October 2004 Archives

In a mad free-for-all running door-to-door grabbing as much candy as you can, let nothing or no one stand in your way. And when you're all done, come back inside and have some fun with this cute little game from Cartoon Network where you get to do it all over again. Only this time, the costume you wear grants you powers that you use to solve puzzles and collect candy that is lying all over town. Trick or Treat Beat is all about the candy and some pretty impressive costumes, too. Use the arrow keys to move your little demon around the environment, press the space bar to activate each costume's powers.

Play Trick or Treat Beat

The game was created by Pop & Company.

And what would Halloween be without a little gore? Five Finger Fillet, from the now defunct 13th Street website of Universal Studios, is a Shockwave game to test your reflexes and your stomach. Once the game begins, simply click the mouse to stab the table in between your fingers. Obviously, the object of this rather simple game is to miss your fingers while racking up the points. Hit a finger, lose a finger. Eeeeww.

Play Five Finger Fillet

This version of the game is hosted by Gamespyarcade.

A very creepy, very scary Flash adventure game from Ben Leffler of Australia. Exmortis begins with you waking up in the woods with a lump on your head and unable to recall how you got there. All you recall are the dreams. Regaining focus, you see a house up ahead and decide that shelter there is better than freezing to death in the woods. Think of the house at the end of Blair Witch and you'll be right at home.

Turn down the lights and turn up the sound for this game. Exmortis contains some violence and is therefore not appropriate for all audiences.

Play Exmortis

Want more Exmortis? Try Exmortis 2.

From Sony Pictures comes this Flash point-and-click adventure to promote their new low-budget horror film starring Sarah Michelle Gellar of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. This mini-adventure is quite scary and will likely send chills down your spine, so turn down the lights and turn up the volume for maximum effect. Click.

The Grudge is actually a remake of a Japanese haunted house thriller created by Takashi Shimizu, who also directed The Grudge.

Six Feet Under is a Flash game with instructions in German, so here is my take on the action: On the way to the cemetery, Alex, the hearse-driving coffin chauffeur, has to step on the gas to make it to the burial on time. Help Alex deliver the coffin by rapidly pressing the right arrow key on the keyboard to reach maximum speed possible. Just before reaching the cemetery wall, press the space bar to launch the coffin into the air and see how far you can throw it. The red area alerts you that the wall is imminent.

Play Six Feet Under

The only credits I could come up with for this one are two design firms, Power-Radach.de and PowerFlasher.de. Cheers!

Another charming haunted house adventure up featuring Garfield as the main character.

The objective of Scary Scavenger Hunt 2: Donuts of Doom is very similar to the first one: escape the haunted house without getting too scared. To escape, simply find and collect all seven (7) packages of donuts.

Click the on-screen arrows with the mouse—or use the [arrow] keys—to move Garfield around the house. Click the mouse button on an item to inspect or collect it.

As you make your way through, the scare-o-meter keeps track of how scared you get during the adventure. If you get too scared you lose.

Play Scary Scavenger Hunt 2

If you enjoyed this game, be sure to check out the first Scary Scavenger Hunt.

Scary Scavenger Hunt is a cute point-and-click adventure set in a haunted house and stars Garfield, the famous and mischievous cartoon feline. It is a well-produced adventure with smooth animation, lots of great scary music and sound effects, and plenty of harmless yet frightening situations.

On a quest to find the confectionary pleasures from the sponsor of the game, ghosts and ghouls will jump out at Garfield if he examines the wrong things. Move Garfield around using the arrow keys or by clicking the arrows on the screen with the mouse. Click an item to talk to, read, open, or otherwise examine an object. The game's puzzles will challenge just about any casual gamer, young and old alike, and can provide a worthy diversion this Halloween.

Play Scary Scavenger Hunt

If you enjoyed this game, you may want to try Scary Scavenger Hunt 2.

From Italian Flash developers Naive.it comes this charming Halloween-themed side-scrolling shooter. Pumpkin's Ballade puts you in the shoes of a witch on a star-powered broom out to shoot anything that moves. Movement of the mouse controls the witch up, down, left and right, while clicking the mouse button fires the weapon. Multiple clicks are required to fire again and again, or hold down the mouse button to power-up a blast that will wipe out multiple baddies. Clear several waves of different types of enemies to get to the boss for each level.

The folks at Naive have done a stellar job with this game. The graphics are gorgeous and offer several different levels with different scenery and enemies for each. Power-ups can grant you a shield, a more powerful weapon, and even life one-ups. The boss fights are unique and challenging, and are an excellent way to establish climax at the end of each level.

