Tag: flash

I ran across a few flash games recently that were pretty fun to play. I thought perhaps I’d share the fun with everyone.

As part of his college thesis, Jenova Chen produced a game with Nicholas Clark and Austin Wintory. That game was called Flow and has since caught the eye of Sony and become one of the hottest downloads for the new PS3 console. Fortunately, they initially wrote the game using Flash and it’s online for you to play.

Flow is a very unique game with some interesting mechanics. It’s kind of like a free-form pacman type game. You start out as a small creature, something akin to a paramecium or plankton. You move around the screen and can “eat” other creatures in the world around you. As you feed on these creatures, you grow longer and more complex. Depending on the type of creature you eat, you can grow different parts.

There are also two very specific creatures that cause you to move up and down the levels. You can find these creatures easily by following their pulse. Every so often a pulse emanates outwards from the creature and appears on your screen. Follow the direction of the pulse and you find the creature. The black pulse creature causes you to descend a level while the white pulse causes you to ascend a level.

Overall this is a rather addicting game despite it’s simplicity. I highly recommend checking it out.

The next game is called Snack Dash. This game is very similar to the Sonic the Hedgehog games but with a twist or two. The premise of the game is to teach kids to eat foods that are good for them. So, the objective here is to snack on the carrots, apples, and other “good” foods.

One neat addition to the normal sonic formula is the “bad” foods. If you eat the bad foods you grow fat and need to exercise. If not, you can’t run as fast, can’t jump, etc. Simple, but effective. The game itself is pretty fun and I recommend checking it out.

And finally we have ZWOK. ZWOK is sort of a Worms clone, but is multiplayer. You have a few weapons to choose from and fire your shots at the other team. Each team has 3 players.

The interesting aspect of this game is that you can’t see the other players move until you have finished moving. This means that any shot you take may not matter since the target may have moved. It puts a neat spin on the game and makes it a little more challenging. A fun game for those periods of downtime between work assignments…