You can see what the dog hears
The player should not have to guess whether a board is safe. The tiles a sleeper hears at this moment glow red, and standing still never wakes anyone.
Stealth puzzle game
Snoozy
A mouse hops from tile to tile, collects the cheese and returns to its hole. A dog sleeps nearby, and everything it can hear right now glows red.
Coming soon to the App Store and Google Play
- Platform
- iPhone (iOS 15 or later), Android 7 or later
- Price
- Free, with ads
- Languages
- English, Polish, German, Spanish, French, Italian
Two levels on film
Real play from two bedroom levels: the mouse hops across the tiles, stays off what the dog can hear, grabs the cheese and gets back to its hole.
How to play
Hop tile by tile
You swipe and the mouse hops one tile. Carpet and parquet are quiet, floorboards creak.
Don’t touch the red
The dog hears what is in front of its head, and those tiles glow red. It turns its head and rolls over in its sleep, so the red keeps moving. One hop onto a red board and the dog wakes up.
Cheese back to the hole
A level ends when all the cheese is collected and the mouse is back in its hole. Finish fast and you get up to three stars.
Rooms and sleepers
The game has 5 rooms with 20 levels each. Every room adds something new, and every five levels the boards get longer.
Bedroom
One dog. At first it lies still, later it turns its head faster and faster. Holding the eye button shows the whole room.
Living room
The dog rolls over to the other side. Just before that it fidgets, and the tiles it is about to hear blink. From level 6 a second dog guards a passage.
Kids’ room
A pillow placed on a board silences it for the rest of the level. There are fewer pillows than boards, so you choose which ones to cover. From level 16 a cat is listening too.
Bathroom
A duck you put down squeaks, and a dog nearby turns to it for 5 seconds. Then the dog goes back to its rhythm, so on the way back you have to put the duck down again.
Kitchen
A closed door blocks every sound, but it creaks when you open it. You can close an open door behind you. In levels 11 to 15 a cat is on guard too.
What I did
I was looking for an idea for a game of my own. Out of a few sketches I picked a mouse that must not wake the dog, and I made the whole game on my own, from the rules to submitting it to the App Store and Google Play.
- Rules
- How the sleepers hear, the pillow, the duck, doors and stars for a fast finish.
- Levels
- 100 levels in five rooms. I checked that each one can be finished and set the three-star time from that run.
- Graphics
- Rooms and animals built from blocks, pixel lettering and icons, a different carpet colour in each room and 8 characters to unlock.
- Development
- The whole game for iPhone and Android in six languages: hopping between tiles, the sleepers’ movements, Undo and saved progress.
- Sound and vibration
- 13 short sounds in the style of old consoles, from a creaking board to a squeaking duck. A vibration on a creak, on picking up cheese and on waking a sleeper.
- Store
- Ads, saving progress to an Apple or Google account, and submitting the game to the App Store and Google Play.
Decisions
Snoozy has block-built rooms seen from above at an angle, warm colours and pixel lettering. Below are a few things I settled so the player always knows what will wake the dog.
A warning before it rolls over
A dog that suddenly rolls to the other side would catch the mouse mid-hop. For 0.6 seconds before the turn it fidgets and the tiles it is about to hear blink, so there is time to stop.
Undo and a stuck message
A badly placed pillow can block the way to the cheese. Undo reverses the last move with an item or a door, and the game tells you when the current layout can no longer be won.
Waking the dog doesn’t wipe the level
After the dog wakes up you can watch an ad and keep playing. The mouse goes back a few hops, to a tile nobody will hear for a moment, and the clock keeps running.
Three stars are within reach
I set the three-star time from a run through each level, with a margin for real fingers. If you get stuck, an ad unlocks a hint: the mouse plays the level by itself on a three-star route.
- levels
- 100
- rooms
- 5
- characters to unlock
- 8
Screens
Snoozy
The game is waiting for approval in the App Store and Google Play.