600 Snakes on the Edge: How I Built a Slither.io Server with Trail Algorithms, Spatial Hashing & Bot AI

Short summary

The author built a multiplayer Slither.io clone supporting 600 concurrent snakes using PartyKit and Cloudflare Durable Objects. Key challenges included managing a semi-fixed game loop to prevent timestep stuttering, implementing a trail-based algorithm for efficient snake simulation, and using spatial hashing for collision detection. Architecture prioritizes low bandwidth, server-side authority, and client-side prediction tolerance.

• •Built scalable multiplayer game server handling 600 snakes with 100 human players + 500 AI bots
• •Optimized snake physics using trail-based algorithm instead of rigid-body simulation to avoid CPU overhead
• •Implemented spatial hashing for efficient broadphase collision detection among 600 entities

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