MEHEN 𓆑 Game of the Snake

Support

Answers to common questions about Mehen for iPhone and iPad, plus a way to reach a human when the answer isn't here.

Get in touch

Questions, bug reports and suggestions are all welcome — send an email and describe what happened.

nsat-dev@pm.me
Requires
iOS 17.0 or later
Devices
iPhone & iPad
Internet
Not needed
Accounts
None required
Common questions

Playing the game

The full rules are always available inside the app — tap Rules on the title screen or from the top bar during a game.

How do I play Mehen?

Each turn has three moments. One player secretly hides between one and five marbles in a closed fist. The other player guesses how many.

  • Guess wrong — the hider moves one of their pieces forward by the hidden number.
  • Guess right — the guesser moves instead, or unleashes a lion.

Pieces travel along the coiled serpent from the tail toward Ra at the center. Land on a rival's piece and the two swap places; land on your own and yours leaps ahead.

How do I win?

Bring every one of your pieces all the way along the snake and into Ra at the center. You don't need an exact count to finish — any move that would carry a piece past the final square sends it home to the sun.

What do the lions do?

When you guess correctly you may unleash a lion onto one of your opponent's pieces instead of moving your own. That piece is pinned and cannot advance until its owner frees it. Lions make a strong position suddenly fragile, so they're often worth more than a few squares of progress.

Can I play against another person?

Not in this version. Mehen is currently single-player: you play as red against the computer, which plays blue. Three opponent strengths are available in Settings — easy, medium and hard — and each one bluffs and guesses differently.

How do I change the difficulty or the number of pieces?

Open Options from the top bar. You can set the opponent's strength, choose one to three pieces per player, and switch haptics or the move log on and off.

Because difficulty and piece count change how a game is set up, confirming with Apply & New Game starts a fresh game. Finish your current game first if you want to keep it.

𓆑
If something looks wrong

Troubleshooting

My saved game disappeared

Mehen saves your game automatically, but a save is kept for seven days. After that it expires and the title screen offers only a new game.

A save is also replaced when you start a new game, or when you confirm changes with Apply & New Game. Only one game is saved at a time.

The screen won't rotate on my iPhone

That's intended. On iPhone the board is designed for portrait and stays there, so the spiral is never cropped. On iPad the game rotates freely and supports all four orientations.

There's almost no sound

Mehen uses short system tones rather than a music score, so it's quiet by design. If you're hearing nothing at all:

  • Check the silent switch on the side of your iPhone.
  • Raise the volume while the game is open, so you're adjusting the app's own level.
  • Disconnect Bluetooth headphones or speakers that may still be paired.
Haptics aren't working

First check that Haptics is switched on in the app's Options. If it is:

  • iPad models have no haptic engine, so taps are silent there by design.
  • Low Power Mode suppresses haptics system-wide.
  • In iOS Settings › Sounds & Haptics, make sure system haptics are enabled.
The app is frozen, crashing, or won't open

Work through these in order — most problems clear at the first or second step.

  1. Force quit and reopen. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen, pause, then flick the Mehen card away. Open it again.
  2. Restart your device. Power off completely, wait a few seconds, then turn it back on.
  3. Update iOS. Open Settings › General › Software Update and install anything pending.
  4. Check free space. If storage is nearly full, apps can fail to launch. Settings › General › iPhone Storage.
  5. Reinstall as a last resort. Deleting the app also deletes your saved game and settings, so try everything above first.

Still stuck? Email us — the details listed under Reporting a problem help enormously.

𓂀
Your data

Privacy

Mehen collects nothing. There is no account to create, no analytics, no advertising, and no network connection of any kind. The full policy is published at nsat-dev.github.io/policy.html.

What the app stores, and where

  • Your saved game — kept on your device only, and discarded after seven days.
  • Your settings — difficulty, piece count, haptics and move log preferences, stored on your device.
  • Nothing is transmitted. No data leaves your iPhone or iPad, because the app never connects to the internet.
  • Deleting the app removes everything it saved, with nothing left behind on a server.

Read the full privacy policy

Comfort and access

Accessibility

Mehen uses a dark, high-contrast palette throughout, with large tap targets on the board and marble controls. Haptic feedback can be turned off entirely in Options if you find it distracting, and the game never relies on sound to convey what happened — every result is shown on screen and recorded in the move log.

If something about the game is hard to see, hear or reach, please write in and say so. It genuinely helps.

𓆑
Bug reports

Reporting a problem

The more of this you can include, the faster it can be fixed. Rough notes are fine — send what you have.

  • Your device and iOS version — for example, iPhone 14 running iOS 18.2.
  • What you were doing when it happened, ideally step by step.
  • What you expected to happen, and what happened instead.
  • A screenshot or screen recording, if the problem is something you can see.
  • Whether it happens every time or only occasionally.

Send it to nsat-dev@pm.me.