Here’s a delightful little flash game that trivialises a serious problem faced by millions of Americans — the need to fart on a long elevator ride. You’re accompanied by the most clueless olfactory-impaired elevator attendant ever, as every one I’ve ever ridden with could detect the presence of fart in concentrations as small as one poot particle per billion.

I get to about seven floors and 21,000 points before I either rip enough arse that the bellman notices or I crap my pants (that is the implied ending, I believe.) Anyone have any pro tips? Besides, you know, taking the stairs?

Oh, and let me tell you what else is hilarious — crop dusting Plunkett. That guy always pins it on McWhertor.

Elevator Fart [GoGoBox]

There are multipliers for speedy finishes, and objects that can temporarily shrink you, turn you into a ball so you may pass certain gates, or traps that significantly expand you as a penalty. A web cookie allows you to resume your progress later. Add in an excellent soundtrack and you have a great Sunday timewaster. Enjoy.

Growbox was developed by Flash Tangent.

Growbox [King.com]

As someone who’s quit a lot of jobs, and part of a generation increasingly A.D.D. about its career choices, I can sympathise. Sometimes, even when it doesn’t make any sense to others, you do have to make this kind of change to reset your creativity, motivation, professional growth or for whatever reason Mr David did choose to take the plunge. Based on the ending screen, it sounds like his departure was amicable. Best of luck.

Leaving [Newgrounds]

The NERF Vulcan EBF-25 and Recon CS-6 have finally hit Aussie shores, and to mark the occasion we have four Vulcans and four Recons to give away to dexterous Kotaku readers. To go into the running to score one of the eight blasters, simply click through to our NERF portal and test your trigger finger on the shooter game.

Each Saturday in July – from July 4 to July 25 – we’ll be handing out one Vulcan or one Recon to the week’s top two scorers. Now because we have an insatiable need to confuse things like to give you a headstart here at Kotaku, the game is already up and running. Which means you have just under two weeks to record the highest score and be eligible for the first round of prizes on July 4.

Remember: only one prize per person is allowed and you must leave a valid email address to be eligible.

[Terms and Conditions]

[NERF on Kotaku]

The Games and Extras page of the official U.S. Air Force website is chock full of interesting little activities to help demonstrate how much fun it is to be in the Air Force. While a majority of the selections amount to nothing more than slightly interactive demos, the ECHO ZULU section has several scenarios to play through, from using flares to scare insurgents, to using remote-controlled planes to scare insurgents. I’m sensing a theme.

Sure, it might not be as entertaining as America’s Army 3, but it probably cost us U.S. taxpayers a whole lot less.

Games and Extras [U.S. Air Force]

That’s the idea behind the annual Life. Love Game Design Challenge, now in it’s second year.

Jennifer Ann’s Group today announced the winners of their second annual flash game design contest, handing out $US1,500 to Jared Sain for first place. Runners Up Brian Crick and Toronja Concepts each received $US100. A door prize of another $US100 was awarded to Bence Joful.

All four of their games are playable over on the Jennifer Ann’s Group webpage. As a judge I’ve already played through all of the entries and was surprised to find how the developers tried to tackle the serious issue this time around.

The games include versions of tower defence games, a music game and even a few click adventure titles.

Other judges for the challenge were group founder (and my brother) Drew Crecente, advisory board member Dr. Elizabeth Richeson, Independent Games Festival chairman Simon Carless, Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo, GameDaily editor-in-chief Live Goad, Persuasive Games co-founder Dr. Ian Bogost, and professor Brenda Brathwaite.

2009 Game Contest Winners [Jennifer Ann's Group]

Some wit cooked up a HD-version of Tetris – I can’t even begin to count the grid here – which makes dying or clearing lines an agonisingly long process.

Everyone who’s played this and blogged about it so far instead have created abstract art or raced each other to a fastest death time, some taking hours. I tried halfheartedly to work on clearing a line, but once you screw up the first piece and realise just how goddamn long it’ll take to lay the foundation just to clear the line above it – forget it. I start dropping pieces like I’m a kindergartener drizzling out coloured sandcastles.

Certainly there is at least one masochist out in Kotakopolis who’s willing to try to clear a line, or race their way to death. Good luck. Post your times in the comments below. Winner gets a big ol’ cookie.

Tetoris [Soviet Russia, via IndieGames.com]

There are hundreds of games on the iPhone at the moment. Problem is, most of them are awful, little more than rubbish flash games with a US$0.99 price tag.

According to a report on PocketGamer, however, Apple may be looking at a way to get around this, by dividing the App Store’s games into two separate sections: one for shitty $0.99 titles, one for “premium” games.

And what constitutes a “premium” game? They’ll be games priced at $19.99, and they’ll be restricted to polished, “proper” efforts by proper, big-name publishers.

If this pans out, it’d be a smart move by Apple. While a lot has been made of the iPhone’s potential to compete against Nintendo and Sony in the portable space, up til now, it’s struggled to really cement itself as a go-to gaming device, with most of even the biggest-name games suffering from short lifespans and technical woes.

But a $20 store would encourage bigger games from bigger developers. Which is exactly what the iPhone and iPod Touch need to really get them in the game.

Rumour: Apple planning $19.99 games section on App Store [PocketGamer, via Gizmodo]

This is brilliant. And perfect for a lazy Friday afternoon. Similar to Jonathan Blow’s Braid, Tyler Glaiel’s Closure is a puzzle game presented as a platformer where the emphasis is very much on figuring out what to do rather than taxing your manual dexterity to actually do it.

Without giving too much away, as part of the appeal is deducing its cleverness all on your own, it’s all about using light to navigate your way through the environment. You can pick up and place globes of light to reveal – and also conceal – the arrangement of platforms and walls. Give it a go then come back to beg for help when you inevitably get stuck.

[Closure via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Looking for something to do that’s not work-related while at work? Kill your output with , a brilliantly simple block-stacker that renders one useless as an employee.