Rate your colour sensitivity with this test that asks you to arrange four sets of 22 colour chips in the proper sequence. I got 100% on my first try, but I had to take frequent breaks and it took me more than an hour to finish.

The Eyeballing Game has you trying to construct shapes and bisect angles just by eyeballing it.Great fun, especially for geeks like me who think they have a good eye for this sort of thing.

Not getting enough of the human Olympics? Try the addictive Dolphin Olympics.

This is a very cute, very fun, and very addicting game about launching a hedgehog into outer space. Kottke managed four days, but my best is nine.

(Via Kottke)

The bar is a fun game that has you working in what appears to be a British establishment, tending bar and serving a variety of drinks to customers.

Here's a fun little game that has you naming as many elements of the periodic table as you can in 15 minutes. An even better game, in my opinion, involved US presidents.
(Via Kottke)

Splashback

This is one of my favourite games, and it's strange it didn't manage to get posted sooner. Maybe because I was never really any good at it, I don't know.

You start the game with 10 drops of liquid and a board filled with blobs. You can click in any square to add a drop of liquid to a blob. Too much liquid and the blob will explode, sending a drop in all four directions and adding an extra drop of liquid to your tank. The object is to clear all the blobs from the screen.

I find this game interesting because there's often a chance for good strategy, adding drops in such a way as to get the largest chain reaction. It's also fun to watch the screen clear as blob after blob explodes. I'm not sure about the whole alien and little girl thing, though. She's got this kind of knowing look on her face like we're down with something. Are we supposed to be down with the alien? I'm not. He's got a gut like my old man.

Link

Shuffle

In Shuffle, both you and your opponent start with a row of marbles, with the object being to knock your opponent's marbles off the board. Each round you win shortens your supply by one marble and moves you a step toward the center of the board. The first person to win four rounds wins the set.

Anyone good at pool will be good at this game. I'm not good at pool, and lasted only ten rounds before finally getting clobbered.

Link

Rose and Camellia

You play Reiko, newly widowed and shunned from her home by the aristocratic members of the family. In order to secure her place in the house, she must defeat the other family members in a slap fight -- or what the game refers to as "the elegant art of feminine conflict".

The game is easy to play, but takes some time to get used to. Fortunately, it's also just silly enough to hold you attention, without being so silly as to lose credibility. I had great success on the Easy level; the harder levels require more patience than I was willing to put in.

Link (via Memepool)

50 States Game

Place all 50 states in their correct positions on the map. The game keeps track of your average distance "wrong" as well as how long it takes you. I managed to make it through once without any errors, but some of it was luck.

While it isn't the most amusing game in the world, it's good to reference every now and then, just to keep my US geography fresh.

Link

Guess-the-Google

A grid of 20 pictures is presented, each representing a single keyword. Your goal is to determine which word, plugged into Google, will produce search results with these images.

There are some tricky ones sometimes, but the game is really as easy as it seems. It's also a lot more addictive than it seems. Be prepared to spend a lot of time here.

Link

Desktop Tower Defense

Another terrifically addictive game that overwhelmed me so much I was playing it at all hours -- evenings, lunchtime, even my coffee breaks.

Your goal is to arrange your defenses to prevent the Creeps from crossing the screen. You start with a limited amount of money, but you get more with each Creep you kill. You get to register your name if you survive 50 levels. If you survive 50 levels.

Link

Juggler

A simple, fun, and addictive flash game that requires you to keep the juggling balls in the air. Kinda reminds me of breakout, with balls and paddles but without the bricks.

Not as much fun as juggling in real life, but easier to do at your desk.
Link (via Darren Barefoot)

Virtual NES

I think people forget to hearken back to our halcyon days of youth, where graphics were cumbersome and sound effects were tinny, but where gameplay reigned supreme. I had an old-school Atari 2600 which, at the time, was the zenith of home video game systems -- and sure beat the hell out of our Telstar console. But next to systems like ColecoVision, it was a definite step down. A few years later, Nintendo would emerge as the leading video game console, crushing the other competitors under its flimsy white and grey plastic heels.

I remember renting NES consoles every weekend and staying up all night playing games. And although I do find it kind of disturbing that I can now play upwards of 350 NES games in java on my computer, I do like the idea that I don't have to scrounge through yard sales, pawn shops, or classified ads to look for used cartridges.

