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The Dude Who Wrote Snood
usacoder writes "The Raleigh News and Observer Lifestyle section has a story on the guy who wrote Snood, Dave Dobson. It's nice to see that shareware can still make money for some developers." From the article: "He describes the evolution of Snood into a cult attraction as a series of random events, and refers to his fame as the game's creator as third-rate celebrity. 'But,' he adds, 'I milk it for all it's worth.'"
I had downloaded a beta version many years ago (1999?) and got a BSOD style error, to which I reported to him the full error message and what I had done ahead of that. He emailed me back a day or two later saying he fixed it, and to download an updated (but still beta) version. First (and I think it's still the only) time I ever saw a BSOD source get eliminated.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Though the article makes it out to be, it isn't original. The author nowhere points out that he was at all influenced by Puzzle Bobble/Bust a Move, an arcade game by Taito that came out in '94 on the Neo Geo hardware, predating Snood by roughly 2 years. It had a cannon at the bottom and fired up colored balls at rows of said balls above, which eliminate when matched in 3s or more.
I think it's all well and good doing a clone game. I've played, loved, and respected many tetris clones over the years. I would say it's possible he came up with Snood without having every seen or played Puzzle Bobble, but I just don't buy it. There are too many similarities.
So does anyone know of any other articles posted elsewhere that confess that Snood is essentially clone?