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Snood, the Simple Game
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.
A RIP OFF of the Bust a move game.
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.
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.
If our legislators had seen these in action, they'd be banning them before they worry about the comparitively healthy first person shooters.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Gamers tend to think that games will only be classics if they're adopted by gamers. That's why they're so surprised when deer hunting games outsell Quake.
My 64 year-old mother got hooked on Snood, and got a copy for everyone she knew. She doesn't know what kind of video card she has, she doesn't know the bus speed of her RAM, but she'd be up until 3 in the morning trying to beat her high scores.
Oh, it is already available on cell phones and PDAs.
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.
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.
Snood is primarily a cheap rip-off of the arcade game Puzzle Bobble (aka Bust-a-Move in the USA). Mame does an excellent job of playing the ORIGINAL versions, and there are also plenty of less "hacked" alternative (by hacked, I mean that Snood has removed a lot of the original features of the game that made it really fun).
[insert witty comment here]
In a child-like echoy voice;
"Ready
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I got bored with it after about five minutes.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
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
The windows version really blows. It's slow and thegraphics are chunky. Like most programs originally coded for Mac, it was NOT ported to windows properly.
I enjoy playing snood on my g4 when I am not working on journalism but I have tried it on PCs a few times and it is a terrible mess. How snood became popular outside the Mac platform I will not know...
Stanley Feinbaum, professional journalist and master debater! God bless the USA!
I think that was the problem with the .bombs
Everyone wanted to "Strike it rich" and didn't care if what they were striking it rich on was really worthwile. I mean come on dog food delivery?!
While I think that snood would probably be cool to play on a cell phone. Don't do it because you wanna get rich doing it, just do it cause its a thing that you think we need,
I think the quote is
do what you love the money will come.
moo.
The logic of solving small puzzles quickly and in sequence is the best training i can think of for the world's future coders.
Snood, like tetris, is a puzzle that is impossible (or at least improbable) to beat. But trying to do the improbable is one of the most endearing traits of the human species. (Think flying, scuba diving, landing on the moon, ending the cold war, etc.)
This speed induced logic could help to sharpen the minds of young scientists, and keep the minds of bored scientists busily doing nothing for the duration of their addiction. Crap. It's a double-edged sword.
God bless Snood.
Snood is fun, but it's hardly original, Taito's Bust-a-Move has been around for years prior to the emergence of snood, and has seveal arcade games, and ports on the PSX, PS2, GBC, GBA, PC and probbably others as well. It's interesting that almost enveryone in college has played snood, but most have never heard of the original. I don't really think there's any sort of analogy for it.
Bork Bork Bork!!
Blockout.
A 3D Tetris-a-like. Loads of fun.
.
The ORIGINAL game where the green monster from bust a move came from. I owned the commodore 64 version, and it was a VERY addictive platformer, which imho pushed a lot onto a small cassete.
I never completed all 100 levels, But its still a legendary game that deserves a mention.
Okay, played this thing for 3 seconds, it looks well executed [especially for an Open Source game, how the hell many GOOD games do we have? zero? yep!]
But it launches colors which arent already on the screen, adding needless clutter and taking away from the fast-paced nature of Bust-A-Move. Booo! Hissss!
Yeah, I formed that opinion in 3 seconds.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
otherwise known as puzzle bobble to the rest of the world. Both mame and NeoRageX play it very well, btw. :)
Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
My contribution to the 'amazingly simple game' genre are game buttons, reasonably rich games each played entirely within a single CGI form grey pushbutton, as both controller and display. I still come back to these every once in a while, especially Dashteroids and Happy Eater.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
I've had snood on my samsung java-enabled phone for a few months...
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
Little, simple card, board, and RPG games also get little respect from card, board, and RPG game developers or "hardcore" gamers. Magic: The Gathering (the card game) and Mage Knight (the miniatures game) are both available for purchase in every game store in existence, you can learn to play either in about 20 minutes, and they are fun and addictive. The rules, while not particularly rich or complicated, are elegant, and strong enough to keep people playing. But both of these games are looked down upon by "traditional" gamers.
