Qwerty Warriors 2

Very much like Qwerty Wars but with all the annoyances removed! No longer do you have to press enter after each word, no more words obscuring other words and now all the words drop from the top allowing easy reading on the way down. When you start typing a word it appears in the status bar showing you how many of the letters you've hit so far. You get a multiplier increase each time you type a word without making a mistake, but obviously if you take too long then you start to lose health.
I'd advise against using the 'easy' level because it really is easy! Great help if you're learning to touch type.

Geoffrey's Quest

Geoffrey's Quest is a typical point and click escape game. Instead of escaping a room, you play Geoffrey who is searching an island for his kidnapped girlfriend Jen.

The game is ok but the ending is very creepy. Also, you can't see the items you pick up which is quite annoying.
 

FreeRice

This is quite a simple game: you are given a word and have to pick the correct definition, if you get it right you score 10, otherwise you score 0, repeat ad infinitum. However for each point you score the FreeRice people donate a grain of rice to third world countries.
The game tracks how verbose you are too and assigns you a different difficulty of word depending on your past ability. Each time you get three answers in a row right you go up a level, each time you get an answer wrong you go down a level (nb. this only kicks in after you've answered a few questions). My average level was about 29/30, and my maximum level reached was 37. The difficulty of each word is determined by how many people got it right and wrong, and so may change over time too.
The rice is paid for by the advertising on the site, and is donated to third world countries via the United Nations World Food Program.

IQ Test

So this blog has been going much longer than I imagined it would. This is post number 100! (That's an excited 100 as opposed to 100 factorial which is a lot bigger). To tie in with the one hundred theme here is a game where 100 is the average score - an IQ test. Admittedly it's an inaccurate measure, and favours more numerate people rather than more intelligent people.

The picture is from my first try, for which I scored 160/160, without understanding several of the questions. Good luck!

Gimme Friction Baby

The worryingly titled Gimme Friction Baby is actually a clever game which balances strategy and skill with a very simple mechanism. The aim is to burst as many bubbles as possible, by decreasing the number on them from three to zero. Balls will bounce around and get gradually slower and slower (possibly the friction referenced by the title), before coming to a halt and expanding until they hit something. If a ball bounces back across the baseline then the game is over, and your score is the number of balls burst.
When I started playing I was stuck with a high score of six for quite a while, before fluking my current high score of twenty six. This does seem like the sort of game where it would be possible to score indefinitely if you got good at it, but it's quite entertaining while you're capable of making mistakes.

Sky Blocs

Sky Blocs is a puzzle game which borrows strongly from the 1992 game Pushover. The aim is to knock over all the dominoes and then to hit the flag box and raise the victory flag. As the levels progress more and more objects become available for you to use, which in turn enables more and more improbable domino set-ups!

Agent Scappa pointed out the original Pushover game to me, and I think this is just as tricky (but with a lot better graphics).

Five Differences

Simply a game of spot the difference, but with five differences to find on a whole host of charming, lifelike scenes. This game feels very tranquil, and slightly weird, although I did have to resort to clicking randomly to finish some of the levels.

 

Grow Island

Grow Island is made by the creator of the other Grow games and is still based on the 'find the correct order' principle.
This particular game doubles as an advert for an institute of education in Japan I think, but I didn't read carefully enough to find out.
Although I haven't finished this yet I hear that Naomi has, so many congratulations to her.
 

Portal (Flash version)

Quite a complicated game based on quite a simple idea. You have a gun which fires 'portals' - a yellow one and a blue one. The two portals link to each other - anything that goes in one will come out of the other. Then you throw this portal gun into a game where the aim is to get from the start to the finish of each level, and that's it!
There are hints at the top of each level, telling you how to play, and you should remember things like the speed you go into a portal is the same as the speed you come out of the other end. You can only fire the portals on the white walls, and later on you'll come across lasers, cubes and turrets, which make things even more complicated.
The game is based on a game currently on sale called Portal.

Factory Balls

In Factory Balls you work in a ball factory, creating balls to particular specifications. Drag and drop the balls onto the various tools to create a ball that looks like the stick on each box. It is possible to lose all your balls, before you complete the game, so try to avoid that. For levels where you need to combine paint together you may need to think about how computer printers combine their ink to make colours.
 

The short term memory checker

Try to remember a set of random objects. How many can you remember at once? Beware - many of the objects are similar to other objects.

It seems like my limit is about 11 objects.
 

PastMaster

Test your historical general knowledge and try to traverse from one side of the board to the other.

I managed to fail twice at level one before making it to level two. Perfect training if you're thinking of being on Eggheads!
 

Backflip

Use the mouse to drag a path through the black and white tiles. Any tiles that your path goes through will be flipped over, changing the colour from black to white or vice versa. The aim is to get all the tiles in each row the same colour, it doesn't matter that the different rows are different colours from each other. You can create your own levels and play levels that other people have made too.
 

