Sneech Plans and FAQs

Yesterday I sent out emails to everyone that had emailed me about Sneech over the past 10 years! I’m sure some of those email addresses have long since gone out of service. Maybe those people will eventually hear about Sneech and get in touch — please do.

However, quite a few did get through ok, so that’s good!

I’ve been asked quite a  few questions, and thought I’d go over some of the faq’s here, to clear things up.

Q. Will there be a Network mode to play over the Internet or LAN?

A. Yes! This is a core part of the current rewrite and everything I do takes into consideration the ability to play over a network. I’m not 100% sure the Internet will be fast (low latency) enough for sneech at high speed play, but LAN play should certainly be great! Also, on iPhone (in a future update) I’m planning Bluetooth head-to-head mode and probably Wifi mode too.

Q. Will there be support for other Phones, like N97, Palm Pre, Sony-Ericsson, Android etc.?

A. Not until the game project is  highly tested, bug-fixed and more complete. Conversions to these types of devices may need a rewrite in Java, and may also require modifications that would cause the code base to be “forked”. Currently the iPhone/Windows/Mac versions share 95% of the code, so only a small piece is rewritten for each platform.

Q. When is a Windows/Mac Version available to try?

A. I currently develop/test Sneech in Windows, although it’s a bit rough (has poor keyboard input), and is currently set to mimic the iPhone screen size (480×320). Maybe in 2 weeks time I’ll rework it a little, for a bigger screen (maybe 800×600), and improve the keyboard control, and make it available on this Blog. A Mac version would take another few days. Once I get a little further with the game I’ll keep you posted!

Q. How about a Linux version?

A. That should be simple to do, but I just have to prioritise my time, so a Linux port would be done once the project matures on Windows/Mac.

That should cover most of the popular questions…..

Just a quick note about pricing. The iPhone version will be released at 99c, and then there will be regular updates adding advanced features, hopefully leading up to (but not promising yet!) Bluetooth and WiFi play, where the price may go up by a dollar or two.

Sneech on other platforms wont cost much more, and it will be free to anyone who played the original

About Sneech

Sneech was a popular ‘shareware’ video game on the Amiga personal computer, way back in 1995, and updated/maintained for almost 2 years. Back then the game was written using AMOS Pro, on a 512k computer running at 14.4Mhz, using a 320×256 pixel display in 32 colours! We did have up to 4 Joysticks though!

The game fuses the classic ‘Snake‘ genre with Multiplayer deathmatch action. Today most people will recognise the game as Nokia Snake, but Sneech pre-dates Nokia snake by some years. The Snake genre goes back as far as the mid 70′s! Sneech was a different beast altogether!

Today Sneech is being rewritten from scratch in highly portable C++ code, using standard technologies like OpenGL for rendering. The game will initially be tested and released for iPhone, but Windows and Mac versions will soon be developed alongside. Mmuch of the Network Multiplayer functionality will be tested on a Windows version, before it gets added to iPhone (in a later revision) and Mac.

The modern Sneech will feature high resolution displays, Multiplayer (via Network) support via Bluetooth/WiFi/LAN/Internet, lots of new effects, all the classic sounds sampled from the original Amiga version, plus new sounds, graphics, and game modes.