Play Snake Rattle 'n' Roll Online

Summary

Snake Rattle 'n' Roll (often shortened to Snake Rattle N Roll) drops you into a quirky isometric playground where two snakes—Rattle and Roll—snake their way through eleven scrolling levels. The game lets a solo player or a pair of friends control the serpents with the D‑pad, flicking tongues to snatch "Nibbley Pibbleys" and fend off enemies, while a flashing tail signals that the snake is heavy enough to ring the weigh‑in bell and hop onto the exit scale.

Each level is a puzzle of moving platforms, bomb‑spitting dispensers, hidden warps and manhole‑cover lids that conceal extra lives, bonus rooms or surprise foes. Yellow Nibbley Pibbleys boost length dramatically, and a variety of power‑ups can stretch the tongue, grant invisibility, add time or even reverse the controls for a brief, chaotic twist. Losing a segment to an enemy or a fatal fall strips the snake down, and a life ends when the segment count hits zero, the timer runs out, or the water‑bound shark gets a bite.

The Rare team, led by Tim Stamper’s graphics vision and Mark Betteridge’s code‑size wizardry, built the game on a stripped‑down NES engine that mimics the high‑speed scrolling of Marble Madness—a feat many thought impossible on the console. Gregg Mayles later praised the tight, responsive controls, and David Wise supplied a twelve‑bar rock‑'n‑roll soundtrack that riffs on 1950s tunes and even slips in a nod to the Jaws theme when the snake dives.

Critics rewarded the title with a Game Player’s NES Excellence Award, strong scores from Nintendo Power, Mean Machines and Retro Gamer, and it still ranks among the top NES entries on lists like IGN’s #32. Its legacy survived the decades, resurfacing in the Rare Replay compilation for Xbox One and a 2024 Nintendo Classics re‑release, proving that a pair of slithering protagonists can still charm a new generation of retro fans.