Snake Game
We will develop the classic Snake game using a DOM-based approach. Unlike the Brick Breaker project (which used the Canvas element), we will render the game on a CSS grid of <div> elements. This chapter teaches Event-Driven Programming in JavaScript. You will use custom events to decouple the game logic from the UI updates, and you will organize the code as a set of ES6 modules.
Getting Started
Go to the snake-game repository and click “Use this template” → “Create a new repository” to create your own copy.
Clone your repository to your computer:
git clone <your-repo-url> snake-game
cd snake-game
code .
The template is pre-configured with Vite (just like the previous projects). Install dependencies and start the dev server:
pnpm install
pnpm dev
You should see a blank page when you open the dev server in your browser.
If you get stuck at any point, you can view the complete solution on the master branch of the original repository.
Learning Outcomes
- Build a DOM-based game (a CSS grid of
divelements) that maintains state, runs a game loop, and renders that state to the screen - Handle keyboard input to control a game object, including preventing invalid moves
- Implement core game mechanics: movement, growth, collision detection, scoring, and game-over conditions
- Use custom events (
CustomEvent) to decouple game logic from UI updates - Organize a project as a set of ES6 modules with event-driven communication between them
- Add game controls (start, pause, restart) and persist state (such as a high score) across sessions