Premium Spotlight: Sneezies
by Eric March on January 11, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Rate it:
(7 votes, average: 3.86 out of 5)
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App Name: | Sneezies |
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| Developer: | Antair Corporation |
Version: | 1.1 | |
| Publisher: | Chillingo, Ltd. |
Size: | 5.8 MB | |
| Category: | Casual Games |
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I want to say first and foremost that I have nothing but respect for Danny Miller. He created the original Boomshine, one of the most addictive casual games to grace the web in recent years, and FSM bless him with its noodly appendage for it. I wasted far more time than I care to admit playing that game, and even having played it recently, I still leave feeling it was just to short; I always want more from it.
It is an unfortunate trusim however that the innovators are rarely the ultimate beneficiaries of their innovations; those who create something great are inevitably doomed to have their creations copied, improved upon, and overshadowed by something bigger and better than that which they created. The only way to avoid that is to be the one who does it, and Danny didn’t. That’s no shame on him — he joins the lot of 99% of the rest of the innovators whose ideas bore fruit which ultimately grew trees greater than themselves.
So it goes that Boomshine has now fallen under the shadow of a game that is worthy of being its successor. Antair’s Sneezies takes the original formula and runs with it, dressing it up and adding to it to create a challenge that is both familiar, superior, and in small ways different. It keeps things simple while making the whole game feel like much more than it is — something Boomshine did originally, but which Sneezies does on a whole new level.
To start with, the theme of the game has been dragged somewhat out of its abstract shadows and been given a makeover that wouldn’t look out of place if it were papered on Cute Overload’s walls. The premise is this: Wee sternutatious fuzzballs are trapped and floating around in bubbles, and you must free them. To do this, you are armed with a shot of sneezing powder which, once it touches one or more Sneezies, will rather unsurprisingly cause them to sneeze in a veritable cloud of snot three times their own diameter. (Well what else would it be? Look at those blooms of expectoration!) Sneezies are also apparently prone to sneezing when another Sneezy sneezes on them, which is a good thing, because ideally you want to create a mucous-laden chain reaction in order to free as many as possible and reach the level goal to advance. Freed Sneezies sprout a little umbrella parachute so they can land safely.
The game starts off easy, with only a few Sneezies to free and an easily obtainable goal. As you progress however, their numbers grow and the goals become harder to attain. As their numbers grow the sneezies are scaled down to fit more on the screen, but occasionally the game will jump back to just a few large sneezies, yet with a harder goal to achieve. This extends the challenge and allows the game to progress in a manner that provides variety instead of just slowly increasing the number of Sneezies on the screen. There are 30 levels in all, and there are also a variety of backgrounds to play on, just to add some flavour to the visuals.
Besides the standard formula however, Sneezies also adds a “Challenge Mode.” In this mode, you are given a score goal to reach and 5 attempts to reach it. When you set off a blast of sneezing powder, you get scored based on one half of the percentage of Sneezies you free. However, to help you achieve your goal, there are a couple of bonuses to be had. For each 25% you get a message — “Wel’ll be back,” at 25% and “Baby Boomer” at 50%. However, if you can clear 75% of the Sneezies, you’ll get an extra turn — and if you manage to clear them all, you’ll get double the score, or 100 points. Note however that after each blast of sneezing powder, any Sneezies you free will be replaced, and then some, making it even harder to clear the level. Once you reach your score goal, you’ll move on to the next, obviously harder level, with your 5 attempts restored, should you have lost any during your last attempt.
The sound in the game is sparse but very effective. Your little fuzzballs free themselves with a cutesy high-pitched “‘Choo!” accompanied by a light bubble popping sound. A light run of chimes plays when you meet or exceed your goal, informing you that you’ve made enough to advance to the next level. At the end of a round a wind picks up and blows the Sneezies off the screen in a flurry of seasonal leaves, and throughout the game a gentle accoustic guitar piece plays. It’s all geared to be as easy on the ears as possible, and it does a very good job of that. There does seem to be something with the collision detection here, though: It must rely on a simple circle to detect whether another sneezie is in the blast radius, because it seems like a sneezie can brush by perhaps inside one pixel of a bit of sneeze cloud but escape unharmed. Also, the fading of the sneeze cloud seems to suggest a sneezie should still be able to be effected by it if it runs into it while it’s fading, but it isn’t. Still, really minor nitpicks.
I might as well just come right out and admit it: I am a sad and pathetic addict. You see, this is part of the reason why there haven’t been quite as many reviews done lately as I’d have liked. This is part of the reason I haven’t given this game its spotlight before now. If I let it, I am sure it could become the ruination of my marriage, the loss of my job and my apartment, and the reason I’m slumped over on a street corner in squalid, filthy clothes with three months worth of wild beard growth muttering to myself and begging for change so I can buy batteries for my portable USB charger to recharge my iPhone just to play it for another couple of hours.
In short, Sneezies is an insidious concoction that contains more challenge than Boomshine, all the mesmerization of fireworks, and the inexplicable, insatiable addictiveness of an infinitely large roll of bubble wrap — and all it takes to become hopelessly addicted is to pay your pusher (Chillingo) a single dollar. The entertainment value of this game makes that a total steal. Just don’t get to thinking you can just play this in a spare moment in line or waiting on the phone or something, because even though a single round can be played in seconds, it’s like popcorn or chips: You can’t play just one.
Good job all around here, well worth its 5-star rating. Check out the enormous plethora of screenies below.
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Posted in Games: Casual, Paid Apps
Thanks Eric.
This is probably my favorite review of Sneezies to date.
Cheers!
Thanks, Andrey — glad you could stop by. Glad you liked the review; I’m still addicted to the game even now a couple of weeks after I got it. Very few games do that to me; I just don’t have time these days to devote to many of the games that I’d like to, but I keep coming back to this one in quieter moments. Brilliant. Can’t wait to see what you guys have up your sleeve next.