Image: Joe Burger
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"Go to the computer lab," we'd lazily remind one another, "downstairs."I had started taking my own advice. It wasn't just that the lab's printer was slightly more reliable than mine: I'd discovered I actually preferred working on a public computer. It was slow, and the Internet connection was slower. The lab itself was always quiet, always empty—but other people had been there! You could see their documents right there on the desktop! Any evidence of human life was reassuring at 4 AM on a Wednesday.On the computer desktop, crowded in among the students' saved files, I remember there was a single strange, stray icon. It was bizarre, even horrible, a round blue marble of a head with severe red lips. It was awful. I wondered who among us was responsible for putting that icon there.Of course I double-clicked it. That launched a window with a list of high scores. I recognized most of the names as classmates.A lost game is especially unsettling. A short funereal dirge plays: Nice going, savior, they're all dead.
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A few hours after I'd purchased Snood Deluxe (which is the latest version of Snood for Windows), I found myself returning to the website to download an older, shareware version of Snood 4. As I did this, I experienced a chill of déjà vu: I'd done this before. I suddenly realized, with a start, I had already purchased Snood Deluxe on disc a few years ago, and had replaced that version of the game with Snood 4, too.I can't put my finger on why later versions of Snood don't do it for me. I don't think it's just nostalgia at work here, though.As with all games of a certain age, what I remember most about Snood is that I used to be a lot better at it. An adroit player—the player I used to be—might nimbly shoot a snood into a narrow spot that, frankly, makes no physical or scientific "collision" sense. Fitting your snoods into those crawl spaces is a knack instrumental in winning. The very best players have become veritable pool sharks, bouncing snoods off walls into pockets.Snood is unlike most falling-brick games—titles like Lumines or Puyo Puyo or certain variations on Tetris—all games in which a playfield begins mostly empty and then endlessly fills. This game is more like Dr. Mario: It's about chipping away at the garbage that already exists onscreen, while trying your best to not add to the preliminary burden.It's a fine game for a writer to keep running in the background on her work laptop. It also makes for a serviceable metaphor—supposing metaphors are your thing—about writing and writer's block, for instance. All we ever do is chisel away until finally our screen is cleared.An adroit player—the player I used to be—might nimbly shoot a snood into a narrow spot that, frankly, makes no physical or scientific "collision" sense.