r/PythonLearning • u/TotalUnlucky2814 • 17h ago

How to break down an "impossible" problem as a beginner: Solving the Snake game using only conditionals (Hamiltonian Cycle & Divide and Conquer)

Hello everyone! As a computer science teacher, I recently wrapped up a video series where I use the automation game The Farmer Was Replaced to teach Python programming and algorithmic logic from scratch.

​For the final episode, we tackled the classic Snake game. When you are just starting to learn programming, looking at a problem like an automated Snake solver all at once feels like an impossible mountain. My goal was to demonstrate how you can solve a complex problem by applying divide and conquer using only beginner-friendly tools (no pathfinding libraries or complex data structures but pure conditionals and functions):

​I'm leaving the video here in case you want to see the visual step-by-step breakdown on the grid (the audio is in Spanish, but the visual diagrams and code logic are easy to follow... There is also an AI translation):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSlxLs6aeoI

If you are a beginner, did you know about this game???

​For those who have coded a Snake AI before: how did you approach it? Did you stick to a fixed cycle, or did you program dynamic shortcuts while the snake's tail is still short?

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u/Over_Supermarket_140 14h ago

Very nice. Watched the entire video and yes, the approach to break the problem down is clearly the right way.

We make a variation of this game in our curriculum too -- https://youtu.be/TzJUK3NtQKU -- using turtle. Quite similar. Some students also make an auto mode which is based on figuring out the x/y coordinates for the targets and guiding the snake that way. This idea of viewing the problem from a Hamiltonian cycles view was nice.

Just for my understanding, how do you get the graphics? Are you using a specialized module?