Cheese mode in-game icon
Cheese is a mode in which every other segment of the snake is empty, allowing the snake to move through itself. When the snake eats a fruit, it grows twice the amount in length when compared to classic mode. This is because the snake gains one open section and one closed section.
Scores[]
The way apples spawn in cheese mode leads to discrepancies in maximum score a player can achieve per game. Scores typically range from 43 - 46 with the small board, although 49 has been achieved, 125 - 128 with the standard board, and 250 - 253 with the large board.
Consider that there is a variable count that stores the number of squares the snake needs to grow. When the game starts, count stores the value 0. Every square the snake moves, the game does the following process:
If count = 0, the tail of the snake moves forward
If count > 0, count decreases by one
If the snake eats a fruit, count increases by two
When no more fruits can spawn, the game will end. The player's score will be roughly equal to where n is the number of squares on the board. The exact score can be determined by subtracting the number of fruit cannot spawn in from n and then adding count, using the fruit spawning rule shown below.
Simply put, when the snake travels to more squares with fruit than without fruit, the snake cannot grow fast enough to keep up with the food it is eating. This means that there are empty squares that fruit can spawn in that otherwise would have been taken up by the snakes body. With perfect RNG, the theoretical highest scores are 85 with the small board, 250 with the standard board, and 499 with the large board.
Fruit spawning[]
Example of a Hamiltonian connected path in cheese mode. A fruit cannot spawn in the square with the red x.
A fruit can only spawn in a square if at least two squares surrounding that square are empty. This ensures a fruit does not spawn in the body of the snake. But it also causes the apple not to spawn in corners or otherwise empty tiles the snake hasn't been through, but that are still surrounded. Note that an apple counts toward surrounding a tile.
Trivia[]
Cheese mode's icon is a slice of swiss cheese.
Cheese mode is theorized to be a reference to the joke of Burger Mode in the google snake speedrunning community.