For my previous posts in this series, see this link:

15 Addictive Online Games

I actually have accumulated WAY more than 15 good flash games, but I’ll pick the cream of the crop for this post.

Robokill: Man I blew so much time on this game. I actually played it with a 360 controller using xpadder to map the controls to the keys used in the game. There are loads of weapons and levels in the free version, but if you want to play more you’ll have to pay for level 5 onwards. The screenshot doesn’t do it justice, this really is a great browser game.

Frantic 2: In my original 15 games post, I recommended the original Frantic flash game. They’ve now released its sequel. It’s pretty much been improved in nearly every way.

Ice Breaker: Really, really good game. I’ve seen this type of game before, but never produced with such a high quality. I have a soft spot for good pixel art, which this game has. It also has excellent music. The gameplay requires you to make cuts in the ice to free the trapped Vikings and get them back to their ship. Easy at first, but you will scratch your head in some of the later levels.

Okami Flash Game: Just keep getting the items to progress. The more items you get in a row the greater the multiplier. Simple enough graphics but effective.

Don’t Look Back: Very simple and old-school looking game but damn is it good. This one pretty much distracted the entire office where I work for about half an hour until we’d all completed it. It isn’t that difficult, but some of the puzzles will have you scratching your head in confusion.

Retroshoot: Very addictive game. It’s a throw back to the old arcade side/up scrolling shmups. On a few gos, I managed to get to lvl 11 before having to use a continue.

Koi2: Words can’t describe this game. I’ve played it quite a few times and I still can’t work out “why?”. I think the aim of the game is to shoot your hand at the woman on the other side of the table and poke her in the eye… just play it and see for yourself.

Domo-kun’s Angry Smashfest!: Domo-kun and the powerpuff girls. KEELLL THEM!!! I love the artwork in this. If this game had been released on the Genesis when I was a kid I would of bought (and probably paid £60 for it also, man how things have changed)

Amberial: Get a bouncing ball to the finish line. A lot more difficult than it sounds.

Giraffe Attack: Short but hilarious game. A basic upscrolling shmup. Music and graphics are excellent.

Canabalt: Great game, and what’s even better about is that the level is randomly generated so no 2 games of it will be the same. Just keep running to the right, the more you survive without hitting anything the faster you’ll go.

Cat Cat Watermelon: Simple (to begin with) physics based game. Just stack the cats and watermelons (as well as some other objects). The music is also retro-awesome.

SAS Zombie Assault 2: Similar to Left4KDead, it’s a top down shooter. Hold the house and fend off the incoming Zombie horde.

The Unfair Platformer: This game wants you to lose. It’s really a trial of attrition, how much failure can you handle before you quit, lol

Queens: I love the simple Pixel Art in this. Like the previous game this ones aim is to make you lose. You’ll pass it by correctly remembering the areas and timing your jumps.

In browser flash games are the best though. Even though I have a PC that can run Crysis at eye bleeding detail and a hefty PS3 with it’s cell processor I still end up sinking equal if not more time into little addictive flash based games on the internet or my phone. XKCD said it best in this comic strip

Here are links to my previous 2 posts, if you haven’t read them yet then you’ll now have 45 games to try out:

15 addictive online games

15 more addictive online games

… and here’s 15 more: -

Pwong: Pong but with a few noticable twists that make it instantly addictive. The use of a remix of the song “popcorn” is also inspired.

Ping: In the same vein, this is another Pong clone with a twist. Double the paddles, double the fun (or difficulty that is)

Threesome: I found this game very addictive. You control 3 characters and guide them one by one to unlock the next stage. Be careful, you could sink a lot of time into this.

I love traffic: Control the traffic lights to keep traffic flowing but avoid causing any crashes. The difficulty ramps up fairly quickly.

Instant Action: Wow, what can be said of this site. Just try it out. My favourite game is “Fallen Empires: Legions”, a CTF style 3D game, with in-browser graphics comparable to Quake 3. Needs to be played to be believed. Yes that screenshot is an ACTUAL shot from what the game will look like running in your browser.

Fantastic Contraption: Really, really amazing game. It pretty much lets you take it where your imagination wants. Just type its name into youtube to see some of the contraptions people have come up with.

