Puzz Loop
A marble-matching puzzle game that spawned many clones.
Puzz Loop is an arcade tile-matching puzzle game developed by Mitchell Corporation and released in 1998 in Japan and North America and 1999 in Europe. It was later ported to multiple platforms under the name Ballistic, and a sequel, Puzz Loop 2, followed in 2001. The game is notable for inspiring numerous clones, including the popular Zuma.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Mitchell Corporation
- Producer
- Monte Singman
- Genre
- Puzzle
- Modes
- Single-player, multiplayer
- Platforms
- Arcade
- Game Boy Color
- PlayStation
- Neo Geo Pocket Color
- Nuon
- iOS
- Arcade system
- Kaneko Super Nova System
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
Marbles of different colors roll down a spiral path toward a central goal. The player shoots new marbles from a cannon into the oncoming ones, matching three or more of the same color to make them disappear. Marbles of the same color on either side of a gap will roll backward to close it, potentially causing chain reactions. Bonus items can slow the advance or clear all marbles of one color. The game ends when marbles pass the goal threshold.
Reception
In Japan, Game Machine listed Puzz Loop as the eighth most-successful arcade game in its March 1, 1999 issue. Jeff Lundrigan reviewed the PlayStation version for Next Generation, giving it four stars out of five, stating that although it is an ultimately derivative action puzzler, players would not want to put it down.
Legacy
Puzz Loop 2, released in 2001 on Capcom's CPS-2 hardware, features identical gameplay and a popular two-player versus mode. The success of Puzz Loop led to many clones with nearly identical gameplay, including Zuma, the Luxor series, Tumblebugs, and others. Mitchell alleges that Zuma directly infringes on its intellectual property, while developer PopCap Games asserts that Zuma is not an exact clone but an elaboration. Mitchell later released a version for the Nintendo DS called Magnetica in 2006, and a Wii version via WiiWare in 2008.
More in Capcom Games of the 1990s
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