(My NES currently sits under our TV, right next the PS2. My Atari console is still MIA.)

Link

Two Winter Time Wasters

This first game, Snowcraft, has been around since 1998. I remember spending my lunchtime playing it while I worked at SEDA. I eventually completed the game, but it was very frustrating. In fact, this game is as frustrating as it is fun.


The object is to defeat the green team by hitting them with snowballs. It takes three hits to remove a player, and they do pause to wipe snow off themselves when they're hit. To move your players, just drag them around the screen. Release the mouse button to throw a snowball: the longer the button's held down, the further you can throw.

In Snowball, you use the arrow keys to control a snowball rolling down a very long hill. It gets larger and harder to control as it rolls, and you can absorb dogs, people, and other objects as you grow. Hitting a tree with reduce your size, and hitting a house will stop the game. You can see my best score in the picture.

Two simple, addictive games for your continued amusement. If I don't hear from you I'll forward your mail.

Link to Snowcraft
Link to Snowball

Dicewars

I guess it's time for playtesting to be over.

This is a highly addictive Risk-type game played with dice instead of armies. The number of dice on your land determines the strength of your attack: if you roll higher than your opponent, then you win the territory. Armies are replenished randomly at the end of your attack, one per connected territory.

There's a lot of luck involved, but maybe that's part of its charm. It's definitely part of the frustration. Although you can play with up to eight computer opponents, be sure to try some of the lower levels: it's sometimes a lot tougher to defeat two or three opponents than seven.

Link (via Games1.org)

Sudoku Combat

Like I really need another diversion in my life.

I often find myself playing sudoku on my Palm with this excellent software. It's a very addictive game; when I gave Heather my Tungsten|T for her birthday, she said, "Yay! Now I can play sudoku!"

So now there's Sudoku Combat, a simple site that pits your /\/\4D 5K!11zorz against some random opponent. The game is very easy to operate: type in a name and start the fun. It must set a cookie in your browser, because your settings and ranking are saved when you leave the site.

There are about 100 different avatars to choose from, and some are pretty funny. There's also four levels of sudoku to provide a challenge, from "easy" to "evil". And if you don't feel up to a head-to-head challenge, you can always choose to play by yourself.

Now, I'm not very fast at solving the puzzles, so most of the people I played handily kicked my ass. But it was still a lot of fun, and I expect it to eat up a lot of my free time in the coming weeks.

Link

Time-Wasting Pepsi Game

This game is quite a lot of fun for being a one-trick pony. It's not something that's going to bring you back again and again once you complete it, but it's a great waste of time if you're, say, struggling at work on a Friday afternoon. As a bonus, leave your sound on at the end of the game: he never stops drinking! After 30 minutes it becomes one of the most deeply repulsive sounds I've ever heard.

Link

Multi-User Flash Games

At The Broth you work in a shared space with as many as ten other people at the same time, moving coloured tiles around and trying to create patterns. It can be frustrating, as most people are more concerned with tearing down rather than building, but it can also be a lot of fun to work on a shared design with two or three other people.

It reminds me a lot of Someone Keeps Stealing My Letters, another multi-user site that allows you to drag those plastic fridge magnet letters around. Same idea, but sometimes I find it more appealing to write words instead of just pushing tiles. I guess I've always been more literary than visual.

Link to The Broth
Link to Someone Keeps Stealing My Letters

Da Vinci Code Quest

Just like that Chris Kohler dude over at Wired, I got involved with the Da Vinci Code early. JCQ and I had stumbled across the webgame one lazy Saturday, and we did all right with it up to the point where it directly references the book -- which I found blatantly unfair. JCQ actually ran out and purchased the book that afternoon, and then we were able to complete the game.

The writing itself is... crappy. It's crappy, okay? But the story sucked me in so hard it left friction burns on my retinas. I couldn't put it down. I gave up TV. I was juggling my daily responsibilities so I could get back to reading the book.

Now the movie's coming out, and there's a renewed interest in the Da Vinci Code. So much so that Google has released a new webgame that ties in to the movie: 24 puzzles released until May 11, at which point they vanish. If you manage to solve all the puzzles, Sony Pictures is giving away nearly half a million dollars worth of swag -- but only to US residents, which is a total drag. It's swag drag.

Link (via Google Blog)