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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.

9 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. Good Design, Annoying Installation by weeeee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If only this game doesn't come with every spyware software in existance! All my friends have this game, and they wonder why their computer runs like crap after installation. Thank you Ad-Aware.

  2. It's not always about graphics and violence by stevenbdjr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Games are at heart a form a recreation and enjoyment. Some people find games like Counter Strike and UT2003 disturbing, and with good reason. Games like Tetris, Solitaire, and Snood, are simply fun, without the violence. These are the types of games that parents, grandparents, and wifes play. That's a big market.

    Heck, I'm a huge RTCW player, but one of my favorite games is still Columns on Sega Genesis.

  3. Always room for these games by core+plexus · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "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?"

    Short answer: Most Definately

    I've found older people and kids, especially, love Frozen Bubble (in Linux), as well as Tetris, Minesweeper, Tux Racer, etc. There will always be a place for these games. And don't just do it on the hope of making a mint: do it for the challenge, the thrill, the exposure, or even the vanity.

    Fight with computer brings SWAT team

  4. best game in the genre... by kisrael · · Score: 4, Insightful

    *THE* best game in the genre, at least for two players, is "Panel de Pon" aka "Tetris Attack" aka "Pokemon Puzzle League". This game has an amazing seesaw action two player, since the garbage blocks you send to your opponent can end up being used against you, allowing combos that will bring garbage blocks raining down on your own head.

    EGM mentioned some upcoming mega-puzzle-compilation for GameCube, with 4 player versions of Tetris, Tetris Attack, Dr. Mario, etc...man, I am *so* there.

    --
    SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
  5. Not an indie design success story by Junks+Jerzey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    I like the sentiment, wanting the little indie game designer to succeed. That's great!

    But at the same time, is it really a success for all these so called inde developers to keep endlessly, endlessly, cloning the same handful of Tetris variants? Even ten years ago these things were stale, and now, in 2003, we have people hailing a design 100% borrowed from the Bust-A-Move arcade game from the mid 1990s as a "success" for the little developer? Surely there is a way to stay outside the "world of Counterstrikes and Unreal Tournaments" without resorting to writing rehashes of the same diddly batch of puzzle games.

    1. Re:Not an indie design success story by Junks+Jerzey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Most of today's games are rehashes of earlier games. The last time a 'new' game came about was probably wolfenstein- and it made a huge impact on the industry

      Most games are in established genres, but Snood is more than just in the puzzle genre: it's a 1-for-1 rewrite of Bust-A-Move. Period. That's perfectly fine...unless you're trying to use it as the poster childer for what a brash, independent game designer can come up with, which is what's happening here.

      There have been a lot of original games over the last ten years. To say otherwise is defeatist. Here are a few: Tony Hawk Pro-Skater 1, Theif, The Sims, PaRappa the Rapper, Super Monkey Ball, Crazy Taxi, Prop-Cycle, and Jet Grind Radio. Please note that "original" does not imply some kind of mythical lack of ties to other games, but rather a game that has some independent vision, and not just an attempt to be like another game.

      Blindly accepting the overly derivative nature of most games is like admitting that there's no good music, so you just listen to pop crap like Mariah Carey. In actuality though, there's a lot of really good music with independent vision, and lots of people seek it out. Not so with games, however.

  6. Re:whatever by Blkdeath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not sure if this was intended to be funny, or if it was misconstrued by the mods (wow, that'd be a first!), but I'll respond as if it were in a serious tone.

    Say what you will about Quake 3 and its tendency to provoke violence in children, but at least people who obsess over it are communicating with other people, albeit over the Internet.

    Most people I see playing online shoot-em-ups are too busy fragging their opponents to bother taking their hands from the cursor keys (or whatever they use for direction and fire) to use the keyboard; that would reduce their kill rate.

    Games like this (and Tetris, and Solitaire, and so many others) are simply antisocial and psychologically crippling. You play for hours, not because you're "enjoying" it, but because your brain is too numbed to stop.

    Are the games at fault, or the people? My grandmother used to (and probably still does) play Solitaire. Alone. She had a board she'd put on her lap and a deck of cards that's probably been dealt more times than I've worn socks. She'd play until she was bored, then quit.

    I used to read quite seriously, and would often plow through 200-300 pages in a single night. (I read the American BiCentennial Series in a single school year = 10 months; grade 6). Would that be considered 'obsessive' behaviour, or is that healthy? I couldn't do it now, because performing in public school is much less demanding than performing at work (and heaven knows what would've happened if I pulled a few all-nighters like that and tried to drive before the sun came up!).

    Anything to excess is a bad thing. Be it Quake, Snood, Solitaire, reading, chocolate, sex, anything. Rather than regulating everything that COULD cause us harm - why don't we teach our children and students moderation and self discipline?

    --
    BD Phone Home!

    Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.

  7. Give me any of those games any day... by jellisky · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I love those simple games... the ones that make me focus and think for about a half hour or less. Tetris, Bust A Move (and other Snood-type variants), Tetris Attack (and other variants), Bejeweled, Nisqually, Glines, any of those Yahoo Games word games... all of those get some significant playing time during a standard week from me.

    But that's not to say that the more complex games don't get playing time from me. The Civilization series, the Final Fantasy series, Imperialism, the Diablo series... all of those also get played regularly on my computer/console.

    The big point, though, is that each game fills a different type of gaming and entertainment niche for me. Both will have markets in the world of gaming.

    But, I contend that making those "simple" games, is, as the author pointed out, probably harder than making the more "complex" games. Kind of an oxymoron at first glance, but if you think about it, it makes perfect sense.

    A "simple" game must have few controls and those that it does have should be almost immediately obvious in nature. This severe limitation in design isn't overly restrictive, since a simple game will have simple rules, by definition.

    But where a simple game is difficult is in the rules of the game. A simple game's rules must be flexible enough that there is no trivial strategy for putting up good scores or winning. The rules must, however, be simple enough that, in reality, they should be able to fit on a simple splash screen. The gameplay should be fluid and usually ever-changing, allowing for natural planning ahead and strategy building. Lastly, skill, not luck, should dominate the gameplay.

    Taking these all into account, I can see why there aren't all that many of these simple games. That's not an easy design paradigm, in the least. But, simple games will never really get too much recognition, since they don't really need to. I think the authors of such games often realize that quite quickly. The market is there, but it remains quiet since it doesn't take much time or money to make such a game. So, the ideas can be coded up by an amateur or a professional or two, tested by a few of their friends, and put out for the world to enjoy. Not much infrastructure or capital or time needed for that, is there?

    So, keep giving me both types of games. I'll gladly take both. :)

    -Jellisky

  8. Re:Good insight by alienmole · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Let me preface this by saying whoever modded that as funny should be taken into some dimly lit parking lot and raped

    Wow, talk about someone who lacks a sense of humor!

    You have games (1) that require a lot of thinking to progress -- tetris

    Ha! Nice troll! Wait... you're not serious? "A lot of thinking"? Tetris? Are you retarded? Well, I suppose that has to be a rhetorical question...