Collapse!

Collapse!
Super Collapse! Screenshot Super Collapse! Screenshot
Developer(s)	GameHouse
Publisher(s)	GameHouse
Designer(s)	Ben Exworthy, Garr Godfrey (orig.)
Platform(s)	Windows, Mac OS X, Browser (Flash), Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Mobile, iPhone, Smartphone, Facebook
Release	1999
Genre(s)	Puzzle
Mode(s)	Single Player

Collapse! generally refers to a series of award-winning puzzle games by GameHouse, a software company in Seattle, Washington.

History

In late 1998, Ben Exworthy and Garr Godfrey worked together to released the original Collapse! a web-based game that, through distribution arrangements with major online game portals such as Microsoft Zone, quickly grew in popularity. Alongside other seminal games like Bejeweled (PopCap), Collapse! helped to boost the early popularity of the "match three" genre of casual games.

In 2001, following the success of the web-based Collapse!, GameHouse developed and released Super Collapse!, a standalone download for Windows PCs. While the gameplay remained identical to its web-based counterpart, this new version offered enhanced graphical resolution, animations, sounds and music, at a price of US$20. Afterwards, GameHouse would continue to use the word "super" in the titles of its download games, as a way to distinguish them from the simpler web-based versions.

One year later, in 2002, GameHouse would create the first true sequel in the series, Super Collapse! II. In addition to the classic gameplay, Super Collapse II would offer "Relapse", "Strategy", and "Puzzle" modes.

Super Collapse! 3 continued expanding the work of previous Collapse! games. In addition to three new modes (Slider, Continuous, Countdown), Super Collapse! 3 introduced a "quest" mode where players progressed through a whimsical world, unlocking new levels as they go.

Gameplay

In the classic Collapse! game, players remove, or "collapse", groups of adjacent, similarly-colored blocks before they reach the top of a 12x15 grid playfield. New rows of blocks are to the bottom of the board, coming faster and faster during the course of the level. Players successfully complete a level by playing until all of the remaining lines have been added.

A typical level begins with a few rows of random colored blocks.

Every x seconds (depending the level) a new line with colored bricks (3 colors on the first 4 levels, 4 colors all levels afterwards) appears from the bottom of the screen and moves the whole field up. By clicking on a group of 3 or more same-colored bricks, the whole group disappears, and the hole is filled first by the elements falling from above. If a whole column is cleared, the elements slide to the center of the field. If the blocks rise to the top of the board, the game is over.

In higher levels of the game, "bombs" appear, mixed among the bricks. The bombs are either black (in which case clicking on them causes the surrounding section of bricks to disappear), or are the color of one of the groups of bricks (in which case clicking on the bomb eliminates all bricks on the board that are the same color). Black bombs have the additional quality of serving as a bridge between bricks of the same color; if two or more bricks of the same color are touching a bomb, then clicking one of those bricks has the same effect of clicking on a group of three or more bricks of the same color, although this feature was removed in Super Collapse 3.

When a player completes a certain number of "even-numbered" levels (i.e., from level 2, 4, 8, 10 and so on), he or she can head over to the bonus level. In the bonus level, the player must clear all the colored blocks in fifteen seconds to clear the bonus level successfully. If the player clears all the blocks, he or she gets a certain amount of bonus, regardless of the time usage.

Versions

Web versions:

• Collapse!
• Collapse! Strategy
• Collapse! II

Download versions:

• Super Collapse!
• Super Collapse! II
• Super Collapse! 3

Extend versions:

• SpongeBob SquarePants Collapse
• Collapse Crunch
• Super Collapse! Puzzle Gallery 1-4