Friday, December 19, 2008

Snow day

As of 4:54 a.m. this morning, it's official: Snow Day!

Good thing, too, as the car already has at least five inches on it and the snow is falling furiously. Even with the drapes closed, there is a certain ethereal glow that invades the room - the luminosity of the snow. It is very, very pretty, though when I need to go out and dig things out I may change my mind on that.

In honor of a play day and my first day of vacation, I thought I'd link to some of my favorite time wasters.

Snowcraft is a cute little game used ten years ago as a company's on-line holiday card. The object is to win a snowball fight. You control the kids in red. To move them, left click on them and move the mouse. This also pulls back your throwing arm - the longer you hold the mouse down, the further you will throw.

Hitting a kid in green once knocks them down; they do, however, get back up, as it is the second direct hit that knocks them out. If you are hit once, a blue "dizzy" indicator flashes around that kid. As with the green kids, a second hit knocks that kid out of the game.

The best part? Listening to the kids in green giggle when they win (and they always do!)

Whack the penguin - Click once and penguin jumps. Click a second time and the yeti swings. How far can you make the penguin fly? Note this is the family friendly version of this game, not the one where the penguin...er...explodes.

Yeti 3 - what is it with Yetis and penguins? Click and hold and Yeti winds up for the pitch. Release the mouse and he releases the penguin. Penguin goes higher if he bounces off the seals. How high can you throw him?

Eight letters in search of a word - Classic "find the anagrams" game, but with eight letter words instead of six or seven, for those of you with a more erudite vocabulary.

The Impossible Quiz - Out of the box thinking for this one. I just found my cheat sheet notes on this one - not only is it impossible, it's addicting.

Assembler - Creative thinking, the ability to visualize solutions and a steady hand will take you far in this game.

Escape games - This is a class of games, where you are confined to an area and you need to find and use objects in order to escape. Try Turkey escape for your first one - it's rather easy. The escape games from Gameshandbook are beautifully done, but challenging.

Beware, many, many escape games are written by Japanese developers, and may have been translated from Japanese. Think of it as adding another level of challenge to the puzzle!

I need to go start the coffee and figure out what to do with the extra day. Until it stops snowing, hot chocolate and a book will be the order of the day, I think.

Enjoy the games!

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