Snakes is played on an 8x8 board with snake heads adjacent to the four middle squares of two of the edges and snake tails adjacent to the same squares on the other edges. The heads and tails come in four different colors.
There are 48 tiles in the game, divided into four identical sets. Each set has snake sections (heads, middles, and tails) in all the colors, and has a symbol to distinguish players. (It is not clear how tiles are distributed with fewer than four players.)
The first player plays in one of the four central squares and after that players must play adjacent to a tile or one of the pre-printed heads or tails. Colors must be matched. A snake cannot have two heads or two tails.
If a player cannot play a tile the next player able to play removes one of the blocked player's tiles and gives it back to them. A 2x2 block of tiles from the same player cannot be removed.
The winner is the first to play all their tiles.