Equilibriated Willy

Use the arrow keys to balance the penguin on the bar while snowballs pelt down. Use the mouse to click on the yellow bonuses to gain protection from the snow, or to slow its decent.

This game was chosen specially for Paula because she was complaining there wasn't enough updates. I'm sure she'll love the game's title.

Rubicon

Rubicon is a game where you have to create a machine. The aim of the game is to make your machine move some crates to their corresponding destinations. There are loads of different types of devices you can use, including some with some quite complicated rules attached. Basically the easiest way to see how it works is by playing it.

 

Bosnia Hike 24

For those of you that missed the first, second or third hikes, here's your chance to follow Team Hike 24 as they raise much needed money for a trip to work with kids in Mostar, Bosnia this Summer. They set off on the hike on Thursday the 21st of June at 5am, so keep yourself glued to the site for all the latest thrills and spills.

 

Winterbells

Use the mouse to move the bunny rabbit left and right, and click the button to make it jump. Bounce off the bells to climb higher and higher in the sky, scoring more points for each bell, and doubling your score for bouncing off birds. Eventually you'll fall, but don't worry he always has a soft landing.

 

Acrobots

A weird flash thing with no real point, but lots of fun to play around with. Move or throw the acrobots around and watch them climb on, and stick to each other. Add more with the plus button, turn on the light, change the energeticness of the acrobots, or even more impressively rotate the whole box and watch them tumble over each other. Bizarre, but strangely satisfying.
 

Penguin Pushing Game

Here's a game where you need to position arrows on the ground to get the penguin to his deckchair. Really quite challenging after a while, but makes for some interesting problems.

Oh, did I mention it's all in German? Still, you can probably work out what the gist of it means!
 

SuPuzzle

Connect the three houses to the three utilities without any of the pipes crossing. This is a classic puzzle written in flash, and it is possible. You will probably think that you've tried everything, but there is a fairly elusive solution to find.

 

Boomshine

In this game you have to set off a chain reaction of exploding circles by clicking the mouse. There are twelve levels which get progressively harder, and I didn't manage to complete the last one. However as the levels get higher it also seems to me that whether you succeed or not is more based on luck than skill. Anyone want to prove me wrong?

And I almost forgot to mention - the music to this is great (although a bit repetitive).

Crazy Cube

If I'm honest I was slightly disappointed by the lack of craziness in this game. It did however contain a high cube content rating, so if you're adverse to cubes then turn away now.

Click and drag to connect coloured squares together on the surface of this cube. Once all the paths are connected you can go onto the next level. There are thirty levels in all, some of which are very tough.

Crazy Doors of Rainbow Colours

First of all ask yourself - how could you not play a game with this title? Some crazy doors? Complete with rainbow colours? Sounds like a great place to be.

You have to find objects, throw them against the correct walls to make doors, open the doors, and repeat! You never need to reset (although you might need to if you can't remember things), which makes this a fairly straightfoward game. However it's not an easy game, which makes it fairly satisfying too.

Dwarf Complete

This is a bit of a weird game, by the maker of the Grow and Tontie games. In this game you have to explore around and collect all the weapon/clothes/shoes things which unlock the passages into the next rooms. You also have to get the other objects which allow you to do super-cool things. Yes, super-cool is a real phrase.

I'll put some helpful hints in the comments section (otherwise it's impossible).

Everyone's a winner

A bit of a random game, but can you work out what needs to be done to win? Once you've worked out how to win, can you work out a tactic to win every game?


 

Galves Adventure

Apparently Galves is a baby known by the maker of the Grow series (eg. Grow Cube) and this is a point and click adventure game made about him. It's very similar in style to the creator's earlier games, and equally fun. At times you need timing, and it's possible to get stuck, so use the reset button frequently.

Warning: There's a rude bit which can happen if you let the crab and the baby get too near to each other!

Stick Cricket

Using just the arrow keys can you play a successful batting innings? I've played this for quite a while and have concluded that I'm fairly rubbish at it, but it's still entertaining.

Also check out the "Super 8" game, where you play as one of the teams in the World Cup trying to qualify for the semi finals! Needless to say I didn't win a single match and ended up bottom.

50 Dark Movies Hidden In A Painting

If you liked the Ultimate Film Desktop then chances are you'll like this too. There are fifty spooky movies hidden in the painting and the aim is to work out what they all are. When you think you know one you can click on it and type your answer in. The box will go green if you're right, red if you're wrong (or it's mispelt).

You can also save your progress by putting an email address in (it doesn't have to be a real email address), but you need to find the @ button, which is 'Shift' and '2' for anyone with British keyboards.

The Impossible Quiz

Funny, loud, and almost a quiz. The impossible quiz requires you to think laterally and often to simply guess. Some of the levels are about speed while others are more about thinking. I've managed to get to level 60 or so, let me know if you do better!

I think this takes a looong time to load, so if you've got a slow connection maybe try a different game. Many thanks to Paul for telling me about this one.

