In Reachin'Pichin, you take the role of a genetically engineered creature whose manufacturing process went awry. While that sounds quite ominous, it's really not: you were supposed to be able to fly, but instead, you can merely hop.

Your goal in life (or in the game, at least) is to reach as high into the sky as possible, by leaping from platform to platform. At the beginning of the level you are launched from your lair beneath the surface of the planet. Once you emerge into the beautiful, pastoral air, you only need to move right and left to land on the randomly-placed platforms.

Once you land on a platform, it instantly catapults you upwards. It also vanishes, so you can't land on it again: your only hope is rising high enough, and accurately enough, to reach another platform.

It's not a very easy game, but it's super cute. The character is lovable, and the soundtrack is simply addictive. Loads of fun!

Reachin'Pichin is a hopping, kawaii Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 29 Nov 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I know what you're thinking; Tetris? Top-down action? How can these be combined into any sort of coherent time waster?

Well, Tetravalanche shows us they can be combined. You're Upman, and you're trapped inside a Tetris game. Bricks are falling from the sky, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. The real problem is Mr. "Monster-From-The-Deep" (their name, not mine). That's a scary blue monster that rises from the bottom of the screen, slowly but surely.

You must run, jump and punch your way up the ever-growing pile of bricks faster than the Monster-From-The-Deep rises. Because if it catches up with you... well, I guess you already know what happens. Use the arrow keys for running and jumping, and Ctrl for punching through bricks. If you happen to jump up right into a falling brick, that's bad: you will be propelled down with lots of force, enough to break through several levels of bricks on your descent... and find yourself ever closer to the monster.

The soundtrack is pretty cute, but leaves a bit to be desired. All in all, it's a good way to burn off a few extra minutes, and that's what time-wasters are for, right?

Run for your life in Tetravalanche -- a Tetris-themed Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

First off, Saunavihta Vortex is pretty creepy. I mean, it's not really kid-friendly. But having said that, it's can be lots of fun for teens and adults.

Basically, you control the fate of a ragdoll. You need to somehow get the ragdoll into a flaming pit. When the ragdoll gets there and stays there for three seconds, you pass the level.

To get the doll there, you need to launch, batter and roll it across the level in all sorts of creative ways. The level is composed of contraptions built of white and black bars. The white bars disappear when you click them. So if you have a "swing" that stays put thanks to a delicate balance between a white bar and a black bar, as soon as the white bar goes, that swing is going to move.

You can zoom out using SPACE to see more of the level; by default, you're zoomed in quite close. The closer zoom level is useful for getting the timing right when it's important, and zooming out helps you figure out the general direction.

A beautiful game with a unique atmosphere.

Saunavihta Vortex is a creepy physics Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 25 Nov 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yes, that's an actual screenshot up there, not an error. That's what Momiga looks like!

One dot, one button (the left mouse button, or SPACE on the keyboard), and one cute "beep" sound. That's all you get. This is probably the most bare-bones time-waster we've ever published, but it's awesome just for that.

You have to get the dot from one end of the screen to the other. The dot's starting position signifies your progress through the levels of the game. As you can see in the screenshot, the dot is quite high, so I'm fairly well advanced in the game.

On every level, your input affects the dot in a slightly different way. Sometimes your click launches the dot very forcefully, so you have to be careful. On other levels, the click causes the dot to levitate, so you have to keep clicking so that the dot doesn't crash at the bottom of the level (but don't click too fast, or it would go out the top).

It's a short time waster, but it's a fascinating one. The level on the screenshot is very frustrating, but all of the other ones were fun, and fairly easy to pass.

Momiga is an extremely minimalistic, fun Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

When Lee reviewed the original Blosics time-waster back in 2009, he concluded the review with the words "I just wish there were more levels, but I'll be heading back for another round."

Well, it seems like Lee's wish has been granted, with the Blosics 2 Level Pack. Gameplay is exactly like the original: You shoot cannon balls out of a certain area of the screen, trying to make a tower of bricks topple. When the bricks fall into the abyss you gain points, but every ball you shoot also costs you points. You also have four different balls sizes - the larger the ball, the more expensive (and powerful) it is. It comes down to figuring the most effective trajectory and tactic for toppling the tower.

The are 30 user-generated levels, and it's very addictive. I made it all the way to level 15 before the need to perform some actual work caught up with me. Very engaging.

Blosics 2 Level Pack is an awesome user-generated Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 22 Nov 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ahh, the spirit of Christmas! Not that I would know anything about that, actually... But if Christmas is your thing, you might enjoy Garden Gnome Carnage. Or actually, even if it's not your thing, but you just enjoy the concept of brutally flinging tiny, merry garden gnomes all over the screen to the sound of hectic 8-bit music, this may be for you.