I remember it like it was yesterday- rank upon rank of students sitting behind Macs in the computer labs, forcing helpless drama students to go to the engineering labs and use windows machines to get their homework done. Countless hours lost, students failing left and right, the university computer store replacinging record numbers of worn-out Mac mice and keyboards.... The cause: Snood. The year: 1998.
Good thing Slashdot stays on top of the latest trends in the Mac world.
Among my friends, Snood has come and gone, enjoyed a brief renaissance, and finally slipped into obscurity. In fact, the year I graduated, in 1998, the term 'Bad Snood'- for a stupid move, or a stroke of bad luck- was in common usage on campus.
Eagles may fly, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
*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
I habitually browse the web in one window while playing snood in the other. I was playing Snood when I saw this article. I play Snood while watching TV, and when I'm chatting, and whenever I should be working. I play Snood a *LOT*.
Further confession: I use the aimer, 'cause I prefer the puzzles to the actual dexterity skills. Or so I rationalize it to myself, anyway.
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.
I had a friend in college that played Snood for a very long time and her leg fell asleep so when she got out of her chair she fell on her leg just right and broke it.
Yep, Snood is responsible for at least one broken leg so, please play responsibly.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Sure, not all the games are equally challenging, and not every game will be met with the same appriciation as others, but it's definite a niche that needs to be filled and it's being filled quite well.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Woz likes Snoodling, huh?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
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.
although, realizing this effect, the creator of snood helpfully provided a "Just One More Game" function, and even gave it its own hotkey :)
-- Microsoft is the best becau[INVALID PAGE FAULT IN MODULE Signature.exe AT ADDRESS 0x4353]
I went to a LAN party in the summer, and the most popular tournament was Frozen Bubbles (I *think*... CS may have barely beaten it). The great thing about the game is that the learning curve isn't very steep. If everybody has little experience at it (like most people at the LAN), that's when you have a blast. You can just hop in, learn the 3 buttons necessary, and have fun. =)
...oOOo..'(_)'..oOOo...
It is a variation of Asteroids, As are ALL drop from the sky games, Tetris et al. You youngsters are probably amazed by Pong!
How can you give props to snood for being inovative when its a blatant ripoff of bust a move which came out several years before snood was even conceived.
I remember throwing quarters into Bust-a-move like 8 years ago. Then last year, someone asked me if i had heard of "Snood," supposedly the "most addictive game ever". Surprisingly enough, it's not near as good as Bust-A-Move even though it's a DIRECT RIPOFF and as far as I can tell, the little Bubble Bobble dinosaurs don't get any money from the probably $12 the Snood creators made from including spyware in the game. It's disgusting. Which would you rather play, a game with the bubbly goodness of the dinosaurs, or a crappy ripoff that pops up ads? Give me a break. Frozen Bubble stays relatively true to the original Bust-A-Move, and it's Free, so check that out, but please, for the love of everything that is good, inform EVERYONE you know who has ever heard of Snood that it is a crappy ripoff of Bust-A-Move and it should be called Bust-A-Move, if only to make people aware that Bust-A-Move exists. Please.
The article says, "Tetris was the game that originally sold GameBoy, the single hit game that convinced people to buy the device."
I beg to differ - I had a GameBoy but was annoyed that it only came with stupid Tetris. I think GameBoy sold well because of the idea of being able to walk around playing games that were a bit more involving than existing handheld games (eg. those crappy flat display ones).
Back to my main point.... two other puzzle games I loved were Sokoban (although the version I have has 100 maps and is free) and Blots, a game that was remarkable because you controlled one guy with the left hand and another with the right hand. Unfortunately, I cannot find Blots anywhere now. It was a shareware game in pre-web days but the author seems to have slipped out of existence after posting only five free levels. Any one got info?
