Dave Msseemmaa
Daily Egyptian
I think I'm addicted, and these little squares, circles and triangles are to blame.
Snood, a catchy Tetris-like computer game available free from www.snood.com, is easy to play, hard to stop and about as addictive as heroin. But there's no support group for this game.
So far, I've never missed work because of the game. But that's probably because it's on my computer there too.
The object of the game is to make little blocks disappear by launching blocks of the same color at the ones already on the screen. They disappear when there are at least three of them touching each other, but you've got to make all of the snoods vanish before the ceiling drops. The ceiling drops a little after you shoot a certain number of snoods, a number that varies from level to level. You can prevent the ceiling from dropping by knocking snoods down, which you do by making the ones above them disappear. It's much easier than it sounds.
So why is the game so addictive?
"It just is," said Lindsay Simons, an undecided sophomore from St. Louis. She said she was the first on her floor in the dorms to get hooked and spread it to at least 10 or 15 of her floormates.
"It is very addictive because it's so natural. Some people just have a natural Snood clicking hand. You just double click on the snood icon, and you're entertained for hours."
Even Snood creator Dave Dobson hasn't quite put his finger on the reason the game is so addictive.
"I've been trying to figure it out," said Dobson, a geology professor at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C. "I think part of it is that you have to make decisions all the time, kinda like bowling or darts."
The Snood-mania that has been sweeping college campuses around the world began in 1996 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where Dobson was finishing graduate school.
He made a career out of geology, but has been into computer programming as a hobby since middle school. That's what it was when he wrote the program for Snood on his Macintosh in 1996: a hobby.
Dobson said the game, then and now, was mostly spread from person to person.
"There is a little box when people (register the game, asking where they heard about it) and almost all of them say they heard about it by word of mouth - like from a friend or their grandma or someone."
Six years later, there have been at least 15 million Snood downloads from Dobson's site alone. That number doesn't count downloads from sites such as shareware.com and copies made from one Snooder to another.
At least I don't have to feel like I'm alone in my addiction.
This can't be normal
Like any addiction, getting hooked on Snood has the potential to be dangerous. No one that I've talked to said they were dropping out of school or quitting their job so they had more time for Snood, but it can be quite a distraction.
Simons said when she was writing a big research paper in May, she had to go to a public computer where there was no Snood so she could write without the temptation of playing the game.
"It came down to leaving my room and going to a computer that didn't have Snood on it."
Though Simons considers herself a serious Snooder, her addiction doesn't compare to some of the cases Dobson has seen.
Dobson said a group of students at Northwestern University went all out to celebrate a student's 1000th game of Snood. They dressed up as Snoods with Snood costumes and made Snood-food for the party.
"That's probably the wackiest thing I've heard of," Dobson said. "I've had people say they made Snood shrines and want pictures of it on the website."
Fitting in
Simons said she usually doesn't get into computer games, but she had to download it after seeing it on all of her friends' computers at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau.
And though the college environment seems to be an ideal breeding ground for getting people hooked on Snood, Dobson said that the game has infected all types of demographics. He gets dozens of emails sent to him by fans of the game.
"My oldest Snood enthusiast is 92 - this grandma who wrote me a letter," Dobson said. "Retirement homes are kinda like dorms in the way people share things. And the older people like to play with their grandkids because it's not timed, and they don't have anything shooting at them.
He said his daughter played the game as a toddler, though she thought the idea of the game was to get the snoods to turn into little white skulls, the result of a lost game. She thought she won every time, Dobson said.
College students, older people, toddlers . Anyone else, Dobson?
"A lot of clergy. I get letters from nuns and priests - and also lesbians. It was big in the San Francisco lesbian community," Dobson said.
The game has gained more exposure lately.
Dobson said Snoods graced the cover of a Japanese computer magazine, were featured in a syndicated story and were even mentioned in the March edition of Playboy Magazine.
"My mom was pretty embarrassed by that one," Dobson said.
At first, I was a little embarrassed by my Snood addiction. I didn't tell anyone about the recurring dream with the happy-face yellow Snood winking at me in a big empty room. Or wishing I were playing while waiting in line at Aldi's.
But knowing that there are so many other Snood-crazed people out there, I don't have to be a closet-case Snood player anymore.
My name is David and I'm addicted to Snood.
David Msseemmaa can be reached at msseemma@siu.edu.
Published on 11/17/05; 12:24:44 PM
