Did you like those parts in the matrix with the slow-mo? Where whatshisface THE ONE basically side steps between bullets and he doesn't even care? Of course you did, everyone did. Thats why there were movie parodies for years after. That game today is basically that, and it's called SUPER
HOT, SO STRAP IN.
Super Hot's deal is that it's you against red bad dudes with guns, but with the added gimmick that time only moves when YOU move, so every level is basically a puzzle made of MURDER. "Wow, how the hell does THAT work?" you wonder? Well check this shit out.
Pretty much "Damn that looks neat, I want to play this immediately". Lucky you, you can play this right from your browser. So if you like action movies, unconventional puzzles, minimalist art styles, slow-motion, and the color red, then SUPER HOT is for you. Hey, and they're also trying to get enough funding to make this prototype into a full blown game, so if you like what you see, you can throw money at it if you want.
Hey, got THREE games for you today, so STRAP IN. Firstly, do you remember FLAPPY BIRD? That stupid phone game that used assets stolen from Super Mario? Bought by so many people the guy who made it can probably retire? Made by that guy who had a nervous breakdown or something over Twitter and then took the game off the market? Yeah, that game, what if I told you there were free versions of that game all over the internet? "Fly thing between, over, and around obstacles and not crash" isn't exactly a new concept. So if you were actually considering spending cash to get it before it was taken off the market, and you feel like you missed out on something 1) I feel sorry for you, 2) Don't worry I got a couple different options for you 3) Whyyyyyyyy.
"It's totally the new Dark Souls you guys!"
Lets move on to something else. Metroidvania's are nice, so lets break out one of those. Lets see what the guy who made it himself, Derek Yu, has to say about Eternal Daughter, the third game for you today. "Eternal Daughter is an epic platform game that took myself and my
friend Jon two years to make and nearly destroyed our immortal souls.
It's an homage to some of our favorite games from our preteen years,
like Super Metroid and Castlevania: SOTN. Even though the gameplay is familiar, the world, the characters,
and the story are all our own. The game also marks my first teaming up
with Swedish music virtuoso, David Saulesco, who produced an original
soundtrack for the game. We've been happy together ever since." YOU READ THAT? All original art, all original music. Two years of effort to make. You cant expect that some everyone, because. SOME. PEOPLE. Can't handle it. You should know what a Metroidvania is at this point, and if you dont well just grab this and find out!
It's got boss fights, making this more like dark souls than flappy bird
You can snag Eternal Daughter here (at the bottom), and you can try a free, weird multiplayer version of Flappy Bird here, and you can find one of the games Flappy Bird rips off here
You know whats cool? Ninjas. Sneaky assassins, soldiers of the night, even if you notice that there's one right behind you it's too late, you're already dead. Being masters of disguise, anyone could be a ninja. The guy who works the register at the stores you shop at? Ninja. Your doctor? Ninja. That teacher you hated? Ninja. That guy you know who's obsessed with everything and anything related vaguely to Japan? Not a ninja, and we can all be thankful for that. The chair you're sitting on right now? Possibly a ninja. And if you want, EVEN YOU.
"WHAT?"
Today I've got a simple but addicting flash game called DOJO OF DEATH, by a dude who goes by nicotuason over on Kongregate. Play a ninja and kill as many other ninjas as you possibly can before you are cut down yourself. Which sounds like a typical ninja afternoon to be honest. Fight sword ninjas! Fight axe ninjas! Fight bow ninjas! FIGHT EVERYONE.
You can only see them because they WANT to be seen
If any of that sounds good to you, or you're just trying to kill some time, or you want to train yourself in the ninja ways so you can also rest easy knowing that are prepared to FIGHT EVERYONE then check out Dojo of Death here
QUICK: You've been trapped inside a maze by angry spirits/mad scientists/alien scientists/drunken frat boys and you need to find your way out! What do you know about getting out of mazes? Not much? Good thing I got something today to help you out with that.
