Thread: Snake Game

I'm working on creating a snake game for fun. I've got a rough version of it going now which is basically just the snake moving around and boxes appearing on the screen. I just revamped the whole thing so it's a lot better. I'm wondering what the best method is to decide how you tell if the player hits their tail? And also the best way to increase the size of the snake, right now the snake currently stays at 1 box since I haven't gotten that far?

Also I need help figuring out how to get the tail to follow the path of the first cube, a lot more difficult than I first thought!

/Edit

Change the delay timer to make it quicker, it's slow atm for testing purposes

import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.Toolkit.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.util.Random;
 
 
public class SnakeGame extends JPanel
implements KeyListener{	
 
 
 
char shape = 'r';
JLabel ScoreLabel;
JPanel panel1;
int RandomBox = 0;
int BoxX = 145;
int BoxY = 280;
int SnakeX = 340;
int SnakeY = 300;
int direction = 0;
int score = 0;
Random randomGenerator = new Random();
 
 
public SnakeGame() {
 
setFocusable(true);
addKeyListener(this);;	
 
 
}
 
public static void main(String args[]) {
 
JFrame frame = new JFrame("Drawing Canvas");	
SnakeGame canvas = new SnakeGame();
canvas.makeGUI();
frame.getContentPane().add(canvas);
frame.setSize(700,700);
frame.addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter(){
 
	public void WindowClosing(WindowEvent e) {
		System.exit(0);
	}
});
frame.setVisible(true);
}
 
public void makeGUI() {	
 
	panel1 = new JPanel();
 
 	ScoreLabel = new JLabel("Score: " + score);	
 
    panel1.add(ScoreLabel);   
 
    //add panels
    add(panel1);
 
 
}
 
public int BoxXGenerator(int BoxX,Random randomGenerator,int RandomBox) {
 
RandomBox = randomGenerator.nextInt(5)+1;
 
if(RandomBox==1) {
	BoxX = 340;	
}	
 
else if(RandomBox==2) {
	BoxX = 135;
}
 
else if(RandomBox==3) {
	BoxX = 505;
}
 
else if(RandomBox==4) {
	BoxX = 520;
}
 
else if(RandomBox==5) {
	BoxX = 375;
}
 
return BoxX;
 
 
}
 
public int BoxYGenerator(int BoxY,Random randomGenerator,int RandomBox) {
 
RandomBox = randomGenerator.nextInt(5)+1;
 
if(RandomBox==1) {
	BoxY = 95;	
}	
 
else if(RandomBox==2) {
	BoxY = 400;
}
 
else if(RandomBox==3) {
	BoxY = 425;
}
 
else if(RandomBox==4) {
	BoxY = 170;
}
 
else if(RandomBox==5) {
	BoxY = 560;
}
 
return BoxY;
 
 
}
 
public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {
 
 
if(e.getKeyCode()==KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT) {
	direction=1;
	}
 
 
 
else if(e.getKeyCode()==KeyEvent.VK_LEFT) {
	direction=2;
}
 
 
else if(e.getKeyCode()==KeyEvent.VK_UP) {
	direction=3;
}
 
 
else if(e.getKeyCode()==KeyEvent.VK_DOWN) {
	direction=4;
}
 
 
shape = e.getKeyChar();	
repaint();
 
}
 
public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {
 
}
 
public void keyTyped(KeyEvent e) {
 
}
 
public void delay() {
 
try{
	Thread.sleep(100);
}
catch(Exception e){
}
 
}
 
public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
 
g.setColor(Color.WHITE);
Dimension d = getSize();
g.fillRect(0,0, d.width, d.height);
 
// g.translate(x,y);
 
//each line is 520
 
	g.setColor(Color.BLACK);
//Top Border	
	g.drawLine(80,80,600,80);
//Right Border
	g.drawLine(600,80,600,600);
//Bottom Border
	g.drawLine(600,600,80,600);
//Left Border
	g.drawLine(80,80,80,600);
 
	// y-max is 600
	// y-min is 80
	// x-max is 600
	// x-min is 80
 
	//Reset position if X/Y goes past border
	if(SnakeX<80){
		SnakeX=600;
	}
 
	if(SnakeX>600){
		SnakeX=80;
	}
 
	if(SnakeY<80) {
		SnakeY=600;
	}
 
	if(SnakeY>600) {
		SnakeY=80;
	}
 
	//Up, down, left, right
	if(direction==1) {
		SnakeX=SnakeX+5;	
		repaint();
		delay();
	}
 
	if(direction==2) {
		SnakeX=SnakeX-5;	
		repaint();
		delay();
	}
 
	if(direction==3) {
		SnakeY=SnakeY-5;
		repaint();
		delay();
	}
 
	if(direction==4) {
		SnakeY=SnakeY+5;	
		repaint();
		delay();
	}
 
 
 
//Collision detection
if(SnakeX==BoxX&&SnakeY==BoxY) {
 
 
BoxX = BoxXGenerator(BoxX,randomGenerator,RandomBox);
BoxY = BoxYGenerator(BoxY,randomGenerator,RandomBox);
score = score + 1;
ScoreLabel.setText("Score: "+score);
}
 
 
System.out.println(SnakeX + "," + SnakeY);
g.fillRect(BoxX,BoxY,15,15);
//Snake
	g.setColor(Color.RED);
	g.fillRect(SnakeX,SnakeY,15,15);
 
 
 
 
 
}	
}

Looks nice

I wrote a snake-like game a while back and used a doubly-linked list to keep track of all the points. I didn't use Java's LinkedList class, though. A simple node which can link backwards and forwards worked much better for me (there were several issues with the using Java's LinkedList).

To check for collisions, You will have to compare the head to everything it could possibly collide with. There's not much you can do to get around this.

Yeah, using a queue is probably the easiest way. Simply add points on where would the head should be moving to. At the other end, you can remove points from the queue which represents where the tail was.

I used my own doubly-linked node and managed the queue manually because I just couldn't find the performance I wanted in any of Java's API collections. However, I did have thousands to tens of thousands of points. If you limit how many points you have, it's probably possible to get away with Java's LinkedList.