A Trip Down Memory Card Lane Ep.175 – Snakes and Patterns: Connecting the Dots of the Snake Genre
In 1998, Nokia released Snake on the 6110 mobile phone, introducing millions to gaming on the go. In this episode, we trace the history of the Nokia Corporation—from its 19th-century pulp mill origins to its dominance in the mobile phone market—and explore how a Finnish engineer, Taneli Armanto, adapted a decades-old arcade concept into a handheld obsession. We revisit the roots of the Snake genre, from Gremlin’s Blockade and Atari’s Surround to Apple II’s Snake Byte, and examine how Armanto’s version became the first mobile game phenomenon. Our conversation covers Nokia’s evolution through the 2000s, from the N-Gage to the 3310 revival, and how one simple game helped pave the way for mobile gaming as we know it. Join us as we dial back the years, link up via infrared, and chase our tails through Snake on today’s trip down Memory Card Lane.