Slowing Down a game

Question

Ok I am making a snake game and I am making it so whenever the down key is active the snake moves 16 pixels. Same applies to all directions
My problem is that it goes VERY FAST. How can I get it to slowdown so it still moves at 16 pixel intervals but it doesn't go so fast? This is an applet program by the way

Answer 1

Don't create a delay in the event thread - this can cause odd problems everywhere (including in the browser itself). First of all, 16 pixels is an awfully large jump - if you move it 8 pixels at a time it will be approximately 1/2 speed.
But snake games are typically clock-based anyway - meaning that the snake advances whether a key is pressed or not. Usually you want to do something like this (uncompiled-untested-pseudo-code):
class SnakeDisplay implements Runnable
  private Snake snake = new Snake(10, 10);
  public void paint(Graphics g)
     snake.paint(g);
  public void init()
    new Thread(this).start();
  public void run()
    try
       synchronized(this)
          wait(delay);
    catch(InterruptedException exc)
    snake.move();
    repaint();
  public void keyPressed()
    if (isDirectionKey())
       snake.changeDirection(/** UP | DOWN | LEFT | RIGHT **/);
    else
      // adjust delay here - larger value == slower game.
      synchronized(this)
         // broadcast a notify to awaken the animation thread
         // if it is asleep
         notify();
class Snake
  static final int UP;
  static final int DOWN;
  static final int LEFT;
  static final int RIGHT;
  private int _dir = RIGHT;
  public Snake(int initX, int initY)
  public void move()
     //advance the position based on the direction
  public void changeDirection(int dir)
     _dir = dir;
  public void paint(Graphics g)
    // render thyself, Snake!
}Set delay to anything you want to control the exact speed of the game regardless of how often events are generated.