Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Snood, the Simple Game

Posted by jamie on from the three-of-these-a-decade dept.

Greg Costikyan has penned a Snood screed that bears reading for anyone into game design. I gave Snood a try a couple of years ago when I read that Woz was hooked on it. Fun. I've played it on and off since then. But the ninth most popular game in 2001? That's nuts. Is Snood part of a series of tiny puzzley games, like Tetris and Bejeweled, that can still do well in a world of Counterstrikes and Unreal Tournaments? Is there still the chance for an individual or small team to strike it rich writing a game like this (maybe for cell phones)? Or is the engagingly simple game doomed to extinction? M : The Snood-equivalent for Linux is Frozen Bubble.

4 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. Frozen bubble by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    A RIP OFF of the Bust a move game.

  2. Bust a Move Rip Off? by Flamesplash · · Score: 4, Informative

    Isn't Snood just a rip off of Bust a Move? I heard of Bust a Move long before Snood. Or is this one of those occassions where Bust a Move is the rip off and happens to be more well known.

    --
    "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
    1. Re:Bust a Move Rip Off? by boinger · · Score: 5, Informative
      That was my immediate thought, too - some quick Googling shows that the original Bust A Move was an English conversion of a Japanese game "Puzzle Bobble" - the copyrights for Bust A Move go back to 1994.

      So, the question is, when is Snood from?

      --
      Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
  3. Re:NOT just a bust-a-move clone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    IGN is dead wrong about Snood, as is whomever thought that Frozen Bubble is equivalent. There are two seemingly small differences between Snood and the Puzzle Bobble series, but they make all the difference in the world.

    The first difference is the lack of any timing element. This gives Snood a meditative quality unlike Bust-a-Move, which uses power bubbles and other flashy gimmicks as a crutch to make up for dull game fundamentals.

    More importantly, Snood's danger bar can be ROLLED BACK. This makes Snood an infinitely more complex and strategic game than Bust-a-Move; you don't need perfect aim or lucky pieces to win, just great thinking. To use another video game analogy: it's the difference between someone who uses ticks and cheap combos to play Street Fighter II, and someone who can win without throwing a single hadouken.

    There are just enough really subtle touches in Snood that I think Dave Dobson really understands game design. His earlier (Mac-only) game, Centaurian, is an outstanding tribute to Bosconian as well as every classic video game of the 80's.

    I do pity the poor Windows users who have to put up with crapware like Gator to install Snood, though. The original Mac version never had any spyware, and I don't expect the Mac OS X version to, either.