Free: Crayon Physics

Kloonigames is a company that releases experimental freeware games every month – usually these are completely off the wall and features gameplay mechanics that’s never been used before (no dash games or hidden object games for you) and naturally, I check every once in a while to see what’s new. There’s one game already posted here quite like Crayon Physics, but that’s a flash game. This is a downloadable freeware game from Kloonigames.

Basically, in Crayon Physics you’re given a piece of paper to draw stuff on, and the aim is to get the ball to the star. That’s it. You can make rocks, draw ladders, what have you, as long as the result is a 2D platform area where you can get the ball to the star. And yes, it’s much more complicated and requires more strategy than you might think. It’s even alt-tab friendly and plays in fullscreen.

Play Crayon Physics here.

Once that’s got you hooked, the developer is working on a full version of the game that involves much more complicated physics – axle and rotation and wheels and all that, and all it requires is your imagination. You can check out a Youtube video here:

And sign up for their newsletters hoping to be the first to know when it does come out.

 

Free: Excit

Excit is a ball bouncer much like the ones found in old adventure games. The premise of the old game is simple – push a ball in any direction and it’ll keep rolling unless stopped by a wall; bring the ball to the exit without it running off the edge of the board.

Replace ball with Spreadsheet cursor and walls with solid blocks, add some colored portal blocks for teleportation, and you have Excit. Addictive little thing. It has 30 levels, and each has a password. There’s even a ranking system. Collect the MIS icons to score a higher ranking.

Play Excit.

 

Video: Earth Eternal

EE is a high-quality, free, 3d MMORPG*. It takes place in an epic fantasy world full of fantastical monsters…

…and will also play right from your browser and will be completely free. (Well, you know what they mean. Free like MapleStory free. Option to purchase extra things, furniture for your dwelling likely, but the core game will be free.) Frankly, it looks stunning for something that plays in your browser.

Why is this under “original” you may ask? No elves, no dwarves, no been there done that fantasy races. It’s definitely different.

Read their FAQ.

*Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game

 

Announce: Chain Factor

Chain Factor is a new kind of puzzle game where you drop numbered/gray discs onto a game board, where it sticks, disappears, explodes, causes chain reactions, and all kinds of other exciting things. The game rules are like none I’ve seen before, and there’s three different modes plus a leaderboard already, even though it’s technically pre-BETA.

Chain Factor is looking for play testers to prepare for a BETA launch – give it ago. Math can be strangely addictive.

Play The Chain Factor.

 

Portal 2D

Portal 2D – like portal 3D, but runs right from your browser. Your only weapon is a gun that shoots portals, and your job is to get from entrance to exit. The first few levels are extremely easy as they just show you the ropes, but gets progressively harder as it require you to use gravity to your advantage. For example, if you fall from a great height into a portal, then come out of a portal that shoots you out horizontally from a wall, the gravity is transferred from your jump. Cool, eh?

If you like it, you might as well buy the 3D version from Valve. It’s short, but way worth it.

Play Portal 2D

 

FREE games sites (Pjio and GGE)

I knew I had this in my bookmarks some place, but the mysteries of searching del.icio.us for your own bookmarks is still beyond my abilities … sometimes. The site is Pjio, where “gamers and game makers like to hang out.” It’s like the other game community sites – a huge number of games, some good, some bad, some abysmal. The best part is the rating system – good games float to the top while bad games sink to the bottom so the casual observer can just play the good stuff.

And good stuff there are plenty. Sudoku games that are free and much better than their glitzy commercial counterparts, creative puzzle games based on shape physics, tycoon games – anything that’s available from a major portal is also available here, with a mix of free trials and web games.

Take a look around Pjio – it’s like YouTube for games, and there’s definitely potential.

Another site, The Great Games Experiment, does basically the same thing but is less than perfectly organized. It includes a lot of links to commercial games with screenshots on a wide range of platforms, and you have to dig around for the games you can download and play. As for “freshness,” Azada is listed as their feature puzzle. Enough said. It does have a good community going and all the game profiles are user/developer submitted. It’s ran by the wonderful people at Garage Games, the people who made the Toque Game Builder.

(If you have no idea what I’m talking about, let’s just say that Grimm’s Hatchery as well as G.H.O.S.T. Hunters were made using the TGB.)

Check out the Great Games Experiment for yourself. You might have better luck finding things than I do.

 

RAF Global Rescue

A mission-based game to promote the Royal Air Force, Global Rescue’s got it all – obstacles to fly around, hostages to rescue, guns to fire. All of it presented in the usual Kerb quality.

RAF Global Rescue

 

Notessimo

Kongregate is a site like Newgrounds. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me explain: they’re both flash game communities where independent Flash game developers post their games and get noticed. There are around 1500 games on there and a lot of them are badly made, but the gems are amazing, with no commercial counterparts that I can think of.

Notessimo is a music maker with an easy to use interface that you can use to create music in minutes. I played with it a bit when it was new, and it has now been updated to feature songs by other Kongregate users. It’s amazing the things it can do – you can create complete MIDI songs on this thing. There are tons of instruments to choose from, and it’s as simple as clicking on a music staff.

Notessimo is definitely worth a bookmark.

 

Present! 10 objects to hunt… brought to you by Curtis. :)

[edit: good things comes in more than one? The top photo was taken this afternoon, and the bottom one was taken when he was only 6 months. He's walking now!]

 

Visit the Classics: Tradewinds Legends

This will be the first of a new segment on MinuteGamer – Visit the Classics. To those who only recently started playing casual games, it might help to know what games can be considered original, and others simply really good derivatives of originals. These articles will also involve some of the best and addictive casual games ever made.

I can’t think of a better game to start with than Tradewinds Legends. It sets the stage for one of the most popular titles to hit the market lately, Chocolatier. My first experience with it was with my trusty little Palm T200 (The T’s were quite popular back in 2001 or so, and I was the very lucky owner of one) and playing the game endlessly on the subway to and from rehearsal. There were only something like 4 ports, 4 characters, and no quests – only trading. Still, it was a most additive game – sea battles, trading, travelling – all in a little package I could take on the go!

Tradewinds Legends is the culmination of what worked and what didn’t in the old Tradewinds games: buy low, sell high, get more ships, do over 100 quests. It was addictive. It was hilarious. It didn’t take itself seriously. It was easy enough that the battles didn’t stop the casual gamers from advancing, yet hard enough to keep you buying ships, upgrading the cannons, and trade in contraband. It also has a story – for each character – that rivaled any big name commercial simulation game.

So, where did it all come from? Trading at sea is hardly an original concept. Sid Meier’s Pirates! was published in 1987, which I believe to be the spiritual predecessor of all sea-going simulation games. It had trading, diplomatic relations, fencing, sea battles, siege scenes – all that. But Tradewinds took the concept and made it something that you can play for 10-15 minutes or for hours at a time, without having to track where you’ve been and what tasks you have at hand because it’s all in an in-game log. Tradewinds made a genre that was previously restricted to a testosterone filled genre (cannons, battles, saving maidens) all accessible to the causal female player.

Here’s to an original that is still addictive and very much playable – the Tradewinds series!

For a game that involves more trading, some arcade elements, and no battles, try Chocolatier.

You can find all of these games free (not a trial) and ad-supported on MostFun. Since these are a little older, ads are only at the startup and shutdown, and not during the game.