The soundtrack could have been better by varying it with each level and providing different sound effects for each of the enemies. As it is, the music gets a tad bit repetitious.

All things considered, Pumpkin's Ballade is a great way to get into the spirit of Halloween. Click.

A new game by the multi-talented Ferry Halim, High Delivery elevates Flash game design to new heights of artistic expression. Armed with a small fan propeller, the object of the game is to blow air at the always upward floating balloon to influence its movement. By moving the dangling bottle to within range of the falling blossoms, they are thus caught and added to the growing bouquet, and to your score.

Since control of the balloon is accomplished only indirectly via the fan, the game is challenging and a lot of fun to master. The physics incorporated into the movement of the balloon, and especially the secondary movement of the dangling bottle below, are well executed and believable.

The graphics in the game are filled with soft muted pastels that together form a gorgeous interactive watercolor painting. Add to that the soothing and tranquilizing soundtrack of Steven Cravis, and the end result is an exceptional work of art. The game is available on Ferry's Orisinal website, which is filled with many other magical Flash games to enjoy.

Play High Delivery

Dr. Strangemitten's Shrunken Heads is a Puzzle Bobble variation (Bust a Move in the U.S.) with a ghoulish Halloween theme, perfect for this time of year. And while the gameplay is unoriginal, the execution of this version is quite enjoyable to play. The game consists of colored orbs—in this case shrunken heads of various colors and types—that are dropped down onto the rising play field, instead of being shot upwards as in the original. Lining up 3 or more of the same color and type will remove them from play, causing the remaining heads to settle. Combinations are possible with the settling of contents causing further removal from play and higher scores. From Kewlbox.com, this game can be a lot of fun, if at least for thematic play around Halloween.

Play Shrunken Heads

Halloween is just around the corner, and Gold Yard is a great little Flash adventure game to help get in the spirit of the season. Sporting an isometric view that simulates a 3D perspective, this game puts you in the character of a large-footed Hobbit trying to escape alive from a graveyard. Using the arrow keys on the keyboard for movement, make your way around the maze of rooms and environments to collect gold, find keys, solve puzzles and avoid being killed by the ghosts and monsters.

Beginning as an experimental project in his spare time, Francesco Maisto eventually built it into a fully playable and beautiful looking Flash game, even using 3D models as the basis for much of the game's graphical elements. An excellent game from a very talented Flash artist/game designer.

Play Gold Yard

Update: Gold Yard is back! Cheers Francesco!

I like to say “B is for Bibby” as I usually wear my baseball cap with the large red “B” on it all year long. But tonight, B is for believing in Boston baseball and their blessed and historic comeback from behind to clinch the American League pennant.

It's about time.

A cross between a point-and-click puzzle game, interactive art, and a Rube Goldberg machine, Treasure Box is a gorgeous and fun little Flash game that puts you to the task of finding the treasure of a king long since passed.

There are no instructions other than a short little introduction, the rest is up to you. It's a short and beautiful interactive multimedia adventure from an artist with a purpose: to engage your curiosity and earn your appreciation for the work of art.

Play Treasure Box

From wada che nanahiro.

The classic game of Qix, released by Taito in the arcades back in 1981, and brilliantly reproduced in Flash by Drunk Men Work Here.

In the game of Qix, the object is to claim portions of the play field by drawing Stix, or block areas, with the cursor marker. Enemies to avoid include: the Qix, a stick with trails that moves erratically about the unclaimed play field; the Sparx, small moving sparks that travel in opposite directions around the circumference of the unclaimed play field; and the Fuse, a Sparx that comes after the player's marker if it stops while drawing a Stix. There are two speeds with which to draw Stix, fast (green areas) and slow (red areas). Drawing slowly will garner more points, but leaves you vulnerable longer. Claiming 75% of the play field or more will clear the level and earn bonus points.

This Flash version of the classic game is very close to the original design and captures the essence of the game well. Press [space] to begin a game, arrow keys to move the marker, Z to draw fast Stix, and X to draw slow Stix.

Play Qix

A new version of Tontie (v.1.0) was just released a couple of weeks ago, and it now offers even more features and enemies than the beta (v.0) had. The first noticeable addition is the randomly appearing treasure chest filled with coins, hearts, or even a laser gun that is good for blasting anything in sight. I was lucky enough to get a silver hammer in one I found.

The new version is both easier and more difficult than its predecessor. It is easier to access the hard-to-get items like the better quality hammers, extra heart containers, and the new laser gun via the treasure chests, yet the game is more difficult from the resulting mayhem that is unleashed upon the player who is then able to progress further into the later levels. Each new level presents a new type of enemy with its own rules of engagement adding complexity to the mix.