Few things are worse than finding a skeleton in a maze
The game today is called ZETAMAZE, and its in the weird space where I'm not sure it counts as a game or not, but I'm bored so it's going on up anyway and you can stop me. ZetaMaze is the latest project from some computer guy named Brannon Doresy. There are three parts to this maze game: Make, Draw, and Play.
Hard mode maze
The "Make" part of the game is when you literally make a maze for someone to run through. You can be a scumbag and make a maze that's barely euclidean and is an absolute nightmare to navigate, or you could be boring and make a straight line, or anything in between! The "Draw" part of the game is you making drawings to put on the walls of the maze. Land scapes, brick walls, sage words of advice, penises, you can put anything up there! The "Play" part of the game is where you obviously run the mazes other people have made, combining the strange art and the weird maze designs to make a strange trippy labyrinth to wander through.HOWEVER
PAY ATTENTION
Part of the game is that when you wander through the maze you pick up files that others have uploaded into the game. Obviously you should be able to see why this idea, while coming from the right place, is completely retarded. I mean, who trusts the internet at all? You shouldn't even trust me. Thankfully there is an option, when the maze is loading, to opt out from this feature entirely, dodging that horrible porn shaped bullet.
Even weird muppets would be better than horrible porn
If any of this nonsense appeals to you, you can try out ZETAMAZE right from the browser, here
So I got something thats probably going to have cease and desist letters thrown at it from every direction any minute now so I gotta move fast if I want to talk about this. Hey, hey you.
Yeah you. Do you like...Pokémon?
Good. Time for pocket monsters then. What I got for you today is Pokémon SHOWDOWN (which is still in beta). The main site says that "Pokémon Showdown is a Pokémon battle simulator. Play Pokémon battles
online! Play with randomly generated teams, or build your own! Fully
animated!" That's right. Most of the Pokémon that currently exist, which is probably in the thousands by now (remember when there was 151? way to fix what wasn't broken Nintendo), along with all the new mechanics that have been added, with online play, from your computer, no 3DS needed.
I know for SOME of you this is exactly what you've been waiting for
With multiple servers up, there are plenty of players to challenge, so build your team and jump right in. The game is in beta still so obviously there will be kinks still in the system to be worked out and Pokémon that haven't been added yet, so keep that in mind.
So when your entire team turns inside out, don't get too mad
If you like Pokémon at all, then obviously this is for you. You can jump into Pokémon SHOWDOWN beta from the browser, or download it right here, so go build a team of six magikarp and tear shit up before the lawyers ruin the party.
"Hey, where'd the jerk who posts here go? I'd have better luck getting free games by mailing a wish list to the North Pole and praying at this rate". Yeah well I'm back now, so the four people who were waiting can chill out now. In fact, today I'll give you something so amazing that you'll never feel the need to pick up another video game again, free or not. That game is BUBSY 3D: Bubsy visits the James Turrell Retrospective. Yes. That Bubsy.
IGNORE ANY MEGA-MANIACAL CACKLING
A game so masterfully crafted, so artistic, so DEEP, I dont want to spoil it for you, to let you go in like a blank canvas so you can properly experience the DEEPness yourself the way it was meant to be seen and played. Let Bubsy guide you to the promised land as the burning question of "Are video games art" is finally answered:YES
I mean, would this face lie to you?
Obviously not
So go, enjoy BUBSY 3D: BVTJTR, and let it fill a void within you that you never knew was there until this very moment. Surely this is the height of video games, past present and future, so everyone can, AND SHOULD enjoy it.
a face that screams "Hello friend, nothing strange is going to happen whatsoever"
You can play this master piece right from the web page here
Leaving you with that rope burning game and then vanishing is just rude, so lets get some more games up in this right now. No bells and whistles today, just video games. Got two games for you today, and they can both be played from the browser.
if you play at work, don't get caught
First up is Full Screen Mario. It's Mario. On a Full Screen. Basically its the entire first Mario game right there on your browser, along with a level editor, for the extra free time stealing factor.
It even has level select!
