The Game: As one of four color-coded player icons on the screen, you begin the round at one edge of the rectangular playing field. Your icon leaves a solid wall behind it, tracing your path. You try to trap other players or computer-controlled icons in your wake, while avoiding the solid walls tracing their icons and your own trail, which is just as deadly. (Mattel, 1981)
Memories: Look familiar? A year later, and this gem of simplicity undoubtedly would have been titled Tron Light Cycles (and just for giggles, we’ve prepared a special keypad overlay to fit that theme. The light cycle sequence from the movie Tron (as well as the similar screen in the arcade game based on the movie) and the basic premise of Snafu are the same.
Of course, the basic game concept here stretches back to such coin-ops as Barricade, including the four-player game. One of my favorite things about Snafu is the cool funky music it plays when the field is reduced to two icons. When two players or computer-controlled icons are eliminated, the game throws some pretty groovy tunes at you. Snafu easily ranks as one of my favorite Intellivision games, hands down. It’s a unique but simple treatment of a very basic game play premise.