Zoop
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Zoop is a popular puzzle game developed by Hookstone Ltd (1993-1997), and published by Viacom New Media.
It seems to be derived from Flipull but with a faster pace.
Official Zoop™ games have been released for Game Boy, Game Gear, Sega Genesis, Super NES, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Microsoft Windows, and Apple Macintosh.
The freepuzzlearena package for Linux, DOS, Microsoft Windows, BeOS, and Mac OS X contains a clone called Zeus; other (less faithful) clones include Millennium Bugs and XMAS98.
There is also a Java Applet version of Zoop here: http://joel.spolsky.com/zoop/ A windows beta version is available here: http://netfiles.freespaces.com/index.htm
Screenshot
0 0 0 1 6 0 0 . D B . 0 0 2 7
score . . A . quota
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. . . .
. . . .
. . . . . . . o o o o . . . . . . .
A C . . . . . o o A>o . . . . . A A
D . . . . . . o o o o . . . . . . B
. . . . . . . o o o o . . . . . . C
. . . .
. . . .
. . . .
springs . . . . level
3 3 . B . . 0 1
Game play
You can control a triangle in the center of the screen. Every second (or more often in advanced levels), a piece comes in from the side and possibly pushes other pieces forward. Two consecutive pieces will never come in from the same quadrant, and runs of consecutive pieces on one row are longer than one might think statistically. If a piece falls into the center square, the game is over.
If you shoot a piece of the same color as your triangle, you will "zoop" (clear) it and earn points. For instance, shooting to the right of the position in the screenshot will "zoop" the 'A' pieces and return you to the center, facing the opposite direction.
If you shoot a piece of a different color than your piece, you will switch places with it. Here, shooting upwards would "zoop" A, bounce off B (leaving A behind), and return with B.
It is a good idea to "swap" a piece to match the pieces behind it (for example, change the C on the left to an A); then you can "zoop" them in one fell swoop for more points.
When you meet your quota of "zooped" pieces, the game speeds up and the background changes.
Various special pieces do different things:
- A bomb blows up pieces in a 3×3 area centered at the target piece.
- A gear clears a whole target line of pieces.
- A splotch clears all the pieces in a quadrant that match the target piece.
- Collect five spring pieces (represented by a 3 in the diagram) to clear the whole screen.