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Programmer Patrick Gillespie has created what is probably the smallest version of the classic game Snake. His version uses individual subpixels of an LCD display instead of the usual graphical elements, making the game virtually invisible without a microscope.
The game, developed by Gillespie, runs in a web browser and follows standard Snake rules, according to 24 Channel with reference to Notebookcheck.
The gameplay has classic mechanics - the user controls a snake that "eats" objects and grows longer with each eaten element.
The uniqueness of this project is that instead of a traditional image on the screen, the movement is displayed only at the level of subpixels, each of which consists of three parts - red, green and blue. It is these subpixels that form the colors on the display, but Gillespie managed to make the game use only one of them. This required significant code revisions.
"Snake" in an unusual performance - watch the video:
One of the main problems was display accuracy. For example, when a green subpixel was activated, the monitor's backlight partially illuminated the neighboring red subpixel, creating visual artifacts. To avoid this, Gillespie switched to a non-standard color space, different from the popular sRGB format.
The result is a game so tiny that it is impossible to see it without special equipment. Despite its impracticality, this project demonstrates the possibilities of software control of microscopic display elements.
