Each level contains various obstacles and enemies. Players lose a segment from their snake if they are hit by an enemy, and they lose a life if their snake runs out of segments. Players can also lose a life if their snakes fall too far, the timer runs out, their snakes touch a sharp object, or if they are squashed by an object from above. Also, if they remain in some bodies of water for too long, a shark will attack. The game ends when players lose all their lives, but they have several continues in which they can restart the game from where they left off. Players can defeat enemies by hitting them with their tongues or by jumping on them. Players can collect various items to help them along during gameplay, such as items that extend the length of the snakes' tongues, provide extra lives and continues, add time bonuses, award invisibility diamonds, speed up the snakes, or reverse their directional controls. Located throughout the game are "lids" (in the shape of manhole covers) which players can open to uncover Nibbly Pibbleys, items and extra lives, entrances to bonus levels, and sometimes enemies. Also located in the game are hidden warps which allow players to skip several levels and restart at a later point in the game. Development Snake Rattle 'n' Roll was developed primarily by Rare employees Tim Stamper and Mark Betteridge. As with Rare's other NES games, it was executive produced by Howard Phillips, who soon left Nintendo in 1991. Stamper worked on the game's graphics and concepts, while Betteridge worked on the game program itself. Most of the ideas behind the game came from Betteridge, who had challenged himself to get the smallest file size for a NES game possible. According to Rare member Brendan Gunn, Betteridge found out how to develop cheap backgrounds that took up little space. After thinking about what and how to move objects on such backgrounds, he came up with the idea for a snake. Much of the game derived from another isometric video game Marble Madness, of which Rare published the NES version in 1989. They also used the same type of high speed scrolling that was used in the NES port of Marble Madness, which, according to a Nintendo Power overview of Rare, "many said couldn't be done on the NES". Rare's future Creative Director, Gregg Mayles, started