Zoop is a popular puzzle game from Viacom New Media. It seems to be derived from Flipull but with a faster pace.
Official Zoop™ games have been released for Game Boy, Game Gear, Sega Genesis, Super NES, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and Microsoft Windows. The freepuzzlearena package for Linux, DOS, Windows, BeOS, and Mac OS X contains a clone called Zeus; other (less faithful) clones include Millennium Bugs and XMAS98.

Screenshot

0 0 0 1 6 0 0 . D B .       0 0 2 7
score         . . A .         quota
              . . . .
              . . . .
              . . . .
. . . . . . . o o o o . . . . . . .
A C . . . . . o o A>o . . . . . A A
D . . . . . . o o o o . . . . . . B
. . . . . . . o o o o . . . . . . C
              . . . .
              . . . .
              . . . .
springs       . . . .         level
3 3           . B . .           0 1

Game play

You can control 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 pieces on one row are longer than one might think statistically. If a piece falls into the center square, the game is over.

If you shoot a piece of the same color as your triangle, you will "zoop" (clear) it and earn points. For instance, shooting to the right of the position in the screenshot will "zoop" the 'A' pieces and return you to the center, facing the opposite direction.

If you shoot a piece of a different color than your piece, you will switch places with it. Here, shooting upwards would "zoop" A, bounce off B (leaving A behind), and return with B.

It's a good idea to "swap" a piece to match the pieces behind it (for example, change the C on the left to an A); then you can "zoop" them in one fell swoop for more points.

When you meet your quota of "zooped" pieces, the game speeds up and the background changes.

Various special pieces do different things:

  • A bomb blows up pieces in a 3x3 area centered at the target piece.
  • A gear clears a whole target line of pieces.
  • A splotch clears all the pieces in a quadrant that match the target piece.
  • Collect five spring pieces (represented by a 3 in the diagram) to clear the whole screen.