Line Rider: By the same people who made fantastic contraption. This is another game which lets your imagination run riot. Again, check out youtube videos. Some of the levels people have created are works of art.

Tower of Greed: Just keep moving upwards. A throw back to the 16bit era

Globe Throtter XL: How well do you know your Geography? Simple to get into and play.

Effing Hail: Fun game where you get to destory things by controlling how large the hail gets before it hits the ground

Sperm Rider: Don’t worry, the sperm has really nothing to with the gameplay. It’s pretty funny though.

Ragdoll Cannon: Interesting physics based game where you get to shoot stick men at stuff. Gets hard fast.

BallDroppings: Not really a game. More of an interactive audio and physics demonstration. Give it a go to see what I mean.

Super Stacker: Don’t worry it’s not as easy as the screenshot. Give it a go and see how far you can get.

Tower Blaster: Starts out easy enough. The aim is pretty simple. Sort the blocks of your tower so that they decrease in number from the bottom up. Not as easy as it sounds.

Left 4K Dead: Based on the Valve game “Left 4 Dead” it is a pretty good, java based game. What is so amazing about it is that it’s only 4KBs in size.

Mirrors Edge 2D: If you haven’t played the full version of this game (you should, it’s excellent) here is a 2D taster of the gameplay.

Totem Destroyer: Great game, which is as much about your timing as it is about planning which block to remove next.

Coign of Vantage: Very interesting game. At first you’ll be at a loss as to what the goal is. But once you realise it you’ll see just how unique this game is.

Warzone Tower Defense: I love Tower Defense games, and this is another excellent example of one. Plenty of turrets to choose from and loads of different ways to position them.

Free Tetris: Need I say more. It’s Tetris.

Electric Box: Interesting game where you have to get an electrical current from point A to B by whatever means available.

Play Hanna in a Choppa: Reminiscent of some of the old gravity based games on the C64. This game succeeds because it remembered to keep the gameplay simple and addictive

Boomstick: Just shoot the stuff flying overhead and collect bullets. Simple.

Boomshine: Feels a bit random at first, but eventually you’ll get used to the mechanics and know when you properly let off an explosion

Launchball: Get a ball from point A to point B. Not as easy as it sounds

Auditorium: Very interesting and unique game. Has to be played. You basically just get a stream to hit various points by using the tools available.

Hunted Forever: Just keep running.

Knuckleheads: Like a 2D platformer, but not quite.

Frogger: The old classic gets reborn. Still as addictive as ever.

Frantic: Upscroller shmup. Highly addictive but gets difficult real fast

SuPuzzle: A puzzle game. But if does feel good when you figure them out.

Tactics Arena: I absolutely love this game. Not only is it a good game (sorta like a simpler version of Chess) but you are actually playing against real people. It got me through some long breaks in college when there was nothing to do but hang out in the PC labs.

Doeo: A fairly simple concept but interesting to play for the music and visuals. You just have to move your mouse over the Doeos to capture them.

ZWOK: A game that takes its inspiration from the old game Tanks and Worms. You play against real people and have to throw snowballs and try and take out the other players.

Flow: More than likely you’ve heard of this game, if not then play it now. It’s simple and relaxing. Your main aim is absorb other creatures and slowly grow your creature and its abilities. It’s very similar to the first stage of the game Spore.

Tower Defense Games: These are another one of my personal favorites, in fact I play a lot of the PS3 game Pixeljunk Monsters with the wife as its a coop tower defense game. But if I’m away from my console these flash games are just as good.

Powder Game v5.6: Not really a game, more of a simulator. Still, I’ve spent more time messing around with this one than I have with most flash game.

Dolphin Olympics 2: Pretty simple concept, control a Dolphin with WASD and make him do tricks. Reminds of Ecco the Dolphin on the Sega Genesis.

Hoshi Saga 2: A very curious series of mini games, the point of which is to find or make a star. Some of the puzzles will be blatantly obvious whereas others will be completely obscure.

Motherload: This is another very popular game that has been out for a long time. It’s odd because you think it will go on forever, but there is a definite ending to it. Play it for about 45 minutes and you’ll get to the rather odd ending.

Puzzle Farter: Absolutely hilarious game. Headphones are a must have. Kinda like Mario if he’d been eating beans the night before.

