The premise of Nibbler came about because one of its creators, Jon Ulowetz, was a pacifist and didn’t like the idea of his game’s protagonist mowing down enemies. He thus designed the game so that the only way you can die is by hurting yourself. Even the name sounds non-violent–Nibbler sounds a lot more subdued than The Mighty Devourer of Defenseless Food Pellets. Nibbler takes the snake action of Worm and confines it to a maze. Whereas a game like Snake Byte had a few obstacles inside a wide-open space, the cramped corridors of Nibbler were seemingly taken out of Pac-Man. This adds a whole new level of strategic planning to the game, since you have to think about what corners to turn in order to prevent being forced to run into yourself. It is possible to stall on corners, but it drains your time so you have to use it sparingly if at all.

The game controls well with its intended joystick, but beware if all you have available is a controller with a D-pad. That is the primary reason for the brief nature of the following video.