This Galaxy Watch game makes better use of the rotating bezel than most apps

Like many of you, I’m old enough to remember when the Nokia 3210 was the phone to have, and Snake was the game everyone played. It was ultra simple and brutally addictive. As far as we’ve come with mobile gaming, it’s hard to match the nostalgia of those halcyon days, especially on a smartwatch.

That’s why a recent post on Reddit’s Galaxy Watch community caught our attention. A developer going by JackGrylls shared an early build of a Snake-style game made specifically for Galaxy Watch and Wear OS, aiming to bring back the feel of the old bezel-controlled version they remember from the Tizen days.

Perhaps the best part of this version is how well it fits the watch itself. Instead of square pegs in round holes, the arena is circular, with pixelated curved walls that make sense on a watch face. You steer the snake by rotating the physical bezel, which keeps things simple and your finger out of the way.

It’s not perfect yet. A few people in the comments noticed that the snake’s reactions look a little slow, and the developer was quick to acknowledge this. According to JackGrylls, it turned out to be a game loop issue rather than real input lag, and a fix is already in testing.

This obviously isn’t the first time we’ve seen a Snake version for a smartwatch, and we even featured one in our Wear OS games roundup last year. The problem is that most of them compromise with a square grid on a round display, and the visuals on this new one look like a great mix of appealing and classic design.

There’s no Play Store release yet, and no download link for now. This is still very much a work in progress, though the build is apparently available on GitHub. But as a proof of concept, we’re certainly impressed.