Today we’re taking a look back at Slither.io, a little indie game that hit the big time in a big way when it was released back in 2016. I guess that makes Slither.io a retro game at this point although that doesn’t take away from the fact that is still immensely popular even if it once boasted and Alexa rank of around the 1000 mark (Alexa rankings have since become obsolete). The rise in popularity of a game like Slither.io shows that an indie developer can indeed make it with a little luck and a little promotion, especially when it comes from a very popular YouTuber or two.
Most Addictive Game Ever?
We’ve talked about various addictive games before but Slither.io is on another level. Originally conceived as a modern take on the classic Snake game, developer Steve Howse created Slither with the same basic concept: keeping eating dots and grow your snake as big as you can without colliding with any other players except in the case of Slither.io, we are in the massively multiplayer category so you are always playing against many, many other players, some of which have crazy skins. Indeed Slither.io has the ability to use custom skins, so if you’re interested in creating or using custom Slither.io skins, you can easily use these Slither Mods which you can add to Chrome.
Update: Making your own custom Slither.io snake no longer requires using a Slither mod. Now you can “Build a Slither” in game by clicking on Change Skin and then clicking on Build a Slither. If you do choose a Slither Mod, NTL Mod is the mod of choice and really changes the Slither experience including team play and all sorts of crazy option. Simply install the NTL Mod extension for Chrome but it is available for Edge and Firefox as well.
Slither Lag and Performance Issues
There is one major drawback in maintaining a game like this and keeping it running smoothly, as the main complaint among users is performance i.e., lag. Yes, Slither.io has been known for being very laggy at times but if you want Slither to run smoothly, you only have a few options to improve Slither playing performance since this is a browser game. A few things you can do is:
a) Make sure you’re running your operating system off of an SSD drive. Yes, in the 2020’s you’d be behind the times in a big way if you are not running your OS off an SSD. This will help with performance overhead and II/O latency.
b) A fast internet connection. This goes without saying.
c) At least 16G of RAM
d) Use the aforementioned NTL Mod .
Still, any lag or performance issues with Slither hasn’t prevented users from coming back in droves to this very addictive game that has no learning curve whatsoever. The real question is, how long can you last and how big can you grow your snake (or are you a worm)? It’s all really pointless in the greater scheme of life, isn’t it? Then why can’t we stop playing?
The challenges that Slither.io experienced were apparent from the beginning as it grew faster than expected as it tried to scale and maintain performance. Indeed, the rumour at the time was that hosting itself was running Slitherio up to 15k dollars a month, or more at this stage, all the while raking in huge sums in ad revenue. It seems that success for your indie game can sometimes be a double edged sword. These days Slither isn’t quite as popular as it once was but it still has a healthy user base and YouTubers still continue to churn out Let’s Play videos that still generate huge numbers of views. Still quite a legacy for a little indie game.
Developers: Steve Howse, Lowtech Studios
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