Up next is something odd. New anime came out from Japan this year that made everyone go completely apeshit because it was so good. So good that when a fan game came out, it wasn't even awful! Long story short without spoiling the stuff the game is based on, it's all about you fighting a bunch of angry man eating giants using swords and 3-D maneuverability gear/Spiderman powers. The game is actually REALLY well made, to the point where you wonder if the guy is a part of some game studio and this was a fun side project for him.
aim for the back of the neck
You can play Full Screen Mario here and that anime fan game here
Been too long without a post. I could offer excuses BUT THERE CAN BE NO EXCUSES, so lets just get on with it. What do you think about fire? It's pretty useful, it can keep you warm, cook food, and set your enemies aflame! With that in mind, lets get to our game: It's called You Have To Burn The Rope.
There's a boss! There's fire! There's a rope! You have axes that are worthless! YOU DO THE MATH
This is one of those weird 30 second games, so your mileage may vary with this one. For a game that's so short the guy who made it certainly put some detail into it, since it has it's own original music. YHTBTR is one kongregate and a bunch of other flash game sites. Normally I dont put flash games up but this is too silly to pass by.
Want to kill some time? Go check out YHTBTR here, and at a bunch of other places.
What I am about to show you might not even be considered a game by some of you, and I'm not so sure myself, but I've been seeing it so often that I've reached the "Why not" threshold, and now YOU get to "benefit" from it. You know whats tasty, and great in moderation? Cookies. You know what you're good at, what you've been doing this entire time without even really thinking about it? Clicking on stuff. What if you could combine those? (and throw moderation out the window because you'll wont be needing it where YOU'RE going) You'd get Cookie Clicker, and that's the...thing for today.
The cause of it all
The point of Cookie Clicker is to make cookies. You open it up in your browser and you make cookies by clicking on the giant cookie, but you can sell those cookies to buy things that give you more cookies over time, basically spending money to get money, if money were delicious and had no real dietary value (These aren't your fancy "nutri-cookies", its old fashioned chocolate chip, get ready to get pretend not real virtual fat).
"Why can't I stop?"
At first that's all there was to the game, but now there's achievements, upgrades, better art, cookie per second tracking, and game saves so you can stop to treat your crippling carpal tunnel before going back in to click the giant cookie some more to feed the endless cycle, eventually leaving you a hollow shell of who you used to be.
"Why couldn't I stop?"
FAIR WARNING: To some this game is pretty addicting, so I just want to tell you to not play this at your job or whatever if you work with computers, this is both the kind of thing you could have going in a browser in the background and the kind of thing some bosses would fire people for, and I don't want to be thought of as the guy who helped get people fired, I'm not gonna be a part of that, so this is me telling you not to do that.
Whoever thought up cookies and milk was a mad genius
If you're willing to risk developing a horrible case of OCD and ruining your mental stability to check this out for the sake of curiosity then you can check out Cookie Clicker here. You were warned.
HEY YOU! Yeah, you! You ever want to command legions of little, helpless people and send them off to die, but DONT want to join the army or get into politics? Well then do I have a game for YOU! The name of the game today is Lemmings, I hope you're prepared to get REALLY frustrated trying to figure how to save them all on the harder levels.
Developed back in 1991 by DMA Design, an eight man team, and published by Psygnosis for Amiga, Atari, and PC among others, Lemmings is looked back on as one of the best games to come out at the time, and is considered by some to be THE best Amiga game ever. A numerous amount of expansions and level packs came out for it, making the end result level total fairly absurd.
"Aw, I ran out of builders"
The internet labels Lemmings as a puzzle-platformer and I'd have to agree, each level is basically an obstacle course you need to guide your lemmings through from start to finish, using skills you can assign individual lemmings to make a path through destructible walls, over pits and around traps to get to the exit. The skills themselves are fairly self explanatory: Climber, Floater, Bomber, Blocker, Builder, Basher, Miner, and Digger.
It takes hard training to be able to punch through a wall with your bare hands
This version of Lemmings was remade entirely with Javascript, and is playable from your browser. It doesnt have any multiplayer capability like some versions of the original, but its more than enough to help you kill time, especially with the original difficulty levels in place. If you want to maliciously torment things that cant fight back, or sob at your computer helpless wondering "WHY CANT I SAVE EVERYONE" then Lemmings might be for you!
