A Green Mushroom

The summer slump is still in full swing if you aren't a StarCraft 2 fan.  Most big releases don't start coming out until late September.  All the game companies want their game to become the "must have" game of the holiday season.  This sucks for us gamers because it means we barely have any new releases at the moment and a bunch of decent games will fall through the cracks during the holidays. If game companies would pick slow times of the year to release their games they would get a lot more attention from the community.  Just look at how much press StarCraft 2 is getting right now because it's the only big game release in months.  There's usually another quiet period right after New Year's that would be a great time to generate tons of press attention. Anyway, if you're looking to fight the summer slump you can look at a bunch of the flash games I've featured lately.  I'd also like to point you towards another tower defense (I can...

Have 30 seconds to spare?  Want an intense but easily understood indie game to play?  It's a good thing I've prepared something that meets your needs.  Go play Canabalt , it takes almost no time at all to experience what it has to offer.

Image may be unrelated to post For the past few weeks whenever I've had a free minute or two I jump over to Kongregate and check out new flash games.  I barely ever visit other flash game sites because Kongregate has a persistent log-in system, chat functions, and achievements which the others lack.  I love achievements and finding them on a flash game site has made me extremely happy! Whenever I need a new game I go into the menu for badges (badges are what achievements are called on the site) and pick a badge from a game that I've never played before.  They don't give out badges to every game, so most games with badges are decent.  It's kind of like a Kongregate stamp of approval.  They aren't all winners, but it's a great way to find new games without sorting through the 30,000+ games on the site by title alone. Not only is it a good way to discover new flash games, but I love achievements for the sake of achievements.  I know that some people th...

 The summer slump is in full effect... or affect.  I never know.  Anyway, with more than a month until I get to play StarCraft 2 again I've been turning to other sources of entertainment.  I always have a book I'm reading, a series I'm watching, and a game I'm playing.  I've been contemplating whether I should start up an MMO again, but for the moment I'm happy with free flash games . If you don't already know, I love tower defense games.  They are easy to pick up and play even for a non-gamer.  Most of them don't require a huge time investment either.  Bloons TD 3 has always been one of my favorite tower defense games and I just discovered that Bloons TD 4 has been released!  That's been holding my attention for the better part of a week and I'm still highly amused by it.  Unlike other tower defense games where monsters and enemies try to reach the end of the level, Bloons TD has balloons that need popping.  The pop sound att...

The summer slump of game releases is here in force.  The only game I'm looking forward to this summer is StarCraft 2.  Nothing else coming out looks to be worthy of a purchase.   The palm tree is StarCraft 2 in the wasteland of summer releases So, what should I do with my free gaming time this summer?  Well, fallback games are always an option.  My 2 fallback games at the moment - Team Fortress 2 and Modern Warfare 2 - are still extremely fun.  I plan on wasting some summer hours on Kongregate playing through flash games that I haven't tried yet.  I love how much free content is on that site. I'm also contemplating starting up a MMO again.  I haven't been hooked on one since about this time last year.  The summer slump seems to encourage me to pick up a new - or old - MMO most summers.  Despite what I wrote the other day, I may still check out LotRO before it goes free to play.  I suppose going back to WoW is always another ...

I just realized how often a game drags me through a long and boring tutorial before getting into the action.  After renting so many Gamefly games lately and playing through at least their first hour I've determined that I hate introductions and tutorials in most games.  Developers, you need to get better at showing the player why we should love your game within the first few minutes. This is something that AAA developers can learn from flash and indie games .  You only have a few minutes to grab my attention.  After that I'm not going to play your game if I'm bored.  Don't waste time setting up an epic story.  Don't save interesting gameplay until later.  Don't limit me to an extremely linear tutorial.  Give me the game and let me test out the fun in it. In flash games I'm immediately thrown into the action.  I can figure out if I like a game within seconds.  With many console games I have to sit through the opening credits, openi...

I love to support indie games.  Indie developers aren't afraid to take a new idea and run with it.  Most of the time I find cheap indie games on steam or my ipod touch to try out.  There are all sorts of free demos on both services and a full copy of an indie game is almost always under twenty dollars.  Many are priced around a buck. If you aren't afraid of wading through some bad games the other option is to play flash games online.  The amount of free games online is amazing but finding high quality games can be a challenge. This is where Kongregate comes into play.  It's the best  flash game site that I've ever found. Kongregate has a rating system to help filter through all the junk games.  The community rates games and the site lets me sort by top rated and most played.  Every gaming distributor needs to be able to sort by rating and being able to sort by number of plays is like icing on the cake.  This is one area in which...