Addicted to Browser Games

Tower Defense

2007-05-12T02:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this one has already been all over Digg and everywhere else, but somehow I missed it until recently - I may have passed it over because the graphics looked kind of cheesy and the gameplay didn't seem very exciting. But...well, I actually kind of like this game. It's very simple, you just place these towers and they stay still shooting at the line of baddies that are trying to get you.

Gamma Bros.

2007-02-28T17:46:00.000-08:00

Oops, it's been almost a week...sorry, I've been busy lately. But I'm back, and I'll be better from now on, I promise! Anyways, I guess I've been feeling in a retro mood lately as far as gaming goes; last time I suggested you play Zork, which was actually an old game, and this entry I suggest you play Gamma Bros, which only seems like an old game. The folks over at Pixeljam Games have

Zork!

2007-02-22T00:28:00.000-08:00

Ah, Zork...if one game reminds me of my youth, this is it. Back when DOS was as high tech as it got (and it seemed that IBM was the one calling all the shots, not Microsoft!), Zork was it as far as gaming. Yes, there were other games to play, and some of them brought me lots of enjoyment, but frankly, none of them could make me waste as much time staring at the screen as Zork could. Back then

Britney's Pain + POSGOTD

2007-02-20T21:40:00.000-08:00

[Britney's shame - Egotastic] Sorry, this is completely and utterly off-topic, and has nothing whatsoever to do with games, but come on, this is too classic to pass up - why would anyone, ever, under any circumstances, shave their head and then go out in public with that ridiculous looking clown wig on? Especially when their career is already in the dumpster because they've finally completed the

Ellipsis

2007-02-19T15:08:00.000-08:00

Ellipsis: great fun for a few minutes. Not anything too surprising, but this is a nice point-click-destroy game that will entertain you for your lunchbreak. Here's a tip - whenever you clear the field, click a few extra times, because the new enemies tend to spawn right under your mouse, and if you can get rid of them before they scatter it makes things much easier. As far as these types of

Fancy Pants Adventure

2007-02-19T12:15:00.000-08:00

Fancy Pants Adventure is not a new game, but I haven't mentioned it yet, and it's definitely worth playing. It reminds me a bit of the Sonic the Hedgehog flash game, in that it has very nice graphics, similar gameplay, and (unfortunately for both) is a bit slower than it should be - in these types of platformer games, you don't want to have to wait too long for each jump to happen after you hit

Slime Games

2007-02-17T16:56:00.000-08:00

The Slime games are a set of fun, basic (= graphically challenged) Java games, the original version of which was written by Quin Pendragon several years ago. Since then, they have been modded, rewritten, and altered in many different ways. Slime volleyball is the classic (here I've linked to the one player mod, by Wedgey - the original was two player only, and thus not that much fun if you're

Neon

2007-02-17T13:25:00.000-08:00

Neon is a simple, retro space shooter, using just the mouse to control. I've often had serious problems with these kinds of controls, just because it's a bit difficult when you're forced to always move the ship if you want it to aim in a certain direction, but hey, that's the game. And it's quite fun - Gprime bills it as "a flash version of Geometry Wars" - to be honest, I've never played

Tanks

2007-02-14T22:40:00.000-08:00

Okay, I felt bad not giving any sort of game content along with my Jack Thompson dig, so here's the game Tanks, a fun turn-based shooter game that is a dead ringer for the old classic Howitzer (which is at that link for download, though it's an old DOS game - if I had to guess, I'd say it might run a bit fast on your machine). IMO, Tanks is actually a little lower in quality than Howitzer, but

Jack Thompson, Douchebag of the Day

2007-02-14T21:42:00.001-08:00

No game today, just wanted to point out that in case you don't already know, Jack Thompson is a douchebag. A really big douchebag. In my humble opinion, of course - for legal purposes I'm not allowed to make any claim that he actually possesses all the qualities of a douchebag (I can't risk getting sued by an actual douchebag for the unflattering comparison). Yes, I am totally aware that

Link Dump

2007-02-14T03:05:00.000-08:00

All I've got time for before bed is a quick link dump, so here goes: Link Remover - text in Japanese, but you'll get the point...also from Dofi Blog we get War of the Hell. Good stuff. Drunk Walk - keeping with the foreign language thing, this one's German, but again, you'll get it pretty quick. GiriJump, KuruShot, YuraSquash and TameShot - a sampling of Sunflat's works (Japanese pages, sorry

Soda Constructor

2007-02-12T09:25:00.000-08:00

Soda Constructor is a sweet physics-based webtoy that I just saw for the first time today. It takes a bit of getting used to, but you can use it to make little artificial creatures that move around and stuff. I'd check out some of the default preloaded creatures to get some inspiration, then have some fun. These guys are doing some real interesting stuff. I've played around quite a bit with

