Zoop

Zoop is a puzzle video game developed by Hookstone Productions and published by Viacom New Media. Some of its rules resemble those of the arcade game Plotting (known in some territories as Flipull), but unlike Plotting, Zoop runs in real time. Official Zoop games have been released for Game Boy, Game Gear, Mega Drive/Genesis, Super NES, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn (in Japan only), PlayStation, MS-DOS, and Macintosh.

Months before its actual release, Zoop was one of four games played in the Blockbuster World Video Game Championship semifinals on August 21, 1995 – a rare instance of an as-yet-unreleased game being used in the competition. Shortly after it was released, to spark interest in the game, Blockbuster offered the game as part of a "rent one, get one free" for the Super Nintendo for a limited time.

Gameplay
The player controls 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 identical pieces on one row are longer, statistically, than one might expect. If a piece falls into the center square, the game is over.

If the player shoots a piece of the same color as their triangle, it will be "zooped" (cleared) and points are earned. If the piece behind the target piece is also of the same color, it is also "zooped". The same goes for the next piece, and so on. If a piece of a color different from the player's current piece is shot, the player's piece will switch colors with it. This is also what happens when a piece of a different color is encountered after zooping one or more pieces of the same color.

When the quota of "zooped" pieces is met, the game speeds up, and (before level 10) the background changes.

Various special pieces do different things:
 * A proximity bomb (shaped like a lightning bolt) blows up pieces in a 3×3 area centered at the target piece.
 * A line bomb (often shaped like a gear) clears a whole target line of pieces.
 * A color bomb (often shaped like a paint splotch) clears all the pieces in a quadrant that match the target piece.
 * Collect five spring pieces to clear the whole screen.
 * If a piece is pushed right next to the center square, it immediately disappears. In this way, the player may not lose because of a powerup entering the middle square.

Opti-Challenge
To make matters even more difficult, the game also employed what was referred to as "opti-challenge" backgrounds. As the game progressed, the backgrounds would become increasingly distracting. Early on, this would involve the use of contrasting colors, and increasingly intricate color schemes. Background patterns would also become more intricate and would make subtle use of asymmetrical elements. Ultimately, the background on level 9 employed black and white tiles, roughly the size of the invading pieces, while the center square contained a picture of clouds, which expanded to fill the screen on levels 10 and later. Although the opti-challenge element of the game was used as a selling point, very little information exists about the technique itself, and no other game on the market has ever claimed to use opti-challenge graphics.

Sound and music
The DOS version of the game supports various sound cards, and features wavetable-like MIDI music. The sound effects have a cartoonish tone to match the vivid colors used through the stages. The music is basically jazz, and "evolves" with the game. The title and options screens, and the first stages, feature "smooth jazz" tunes. As the levels get harder, the music gets more and more tense, adding to the fast-paced atmosphere of the game.

Development
Zoop (along with 1993's Dracula Unleashed) is one of the few original games that was published by Viacom New Media, who mainly published games that are based on already existing IP (including Viacom Media Networks' programming) until their closure in 1997.

According to Aaron Fothergill, one of the programmers of Zoop, Electric Spectacle Productions wanted the Atari Jaguar version to have more advanced graphics than the Playstation version of the game. However, Viacom requested the programmers to disable the extra graphics to make the Jaguar version less appealing than the Playstation version.

Release
Zoop was marketed extensively by Viacom, who wanted the game to replicate the success of another puzzle game, Tetris. This is evidenced by the game's release on many platforms, as well as the game's slogan, "America's Largest Killer of Time!"

Months before its actual release, the game was played in the Blockbuster World Video Game Championship semifinals on August 21, 1995, along with NBA Live 95, Kirby's Avalanche and Donkey Kong Country.

As of 2018, the rights to Zoop are held by Viacom International. Even though the company started a division in 2011 named 345 Games, the game is unlikely to have any future releases or sequels.

Reception
The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly criticized the Game Gear version as having poor audio even by Game Gear standards, but otherwise were divided about the game. One of them said "It is more like work than anything else, and it certainly isn't addictive"; two of them said it lacks anything special but is still addictive and enjoyable for players of all skill levels; and the fourth called it "A must-try".

Reviewing the SNES version, a critic for Next Generation found the gameplay to be too complicated, concluding that "It's not bad really, but the idea isn't that intuitive, and once you get past the learning curve it lacks the addictive quality this kind of game needs." GamePro's The Axe Grinder similarly said that, while the game is fun and has good graphics and music, it lacks the addictive pull that an action puzzler needs to distinguish itself.

Sega Saturn Magazine (previously Sega Magazine) gave the Genesis/Mega Drive version a 62%, saying the game "has the curious compulsiveness of Tetris to a degree", but that it is overshadowed by more complex and graphically impressive games then on the market. Cover Girl of GamePro was pleased with the music and graphics, particularly the use of eye-tricking background contrasts in the later levels. She found the level select and five difficulty modes broaden the accessibility, but criticized that the game sends the player back to the beginning whenever they lose. She concluded that the game, while falling short of classics like Tetris, is an enjoyable enough puzzler to merit a purchase.

Reviewing the Jaguar version, GamePro noted that it made no changes from previous versions of the game. They said of the game itself: "A classic? No. Addictive? Yes." Next Generation similarly stated that "while Zoop is an enjoyable game, it's not exactly the second puzzling. ... Games like Tetris and Bust-a-Move have an undeniable magic, and while Zoop has the mechanics of a great puzzle game, it lacks that magic." They praised the pace of the action, in that the game demands the player's full attention from the beginning.

GamePro's brief review of the PlayStation version called it "an uncomplicated puzzle game that's only slightly hampered by squirrelly controls" and "a great addiction for puzzle fans." A brief review from Next Generation commented, "Action puzzle games should be simple but addicting; Zoop is complicated but kind of compulsive." IGN rated the PlayStation version of the game a 5/10, stating, "Zoop has all the makings of a good puzzle game, it just doesn't deliver the goods."

The game was awarded "Best Puzzle Game" in the 1995 Nintendo Power Awards.

Entertainment Weekly gave the game an A- and wrote that "Describing a videogame as the next Tetris is like calling a rock group the next Beatles — no matter how good the package, it's never going to duplicate the unique circumstances that made the original such a worldwide smash. Even so, Zoop is pretty darned promising. In this thumb-busting puzzler, you fight off multicolored shapes approaching from four directions on a rectangular grid. Shoot a shape of the same color and you destroy it; shoot a shape of a different color and your ship changes to that color. What with the peppy music and wacky backgrounds (both of which vary from stage to stage), you have a game that, while not quite as addictive as Tetris, is just as much fun."

In other media
The game was featured in series 5 episode 4 of the British series GamesMaster.