So what’s so appealing about the game?  One: its simplicity.  It doesn’t pretend to be an overly involved game, and it’s more like a Zen exercise than an actual action game.  All you do is use the direction keys and the space bar to play the game.  The right arrow makes the boy pull the fish out, the left arrow feeds the fish, and the up arrow changes the kind of bait.

The other appeal factor?  The game is cute.  There is nothing cuter than a chibi boy  making surprised faces when a fish (gasp!) actually pulls on his fishing line.  You know, even though the fish seem to be biting like crazy so you’re constantly clicking on the right arrow.  And the sea-star sidekick is also amusing, even though he lies on the sand with a half-opened mouth the whole game.

Yes, this game allows me to indulge in the love of cuteness that I have.  But there is nothing better than a cute game when you’re extremely stressed, the way I am.

In this game, you will find yourself in a world where good and evil just aren’t as clearly defined as they usually are, where your actions actually make a difference in how others react to you, and where problems often have more than one solution. All wrapped in the same cartoonish style and oddball sense of humour you’d come to expect from Deirdra Kiai Productions, of course.

It sounds like fun!  And if you missed either of her two previous offerings, you can find Cubert Badbone, P.I. and The Game That Takes Place on a Cruise Ship on her website. Both are worth your time, if you liked games such as Monkey Island and The Day of the Tentacle.

So!  Here are some things I’ve picked up from playing with the infamous PlayStation Portable.

It’s loud.  Which may, of course, stem from the fact that the PSP uses the UMD format rather than a flash-drive-thing format that the DS uses. I often hear the UMD scritch-scratching away at the back of the PSP.  However, that doesn’t really take much away from the experience.

It’s pretty.  By pretty, I mean that the screen is beautiful and the colors are wonderful to behold!  And the only game I’ve played is Lumines (I like it better than Tetris, now).  I can’t wait to play Katamari.  When my friend decides to buy it, that is.

It’s sleek.  As opposed to be DS Phat which is not sleek or even cool-looking.  But the DS has two screens… so there!

It’s still expensive.  I don’t think I could afford to buy games for both my DS and a PSP, along with buying a PSP itself.  So I’ll probably just have to continuing borrowing my friend’s PSP… for a while, anyway.

Sure, the concept sounds easy, but you only get to reveal the pictures little by little.  And I mean little.  It’s like your stuck with a Photoshop eraser that is 10x too small for the amount of space you want to get rid of.  And the other thing?  You can’t really guess what the other person is seeing.  If, for example, you are the revealer, the parts you have already revealed will turn negative.  But you still see the whole picture.

On the other hand, the person “peeking” might get excessively annoyed with his revealer when he doesn’t understand what’s being revealed right away.  I believe the picture on the right was “sky” and not “mountain” or “road.”  This leaves your mind to some pretty crazy acrobatics, as you try to figure out what, exactly, the program wants you to guess.  Sometimes, a picture for a man might need the word “guy” for the game to progress.

Fear not, though.  You can pass if something proves to be too hard.  Or you can supply hints in the way of telling the peeker if it’s a noun, verb, or related word.  This makes the game easier, yet still challenging enough that some pictures will have you pressing that pass button.  Have fun with Peekaboom!

First off, an interview with Nifflas, developer of Within a Deep Forest.
Next, a strange physics-based game that has you focusing a lot on weight.
Remember Tangrams from elementary school? Well, here it is in your browser.
iSketch is Pictionary in your browser.

Enjoy!

Fulfillment

The only direction Fulfillment gives you is

Achieve and cherish it.

That poses no problem because this game is actually one that can explain itself. Take the pieces from the left side of the board and configure it into the square on the right side. It’s kind of like the tangrams you might have played with when you were in elementary school. The catch is that you can’t rotate the pieces, which gets extra challenging in higher levels when there are strangely shaped pieces. The hardest part is that every puzzle has a time limit, so if you don’t make the square in time it’s game over for you.

This game is as addicting as it is simple. It’s a great distraction from work, but watch out–you may be taking more time playing the game than actually doing any work.