Control in Tontie is best with the numeric keypad, simply press the appropriate key as instructed for each enemy. Some enemies require more than one hit, others require hits with precision timing, and others instruct you to hit a different key entirely than the one it appears on.

Created by On of Eyezmaze, a Japanese Flash game designer of wonderful games like Grow and Vanilla, Tontie continues to be one of my favorite Flash games ever.

Play Tontie

Swivel Sweep is a unique and original concept Shockwave game by Yoshio Ishii. The game features a top down view of a play field that swivels by moving the mouse around it. The object is to bounce the ball around, inside the play field, to hit and knock out all of the squares in each level. Controlling the ball is a bit challenging, a skill that develops with patience and practice. A timer counts down the allowed seconds per level, and in later levels additional obstacles are introduced to provide a richer gameplay experience.

Swivel Sweep is an excellent example of a simple game that is a lot of fun, making it highly accessible for most anyone to pick up and play.

Play Swivel Sweep

I struggled all day to figure out how to best handle the fact that all the pages on the site changed from .html to .php. I was concerned that anyone arriving from an old .html link would not get what they were after. After much digging and asking around, I discovered a simple directive in the Apache mod_alias module that saved the day.

One simple addition to my htaccess file was all that was necessary...

RedirectMatch (.*)\.html$ $1.php

XGen Studios is behind this Flash game that is reminiscent of the old-school arcade games Dig Dug and Boulder Dash. Hired to mine the dangerous planet of Mars, you are given a robotic mining pod and sent off on a mission to bring home the Motherload, a fabled cache of rare and valuable minerals. Dig far below the surface of the Earth to earn money for upgrades and find treasure.

Control of the pod is with the [arrow] keys. Simply press the key in the direction you want to go. When refueling or buying upgrades at the shop, or accessing your inventory, use the mouse for selecting. There is an options screen where you can turn down the music volume, for the initial default setting is quite loud.

While the graphics are fair, the gameplay appears to be quite solid with lots of options and upgrades to outfit your pod. I was surprised at first to learn it was built in Flash, as it seems more like what I'm used to seeing in games built with Java. Still, a fine effort and plenty of gaming goodness packed in to enjoy.

Play Motherload

I finally got around to incorporating into the site some of the PHP technology I'm learning this quarter at RIT. I have randomized the Recommended section in the sidebar and added many more great games to the pool. However, to do so I had to change the file extension on every page of this site from .html to .php.

If you have bookmarked any of the individual archive pages of this site with the old (.html) extension, please re-bookmark the new PHP page for maximum efficiency.

Thanks for rolling with the changes! =)

Terrain is a series of interactive Sci-Fi action-adventure games made in Flash by March De Laurentis.

Your starship awakens you from hypersleep early when it detects an uncharted planet. Your mission is to explore the planet and report your findings back to the Galactic Union. Click the directional arrows with the mouse to move through the environment. Simply click on a target to activate it, or to shoot at it as appropriate. The game understands the context of each situation.

Mixing elements of Flash point-and-click adventures with real-time action elements, March has created a well-produced interactive multimedia experience with an engaging story-telling component. There are 3 chapters currently available, and at least 2 more on the way. First stop, Chapter 1: The Wrong Door.

Play Terrain

From Japan, Yoshio Ishii designs Shockwave and Flash games, and publishes them all on his website ece4co.vis.ne.jp. Many of his games feature a cat ("neko" in Japanese) and are rather plain looking, using just two shades of aqua green to draw all the graphics for each of his "neko" games. Ito-Neko is his latest, and like the others before it, Ishii proves that designing a game that is fun to play does not require fancy-shmancy graphics. Using the mouse, click and drag to draw a wire to catch the falling neko before it lands into the water below. By manipulating the drawn wire, bounce the neko around to collect the jewels that increase your score. Click.

Upon closer inspection of Ishii's site reveals many other marvelous games he has designed, yet does not display them as prominently as his "neko" series of games. Take for instance Cell Blast. This game is a beautiful shoot-em-up with a distinctly old-school style graphic design. Using the mouse, click to fire while avoiding all the enemies and their weapons. There is no score in this game, just try to survive the entire stage. And if you finish, check out Cell Blast Stage 2. These are my favorites of all the games he has made. Click.

Another gorgeous game design is this psychedelic shooter called Rayspline. Most probably an experimental concept game as deduced from the "ver. 0.1" indicated on the opening title screen, Rayspline features beautiful particle effects set in motion against a captivating soundtrack. Together these elements create a very engaging experience, even if only an experimental one. An elaborate stage select screen between stages allows you to chart your own course through the game's many levels. The only downside is that once the game is over, there is no restart button... the game must be reloaded in the browser. A minor inconvenience for such a magnificent creation. Click.