Finally, I don't think it matters what the game is called... I've played this game but have never heard the names 'Snood' or 'Bust A Move', I'm sure when the survey called it the 9th most played game, they were referring to all games with this same theme.
there is Froot. Definitely a must for Zaurus gamers who like Snood.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
I'd say it's the other way around. I find beating an actual human opponent to be much more satisfying than beating some computer that doesn't really care one way or the other.
Game... blouses.
Ad-Aware is critically out of date, and therfore dangerous, according to SpyWareInfo. It's expected to be "out of commission" until February for the free version. He recommends Spybot in the meantime.
Because it is just a lame Puzzle Bobble ripoff. Sorry Snood, you're about 6 or 7 years too late.
It almost makes me sick that Snood has become so popular while nobody has even heard of Puzzle Bobble.
Snood, like the other puzzle games, including the ones from Popcap, has a problem with buying.
I want to buy Snood, but if I want it for my PDA and Windows, I get to pay for it twice. Gh-ey. Why should I pay popcap twice for the same damn game?
As for snood, there are quite a few snood products, and my gf is friggen addicted to it. She is not much of a computer person and Ive told her a dozen times she needs to register but she says "Why do that when I can find the reg code on google?!"
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
I used to play lots of freecell. I stopped, mostly because it is fairly easy, and gets repetitive. I don't really remember, but I think before I stopped playing, I would regularly look at least 10 moves ahead before doing anything. It still only takes me ~ 1 minute to win a game. Freecell is a catagory two game. If it matters, my winning percentage when I played alot was ~80%, mostly because I wasn't that patient with myself, and would rush into losing occasionally. Playing hungerover contibuted some too, but that's my own fault...
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Is there a linux equivalent for bejeweled?
Can your IM do this?
We used to have Welltris, and I played it a lot when I was about 10-12 years old. I thought it was a pretty cool game. It was a similar idea to Tetris, but making it 3D and having the option for 5-block pieces expanded the game. It was also pretty original to have a looking-down-a-well perspective.
I don't know... it was not a huge departure from Tetris, but I thought it was decent.
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
There will always be a market for games you can play in a discreet window with the sound off at work. I think Windows Solitaire is probably the most played game ever.
People shape laws. Not the other way around.
How does tetris take more thinking than snood? Tetris takes pattern recognition and quick thinking, and snood does as well. Tetris uses shape geometry, snood uses angle geometry. And let me tell you, I've faded out playing tetris as often as any other puzzle game.
$8.95/mo web hosting
Perhaps Snood's popularity is due to the type of audience it's reaching. Much like Solitaire, Freecell, Tetris, etc, I've found it's more of an "office game." It appeals to a wide audience who likes to dabble in occasional mindless monotony to escape from...well, their daily dribble. These individuals, although not gamers in the _truest_ sense, still play video games and certainly account for at least a good portion of Snood's popularity.
The author of Snood, Dave Dobson, is a professor where I went to College. From what I understand from talking with him and people who asked him about it in school, he wrote it just for fun and figured he might make a couple hundred bucks over the lifetime of the game from the few people gracious enough to register the game. Its hard to believe how the game has taken off. I think this is more a triumph of the internet and the ways an uncontrolled distribution channel can let just about anyone into the marketplace. There are plenty of markets where cost of getting into the distribution channels alone is enough to stifle meaningful competition. Just read Charles H. Ferguson's High Stakes, No Prisoners for an example.
I think another thing to consider is that the internet doesn't just allow for originality or quality but also popularity. I think its sobering to realize that even in the anti-clique of the open source movement there is a lot pressure to conform to certain world views and also to tear down what's popular. (I'm sure everyone who posts to slashdot with a @aol.com address can attest to that) I'm sure there are games with better graphics and maybe better game play than snood out there, but I think a lot of peoples reflex reaction is to attack snood simply because its not necessarily the very first game of its kind. The problem is that without popular products, even ones that are not the best of their breed, some markets will never get wide exposure. I think that most genre's of software benefit immeasurably from exposure, it almost always spurs competition and I'm sure there will be bigger,faster,stronger snood that I'll hear about on slashdot in another year.