You're dangling off of a building's chimney. The gnomes are storming the building, trying to get up to the chimney and spread the good cheer of Christmas. Your goal is to keep them from getting there. You do this by moving the building from side to side (don't ask me why the building moves, but it's got wheels!).

As you move the building, you dangle to and fro, hitting any gnomes that are unfortunate enough to be in your trajectory. If you hit them extra hard, you get points. The whole thing rapidly devolves into a hectic gnome-throwing fest, and when you add the air strikes that you can call by hitting Space, well, ... you get the picture!

Garden Gnome Carnage is a hectic, Christmas-themed Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Orbox B is a puzzle, but it's one with a very frenetic pace. Each level is composed of a "field" of blocks that are carefully arranged. You control a single block and the object is to get it to the exit. Here's the tricky part: once your block starts moving, it won't stop unless it hits something. And if it falls off the board, you lose. When you do hit another block, you stop -- and then it's time to figure out your next move. Which block should you hit now?

Short-term planning will only get you so far, though. As you progress, planning your moves carefully becomes more important. You must hit the other blocks in the exact sequence needed to eventually make your way to the end. The higher levels also introduce other block types that can disappear after you hit them, snap shut, or do all sorts of other tricks.

It's a minimalistic game, and it's very fast. There is no background music and restarting is instantaneous. Orbox B is also begging for an Android port - in fact, if you know of one, let me know in the comments.

Orbox B is a fast, tricky Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

When I first looked at Dogfight 2, it didn't appear all that exciting. You have to shoot down the other planes - big deal, right?

But then the game started, and I really got into it! Gameplay is fantastic! The fact that it's a side-view game made me think that it would be just a simple shoot 'em up, but it isn't like that at all. At each level, you only have a few enemies and the field doesn't continuously scroll. Your enemies doggedly pursue you and you have to execute all sorts of crazy acrobatic maneuvers to get behind them and stay on their tail while you shoot them out of the sky.

One shot isn't enough, by the way -- you need to hit each enemy several times before it goes down. However, it's not one of those games where you just keep the trigger constantly depressed and spray a hail of bullets all over the place. You need to focus: fly first, shoot second.

You also receive points for acrobatic tricks, such as executing a nose dive and getting out alive, or flying extra-high. Later levels require dropping bombs on targets (such as a heavily-guarded zeppelin). It's quite an intense game!

Dogfight 2 is an engaging, challenging Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Whitecaps on the bay:
A broken signboard banging
In the April wind.
- Richard Wright, courtesy of Wikipedia

Ah, the timeless art of haiku. This beautiful form of Japanese poetry has now been made into a Flash game, Haiku Hero. And if that sounds like a bad idea, there's a reason for it.

I just don't think that composing "timed haiku" really conforms to the spirit of the art, and truthfully, they are incredibly difficult to write. The crappy haiku you see in the screenshot was created under the threat of a ticking clock, and there were arbitrary rules thrown in for good measure ("include the word 'thirteen'").

However, the game does have an untimed mode, which is far less stressful to use. You can either embrace the suggestions the game gives you or ignore them. When you compose your haiku, a syllable counter is continuously updated, so it's easy to get the number of syllables right.

The soundtrack is nice and soothing, and when you finish playing, you can read all of the haiku you've composed. All in all, it's a fun and interesting way to get into this art form. Just stay away from the timed modes!

Haiku Hero helps you find your inner poet -- Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In Rocket Science, you control a bunch of rockets. There aren't very many, mind you (between one to three on each level), but it's what you do with those rockets that counts. You see, this is a game of careful manipulation, calculation, and observation - brute force has no place here.

Basically, you have to hit the planets with your rockets. Hit all the lava planets, and you're done. At the beginning of each level, you aim your rockets. You can move them around the designated area (surrounded by a rectangle) and change their angles. Once you're ready, just hit the FIRE button, and off they go. If everything works according to plan, you'll hit all of the lava planets (and some other planets, too) and move to the next level.

It starts off really simple - the first few levels are an absolute breeze, but they're still fun because of the physics. Things do get more challenging later on, but as far as time-wasters go, this is a fairly easy one. It's also quite kid-friendly.

Rocket Science is a fun physics Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 09 Nov 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I love World of Goo. I bought it a while back, and it's one of the most addictive games I've played.

That's part of the reason why I was so excited to find Moonlights. It shares a lot of elements with World of Goo, but is very different, too.

Like in World of Goo, you have to construct something stable out of unstable elements, and your structure needs to get to a certain destination. But that's where the similarities end, really.