Apartheid

Yes, the word “apartheid” doesn’t have the greatest connotation, but the game is actually quite interesting. You have to separate colored circles from any circles that are different colors. Sound confusing? It may take a couple of plays to understand game play completely. You use the mouse to draw lines to separate the circles. But they move. And sometimes, different colored circles move annoyingly close together. The game ends when you completely use all of your energy, which is depleted every time you draw a line to separate colors.

This game doesn’t have the addiction factor of Fulfillment, but it’ interesting for a couple of round of game play. It’s nothing that kept me consistently wanting to keep playing it.

Multiplex

Multiplex is one of those games that, when it starts, you think it’s rather stupid and a waste of your time. And then it gets faster, and you realize just how much concentration goes into the game.

The object is to use your number keys to press the number on the block when it lines up with the block of the same number. Yeah, that’s sort of a “huh?” explanation, but it’s clearer if you look at the picture. Let’s say a block that has the number 1 on it falls from the sky. You need to press the 1 key on your keyboard when it aligns with the 1 on the floating blocks. This gets very complicated when you have a low number and a high number right next to each other, as you might forget to put the high number in its place because you’re concentrating on the low number.

game is quite easy, but it does turn out to be frustrating when the blocks start to fall more quickly. It’s good to play, but don’t do it when you’re already wired. You might throw your computer out the window. Or something.

Constellations

Constellations has you connecting dots in order to make a certain length. Watch the bottom gauge to see how close you are to that length. You get points by finishing and by how many unused stars you have left on the board. The more unused starts the better. Your game can be over in two ways: you run out of stars or you run out of time.

This game is quite addicting, and since the configuration of the stars change every time you play, the game won’t be the same at any time.

Yet another game I found with StumbleUpon, Reflections (which is what I’m assumed it’s called because that’s the name written in backwards lettering on the top of the game screen), reminds me of The Incredible Machine.  While you aren’t trying to make machines that accomplish set tasks, you are trying to turn on light bulbs in every level, which is something some levels of TIM had you do.  Yes, the similarities end there, but the puzzle system resembles each other.  Reflections has 28 levels, which should keep you occupied for a good while.

For those of you who managed to somehow ignore the Internet phenomenon that is Neopets, here’s a little background. The website itself is one big game. You raise cutesie virtual pets a la Tamagotchi, but, thankfully, they never die. You can raise their skill levels, open a store to sell items found around Neopia, participate in forums, and play games that earn you NeoPoints (the Neopian currency). Now that that’s out of the way, here are a few games that make the membership worthwhile.

Gadgadsgame – This puzzle game is similar to Super Puzzle Fighter, the best puzzle game ever released for any console. Ever. Or something. Anyhow, the object is to match up same type fruits with each other, so that they make larger fruits. However, the only way to make the fruits go away is a bomb that matches each fruit. To get even more points, connect as many fruits as possible before you detonate them. The one quibble I have with this excellently done in-your-browser version is that bombs don’t come out as often as one would like, so you may have a window full of fruits before you even get one bomb.

The Castle of Elive Thade – This anagram game will, inevitably, beat you down with a stick. Unless you’re good at the word jumble thing. You play a bunny-like creature (called, in the Neopian world,an Usul) that needs to find his way through the castle. In order to do so, you must move around by clicking on blocks. The further away you are from a certain block, the longer the word you need to unscramble is. Not only do you have to get from the beginning to the end,but you also need to find your way to different rooms that has different treasures. Fear not, those of you who always need some help on these type of games, there is a hint system and two different difficulty levels.

Go! Go! Go! — This is actually an Internet incarnation of the card game F.U., which does stand for what it sounds like it stands for. The game is simple, frustrating, and addictive. But you should probably read the rules before you The caveat of this particular game is that it’s been on the Neopets site for a while, so it isn’t flash based. Actually, it seems to be HTML based, so there are a lot of page loads going on. If you can’t stand that kind of thing, or just don’t have the patience for it, you should skip this one.

Those are three games that I enjoy playing, and I think are enough to lure other people into the Neopets world.  What games do you like to play?