Friday Timewaster

Blob Opera, an amusing musical toy wherein you play Blobs (which look similar to Yip Yips but with better singing voices) to freeform your own operatic tunes.


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Mondrian and Me

A website that generates Mondrian paintings on your computer screen in real time as you click. That's all. Strangely compelling, though...

Or maybe I'm just fuckin' weird. Yeah, that's probably it.

Clickeration to begin.


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Friday Timewaster

If you've ever watched a Western movie, you've probably heard references to a card game called Faro. There's a particularly famous scene in the 1993 movie Tombstone involving a scuffle between Kurt Russell and Billy Bob Thorton which takes place at a Faro table. But what do you know about the game? Well, probably nothing.

Wildly popular in the 19th century, Faro gradually fell out of favor in the early 20th century and had disappeared entirely by the 1950s. I suspect that was probably because it provides better odds to the players than most games of chance, and the big casinos wanted no part of any such game. While the many saloons of the Old West competed to entice customers in their doors, once gambling was centralized to a few locations and the mafia took control of it, anything which didn't strongly favor the house was put to the knife. Mobsters aren't interested in free market competition, after all. The Indians likewise don't need to entice anyone, as the reservations are so few and far between and the tables are always full. They aren't going to do anything which might compromise their primary source of income.

A shame really, because it's quite a unique and fun game. Kind of a cross between roulette and stud poker with a little blackjack mixed in. Click here to learn the rules. Click on the table below to play.




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Friday Timewaster

Antidepressant or Tolkien Character?


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Friday Timewaster

Find visual references to 66 movies in Popcorn Garage.


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Friday Timewaster

Armored Commander II is a new roguelike in which you play a WWII tank -- or more accurately, the tank's crew. I've never seen anything quite like it before, and after more than forty years of playing video games, (dating all the way back to Pong; fuck I'm old), it's become an exceedingly rare event that I see a unique game concept which actually works.

Don't be put off by the blocky ASCII graphics; there is an impressively deep simulation under the surface. It's currently in alpha and is a free download. I recommend you scroll down a bit and grab the latest dev build (11 JAN 2020 as of this writing) instead of the main link at the top. It's been more stable for me.


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Friday Timewaster

The Internet Archive has put 7,000(!) old MS-DOS games online in streaming DOS Box format. If that's not every DOS game ever created, it's got to be pretty darn close.

Release the Clicken.


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Friday Timewaster

Zombie Defense Agency


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Friday Timewaster

Jezzball


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Friday Timewaster

Zombie Derby. More zombie hit-and-run action, now in 3D!


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Friday Timewaster

Short Trip is not so much a game as piece of interactive artwork. The only controls are the left and right arrow keys, the goal to pick up and drop off passengers. The real point is to admire the detailed, seamless graphite drawings which constitute the game.


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Friday Timewaster

Knife Flip. Just like it says.


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Friday Timewaster

CSR2 is both one of the best phone games and one of the best racing games I've ever played. Reasonably detailed tuning, dozens of real-world car manufacturers, and excellent graphics and sound make it in-depth yet still easy to learn. There are plenty of types of races, both single-player modes and head-to-head with other players, to keep it from getting stale. If you like shiny things that go fast -- and you KNOW that I do -- you can't go wrong with this one.



Grab it for Robot or Fruit.


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Friday Timewaster

Truck Driver: Crazy Road 2.

No zombies to flatten in this one. Just deliver ever-more-awkward cargo loads in unfraggled condition across increasingly difficult obstacle courses.


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Friday Timewaster

Rocketpult, wherein you catapult rockets. How can that not be fun?

EDIT: In case it's not obvious, (it's not), you're supposed to actually get the rocket under control, deploy landing gear and land it on one of those targets. That, however, is really quite hard. I have therefore invented my own (and much simpler-minded) gameplay mode which I have cleverly christened ROKKIT FLYIN LONG WAYZ BOOM! I like explosions. Play as you see fit.

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Friday Timewaster

Crossout is your chance to get your Mad Max on.

The game reminds me strongly of the old Steve Jackson ziploc bag game Car Wars from the early 1980s. Essentially, you bodge together cars from whatever you can scrape up, then take to the post-apocalyptic wasteland to beat up on bad guys, (or good guys, if that's your thing).

The gameplay is entertaining and quite brisk. PvP matches last no more than three minutes each, meaning you don't have the emotional investment of a 20- or 30-minute match only to watch it all go down the drain because your teammates are donkeys. It's three quick minutes of glorious blazing guns and whirling saw blades, then on to the next match. Win or lose, you'll still have fun.



PvE consists of various five-player co-op missions which tend to last slightly longer, in the 5- to 10-minute range. They come in a variety of flavors: escorting a truck full of valuable scrap; stealing a McGuffin from one side of the map and transporting it to the other side while under constant attack and dodging minefields; point defense missions. There are several modes, all providing a unique challenge. All of the enemies in PvE co-op are by definition AI bots, but that doesn't mean it's easy.

Finally, there are deathmatch and racing modes, which are pretty much what they're labeled as. Good luck designing a winning race car; the competition is fierce.



The real star of Crossout, of course, is the vehicle construction. As you level up you'll find more and more parts which you can use to assemble ever wilder and more destructive vehicles, limited only by your imagination and the parts you have on hand. Whether it's a dune buggy with light machine guns or a Leviathan-sized truck with drones, flamethrowers and rocket launchers, they're all fun to play. You are matched by power level of the vehicle you've assembled, so you'll never be overwhelmed by more experienced players.



One of the more enjoyable aspects of the game is actually quite passive: looking at what other people have come up with. It's amazing to me how you can give a thousand people the same set of parts to work with and you'll get a thousand completely different interpretations of how the pieces should fit together. Some are crap, some ingenious, and some are just quirky, but they're all unique.

Hey, it's free. If you love cars and you love guns, (and what red-blooded American male doesn't?), you should give it a whirl.


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Friday Timewaster

Continuing the theme of yesterday's tunes, have some Dig Dug. Arrow keys to move, x key to shoot. Make sure the java window is in focus by clicking on it first.


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Friday Timewaster

Space Rescue. Get your Keplerian kicks.


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Friday Timewaster

Zombie Gunship Survival. The name is retarded, but the gameplay is pretty darn cool. You play from the perspective of overwatch in a AC-130, cutting down zombie hordes with miniguns, cannons, et al, to protect your scavenging team. Who doesn't like massive collateral damage, yeah?

Robot

Fruit


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Friday Timewaster

Mutilate A Doll. Get your sadism on. Lots of implements, elements, and variables allow you to invent new and interesting ways to murder a virtual ragdoll. For example, turn the temperature down to -50 and dump water on him until he freezes stiff, then set him on fire, lay him on top of a stack of C-4 and use electricity to detonate it. It's the Fourth of July!

This will either amuse you or horrify you. If the former, welcome aboard the crazy train.


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