Threes!

[InsrtCoins]

We'd love to hear your thoughts about the card-swiping mobile / Xbox One game Threes!

[gallo_pinto]

I played Threes on my iPhone right around the time it came out and it is probably my favorite phone game of all time. I do most of my gaming on commutes, so I spend a lot of time with my Vita and 3DS, but there have been very few phone games that I've enjoyed enough to stick with for any length of time.

Threes was the first game to do that for me. The gameplay is pretty easy to get your head around, but quite challenging to master. It lends itself very well to a "Just one more game" mentality. As engaging as the gameplay was though, it was the game's charming presentation that really kept me coming back. I don't know how many hours I've spent listening to the one song it has, but I still find myself humming it to myself. I crack up every time I hear a "Hello" or "Sup" from the little blocks.

I'm sure you'll address the cloning controversy with 2048 on the podcast and it was such a bummer to see the success of the clone. I'm a middle school teacher (ages 11-14) and most of my students have smartphones. For about a month, 2048 was really popular with my students and when I pointed out that it was a rip-off of Threes and then showed them the original version on my phone, it led to some interesting discussion on how kids at that age see piracy and cloning (spoiler alert: 13 year olds tend not to care). What I found most interesting was that for me, Three's production values and charm were one of the things that I most loved about that game and 2048 has none of that. However, most of my students preferred the minimalist design of 2048 and the fact that it was an easier game. I think it's really unfortunate that 2048 got so popular off of the hard work of the Three's developers, but I think that the comparison of the two games shows a bit of a generation gap. I grew up playing video games on consoles and I preferred Threes, the game that takes a long time to master and has wonderful production values. My students grew up playing free-to-play mobile games and they mostly preferred 2048, the game with an extremely simple interface that you can master quickly and then move on.

[Alex79]

This game did nothing for me at all. I downloaded it after hearing Dave Turner(s) go on about it on Joypod, and just found it to be one of the most plain, boring puzzle games I've ever played. I don't mind a good puzzler now and then, but I just didn't get this. I mean I understood it, the game mechanics, how it worked, I just didn't find it fun at all. I wasn't that great at it, which may not have helped, and I really hate to not be able to find a single positive about a game but this just left me completely cold. Sorry!

[seansthomas]

I've had Threes on my Android for a while now, ever since I read a piece about how several other games had ripped it off.

I like it a fair bit, but I think my favourite mobile puzzler is still Drop 7 (though I dislike the recent makeover that title has had). Where it comes into its own for me is that firstly I can play it whilst listening to music or reputable podcasts (I like this games soundtrack but far prefer my mobile games to be playable on mute after those initial hours). Secondly I can play it with one hand, which is a key factor given the tube I take to work rarely having free seats.

After several months of solid play, I thought I'd hit a wall with the game and had never been able to get over 4,000 before. However upon replaying it for this podcast write up, I smashed that record and got over 7,700. So consider my interest piqued once more!

(Look forward to hearing how you make this show more than an hour long!)

[Flabyo]

You should totally use this as the episode image:



Put "2048 App Store" into google image search if you want to be even more depressed.

Apple have started making some strides in clamping down on blatant cloning and flipping, but there isn't anywhere near as much curation on the AppStore as there is even on Steam, and Steam itself is having real curation issues these days as anyone who watches Jim Sterling's reviews of Early Access trailers can attest...

(Some definitions: "Cloning" is where you build a game that plays like an existing one, but you code your own version. "Flipping" is where you take an existing game and just change the art and re-release it, this happens a LOT with "endless runner" games)

The problem Threes has is that it's not a complicated design to implement. Once you know the rules, it's very easy to code a clone. Any game which falls into that category of 'difficult to design, but once designed easy to implement' has a massive problem with cloning. Flappy Bird, Bejewelled, Zuma, Puzzle Bobble... all very easy to knock out in the space of an afternoon if you're even semi competent a developer.

Is it legal? Yes. Copyright doesn't protect game design at all. The only things in a video game that copyright actually protects are the source code itself (the law affords that the same protection as a novel. No, I'm not joking.) and the artistic representation. i.e., I can clone your game design as long as I'm not using your actual code, and as long as it doesn't look the same. There have been lots of cases in court that have tied down the precedent, such as Data East vs Epyx and Capcom vs Data East. (yes, Capcom lost a Street Fighter 2 cloning case which was as blatant a case of cloning as you will ever see...)

If you're playing a game on the AppStore which uses video adverts for revenue (such as the excellent Crossy Road and Pac Man 256) then you're probably aware that there are a LOT of people attempting to clone 'Clash of Clans' and 'Game of War' right now. Those are actually a lot harder to clone, for all their flaws those are very complex games. So if there are developers willing to clone those, you can be sure as hell they'll clone whatever the next hit simple game is every time...

(Tetris is an odd case, because you really can't clone that without copying it's distinctive visual style.)

[ratsoalbion]

Was Threes! definitely, categorically the first one of these though?

[ratsoalbion]

Sitting on a train right now, can see a woman playing a Threes! clone from here.

[Flabyo]

Was Threes! definitely, categorically the first one of these though?

As far as I'm aware, yes. Wikipedia has it as releasing before 1024 and 2048 anyway.

It might have existed as something on the PC in the old shareware days, but I don't think so.

It's always tricky with an idea this simple, to even think that it might never have been had by anyone before, but that does seem to be the case here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threes
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/24/clones ... pp-stores/
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2141 ... _games.php

[ratsoalbion]

I think I was aware of 2048 first, not that that means anything.

Of course, a huge chunk of the industry has been founded on clones, going back to its earliest days, just like any other avenue where there's lucre to be made.

[Flabyo]

Indeed, I think in this case it's that Threes is a paid title and all the clones are f2p so it feels particularly odious.

Again, not illegal, but you can see how rough it must be to spend a year perfecting a design, but ending up with something that's easy enough to replicate that it can be copied in minutes.

[seansthomas]

I was playing 2048 when I heard a podcast where the topic was how it ripped off Threes. Could be they were wrong but I definitely recall the presenter arguing Threes was the original

[ratsoalbion]

Fortunately I'm not hosting this one and so it's Ryan who has to get his research right!

[gallo_pinto]

After the success of 2048, the designers of Threes posted a year's worth of emails and pictures to their website to show how they went about designing and iterating their game. All the emails are dated and I remember that was how a lot of journalists at the time started saying that 2048 was the clone.

http://asherv.com/threes/threemails/

[ratsoalbion]

Ooh, great stuff. You guys are all contributing enormously to what should be an interesting listen.

[LaikaMuttnik]

I remember when I first saw my husband (aka Jay ) play it on his iPad, and it didn't take me long to get into it. It was so addictive, I couldn't help having late nights playing it in bed and ending up sleepy the next day
I also remember seeing some games creators tweeting amazing high scores they had achieved one after the other, and I was like "Wow...!"

I have the same sentiments for this charming little game as gallo_pinto has. Although the game play itself was so clever and addictive already, it was its well-crafted, smile-generating charm that made it extra special. I liked those numbers having characters, with different faces and voices, and the soothing little tune also complemented the calm atmosphere of the game.
So it was really sad to see charmless clones appearing so quickly and skimming off the cream of the market...