Bite-Size Morsels of Joy

You know how it is. You want to get your game on. You’re desperate for a challenge, a foe to vanquish, a tricky puzzle to pit your wits against. But you’re trapped. Trapped at your desk. Or trapped in a meeting which you had to attend even though nobody quite knows why. You can’t play on your console, because it’s at home. You can’t play with your PSP or DS or phone, because that would be a bit too obvious. All you have is your web browser (which is presumably why you’re reading this instead of working).

Fear not. We are here to help. Because games come in a mind-boggling variety of shapes and sizes, and there are more games available to play in your browser than any sane person would contemplate shaking a stick at. Allow me to be your guide and show you but a tiny fraction of the huge number of games that are out there which you could be playing right now.

Let us begin with shooting.

Death vs Monstars

deathvsmonstars

A nice little arena shooter, with purchaseable powerups and a quirky aim method – you fire in the opposite direction to the direction in which you move, or can hold down a mouse button to lock the firing angle and strafe. Takes a bit of getting used to, but thoroughly enjoyable.

Desktop Tower Defence

desktoptowerdefense

A Tower Defence game. If you don’t know what a tower defence game is, well, it’s like this: you build towers in order to defend something. Generally the objective is to prevent any of the enemy from reaching the exit of the level alive. Desktop Tower Defence does things a little differently from most, in that your towers also form obstacles to force the enemies to take a longer path through the level, thus keeping them exposed to attack for longer. This one can suck up hours of your life.

Minotaur China Shop

minotaurchinashop

A heart-warming yet poignant tale of one Minotaur and his simple wish: to own and operate a china shop, serving the needs of his mythical creature friends. Sadly, he is a little bit clumsy and is also unfortunately prone to outbursts of rage, smashing everything in his path. You must help him make sales without wrecking his shop too often; failing that, you must make sure he makes a decent profit from his Rage Insurance.

Unlike the other games here this one isn’t Flash, and so will require another browser plugin to run. It’s worth it, though, especially as you would then also be able to play some of Flashbang’s other excellent games, like the splendid Off-Road Velociraptor Safari.

Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar

robotdinosaurs

You don’t need more than the title, surely?

OK, fine. It’s a shmup. You control one of the titular Robot Dinosaurs (Dinomite or Tyrannosaurus-X). You move with the mouse and press the button to roar. When he roars, he shoots beams. Beams kill things. It’s amusing and short.

These are but four of many; people keep making more and more of the things all the time. Check out sites like blurst.com, ArmorGames, Kongregate, ArcadeBomb and Newgrounds for many, many more.  I shall no doubt bring more of them to your attention in the future.


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One response to “Bite-Size Morsels of Joy”

  1. Lorna avatar
    Lorna

    I love little browser games and when I’m procratinating rather than working, they make nifty diversions. My favourite is probably GrowCube and Mansion Impossible always gets me hooked. I like the sounds of the Velociraptor thing…some good sounding titles to look at here Simes, thanks 🙂

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