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." - Sir Winston Churchill
For those of you that are into puzzle games like myself there are plenty of other games worth mentioning. Here's my little list:
Columns -- Sega's answer to Tetris. Fun and addictive.
Magical Drop -- Sorta like Puzzle Bobble but upside-down. Highly addictive.
Money Idol Exchanger -- A Magical Drop-like game but there's math involved. Many may be put off by the cutsey graphics but it's a great game.
Puyo Puyo -- Released in the states as Puyo Pop or Puzzlow Kids. Tetris-like.
Chu Chu Rocket! -- Extremely fun in multiplayer mode.
I know for a fact that most of these have open source clones available, it's just a matter of looking for them.
Alejandro Abreu -- Composer http://listen.to/Ollin
KLOV rocks.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I've been playing Battlefield 1942 the last few months with a group of old friends scattered around all corners of the country. We use Roger Wilco so we can all talk to eachother while playing-- it's a fantastic way to catch up with friends, and a game that forces you to work as a team to win. Even the guys playing with us who aren't on our voice server are definitely typing. To not do so would lose you the game.
But communicating aside, I agree with you. Excess is bad, and if you're not enjoying it, why play?
Pocket Tanks was rather popular where I work, and before that it was BridgeBuilder, both quite fun until they stopped letting us play games.
okay, first off, i'm a fan of snood, i love it. though, the one game i fell more in love with was smiletris. i still don't know the rules, but i continue to waste my life with it.
secondly, going on with that whole debate that is going on about influencing children and Snood vs. UT. this is an insight i had a few days ago.
thirty years ago, children played board games. board games have rules, but you have to learn the rules and enforce them for yourself. you then have to be able to explain the rules to others when you want to play with them. you accept that you must play within the rules of the game and you're okay with that.
today, with computer games, the rules are enforced by the programming. children try to test the rules. they also try to find cheat codes and subconsciously, this gets them to feel that they don't have to adhere to the rules if they can just find the loophole.
that's why kids these days are bastards.
-"Hey, Baby. It's not a rash, it's textured love."
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
These and many other "simple" games are popular for the same reasons:
Well, that's what I think.
-Rick
Greg is a fantastic designer, having worked both with paper and electronic-based gaming. Plan to visit often to get more insight in game design. It should be updated once a week.
Ahh, I see oh wise coward.
No Comment.
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.
I've noticed that the foul language in online games is directly proportional to the pace of the game. As an example, Sony makes an online tank game called Tanarus that has several variations, some faster than others. In the slower game there's some expletives, but not a lot. In the faster game, the language is unbelieveable, because, while the pace is alot faster, it's still a tank game and therefore allows for typed messages between melees while your tank is cruising away or you're respawning in your base.
The reason we don't see worse language in Q3A, I believe, is that there simply isn't enough time to talk AND play.
It doesn't really surprise me to see such games as this take such a high position in a most popular games list. To be perfectly honest, I think the ring of the gaming industry that has produced such titles as Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament has begun to lose site of the most important aspect of gaming: the gameplay; and i'm really surprised to have seen the likes of Counter-Strike and such cling to their elevated status for so long. When I look back to the dawn of video and computer gaming - well, the dawn to someone born in 1980. (the advent of the NES) - there is something that I recall being there that I just can't seem to find today: fun. You could possibly say this is attributed to general childhood nostalgia, and this definitely does play a part, but I think not as big a part as most people would believe. I think today's high-tech games are turning into overgrown graphical demos. What is the single most important thing that is needed in order to market any game on the internet today? Screenshots. Why are these things so important to people? What I'd like to see once in a while is a written document authored by the game's designer detailing his vision and intention behind the game's design and what innovations he hopes to incorporate or perhaps even discover in developing the game. Perhaps what I envision is some sort of publicly available, abridged version of the design doc for the game or something along those lines. Something to assure the fans that the team behind the game has aim and creativity. However, I don't see this kind of thing coming into common practice anytime soon, mainly because I think most of today's development teams lack all of what was mentioned above.