As I mentioned before, most of Ishii's games are developed in Director, though he has created some in Flash. This Flash game is also a shooter and is played by wielding what looks like a Mahjongg tile (Update: actually, they are Shogi tiles - thanks Grant0 for pointing this out). All of the enemies are Shogi tiles as well and feature unique patterns of movement and attack that make this game so much fun to play. It sounds a bit strange, yet it works extremely well. Click.

Update: Yoshio Ishii's games are back online and available to play(!) Be sure to check out his site for links to many other exceptional games he has created.

We all need Safeplaces to hang every now and then to rest, relax, recharge, review, rebound, replenish, release, receive, renew, and reward ourselves. So take a break, and take time to take in that which is around you. Smile, giggle, laugh and love.

Play Safeplaces

Continuing with the latest theme of games with odd names, Honda weighs-in with a Flash game to celebrate their whisper quiet diesel engine. While I am not quite sure how the game relates to the engine, what I can say is this game is a beautiful work of art, and it offers up a pretty good challenge as well.

The Grrr Game puts you in control of a white rabbit, on a quest for carrots, using the arrow keys to move around the isometric pseudo 3D environment. Landing next to any hateful object will cause the rabbit to whip out his gargantuan hammer and whack the smithereen stars out of it, and thus turning it into a lovely object of affection. Doing so will also add a time bonus to your score. The goal of the game is to get to the BBQ while collecting all the time bonuses, and all the carrots, by ridding the world of hate. OMGWTFBBQ!

Play Honda Grrr Game

This is a brand new Flash puzzle game by Tonypa, called NeliNurk.

The object of the game is to locate rectangles on the play field by clicking each of four corners of the same color. The corner blocks go away and your score is increased by the number of blocks contained in the rectangle. When there are no more blocks in the top row, a new row of blocks fall replenishing the field.

Update: A new feature that Tonypa just added to the game is the bar below the play field that fills up as you clear rectangles. Once filled, a new color is added to the mix of colored blocks that drop into play, thereby reducing the possible combinations of rectangles available.

A good strategy is to clear the top row as quickly as possible to keep the field as filled as possible. NeliNurk is an excellent game design that is simple, elegant, and one that requires some strategic planning.

Play NeliNurk

Tonypa is a Flash game designer who has contributed much to the development community. His tile-based game tutorials in Flash are some of the best that is available on the subject, and he recently added a new set tutorials on using vectors in Flash.

Or, Ultimate Flash Sonic, whatever you call it, it's still Sonic recreated in Flash. The 17-year old developer, Dennis Gid of Switzerland, claims no affiliation or sponsorship with Sega or Sonic Team, he is just a fan who loves Sonic games. And this remarkable version, his “Ultimate” Sonic, is his best to-date.

The game contains an extensive list of features including 4 playable characters: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Cream, with 2 more to unlock. There are two modes of play, Main Game and Time Trial. Dennis has even included a password mechanism and a cheat code facility. Control is with the left and right arrow keys, space bar to jump, and enter pauses the game. To perform a spin dash: hold down arrow, press space bar, release down arrow.

Everything about this game is polished, right down to the initial selection menus with music and sound effect volume sliders. The mirror of the game linked here is hosted by the good folks at Newgrounds, an excellent site about media and games.

Play Sonic Flash

A game that looks and feels very similar to Nintendo's Starfox games, Starfish Chronicles is a Shockwave game of the same space-flight shmup genre. The game makes effective use of many of Shockwave 3D's more advanced features to create a compelling experience that rivals commerical offerings. Although control is with the arrow keys and the space bar is used to shoot, I recommend using a USB Gamepad with this to create your own configuration. For example, the up arrow causes the ship to dive, down arrow to climb. That just doesn't feel natural to me, and was the reason I couldn't get far in the first level. But control issues aside, there is an excellent game designed into Starfish Chronicles, with which developer Darla Soft has spent a great deal of attention to detail. Hosted on Quadgames.com. The game takes about a minute to load.

Play Starfish Chronicles

Just in time for Saturday morning cartoons, Super Mini-Games are bite-sized Flash games to challenge your hand-eye coordination and problem solving skillz. Created by Pop, a New York City based game design firm, these mini-games were commissioned by Cartoon Network and appeared on their website. Each game offers something different, and all are packaged in a cute little box that opens when clicked to reveal its game. There are many other delightful games available at Popandco.com, some that are likely to show up here since it is clear to me that these people understand good game design.

Play Super Mini-Games

Again, thanks to Anne and her Amplesanity, a site full of fabulous links.

