Ballistic

Overview

Puzz Loop is a tile-matching puzzle game developed and released by Mitchell for arcades (using Kaneko Super Nova System hardware) in December 1998.

A match-three puzzle game with a twist, Puzz Loop has players rotating a cannon around the center of the screen as they fling colored balls at lines of balls rolling, in a spiral, towards them. While shots increase the size of a ball line, matching three or more balls of the same color cause them to disappear and can cause the chain fragments to fall back to combine themselves (with the potential for chaining additional ball clears in a combo). The game also features bonus power-ups to aid players, as well as obstacles to hinder them.

In addition to the standard stage-based (Stage Mode) and endless (Panic Mode) game modes, the game includes one-on-one multiplayer (VS Mode). The game is notable for its support of spinner controls and later received a 2001 arcade sequel (Puzz Loop 2), multiple home sequels (the 2006 Nintendo DS game Magnetica, the 2008 Wii game Magnetica Twist, and the 2012 Nintendo 3DS game Tokyo Crash Mobs), and a mobile port (the 2008 iOS game Puzzloop Endless).

A port of the game for the Sony PlayStation was later released in North America (by Infogrames on October 1999), in Japan (by Capcom on March 2000), and in Europe (by THQ on October 2000), with the NA and EU versions released with the name Ballistic. A handheld version was also released for the Game Boy Color in North America (by Infogrames on November 1999 as Ballistic) and Japan (by Capcom on March 2000). The game was also ported by Infogrames to the NUON as a pack-in game with certain Samsung DVD players.

Its gameplay style received numerous clones, most notably the Zuma and Luxor series. The Zuma series is notable for being so close to the original game that Mitchell claims it infringes on their intellectual property. However, it is considered unlikely that this resulted in official court proceedings.