Winterbells

2007-02-12T00:28:00.000-08:00

Orisinal is always the place to go for very simple, well put together games. Almost every one is just played by moving your mouse and clicking, but they manage to grab you so much stronger than many games with a lot more going on in them. The fantastic quality of art probably doesn't hurt, nor does the calm, soothing music that's always playing. And they've provided us with another hit with

Puki 3d

2007-02-10T12:33:00.000-08:00

As if to punctuate my rant yesterday about 3D Shockwave games being generally sub-par, I happened to stumble upon (literally, in this case)Puki 3D, a 3D Flash game that I had played a while ago but couldn't remember the name of. You get to shoot angry babies or something like that, which is quite satisfying until they bite you - they're pretty scary when they leap. Now, doing 3D in Flash is

Tank Ball

2007-02-09T21:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, so today we've got Tank Ball, a shooter that's also (surprise!) multiplayer and 3D. Of course, it uses the Shockwave player, which to webgame developers is generally considered a Cheap Way Out, since it provides you with automatic 3D and physics capabilities, yet is only installed on some people's browsers; nevertheless, if you happen to have the player installed, this game is actually

The Falling Sand Game

2007-02-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

The Falling Sand Game is a real gem. It's more of a webtoy than a game (I know, I hate that phrase, too, but that's what it is!). As you may have noticed, I've been pretty into the types of games where you set something up and then watch it run, the physical simulation type things. I guess it makes sense - I was a physics major, after all! Anyways, this is a lot of fun to play;

Blob Game - Liquid2

2007-02-08T00:59:00.000-08:00

Liquid2 is something that I hacked together in Processing as I was testing a spatial partitioning algorithm for another game I'm working on. I got the algorithm working (without it, you couldn't have nearly as many particles on screen), and the thing looked pretty cool so I fashioned a simple little (demo of a) game out of it. Check it out, it might amuse you. Source code is available on

POS Game of the Day

2007-02-07T10:56:00.000-08:00

Now, you'd think that since South Park lends itself so easily to Flash, any Flash game put out under that name would be great. Sadly, it's not true. I'm not going to say anything about Cripple Fight other than the fact that they've taken a great idea for a real twisted game and turned it into feces. This always seems to happen, and I don't know why these big media outlets don't yet

Draw Stuff Then Play

2007-02-06T08:55:00.000-08:00

First, a plea: if you're using Internet Explorer, please strongly consider upgrading to Firefox. Firefox is just a much better browser than IE: it's more secure, it's free, it's supported by the community, and it's got sweet extensions that you can add to it. Best part: the more people switch to Firefox, the more Microsoft panics. And it's oh so sweet to see them panic. Seriously, though,

Eater of Worlds

2007-01-29T15:22:00.000-08:00

Been a while since my last post. Oops! The realities of life, really busy, yadda yadda...anyways, here's a pretty cool game that I found at Jay is Games, which is definitely a blog to keep an eye on if you like webgames. The team there has a bit of a thing for puzzle games, which isn't exactly my cup of tea, but they have pointed me towards more than their fair share of good games to play.

Class My Ass

2006-12-21T20:56:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and all that. Wanted to throw in a shameless plug for a new game site of mine, ClassMyAss.net (yes, as so often happens, .com was taken by one of those companies that just buys up all combinations of common words - and I'm sure not going to pay $500 dollars to get it, thereby encouraging their squatting!). It's an experiment in the use of AJAX, which means that

Four Second Firestorm

2006-12-10T08:59:00.000-08:00

I'm sure many of you are familiar with Four Second Frenzy and Four Second Fury. Four Second Firestorm is the latest installment. The basic idea: a bunch of different game developers throw together 4 second long minigames, and a crapload of them are put together and played in sequence. It's an interesting trick, because each game is very different, so you've got to be on your toes to even

Nun Gunner

2006-12-10T05:34:00.000-08:00

Click the picture to be offended. Brian Mung is a twisted dude. Nun Gunner is one of his more recent offerings, and the objective is simple: shoot the nuns before they get you. Sick, but amusing. If you like nun games, check out Nun Lander, another of Brian's games: On the chance that you're scared of nuns but in the mood to shoot David Blaine, Brian's got you covered: Wow.

Starry Night and Orisinal

2006-12-09T13:06:00.000-08:00

Starry Night is only one of many great games designed by Ferry Halim at Orisinal. To be honest, I could have easily chosen any of the 58 games on the homepage there - they are all of fantastic artistic quality, and many of them have great gameplay on top of that! This is simple stuff; rarely do you need to do more than move your mouse around and maybe click, but all of these games are highly

Madness Interactive

2006-12-07T10:22:00.000-08:00

This is an offshoot of a wildly popular animation series, Madness Combat, and it's quite a lot of fun to play. There are lots of weapons, and it's very bloody, you know, all that good stuff that the kids today like. First, the bad news about this game: the mouse controls get a little crappy when you play it inside your browser. You'll notice that sometimes while you're right in the middle of