"What? NO! DONT GO THERE STOP KILLING YOURSELVES"
You can play Lemmings right from the internet here, just dont try it on a toaster
Think about every movie you've seen with dog-fighting in it. No, not the animal abuse kind, the planes kind. There were always wing-men, so it was almost never one guy verses a thousand other planes. But the guys in charge of arcade machines said "Screw that, make it one guy verses infinity dudes, and put it in space.", and so began the consumption of millions of quarters. Fast forward decades later, after the death of arcades as a sustainable business model outside of Japan (if you have sad music play it now), and now you dont need quarters to play those games.
old man not included
Long story short, twelve arcade "space shooter" games have been made available online to play free from your browser, including R-Type and Space Invaders. If you like high scores, space ships, power ups, and blowing up incredibly fragile alien spaceships with an incredibly fragile spaceship of your own, then you should love this.
"One of them looked at me funny! I'M GOING IN HARD!"
Something short and sweet here today! It involves running, wild animals, running, hostile plant life, running, floating cash, jumping, human remains just lying around, running, and DEATH. It's called Fear Less.
Did I mention it has running? This is important, because it does
The game is about one girl and her recurring nightmare where she runs through a forest where everything is out to kill her while being pursued by version of the grim reaper that looks like it was spawned forth from the darkest, most foul corners from Deviant Art. That said, the art is nice, having sprites that actually look like they had effort put into it, and having a neat paralax scrolling effect for the foreground and background. One of the game's best aspects however is the music. Very well done, better heard than having me fail to describe it.
START RUNNING
The gameplay itself is about the girl fleeing from death while jumping over hazards and murdering the hateful animals that try to stop her with a sword. But for your first attempt you are like a small baby trying to run from an angry baby sitter. You basically die in one hit, you cant jump worth a damn, and you cant swing your sword to any helpful effect. How do you fix this? While running from death you can snag DREAM COINS, and spend them on upgrades to help you get a little farther each time you try to escape death.
"Oh God there were mushrooms EVERYWHERE"
For a game with cutesy graphics, Fear Less has some pretty dark implications about the mental state of the protagonist, but delving into the themes and artistic message here is for another website, here I'm just telling you its free. If you're into recurring nightmares, fleeing, delaying the inevitable, nonsensical currency, and cutting up cartoon wildlife, then Fear Less is for you.
When you think of MMOs, you usually picture a fantasy RPG populated by angry twelve year olds who spew curses in every sentence that shoots out of their mouths, people with names like XxXSepheroth420xXx, gold farmers who only speak in either Chinese or Korean (South or North, it doesn't matter) fat people who LIVE in the game almost 24/7/365, and erotic roleplayers who range from unsettling to mildly terrifying. You probably wouldn't picture EXPLOSIONS EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME. But you will after you check out what I got for you today!
From the set of Bayformers!
Its a MMO based fan made Bomberman game that you can play out of your browser. But this isnt some eight player deathman like it was on the SNES, Bombermine supports ONE THOUSAND PLAYERS at a time. That means huge maps, power ups everywhere, and bombs going off at all time. While some new additions have been added, the game play is still classic Bomberman.
Dont ask him about his nose or his mouth, he's sensitive about it
Bomermine is still in beta however, so its still every rough around the edges but all of the gameplay is ready to rock and roll. If you like silly browser games to kill time in, like MMOs, or you're just a big fan of Bomberman and are bummed that no one really did anything for the 30th anniversary, then Bombermine might be what you're looking for. I mean can you really go wrong with Bomberman?
YES, YES YOU CAN
Ok that was just the one time. You can play Bombermine right from your browser here
Got a couple of weird things for you today, something that's actually used to train officers in the Swedish military, and another that's not. "A game that's meant for training army guys?" you say, "So it's like a FPS?" YOU COULDN'T BE MORE WRONG.