Desktop Tower Defense

Desktop Tower Defense is a clever game where you have to create and maintain a field of towers. Periodically you will be invaded by a swarm of little critters and if any of them get through your `tower defense' field alive then you lose a life. You can upgrade your towers by clicking on them and clicking upgrade.

There are full instructions at the bottom of the page.

Planets (A different one)

In this game the aim is to get all the planets aligned. As of yet I haven't worked out how to do this, but I have worked out a few things which I'll put in the comments. If anyone works out more feel free to help me out a bit!

The game itself has a hints button, but that didn't really help me much/at all. Basically this game is extremely weird, but it looks fun all the same.

Planets

Fire the missile at the red planet without hitting yourself or the green planet. As the levels go on the green planet gets larger and larger and the red planet gets smaller and smaller. As in all space scenarios the missile will bounce off the edge of the screen.

See if you can beat my personal best of failure on level nine.
 

Let It Flow

Comic Relief have made this game which is fairly similar to the old skool game "Pipe Dream". Rotate the pipes to connect the pump to the plants and animals, then pump the pump and finally wait for the water to reach the end point.

Bonus points for using the 'star' pipes and negative points for spilling any water.
 

Dice Wars

It might take a short while for the page to load, but it's an interesting game. You play as purple and have to try to conquer the world with your dice. Dice are allocated randomly, and when you attack an adjacent country all the dice involved are rolled and if you roll higher than the defender then you move into the country (leaving one dice behind to defend). If you fail then you lose all the dice that would have invaded. At the end of your go you get reenforcements (depending on how many countries are in your largest connected region) distributed randomly over your territories. You cannot have more than 8 per country though.

Turbo Risk

Continuing the line of board games turned into computer games, this is TurboRisk. The game of Risk converted into a very playable game. If you have the skills you can even write your own computer opponent! By watching the computer players it seems like Australia and South America are the places to be.
The only downside is that you have to download this game. However it seems to be fine on my computer and I've had it for a while now.

The Settlers Of Catan

Another board game made into online game, and this one's great. It's a bit complicated if you haven't played before, and the computer players are sometimes a bit annoying and gang up on you, but on the whole this game is really well made. You can play a game of Settlers that would normally take over an hour with human opponents in ten minutes!
You can also play against other people, but it helps to play with people you know won't take ages over their go. I don't think you can get the rules from Wikipedia (probably due to copyright), so you'll have to pick it up by playing.

FreeCiv

So this isn't by any scope of the imagination a quick distraction. This is a huge life-time of a distraction. It's a download game, which instantly spells out long, but it's also amazing. If you've ever player Civilization, then this game is very similar (verging on the same). It's much more customisable, and is also much more free.

I can't possibly hope to sum up the whole game here, but basically the aim is to take charge of a civilization and lead them through the ages, keeping up to the times with military, economic and scientific advances. You start in 4000BC and the game goes all the way up to the present day.

This game is also multiplayer, and I'd love to organise a multiplayer game some day in the future, if only so everyone can see how bad I am at it!

5 Numbers

A weird game with instructions in Japanese (I think), but actually a very simple concept. Click on each of the terminal things (the grey boxes), and use the clue to work out the five digit number. Type in the number, click "Lift", and away you go. If you get it right then the terminal will be replaced by bits of something else (I'm sure you'll work out what quite quickly).
I managed all but three fairly quickly, and have now managed all but the grey and black pattern puzzle (feel free to give me any hints!).

GoWind

Play Go against a computer. Unlike drafts and chess computers are supposedly pretty bad at Go, for more information about this see this Wikipedia page. However this program (GoWind) seems to beat me every time!
The aim of Go is to capture squares on the board by surrounding them, and also to capture the opponents stones by surrounding them. You aren't allowed to suicide a stone (place it somewhere it would be immediately captured) except in the case that you would use it to capture an opponents stone, and therefore free up some space. Repeating the same moves over and over is not allowed either, so you may not be able to capture a piece if it's the one which the computer just placed.
My best effort so far is b 232, w 129 (ie. a loss of 232 to 129).

Catch The Butterfly

When you click on the button then your mouse pointing becomes invisible, and you have to catch the butterfly without running over the walls. When you are over the butterfly a box will appear around it, and you can click the mouse button to complete the level. Oh, and if you click on the british flag symbol you get the instructions in English!

 

Weboggle

Play Boggle against people from around the world and try to get to the top of the score board. If you don't know how to play Boggle already then you should look at the Wikipedia page on it.

Have fun!
 

Seen On Screen

In this game the aim is to work out what to do in order to advance to the next level. There are no instructions, and you can see what level you've reached in the bottom left corner. We managed to reach level 13, but are now stuck! If anyone can do better then please let us know (and we'll probably sulk for a while).

 

Line Rider

Draw a track and then press play to watch a penguin on a sledge follow it. Use the blue pencil tool to draw normal track and the red lines to draw acceleration track. If you want you can even draw background with the green lines. Be sure to check out the videos page to see what can be done!