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Snood, the Simple Game
Posted by
jamie
on Tue Jan 14, 2003 03:32 PM
from the three-of-these-a-decade dept.
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.
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Snood, the Simple Game
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Frozen bubble (Score:4, Informative)
Bust-a-move (Score:4, Interesting)
whatever (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Re:whatever (Score:5, Interesting)
It was team based and you generally had to use your good blocks on an ally who's in trouble. We'd play it for hours at a time, and we were enjoying it and socializing, not too numbed to stop. Since we were all in the same room, it was like a LAN party. Occasionally, even the managers would play.
Games like quake3 where all you do is go around shooting things are boring. That's what's mind-numbing and crippling. Tetris makes you concentrate and think.
The best games are the simple ones with high playability, so to answer the question in the summary, there will always be a demand for this.
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
just one more game (Score:4, Funny)
Re:whatever (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.
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.
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?
Re:Good insight (Score:4, Insightful)
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...
Snood is a definite classic. (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [snood.com].
Re:Snood is a definite classic. (Score:5, Funny)
I was introduced to Snood a couple summers ago while living with a non-geek friend and got very addicted. Many unemployed hours were spent watching the pretty colors gather and then fall. When I was over at my boyfriend's apt I would take every chance I got to try to beat his high score. If he walked out of the room and was gone for a minute I'd start playing. The competition aspect made it much more gripping.
Luckily I found a job and have been able to turn those wasted hours into time spent on /.
Although a little Snood wouldn't be a bad way to kill time as I wait for code to build....
Re:Snood is a definite classic. (Score:4, Funny)
Reminds me of one o' my customers... (Score:4, Interesting)
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! [midnightryder.com], 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 [midnightryder.com]. Or don't :-)
Good Design, Annoying Installation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good Design, Annoying Installation (Score:4, Funny)
It's not always about graphics and violence (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.
I hope these games get popular... (Score:3, Funny)
In a child-like echoy voice;
"Ready
Bust a Move Rip Off? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bust a Move Rip Off? (Score:5, Informative)
So, the question is, when is Snood from?
Zen and Snood (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Most popular Rip-Off (Score:3, Insightful)
I always liked (Score:3, Insightful)
A 3D Tetris-a-like. Loads of fun.
.
blatant plug (Score:3, Informative)
Always room for these games (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [xnewswire.com]
The Year of the Snood (Score:5, Funny)
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.
best game in the genre... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Play Snood responsibly (Score:3, Funny)
Yep, Snood is responsible for at least one broken leg so, please play responsibly.
Not an indie design success story (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not an indie design success story (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Bust-A-Move (Score:3, Informative)
For Zaurus users... (Score:3, Informative)
I happen to know the guy who wrote Snood (Score:3, Informative)
The author of Snood, Dave Dobson, is a professor where I went to College [guilford.edu]. 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.
Give me any of those games any day... (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Weblog to be regular feature (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Why Snood is more popular than Bust-a-Move (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [popcap.com], or at least go out and one of the many versions of Bust-a-Move [yesterdayland.com] (not all versions listed).
Simple is Good (Score:3, Interesting)
Sometimes the simple games are the best.
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo [gamers.com] 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 [ebay.com], because it is so much fun and so hard to find.
Re:NOT just a bust-a-move clone (Score:4, Informative)
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.