Training or screwing around on the clock? You decide
The point of the officer training game is to see how well you and three other guys can solve puzzles and work together under the pressure of a time limit. Obviously the best use for this to see how well you and your three very best can presumably handle whatever apocalyptic/action movie scenarios you can envision. Send you and your friends through the ringer and see who can step up when they need to and who you need to endlessly harass until they get their shit together. If you're trying to pull together a dream time to survive anything that gets thrown at you, you need to go through this ringer at least once.
No, not that kind of Step Up
The other thing I got for you today is a weird little non-typical adventure game that's a a kind of prequel demo for Kentucky Route Zero, an adventure game that ISN'T free, so I'm not going to talk about it. It's called Limit and Demonstrations, its about fifteen minutes long, it's got its own music, and the art is cool, and its free (obviously), so if you're trying to kill time, this might be what you're looking for, it's not like you'll lose much for trying (accept time).
But you lose time when doing anything
So, I've been at this nonsense for a full year now. I had fun with it, and if even one of you found a game you enjoyed here, then it was worth it. I mean, it would be more productive and helpful than blogging about what I ate for lunch.
OH NO, IT'S HAPPENING
You can play that officer training game in your browser here, and you can get Limits and Demonstrations here
OH GOD WE GOT A INDIE PLATFORMER MADE IN FLASH INCOMING! WATCH OUT!
GET DOWN
Short post today, because this is a short game. Straight to the point: the game today is "Fractured". Its a short indie platforming game where you from point A to point B across a series of small levels. The gimmick for Fractured is that the gameplay screen is like a busted pane of glass with all the shards twisted around (HAHA ITS FRACTURED, GET IT?).
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
But lets be frank, the game is short, kind of "eh", and its completely unneeded plot is "DEEP". I cant really recommend this unless you're looking to kill some time. I mean really, if this game was a painting it would be that "painting" thats just a blank white canvas. You might think I'm joking now, but play it, especially the last level.
"Not my fault you're too much of a plebeian to understand the underlying themes in the story and the gameplay"
Switching gears, here we’ve got a game that doesn’t have any puzzles at all (unless you count “how do I kill this guy before he kills me?” as a puzzle) but to be fair it is a kind of point and click. I’m talking about Quake Live, a first person shooter. Released in the summer of 2010, Quake Live is a free (obviously) version of Quake 3 and the Team Arena expansion pack that runs out of your internet browser.
Now with 100% more live Quakes
While Quake Live uses a slightly updated version of Quake 3 with some fancy new graphical stuff added like bloom (gotta have that bloom), its still mostly the Quake 3 released back in later 1999, so most computers should be able to run it, especially since you can turn down the graphics to the bare minimum if you wish. Not only does Quake Live have the original, basic game modes from Quake 3, such as Duel, Free For All, and Team Deathmatch, it also has some new stuff like Red Rover or Freeze Tag. The same speedy gameplay is there as well, with rocket and strafe jumping and all of the other movement based tricks in the engine meant to deepen the gameplay and to give you an edge over the other guy.
Standard FPS convetions apply, but thankfully Quake Live seems more interesting than THIS
Quake Live is all about competitive multiplayer, having a ranking system that allows you to play against people with the same skill level, game modes specifically for “pro” level players, and even multiple tournaments where people compete for those big stupid looking novelty checks. If you’re into that sort of thing you could get sucked into Quake Live for a long time, given how many game modes there are and the fact that there are over fifty different arenas to play in.
Sure it sounds good so far but here's where we get to the ugly part of the post HOW THEY TRY TO GET YOUR MONEY
Quake Live is Free to Play, it brings in cash through two sources. The first is in game advertising that plays before matches but also exists in the form of in game billboards. The second is a premium membership system with two tiers, “premium” and a more expensive “pro” level. These paid memberships allow access to yet another fifty more exclusive arenas to play in, more game modes (including the aforementioned Freeze Tag), the ability to bypass the ads that play before matches, the ability to make your own matches, and the ability to invite 5 standard players to play on premium content.
Not as bad as this, thankfully
Still, if you are willing to look past that, and are a fan of fast paced arena shooters, Quake Live might be what you’re looking for.