Where World of Goo has a ton of personality, Moonlights is minimalistic, almost austere. Where in World of Goo you need to have enough extra Goo balls left "alive" at the end of a level to get to the next level, in Moonlights you just need to get to the target.

Moonlights doesn't have a framework story, either. Just gameplay, and it's a lot of fun. You can select multiple points at the same time, and actually "eliminate" them from your structure. This is handy because on some levels you only have so many balls. That's right - another difference is that on most levels, there is no limit to the number of balls you can construct with.

There's an iPhone version of Moonlights too. I'm not sure what that's like, but the Flash version is highly recommended!

Moonlights is a fantastic World of Gooesque physics Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 08 Nov 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November!

If you celebrate Guy Fawkes Night, liked V for Vendetta, or even if you're just extremely bored, you might get a (modest) kick out of Guy Fawkes Adventures. It's a simple puzzler where you push barrels around to their designated positions. When all barrels are in place, there's a resounding BOOM and you're transported to the next level.

Each level gets a code, and you can enter the level code to jump right to the level where you left off. And yes, the screenshot contains the code for level 2 - I saved you a whole level!

As you might have gathered from looking at that screenshot, this isn't exactly a masterpiece of computer graphics. That's simply because there's a serious dearth of Guy Fawkes-themed Web games. If you know of a good one, share it in the comments!

November 5th bonus time-waster: Guy Fawkes Adventures originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 05 Nov 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If you've been following the time-wasters that I've been writing about, you may know that I'm not a huge fan of the point-and-click puzzle genre. Give me physics games or something with explosions, and I'm good. Puzzles usually just make me frustrated.

But when I started playing The Trader of Stories, it really drew me in. It's not a lengthy game, and it's not very difficult. What I found most impressive about it was the artwork - this is a very well-made game. All of the scenes have a hand-drawn feel to them, and there are no animations (except for when you pick something up, and then it "hovers" to your inventory).

The plot evolves as the game goes on, but basically you're playing a girl in a fantasy-themed world. She's on her way to the mountains, and her carriage breaks. She has to go into a nearby town to find someone to fix the wheel, and that's how the story begins.

Despite the somewhat suggestive screenshot, the game appears to be completely SFW - that is, if you're actually allowed to play any Flash games at work...

The Trader of Stories is a beautiful point-and-click Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 05 Nov 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Steel Grinder is a fairly simple game. You're driving a tank, and you see the level from an overhead view. There are waves of enemies coming at you, and you need to blow them up with your mighty shots.

You move the tank using WASD (which is no good if you happen to use Colemak), but you can also move it using the arrow keys (lucky for me). While you're driving the tank away from oncoming enemies, you use the mouse to aim its turret at them, and then you fire away. When an enemy dies, it sometimes leaves a bonus or a bit of "money" in its wake, which you have to collect. When you hit Space, you're taken to the "Upgrade Store," but the upgrades are very slow to appear. I got my first one only after killing the first boss, which was around wave five.

It's all been done before, but it's well-made, and it certainly engaged me for a few minutes. That's really all I look for in a decent time-waster. If explosions are your thing, you might enjoy this one.

Steel Grinder is a fast-paced, explosive Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In Nanopath, you're a spaceship that has to find its way out of a maze. This isn't about the mystery, though; the exit is in plain sight. The question is how, exactly, you're going to get there.

You see, this spaceship doesn't move in real time. Instead, you plot its course first, and then hit Play to watch it go through the motions. With any luck, you will have planned the course correctly, and your ship will make it through.

However, as you progress through the game, the matter of timing comes into play. Hazards are introduced, and some of them move. There are spinning "arms," which you must avoid, and you have to time your course just right. There are other intricacies, too. For example, on some levels, you need to plot the courses for two spaceships and time them just right in order to keep them from colliding.

Fortunately, after you crash, the course that you just plotted doesn't disappear - you can simply tweak it. So, it's a very iterative game. You plot a course, watch your ship crash, tweak the course a bit, watch your ship crash again, make another correction, and (hopefully) watch your ship go through the maze just like you wanted it to. Some levels require more retries than others, but that only makes it more satisfying in the end.

Nanopath is a maze-based brain teaser -- Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 03 Nov 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I know the screenshot doesn't look like much. Wow, a bunch of dots - how exciting is that? But in Gravity, it's not what the dots look like - it's how they move.

You see, each of these little dots is a virtual particle with its own "mass." The larger dots have significantly more mass than the tiny ones - more than just the visual difference. They seem to be about three times as large, but have much more than three times the gravitational pull.

