timewasters

Weird Artistic Timewaster: The Majesty of Colours

4:30AM Maggie Greene | The Majesty of Colors is weird, lovely little game by Gregory Weir that’s been making the rounds as of late. There are five different endings, and your (in)action throughout determines the outcome. More »

Sunday Timewaster: HDOS Databank request 01

5:30AM Maggie Greene | This is a fun little remake (more or less) of the puzzle mode of Tetris Attack; you have a limited number of moves to swap blocks and clear the whole board. While the early levels are pretty easy, some of the later stages get pretty complicated — all in all, not a bad little browser-based timewaster to kill some time on a Sunday. HDOS Databank request 01 [Game Reclaim via IndieGames] More »

Sunday Timewaster: And We Really Mean It

12:00PM Owen Good | Insidious Tuna sent this along. I swear I’ve seen it somewhere before, but apparently not on Kotaku. This game has a very simple premise and a very difficult opponent — your own patience. My only advice to you is that, after you click to start the level, any movement of your mouse, click, or key strike fires the gun. This game should be used at business leadership conferences, because it would definitely show who was the hypercompetitive, win-everything-at-all-costs guy in the crowd. I got to level 7 before I just had to fool with it and kill the puppy. But I’m thinking I could beat this game if I had a good book to read in the meantime. More »

Sunday Timewaster: Fantastic Contraption

9:00AM Owen Good | Reader Alex B. sent in this — Fantastic Contraption — a physics flash game where you string together wheels and joints in order to carry an object toward a goal on the screen. It’s nice nonviolent trial-and-error fun, indulging both the competitive urge to be as efficient as possible, and the creative impulse to be as outlandish as you can get away with. More »

Saturday Timewaster: Aether

6:00AM Maggie Greene | We’re having a slow weekend here at Kotaku: Owen is off, and I’m holed up in bed trying to stave off the flu; Aether made a nice respite from my headache and general feelings of ‘blah.’ It’s a weird little game — a little abstract and fuzzy around the edges, you control a little guy and his pet who can fly through the air with the greatest of ease, using said pet’s tongue as a grappling hook/trapeze …. I actually quite enjoyed zipping through space from planet to planet, trying to solve puzzles and bring the colour back to unhappy people (the core of an unhappy planet seen above). It’s not the most intuitive game ever — it did take me some time to figure out how to successfully get off the ground and into the atmosphere – and I broke out the mouse because the trackpad wasn’t cutting it. Still, it’s pretty and soothing (and short) — good for a bit of time on a Saturday afternoon. Aether [Armour Games via IndieGames] More »

Saturday Timewaster: Attention Hog

5:30AM Maggie Greene | From Chris Basmajian comes a darling, piggieful little game called Attention Hog. As the titular attention hog, your job is to capture the attention (and love) of as many people as possible, while avoiding bacon and nabbing power ups to make your job a little easier. Basmajian says the game “reflects some of the social and psychological trends present in social-networking communities, including self-promotion, social anxiety, obsessive need for peer validation, and distraction as entertainment”. Heavy stuff. Ian Bogost notes that while he’s “happy to see a game that critiques today’s attention culture, but I’m not sure Attention Hog reaches the level promised in the description”. Still, while I’ll admit to being a sucker for cartoonish pigs (my little Monokuro Boo collection is probably a touch unseemly for a 25 year old), it’s adorable and worth a few minutes of time on a lazy weekend. Attention Hog [Chris Basmajian via Water Cooler Games] More »