Orange Runner: A game where you have to run fast and avoid obstacles to stop you from slowing down.

Cubefield: Like a very basic version of the SNES game, F-Zero.

Ownage Burst: This game has pretty much the best title of any flash game I’ve ever played. It’s also very good. Plays out a lot like Metal Slug.

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So first off, how do you find new music?

Music Discovery Sites:

Well there are quite a few music discovery sites out there that will link bands and music depending on their genre, so all you really need to do is start with a band you like and work from there. The difference with the ones I’m about to list is that they have used really intuitive visual environments to help you navigate through the recommended bands.

Top 5:

Musicmesh

This is usually my #1 stop when searching for new music as its interface pretty much has everything, apart from the ability to increase the amount of results displayed. Each node in the music map is an album recommendation. You navigate through the bands by clicking on the album, which will bring up track listings, allow you to access wikipedia info, play videos, read reviews and purchase from amazon.

Score:

TuneGlue

Next to Musicmesh, this site is really intuitive and fun to use. It doesn’t provide near as much info but it is still quite well designed. It is powered by Last.fm and Amazon data. My main gripe with it is its complete lack of ability to allow you to listen to the music. But if you matched this fairly simple and fast site with a music listening site it could work really well.

Score:

Liveplasma

Much the same as music-map but a little bit more graphical. As with music-map, the closer a node is to another the more related they are. Also, the larger a node, the more popular it is. Colours are also used to show which artists music is most similar. It’s worth registering with this site as it will allow you then to save your favourite artists and also share your saved maps with friends.

Score:

music-map

This was one of the first music discovery sites that I came across. It seems to be fairly widely known. Unlike Musicmesh it gives Artist recommendations rather than Album recommendations. The way it works is that when you search for an Artist, the closer the nodes in the map are the more likely those Artists will have a similar sound, thus giving a greater chance that you will also like their music. Use this site in conjuntion with a good music listening site as it doesn’t allow you to listen to any music.

Score:

Amaznode

This site is mainly used for exploring Amazon’s product catalog, thus the name mashup “Amaz” “node”. Just type in an Artists name and watch the map of that Artists and related Artists albums start filling the screen. It’s a neat tool for searching Amazon, but as it does not allow you to listen to music and it also can take a while, depending on your connection, to fill the map, it might be worth using either Tuneglue or music-map if you want a simpler interface.

Score:

Other Music Discovery sites you can check out:

Dimvision MusicMap

JSViz

Touchgraph

Music IP Playground

MyStrands Playlist Mapping

Burst Labs

Playola

Music Listening Sites:

Now that you’ve found your new music, you might want an easy way to listen to it, create playlists… etc. The following sites offer these features. I’m sure there are a load more of them out there but these are the best ones I’ve found so far.

Top 4:

Grooveshark Lite

This site, unlike songza, has a very extensive interface, reminding me of iTunes slightly. What’s great about it is that you can open it up in a winow and resize it and the webpage will resize accordingly, keeping all the relevant features in the window, allowing you to have it the size of your average desktop music player/library. It’s definitely my first stop when looking to queue up a few songs into a playlist and listen to whilst in work or at home browsing. The interface is also very intuitive so needs little explaining. Visit this site and wonder how you lived without it.

Score:

Songza

This is the first site I came across and seems to be widely used at the moment. It has a very simple, google-esque, homepage, although recently adverts seem to be taking over the top of it. You simply search for your desired artist/song to get a list of songs related to your search then click on it and choose to either share, rate, add to playlist or, of course, play. My only problem with it is that it can get flooded with poor quality songs, but I guess the older the site gets the better the rating system will be.

Score:

Mix Turtle

Like songza and grooveshark lite, but doesn’t really bring anything new to the table except for a great search box, which brings up recommendations from its library as you type. Its a good site and should be used it either of the previously mentioned sites are running a little slow.

Score:

Muxfind

A fairly interesting take on the music search engine. You search for a band you like and then are given a selection of “muxtapes” (i.e. playlists created by other users) to listen to that match closely the band you are looking for. View it more like an audible music discovery site rather than visual. But don’t use it if you specifically want to listen to a band as most of the time the playlists are anything but the band you are looking for.

Score:

Other Music Listening sites you can check out:

Afternoon Delight

Bedtime Tunes

Deezer

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