-Zeecog
Do the makers of Bust-A-Move have a legal case here? New Bust-A-Move games are still coming out (for the PC, too). Is it me, or do computer games have little if any ability to copyright their ideas? Most FPS are clones of the originals, as are simulation games, etc. They aren't new ideas, they're ripoffs. Movies suffer similar consequences (after a teen movie comes out, it isn't uncommon to find a complete ripoff along side it in Blockbuster). Why is there so little protection on visual creativity?
GL
You may be wondering why Snood is so much more popular than the game it poorly rips off, Bust-a-Move (aka Puzzle Bobble). I mean, BaM was around for years, appeared on many more systems, enhanced the gameplay over the generations, always had multiplayer , etc, etc. So why Snood?
Simple: Snood was (is?) available in the America Online games section.
Yep, we have another thing to curse the "drooling AOL hordes" for - popularizing an inferior puzzle rip-off. Oh, and for a good non-spyware-riddled version, try Popcap.com's Dynomite, or at least go out and one of the many versions of Bust-a-Move (not all versions listed).
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
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...
Who found this game very very boring? I cannot believe so many people liked it! It completely failed to capture my imagination or stump my brain. I played it several times trying to figure out what the big deal was, with no success.
Now, BattleBalls (aka Senkyu in Japan) on the other hand, got many of my quarters in the arcade.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
This kinda reminds me of one of my customers. I quite often talk to my game customers via email (Asking how to get past a level, needing a re-download after loosing the game, etc. Not all 'support' stuff really, but, kinda nice to talk to the people who enjoy the games, and find out what they want more of.) Anyway... one of my customers that contacted me had a serious problem. She was in her late 60's, I believe, and loved Tile Panic!, a fairly simple puzzle game that requires some quick thinking on higher levels.
Problem is, her daughter wouldn't let her play anymore. Apparently she had heart problems, and after a while, her blood pressure would go WAY up, and she'd have to quit playing.
Not wanting to be the death of nice little old ladies, I created a separate version for her that takes out the time-based element of the game. She's the only one I know who managed to actually play perfect games on more than one of the game difficulty levels! But the whole thought of someone refusing to give up playing the game dispite the health detrement because they like the game too much is both strange and encouraging ;-)
(Eh - since I'm here, I'll plug one o' my other puzzle games, since that's a bit o' the discussion on this thread - go check out Tile Panic!, as mentioned above, and Boulder Panic! 2 DX. Or don't :-)
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
Hmmm. It's been a while since I installed Snood, but I'm pretty sure it only installs a link to Bonzai, not the actual app. But frankly I don't even know what BB does. AdAware kills it pretty effectively.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Sometimes the simple games are the best.
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo for the original PlayStation is a great example of this. Everyone that I have showed this game to has become hopelessly addicted, yet it could easily be coded by a small team.
Even though it was released back in 1997, it consistently goes for good money on eBay, because it is so much fun and so hard to find.
I'm pretty shocked that this little game made 9th most played game in the world. Many commments prior to mine say Snood is nothing more then a Bust-A-Move knockoff. Being a former Snood addict, I never played Bust-A-Move, so I couldn't say for sure if it was until i did a google image search of Bust-A-Move screenshots It's kind of hard to deny this point. I first played Snood in my fiancee's dorm at her school where it's extremely popular among the students there. Needless to say, i was hooked for a few months playing it non-stop. After awhile, It turned into a game I play on occasion, to distract myself for a little while.
However, aside from originality issues, the article poses a few points:
* Games of this nature are POPULAR.
