Cult Game Snood Arrives on iPhone/iPod Touch
1:10 am, September 14th, 2009, Pete Mortensen
In the mid-1990s, gaming on the Mac was an incredibly sad affair. Very few titles were available outside of Myst and the various Sim titles, and the performance was quite poor. Games were regularly, and correctly, cited as a legit reason to prefer PCs.
But there was one exception that made the whole thing work: Snood, a tiny puzzle game from a geology professor at a liberal arts college in North Carolina. You shot little colored creatures (Snoods) from a cannon, attempting to match colors and clear the board. Yes, it was a whole lot like Bust-a-Move. That’s not the point. It had the ability to make shots through tiny cracks and suddenly clear the whole board with one click. It was fun, exciting, and, most of all, addictive as hell.
And it was a phenomenon. Basically, if you were college-age or younger and owned a Mac, you owned Snood, and you played it all the time. I still remember trying it for the first time in the Fall of 1996 when my older brother returned from his first semester at the University of Michigan and introduced me to my new gaming crack. I later became Johnny Snood-Seed, installing it on Macs at my high school that weren’t locked down (I disguised them as Internet settings panels so administrators wouldn’t delete them) and had my entire high school paper staff blowing deadlines because of it.
The game eventually got ported to pretty much everything, including Windows and TI-84 calculators, but its real roots are with Apple. And that’s why it’s such good news to learn that the iPhone version (App Store link) is out now. I’ve only spent a little time with it, but the developers have captured some of the feel of the Mac original. Now I’ll be able to procrastinate my professional work the way I once did my homework — in the palm of my hand! It’s even got Facebook connectivity so you can play against my high school friends, too. Quite a set-up. Nostalgia is a powerful marketing tool, isn’t it?
Posted by Pete Mortensen in Gaming, iPhone | Comment on this article
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Hmm… Looks like Frozen Bubble to me… Don’t know which one of them came earlier, but they rock nonetheless….
Aditya, on September 14th, 2009 at 2:16 am
Probably worth noting that Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble is available on the platform from Taito.
Personally, I can’t stand Snood for the same reason Zuma annoys me: it’s one thing being influenced by another game, but ripping it wholesale is out of order.
Craig Grannell, on September 14th, 2009 at 4:04 am
i downloaded this about 2 weeks ago and have not played it since…it is the worst version of snood i have ever played.
nick, on September 14th, 2009 at 8:01 am
Apparently, from the comments above, frozen bubble seems better…
Aditya, on September 14th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Pete, what has changed with the state of Mac gaming from the mid-1990s until now? Still pretty sad.
Ferd, on September 14th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
I don’t like Snood because to play it to its potential, you have to have an account on FB. WTF. I wish I could get my money back
Mike C, on September 14th, 2009 at 6:58 pm