#361 Snake

Build and update the snake game example from Rust lang: The complete beginner’s guide, learning about making GUI games with Piston and Rust.

Notes

This project is adapted from an example given in the Rust lang: The complete beginner’s guide course. Dependencies and code have been updated to work cleanly in 2025.

Project Structure

Main

See snake/src/main.rs

Creates the game window and handles hte main event loop.

Game

See snake/src/game.rs

Implements game logic.

Snake

See snake/src/snake.rs

Manages position. movement and growth of the snake. Snake segments managed in a linked list.

Draw

See snake/src/draw.rs

Some higher-level drawing functions that translate from game to window coordinates.

Running the Game

How the game works:

• arrow keys to change snake direction left or right, else it moves straight ahead
• snake dies if it hits the edge of the box
• snake dies if it runs over its own tail
• snake grows by 1 unit when it eats an apple
• a new apple appears at a random position on the screen when one is eaten
• when game is over, it restarts automatically after 1s

$ cargo run
    Finished `dev` profile [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.17s
    Running `target/debug/snake`

On startup:

Game over!

Improvements?

Obviously, it’s just a basic game structure at this point. Some features that could be added:

• scoreboard
• sound

Credits and References

• Rust lang: The complete beginner’s guide
• Piston - a modular open source game engine