Dr3i is a simple game to click and play for a quick diversion, and is remarkably fun—if not a little dizzying.

Control is with the mouse, simply move the red dot around the screen to collect all of the black dots, marked with a plus or minus sign, without touching anything else. Plus markers cause the play field to rotate faster, minus markers make it rotate slower. Control options on the title screen allow for a larger play field, and for faster or slower initial rotation speed.

The Flash game was created by Mach Parat, a Flash-based multimedia and game design studio located in Cologne, Germany. Volker Neumann, Jan-Philipp Behrens, and Sebastian Deimann make up this talented team of designers, and their little Flash games are addictive, elegant, and fun. Click.

There is a new version now available! Click.

The Zoom Quilt is the collaborative art project of 15 talented artists, all contributing to a final media presentation that is both beautiful and mesmerizing. The piece is available in 3 different media formats: HTML via a series of static jpeg images; AVI compressed video; or the best format, a Flash interactive movie. Click and drag up or down to move forward or backward through the work of art.

The first such "zoom" art work I saw on the Web was this rather simple Flash piece called Swirl.

And then there is the Poloroid photo project by Mark-Steffen Göwecke, which is a rather creative "zoom" concept itself.

During my travels, I also stumbled upon this site for Web design company SoFake.com, which incorporates a wonderful "zoom" piece into the navigation of their Flash site.

Another game from Orgdot, Kharon4a is a dark and gritty, point-and-click Flash adventure that will challenge the best puzzle fanatics out there. Sporting an unusual interface and enough biotech gadgetry and terminology to open your own laboratory, Kharon4a is a moody sophisticated game to say the least. From a company whose mission is to educate as they entertain, this game has a lot of information packed into it. For instance, there is a computer in the lobby area (pictured) where you can spend a great deal of time simply reading up on famous geneticists, genetic concepts, definitions and game-related clues.

The game looks amazing and the 3D rendered graphics appear near-photographic in quality. I also like the attention to detail in the game, such as the computerized display that pops up when you point to an object and instantly describes what it is. There is much more Flash magic than I am able to report. See for yourself.

Play The Four Rooms of Kharon

Not quite feeling up to snuff today, I'll leave you with this article from Salon.com to ponder. Click.

Not a new game, but certainly on its way to becomming a classic, Super Monkey Ball by Sega was originally released exclusively for Nintendo's Gamecube, and now coming to XBox and PS2 in early 2005. Super Monkey Ball Mini is a Flash version of the same game providing mini levels that take advantage of similar gameplay mechanics as the original. Use the mouse to tilt the floor and guide Aiai—the monkey in the ball—to the goal, the highlighted area on the play field.

This mini version is a great way to get your Super Monkey Ball game on when away from your console.

Play Super Monkey Ball Mini

Update: If you like this, then be sure to check out Super Monkey Ball 2 mini games.

From Orgdot, a media lab based in Oslo, Norway, DNA Factory is a Flash game that features stylized pixel graphics with a biotechnology theme.

Gameplay consists of aligning the 4 base chemicals of DNA (adenosine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine) into symbol pairs (AT & CG) by using the arrow keys on the keyboard. Use left and right arrows to slide the current symbol over its appropriate mate, and press space or down arrow to drop it. Each pair that slides off the left edge of the play field adds one yellow light to the score display. But if you miss even one, your progress is erased and you must start again. Make use of the upper left and right corners to store symbols, and to trade the current symbol with the one stored there.

A delightfully designed game with an educational slant, DNA Factory is fun, charming, and a bit challenging for a short little diversion.

Play DNA Factory

Liz Dubelman creates well-told multimedia short stories on her VidLit website.

Her latest creation, Craziest, is the story of a girl in love with Scrabble, and how it influenced her life, her beliefs, and her destiny. The Flash movie tells the tale of her brush with fate and the mother-of-all Scrabble scores. Engaging, creative, entertaining, humorous and original.

Play Craziest

Thanks to Anne and her incredible collection of links at Amplesanity.

Here's a game where you can win $100,000 just by being registered to vote in the November 2004 US General Election. Two guys, Jim and James, who have made a lot of money with an online dating service, care enough about this year's election to offer up $100,000 to a registered voter just for entering their sweepstakes, and $100,000 to the person who refers them to their site. They promise not to give out or sell your personal information to anyone, they just want to provide an incentive to get people to register to vote. So what are you waiting for? Click.

If you're not registered to vote, please do so before it's too late. It's real easy, you can even do it online. Click.

Following the link provided above to the sweepstakes entry form will automatically enter me as your referrer. Thank you kindly, I hope you win. =)