firefox recommended for stability reasons, all flash videos get horribly corrupted in fullscreen for me. :(

  18. 25/07/2010 at 02:08 Rath says:

    Between this and somebody posting the entirety of Batman: Under The Red Hood up on there a couple of days before the official release date, this has been a good week for Youtube excellence.

  19. 25/07/2010 at 02:14 Robert says:

    I wish someone had videotaped the conversation between Rock* and the Daily Star, I would play snake on that video ALL DAY LONG.

  20. 25/07/2010 at 02:46 Pmeie says:

    I was p long, but then i hit an edge and i got resetted. I got long a bit again and then i hit my tail and was resetted. Then i got veeeery long but i could not turn fast enough aand hit a wall.

  21. 25/07/2010 at 04:19 Volpone says:

    You, sir, have won the Internet.

  22. 25/07/2010 at 04:40 BAReFOOt says:

    Sup dawg! I herd you like playin’ Snake. So I pressed up and left over a video where you pressed up and left, so I played snake over your snake while you played snake under my snake! :D

  23. 25/07/2010 at 09:08 robrob says:

    How do I get the big red arrow to show up like in the screenshot?

  24. 25/07/2010 at 11:27 Pandaemonius says:

    The HTML5 player doesn’t have it, it seems

  25. 26/07/2010 at 05:53 Legend of Zelda: Snake of Time says:

    Now I want to play Snake AND Majora’s Mask……….

  26. 26/07/2010 at 16:43 Dhatz says:

    it has to be the newest player with progressbart on the top.

  28. 27/07/2010 at 21:33 teake7 says:

    You can only play snake on the NEW videoplayer of youtube (the transparant one)

    so dont try at the old one!!!

  29. 30/07/2010 at 00:12 John says:

    Best instruction with working video on site http://youtubesnake.com

  30. 30/07/2010 at 00:13 john says:

    Best instructions with working video on site play it live! http://youtubesnake.com !!

  31. 24/11/2010 at 02:03 ugg outlet says:

    This article was Very helpful. Actually, I am fond of reading online punjabi news. Thanks for writing such a complete ..
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