THE INTERNET. A vast and untamed frontier, populated by wild popups, feral novelty cursors, enraged LOLcats, and those brave enough to try to eke out a living by sowing the seeds of their creativity within this unstable wilderness. COME. Take part of the bounty these brave few have cultivated, sprinkled liberally with action, puzzles, and even that most finicky of creatures... the physics game!
Asplode - If you're looking for Boomshine but sleepier, look no further than this simple, dreamy little game about chain reactions, pleasant music, and things bumping gently against other things. You can practically hear each bubble exclaim, "Oh, no no no, pardon me," every time it happens.
Color Tangle - If you're looking for all the satisfaction of simple puzzle solving with the acidic sting of a game expressing its disappointment at how slow you took to succeed, this is the title for you. Click and drag nodes through lines of the same colour until the whole mess of wires onscreen is untangled, upon which the game will grudgingly bestow victory upon you, but remark in a very passive-aggressive manner that you took your sweet time doing so. Sort of like if your significant other's disapproving parents were a flash game.
Safari Time - They may not be as addicting as peanut butter jelly time, but safaris still make for a pretty good time too. Or at least, that's the assumption the world's sketchiest looking zebra seems to be operating under when a brochure falls out of the sky. Manipulate the objects in each level of this physics puzzler to ensure that the zebra can travel unimpeded. I'd do it if I were you... this looks like the sort of zebra who'd have you wake up in a tub of ice if you crossed him.
Hippo's Feeder - Hippos may look adorably squishy and cuddly, but get on their bad side and they're about as terrifying as an animal can become without also being mounted on a charging grizzly bear. (With a copy of Fatal Frame taped to its head.) So it might behoove you to perfect the art of chucking watermelons in their gaping mouths in this physics game. You know, just in case you're ever in a situation where you have a rampaging hippo coming straight at you and several melons in easy reach. Isn't that a Scouts badge?
Cave of No Return - Somewhat less popular than the Cave of Pleasant Strolls and Cave of Moderately Priced Giftshops, this simple arcade game throws you into a cave that's literally falling apart behind you and tells you to run as fast as you can for as long as you can. It looks great, though it lacks variety, and you have to wonder about someone who goes inside a place with the words "No Return" there in the name.
The description for color tangle made me laugh. I love the sense of humor in your reviews.
Color Tangle is GREAT! Nice operation, good idea, good puzzles (although no *really* tough ones, yet)
Just one flaw - there seem so be a lot of re-using levels... I'd rather have just 20 different, than 50 where half are the same :(
Color tangle is actually pretty neat - and frustrating!
Color tangle is just fun. I love when a simple game idea works so fine.
bio
Asplode isn't really a game, though, is it, so much as a random sequence of events you initiate.
What am I doing wrong in Cave of No Return? It tells me the only controls are jump and slide, and later it tells you that you speed up when you slide. I've been tapping the down button all the way through the cave, and I can't make it more than 30 seconds before the cave-in catches up. What gives?
Color tangle is awesome. I can't think of another game where I have been, like, "Yeah baby! I'm SLOW!" Interestingly, the earlier levels, where I was learning the game, felt harder than some of the later levels, where I had figured out some tricks. The final level was GRRRRR ARGH.
And I agree with Space Monkey. The creators don't really explain how you are supposed to accelerate in the Cave. I expected it to be Canabalt-like, but instead just died-died-died-quit.
I wish there were more levels of Color tangle. This 50 were great, but offered about 2 hours of fun. Though "loads of more" levels are offered, seems like they're only for those with Facebook-accounts or iPhones - neither of which categories I am a member of...
bio
WARNING: If your OCD tendencies got the best of you when you first saw Planarity, then DO NOT play Color Tangle. :-D
OK, I've played Asplode 3 times and got the same score every time.
Coincidence or bug?
Weird. I thought I saw "Cave of No Return" on Weekend Download.
@Space Monkey: Only during the start of the slide do you get the speed boost, so that by tapping down repeatedly, you remain in that state of higher speed. At that speed you can still trip on terrain twice in a row and still gain distance from the falling rubble.
Color Tangle is lots of fun!
Color tangle is great, but wish there were more and more varied levels.
The game play of the hippo one is a little frustrating (hate having to use *both* keyboard and mouse), but the graphics are cuuuuute. Hippos fed with watermelons are adorable.
I like how games similar to Planarity and Color Tangle can be enjoyed (albeit differently) by people with mathematical interests, like myself. In particular, these two games involve a bit of graph theory.
In Planarity, you are making what is called a "planar" graph by removing all crossings. (Though some graphs - but none in Planarity - are not planar and thus can't be removed of all crossings. See the complete graph K5, top right corner of this page.)
In Color Tangle, you're doing a similar thing, but with all the added rules it's more like knot theory. Notably, levels 14 and 29 of Color Tangle are essentially Planarity levels, only the vertices can't overlap.
And on level 22, the inner math nerd in me said "that better not be K5 I'm seeing or you're trolling me." (The star shape in the center is in fact not K5 but W6.)
Also, as far as I know, from completing all the levels, the order in which you remove 'wires' (connected sets of vertices) is never critical to the solution of the level, nor is the retention of any particular component. They do get significantly harder at the end, though.
Update