Prepare to waste a good chunk of your day — we're here to inform you that there's a London version of the Snake game.
If you're about our age, you probably whiled away many an hour of your early teenage years playing Snake on a battered old Nokia.
The good news is you don't need a phone — Nokia, or any other brand — to play London Snake. It's available online at Google Maps.
This time, your 'snake' is a Routemaster bus, your jungle is London, and you're picking up passengers rather than eating them. Occasionally, instead of a person, you're tasked with picking up a cup of tea, a portion of fish and chips or a London landmark... bit weird seeing the entirety of Tower Bridge or The Gherkin disappearing onto a double decker.
Thrillingly for London geeks such as ourselves, the landmarks we've encountered so far (Tower Bridge, Gherkin, London Eye, Big Ben) have all been geographically accurate, and fairly recognisable.
Just like the original Snake, the bus still extends a little and speeds up with every passenger you collect, making it trickier and trickier not to run into yourself as the game progresses (and giving us some idea of what it was like to drive the 'bendy buses' that previously plagued the city's streets).
It's a charmingly pixelated rendering of the capital, with the River Thames — weaving from Tower Bridge down to Vauxhall — posing no physical barrier; the bus sails right over it.
We've had a fair few attempts — in the name of research, you understand — and have reached a top score of 100 before getting tangled up in our own nether regions. Have a go and see if you can do better.
Head to Snake on Google Maps and click on London to play.
