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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.
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.
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 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.
.
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
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
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
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.
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 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.
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?
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
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
Because it is just a lame Puzzle Bobble ripoff.
I'm with you there. I just downloaded Snood to see what the fuss was about, and you're right: it's Puzzle Bobble without the hypnotic music or the great graphic design.
Details of the arcade original here.
Puzzle Bobble is also known as "Bust a Move" - you can play it on MAME, and there are versions for most consoles, from the Megadrive/Genesis right through to PS2.
Seriously, if you like Snood, try the real thing, and find out what a little finesse and a few production values can do.
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.
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...
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
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.