Chapter 7

Snake Game is a video game whose total sales figures—even Nokia can't accurately measure. Yet one thing is certain: it is a best-seller by any standard.

Bundled with Nokia phones, Snake became popular. If we judged its success purely based on factory production mobile numbers, Snake would easily surpass Wii Sports, Minecraft, and Tetris. It would reign at the top of the world.

That's just how dominant the game was. But if we try calculating its revenue. Well, no one really knows.

One thing is clear, though: Even after Nokia's mobile empire collapsed—when Snake lost the free ecosystem it once thrived in—it didn't vanish.

Instead, it thrived—spawning countless new versions of Snake Games. The snake became anything—bugs, balls, or strange creatures.

Then came Slither.io, developed in America, which pushed the absurdity to new heights.

Upon launch, it shot to the top of the App Store charts in numerous countries including the U.S., and became the most searched video game on Google America in 2016.

In just three months, Slither.io made over 10 million U.S. dollars.

Snake's legacy spans decades. It's created vivid, nostalgic memories across generations. So when Ethan was about to pitch a game idea, the snake that once accompanied him through countless sleepless nights.

Evelyn, who had been grumbling at Ethan just moments ago, suddenly looked up. Her eyes sparkled with astonishment.

"Ethan—did you come up with this?" she asked, clearly surprised.

Ethan gave a casual shrug. "Yeah."

"Oh. My. God! How did you even think of this? This is genius!" Evelyn exclaimed.

She waved the paper in her hand with excitement. "I swear, this is way more interesting than Spacewar!"

Spacewar! was born at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962. It quickly spread across universities in America and became a rite of passage for many computer science students.

In the game, two players controlled spaceships that battled each other while orbiting a gravity star. The first one to be destroyed lost.

While revolutionary for its time—it was one of the first multiplayer video games in history—Spacewar! still felt rough around the edges. The video game industry was still in its infancy, after all.

So when you put Snake and Spacewar! side by side, both from vastly different stages of game development.

"So... can you actually make this?" Evelyn asked, still buzzing with excitement.

Her enthusiasm made Ethan smile. At the very least, it proved he hadn't picked the wrong game.

"Of course!" Evelyn nodded eagerly, her words came out a little jumbled.

"Arcade machines really aren't that hard to build. This Snake game you've sketched out? You could totally replicate it using the tech behind Pong. Like—the snake's movement on-screen could use the photoelectric signal feedback from a light gun, for example..."

She trailed off when she noticed the confused look on Ethan's face. Then she smacked her forehead.

"Oh right! You have no idea what I'm talking about!" Without missing a beat, she stood up. "Come on, follow me to the garage. I'll show you just how simple this is."

Her confident tone, no-nonsense air—a glimpse of the strong-willed woman she was.

But just as Ethan started to follow her out of the bedroom, Evelyn suddenly spun around and hurried back into her room.

"Wait for me—I need to change clothes!" she called out over her shoulder.

A moment later, Evelyn reappeared. Her sweatshirt had been swapped for a plain black work shirt made of thick labor cloth that didn't show stains easily. Even her loose, shoulder-length hair had been tied up into a neat bun.

Ethan raised an eyebrow at the transformation. "So even strong girls care about appearances," he thought with a wry smile.

With that, the two of them headed downstairs together.

Their sudden appearance—walking one after the other—caught Thomas and Linda by surprise. They hadn't expected Ethan to break through the years-long communication barrier so quickly.

Before they could even say anything, Ethan and Evelyn had slipped into the garage.

Inside, the space looked like the secret lab of an underground engineer. Piles of electronics, spare parts, and worn-out gadgets filled every corner.

Without hesitation, Evelyn dug into a heap of what could generously be called "electronic waste" and pulled out an old television. She placed it on the table and removed its casing, revealing the CRT tube inside.

"This is a CRT—Cathode Ray Tube," she explained, brushing dust off the screen. "It uses an electron gun to shoot beams that get deflected by magnetic fields and hit a phosphor-coated glass screen. That's how images are formed."