* Games of this nature appeal to a broader demographic then the majority of big-selling retail games. Senior citizens all the way down to 6 year olds play these types of puzzle games. It's good for parents, knowing their child won't be exposed to ultra-violance. It's a good alternative to those who are squeemish when it comes to the likes of 3D first person shooters etc.
* Games of this nature are good for passing the time away until you have to do something else.
I don't necessarly agree that Snood and it's developer should be recognized in the game industry with trumpets sounding like the article suggests. However, I do think games *like* Snood should be given more respect and attention to.
The simplicity of Tetris, Snood, Bust-A-Move etc, is one of it's main selling points. They have a very a small learning curve, fun to play, and help pass the time away without getting too involved in the game itself, and they don't require much when it comes to hardware requirements.
But what is their market potential? First things that come to mind are cellphones. These types of games would also encompass atari games, etc. Anything with minimum hardware requirements. Another use for them would be handheld game machines such as GBA and other less popular portables. Games of this type would fit the bill for PDAs as well. Outside of that, nothing else comes to mind off hand.
In any case, I enjoy Snood for the game that it is, and I'd like to see these types of games get a little more recognition. I wouldn't stop playing Counter Strike or Quake over them, but I do believe they have their place in the gaming industry as a whole. With some more orginiality, a little more diverseness, I believe developers who produce games of this nature, in time, will recieve the recognition that they deserve.
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Ironically enough, there were PC versions of Bust-a-Move 2 and 4. Thus making Snood even less remarkable (if that were possible)
Other systems BaM appeared that you didn't mention were the Saturn, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, Neo Geo Pocket Color, Gameboy Color, 3DO, Gamegear, and (I'm pretty sure) the original non-color Gameboy.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Please, come troll at the site then. It's a bitch to get discussion forums going.
If your game is not a $2 million 3D rendered "hunk of shit", then some student on break between quarters/semesters is going to fire up their copy of Visual C++ and have a clone of your game out in a month. The tools of creation are so advanced that the difference between a shareware game and a professional game is two million dollars of art resources, story line, and AI. It is not uncommon to see 'write a clone of Tetris' as an assignment/project in an upper division CS class.
In fact the first time I saw Tetris was as a shareware clone for my Amiga.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Ok, ok, hear me out.
People, like friends of mine, seem to think that playing an FPS like UT2k3 eats up something like 16 hrs. a day, as opposed to the litte minesweeper inbetween. And only is something for superl33+ freaks. Wrong.
When I feel like having a little break I fire it up and play 2 - 3 matches at most, all usually no longer than 15 minutes each.
Actually playing an FPS like UT2k3 in CTF (capture the flag) mode can been either very difficult or boring, depending on the people you've got on the server.
The only essential difference in 'gaming-nature' I see to a game like B-a-M or Tetris is the fact that it only is interresting as a goal-orientated multiplayer and that it has more controls than a n00b can grasp imediately.
There is point though that games like ut2k3 in popular modes like CTF can be very frustrating when trying to reach a skilllevel that is able to compete with expierienced players. Coming in a public server as completely new to the game seems somewhat pointless if no one gives you some help and advice along the way. Sort of like competing with Kasparov in Speed-Chess.
That's probably the most outstanding feature that keeps the occasional-gamer away from choosing FPS as their past-time.
The need to compete not with brick-dropping algorythyms but with real people that can plot and plan ahead and are far more challenging (& fun) than any AI could ever be. But also has a higher 'entry' threshhold.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The game is incredibly easy for the most part. The hard part is play control.
Any puzzle game that makes play control the biggest challenge isn't much of a puzzle game. It's a play control game.
To me, there are just four words to describe such games: not worth my time.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Good variations of asteroids include Pang, and the manta ray level in super mario sunshine.
In fact the first time I saw Tetris was as a shareware clone for my Amiga.
I still haven't played the original. :)
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