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!

 

Submachine

Submachine is a simple point and click adventure, but I'm sure people will be quite relieved if they've previously got stuck on Hapland, or any of the 'coloured room' series (Crimson, Viridian, etc.)
Nicely animated and very intuitive, I give this game a nine! (Though I'm not saying what out of)

Quest for the crown

An adventure game like no other. If you enjoyed 1D tetris and clock patience, then you'll love this. For more detailed hints and tips then check out this (hilarious) page.

In short - I'm dumbfounded.
 

Grow Version 1

For some reason this has come after Grow ver.2 and Grow ver.3, but it's still great!
Choose between the different options and sculpt your ball into a creature. The 'aim' is to get the bar at the bottom to MAX, which (I think) there's only one way of doing. However whatever options you choose you get to see an insight into the weird mind of Dave.
 

Diversity

Another escape from the room type game, but quite a good one! There's about four levels and none of the things are too hard to do. We managed it without any help (go us!)

Ps. Hopefully Soph will understand it ;-P
 

TyperA

After a recent conversation I realised there is a need for people to be able to type faster. This will improve efficiency not just in essays and emails, but also in other mediums such as MSN. How good would it be to boost the amount of procrastination you could do per hour, without it taking any extra time!
Apparently I type at about 44 words per minute, although I made nine mistakes when doing it. This is much better than QWERTY Wars (which was recently posted on here) for training typing skills, because you don't need to hit enter after every word.

Grow Ornament

If you've played the many other Grow games, then you'll take to this like a duck to water. Add decorations to the tree in the right order to make them interact with each other, and ultimately create the best Christmas tree ever!


 

Overtime at Santa's factory

A festive treat for you here (I think it's about six years old, but nevermind!) You forgot to write a letter to Santa, and so you have to get your present requent to him. If you select that you've been naughty then it's a very short game, but if you select nice then there's quite a bit more of it! You should put in a real present request, because there's one part of the game which is more fun if you do!
Anyway it's probably aimed at kids, but it entertained me for five minutes or so.

Qwerty Wars

The aim of this game is to stay alive as long as possible, which you do by shooting the alien type things. You shoot the alien/robot things by typing the words underneath them. As the game progresses the enemies attack more frequently, get larger and have longer words words beneath them. You can shoot the 'FullHealth' crates to be returned to 100 health, and shoot the 'Detonate' crates to destroy all the enemies on the screen.
If you can't touch type yet then this might be one way to learn!

The Unsuggester

Enter the title of a book you loved, and it will give you a list of the top 100 books you probably won't like.
It's worked out from a database of people's libraries, by comparing the expected number of people owning both (worked out from the individual book popularities) with the actual number of people owning both, and comes out with some quite surprising results!
The same site also has a 'Suggester', but that's just not quite as exciting really.

Ashes Alarm

I'm not sure of all the rules on this one, but basically the BBC are offering a text service to recieve scores from the Ashes series down under. You send a text to a number (at usual text price), and they'll send you the live score, at whatever time of day you choose. Consequently I get woken up at 7:30 on the dot with news of England's latest.

Thanks to Paul for showing this one to me!

Movie Puzzle ver.0

This strangely titled puzzle is also strangely tough. It has less to do with movies, and more to do with a moving ball jigsaw puzzle. In fact it has everything to do with a moving ball jigsaw puzzle, because that's precisely what it is!

After completing the easy setting in a minute or so you should try the hard one, which I still haven't yet worked out. Anyway it's a great idea for a puzzle, and is perfect to use up a few minutes of your day. I think this is a trial version, so look out for future additions/improvements to it!

I've now worked out the hard puzzle - you have to use the left and right arrow keys to complete the puzzle!

Ver

This game is a lot like one I wrote when I was at school. The idea is to use the arrow keys to control the line, however make sure that you don't run into the walls, or you'll get insulted(?) in French, and then have to start the level again. To complete the level you have to run into the star, and on the next screen press 'up'. As the levels progress the mazes get harder and harder.

I think the French says "You need to practice more", but I may be completely wrong! If you get to this screen press 'up' ("haut") to continue.

Make Moving MSN Emoticons

Create you own animated MSN emoticons with this animated gif tool. Upload the pictures you want in the animation and then save the result to your computer. Go to the "Create..." option on the MSN emoticon viewer, and select the gif file you produced (Nb. The emoticon will come out 50x50px - so don't put too much detail into the original pictures).
 

Multiperson Jigsaw

What could be more fun than an online jigsaw?
Answer: A multiperson jigsaw of course!
Just when you thought you'd got some of those pieces in the right place some fool moves them all! Actually it's good fun, and most of the time feels like you're bonding with someone over an respectible old-fashioned pastime (without actually talking to them).

Rock Paper Scissors 25

Click on "Play This Game" to experience the wonderful world of RPS25. If you want to know more about the history of the game (it's actually very entertaining!) then there's the official (I think) page here.
Possibly even more exciting still is the new addition to the site - RPS101! Now over a hundred different hand gestures, and under one percent chance of a draw! So the next time you need to make a decision in a hurry, you should consider RPS101.

Slime Cricket

This is quite an old game now, but it's still good fun. Find a friend, and then while away the hours with some good old fashioned cricket (nb. it's actually not much like cricket at all).

 

Counties of Great Britain

Which counties have you been to? I think you have to have stayed overnight at the place to have 'been there', so places along the M6 you've driven through don't count.
Here's my map though I've forgotten a couple of places from when I was younger.

 

Diet coke + mints = ...

Before watching the video linked to on the left (experiment 214) you should probably watch the ones building up to it!
Experiment 6
Experiment 10
Experiment 13A
Experiment 137

Grow 2.0

So following on from Grow Cube, here is Grow version 2, which is a predecessor of it. It's very short, and fairly weird, but the idea is exacly the same - click on things in the right order to make stuff happen. I'm pretty sure that if you get to the stage depicted to the right, then you've already gone wrong!

 

50 States

Drag and drop the states of america into place. Try to keep your total error distance and the time you take down to a minimum! I want to see the same thing done for counties of Great Britain! I think the first time I did this I got 80% placed correctly, which I was quite chuffed with, although to be fair I did it mainly like a jigsaw puzzle.

 

Grow Cube

There's quite a lot of puzzles like this one on this site. Drag and drop items onto the cube, and watch it "grow". The challenge is to get all the items to maximum level. Weird, but very fun! Look out for more games from this site popping up here soon (when I've had chance to test them all!)