Ethan listened as she continued, clearly in her element. "Arcade machines today rely on this basic photoelectric feedback. The images you see aren't actually moving—just different parts of the screen lighting up or dimming. The beam tricks your eyes into thinking things are in motion."

She carefully placed the TV on the worktable and began disassembling it further. From another pile, she pulled out a box and rummaged through it until she found a compatible circuit board.

She swapped out the old board for the new one, then wired in a thumb-sized joystick. Once everything was in place, she plugged in the TV, made a few adjustments…

And then it happened. The screen flickered. The colors vanished, leaving a stark black-and-white image. In the center of the screen, a single white dot appeared.

As Evelyn moved the joystick, the dot came to life—gliding across the screen.

The faster she moved the stick, the faster the dot traveled. When she slowed down, so did the dot. If she let go, it just blinked in place.

Ethan's jaw dropped. "Oh! Fk! Is it really this simple?" he blurted out.

Evelyn chuckled. "Of course! What did you expect?"

"I thought you needed a CPU or something! I didn't know you could do this with just a TV!"

Ethan stared at the screen in disbelief.

"Oh!!!" Evelyn practically shouted. "Ethan! Are you out of your mind? A CPU? Do you think arcade machines come with CPUs?"

She threw up her hands in disbelief. "Do you even know how expensive CPUs are right now? Even the cheapest Intel chip costs hundreds dollar! If every arcade machine had a CPU, the arcade owners would be bankrupt! Please, for the love of god sake—use your brain!"

Ethan looked stunned, but she wasn't done yet. Yes—video games in this era were just that simple.

Back in Ethan's time, building a game required an entire team:

Planners, developers, artists, sound designers, testers. Games were made using Unity, Unreal Engine, or custom-built engines. They had to be optimized across multiple hardware platforms.

But here… in this time? One person was enough.

C language hadn't yet gone mainstream. CPUs were still rare and expensive.

The so-called "video games" of this era were truly the product of pure engineering genius.

Nearly every game used the most basic form of photoelectric signal feedback. The world's first Pong was so primitive it didn't even have a processor—just a circuit board full of transistors, resistors, capacitors, and logic gates. No code. No software. Just electricity and clever wiring.

Right now, when developers said a game was "running"—they meant it literally. It wasn't a program running on a CPU.

It was a game circuit physically operating, checking if light signals or electric currents were active or not.

If Ethan had asked Evelyn to write a game in BASIC, that would've taken time. But building a game now? That? She could practically slap it together.

"So… do you think you could build the Snake game tonight?" Ethan asked cautiously.

Ethan's hopeful question was met with a long, blank stare.

"Ethan..." Evelyn said flatly. "I really don't know what's going on in that head of yours."

She gave the old TV a pat, like she was talking to a child.

"All I did was show you how easy it is to manipulate photoelectric signals. That doesn't mean we're ready to build arcade machine. Besides the monitor, I still need to make a custom circuit board to receive and process joystick commands. I can handle the design and assembly, but..."

She trailed off, drawing out her next words with a sly grin. "...someone needs to get the materials."

"I'll take care of it!" Ethan agreed immediately, without a second thought.

"Very good!" Evelyn beamed, clapping her hands with a bright smile.

"Now go back to your room. I'll think it over and make a list. Once it's ready, I'll send it to you."

Ethan nodded and headed back upstairs. But as he walked, a question in his mind: Why was she suddenly so cheerful?

She was helping him build a game, sure—but naturally he would be paying for the materials, right?

It wasn't until a few minutes later, when a knock at the door delivered a two-page list, Ethan stared at the paper. His expression darkened.

"Fxxk! I walked right into it!"

The list was dense—two pages packed with components, tools, and... wait...

"Why the hell is there a Barbra Streisand album on this list?!"

He yelled toward the hallway, waving the papers in disbelief. From behind Evelyn's closed door came a loud bang—something heavy hitting the wall, maybe a laugh disguised as a thud.

"Idiot Ethan," it seemed to say. "So easy to fool."

Note:

① Slither.io – A modern web-based multiplayer variant of Snake, developed in the U.S. You can play it directly in a browser by entering your name.