I, like a number of people, have a few days of unexpected leisure at my disposal in the days leading up to New Years.
So instead of me helping you, here’s your chance to help me: pick a relatively new “casual” game that you think it fun, and talk about it in the comments. Give me something new to play. Bonus points if it runs on both PC and Mac.
I’ll start the bidding by telling you that you that if you like words, you should surely go download Bonnie’s Bookstore. (I know a Mac version exists — I helped beta-test it — but it’s not available from that page for some reason. I’ve asked the author to clarify).
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Here’s a whole mess of flash (and occasionally java) browser games: http://jayisgames.com/best_of_2005.php
I spent a good chunk of last week playing Weird Worlds (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/), sequel to Strange Adventures in Infinite Space. I don’t have the patience to ever play 4X games to conclusion, and really only enjoy the initial exploration phases. For instance, once the entire map is explored in Civ I tend to get tired of the stalemate/ware phase and just restart the game. Weird Worlds is nice because it’s pretty much just that exploration phase. And I can complete a game in 10-20 minutes, not all weekend. Only instead of that “one more turn” addiction, I get stuck into a “one more game” problem…
In my holiday spare moments, I have been playing the delightful, decade-lasting Rocks’n'Diamonds, a Boulder-Dash inspired game that goes beyond the original. It supports not only the Olde-Style play of Boulder Dash but also of popular variants Emerald Mines and Supaplex, and, strangely enough, of Sokoban. It’s GPL licensed and versions are available for Linux, Unix, DOS, Win32, and Mac OS X.
The default levels are entertaining and often puzzling. A legion of adoring fans have created additional level packages, should you decide to play for the next century or so.
The link:
http://www.artsoft.org/rocksndiamonds/
Cheers,
Tom
I spent some of the weekend working back through the Grow games after being linked to the holiday edition:
http://www.eyezmaze.com/grow/tree/index.html
My vote goes to Oasis. One of the few casual games that actually hooked me enough to purchase this year. Kind of a blend between minesweeper and civ I guess. Only other game I ended up buying was the diablo knockoff Fate.