You put a bunch of these particles in different sizes all over the canvas, and watch how they behave. If you do it well enough, they start orbiting each other. You can click and drag to "launch" a particle in some direction, and when it approaches another particle, you'll see them interact according to gravity. This means they don't always collide head-on - often, they both slightly curve and change orbits due to gravitational pull.

The simulation feels very realistic, and thanks to the spartan graphics, it's very fast. Be sure to click the button that says Generate proto disk - it creates a whole structure of particles that collapses on itself by default, but can be manipulated if you plant some large particles next to it.

Gravity is a beautiful abstract Flash simulation -- Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Quiet, blocky, cryptic, and minimalistic. These are the first adjectives that come to mind when I think of Feign 2. It's a maze game, but it's built like an FPS (first-person shooter). So, it's like Quake with a creepy soundtrack, but there are no monsters.

Your goal is to collect nine bodies by navigating the maze. The whole thing is done up in shades of gray, but the bodies are bright orange. They're almost iridescent, so they're very easy to spot, but they're not so easy to find. This means that once you're in the vicinity of a body, you won't miss it. However, if it's hiding just behind a wall or two, you're in for a bit of hunting.

This is not an arcade game. I think it's something to do while you're on the phone, because you can easily pause, and it's not fast-paced. You don't really "pause" per se - you just stop moving, and nothing happens.

Bottom line: Feign 2 is soothing, artsy, and just a tad creepy.

Feign 2 is an eerie, artsy first-person maze game -- Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Intellectual property is one of the most hotly debated subjects online. Should there be patents or not? And what can be patented? And once you have a patent, when is it fair to protect it?

But to argue about these things, everyone should have the terminology down. What exactly is a patent? And what's a registered trademark? And what, then, is a registered design (which I did not know)?

Sprocket Rocket is a Flash game that attempts to provide a basic education in these terms while showing the value of innovation at the same time. It does all this, and it still manages to be fun!

You control a little "space pod" (my term, not theirs), and your mission is to collect cogwheels for Wallace and Gromit so that they can assemble their space ship and go to the moon. Yeah, it's dorky, but it's well-made!

Each level is a puzzle. To solve a puzzle, you often need to build a "tool" for your space pod. There's an editor where you can make simple tools that attach to your ship, and they are used to push, hook, and prod things on the screen. It's very open-ended, and it sometimes requires a fair bit of thinking. You need to shape just the right tool for the job, and then you have to figure out how to use it in the level.

Bottom line: Sprocket Rocket is very nice brain teaser, and the website that it's hosted on is worth browsing through, too (it's related to the UK's Intellectual Property Office). If you don't feel like leaving Download Squad, just keep reading this post -- the game is embedded right after the fold!

Continue reading Sprocket Rocket is a Wallace and Gromit themed brain teaser -- Time-Waster

Sprocket Rocket is a Wallace and Gromit themed brain teaser -- Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 26 Oct 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Robot Wants Ice Cream does not actually have ice cream. At least not as far as I was able to tell.

What it does have is a robot. Well, to be exact, it has a robot, a dog, a ton of bad guys, 8-bit music, and bosses that you have to beat. You can tell when you're facing a boss because it's huge, and the music gets all "Bowser" when one of them shows up. There are also bonuses that make you jump higher, shoot faster, and generally become a more awesome, ice cream-loving robot.

Most importantly, there are lots and lots of save points, and if you die, you instantly reincarnate. You don't even lose your bonuses!

As far as time-wasters go, this isn't a quick one. It leans more towards the "addictive" side of the scale. If you have any sort of affinity for 8-bit graphics, robots, and cute puppies, you really should give it a spin.

Robot Wants Ice Cream is a fun retro platformer -- Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Did you know that YouTube offers a spiffy online version of Trivial Pursuit? It's surprisingly addictive, too!

Each round consists of three questions, and one "Bet on Me" card. The three questions are real trivia questions, which can be quite challenging:

• From Ghosts > Geography: Which U.S. landmark is said to be haunted by the ghost of Abraham Lincoln?
• Drums > Science and Nature: What type of animal is a red drum?
• Lost and Found > Entertainment: From what city did Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 depart when it crashed on a Pacific island in the television series Lost?

Tricky stuff, eh? I know! Note that I didn't write any of the answers so that I wouldn't spoil it for you. But the fourth card is the most fun, really; it's the Bet on Me card, which shows you a YouTube celebrity (think Tay Zonday) along with a question that they were asked. You have to guess whether or not they got the answer right.

You get chips (casino chips, not potato ones) every time you get an answer right or win a bet on a YouTube celeb. At the top of the board, you can see the overall tally - The People's Chips vs. YouTube Chips.

So far, The People are winning!

YouTube Trivial Pursuit is as addictive as the real thing originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 23 Oct 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.