Purrfectly Good Reasons To Miss Your Monday Meatings
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on May 4, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Monday, May 4th, 2009Our usual Monday morning Flash game distractions, with an especially daunting challenge for our American readers: GEOGRAPHY.
Our Monday Demotivators have previously explored the mystery of why there are so many Flash games in which you do mean things to helpless animals, but you seem to enjoy this stuff so much we’re back with more. First up: Meowcenaries. Like so many of these games, it takes so long to load you’ll be ready to kill by the time it’s ready to play. This game is a little different, by the way, in that the violence is all cat-on-cat. If you’re looking for completely pointless human-inflicted cruelty, you’ll have to go shoot a puppy or something. Don’t get the wrong impression here though, I personally love animals. That’s why this week we’ll give equal time to PETA’s Cooking Mama Kills Animals game, designed to protest Nintendo’s Cooking Mama
Monday Demotivators – The Reality Check Edition
[ Comments Off ]Posted on April 27, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Monday, April 27th, 2009Amusing Flash games to pass the time in the unemployment line.
We thought we’d start with a little reality check for this week’s Monday Demotivators. Our usual Flash-based fun turns to horror when you view this animated map from Slate.com. Hit the play button, and watch the jobs in America disappear. It’s either like watching the 2000 election unfold, or a nuclear strike map. Scary. Equally scary for some will be the Virtual Age Analyzer. Honestly answer the questions, and discover your life expectancy. My “virtual age” was two years lower than the real thing, and I’m gonna live to the age of 78. Phew. Now that we’ve instilled you with a little anxiety, let’s get back to the fun you probably came here for. First up, the annoyingly cute JellyJumper, brought to you by Logitech. I don’t know if anyone will buy a keyboard because of it, but maybe they’re banking on the idea that you’ll smash your existing keyboard in frustration. They also have a multiplayer version called JellyBattle. For those of you who fancy a game of golf this time of year, try Golfman. Although I enjoy neither golf nor Flash games, I was amused for a couple of minutes, just long enough to figure out I suck at on line golf as much as the real-life version. If you’re feeling a bit more narcissistic or need to jazz up your Facebook profile pic, someone has rounded up 28 web sites that let you upload and edit your photo. The site’s in Turkish, but a picture, as they say, speaks a thousand words. This time they’re just not in your native tongue. And as a peg that never seems to fit a hole, I’m convinced Flash Pegs will ruin your day. Its utter simplicity fools you into thinking you’ll ever advance to the next level. That should keep you busy through Tuesday. Happy Monday!
I Know You Don’t Know Jack, But Have You Met Seth?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on April 20, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Monday, April 20th, 2009An attempt to bring a little intelligence back to our Monday time-wasters…
I had never noticed until yesterday the remarkable resemblance between the animated host of the web version of You Don’t Know Jack and the byline photo on marketing guru Seth Godin’s blog. Which is our odd segue into this week’s slightly brainier edition of our Monday Demotivators. We received a complaint last week that our little Monday tradition had “devolved from a thought-provoking Monday diversion into a desperate Flash game linkfest“. While that’s a fair observation, I feel obligated to point out that I’m pretty sure that that’s the whole idea here! All the same, I’m willing to consider the possibility that maybe we’re reaching the point that marketing guru Seth Godin calls The Dip
Monday Demotivators: The “Toss A Cat For No Reason” Mystery
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on March 8, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Sunday, March 8th, 2009Why Do Game Designers Enjoy Torturing Kittens?
Getting up and going to work on Monday morning is extremely over-rated, which is why every Monday, we bring you the Monday Demotivators that are meant to make you late once you do get up. To add insult to injury this week, here are Ten (probably useless) Geeky Tricks for Getting Out of Bed in the Morning, courtesy Wired.com. The list includes ingenius tips like “Go to bed when you’re tired” and “Pick out clothes the night before“. If those do work, here are 5 Reasons Why Sleeping In Every Day Will Boost your Productivity. Just go back to bed, will ya? Whenever you’ve managed to wake up, sit your butt back down here and enjoy the wonderful hand-picked games we never really try, but then eagerly recommend to you anyway. First up: after trying Don’t Look Back, well, I won’t. Designed with a slightly eerie, pixelated style and a moody synthesized cello soundtrack, at first I was a little intrigued. I gave up after about ten attempts at the first obstacle though. Nothing more demoralizing than getting killed by a pixelated snake ten times in a row. For a little pick-me-up, try the annoyingly loud Atomic Racer. Kind of like that “Easter Egg” Spyhunter game in Excel or something, except you have to get used to driving a car moving horizontally across the screen to blow up a nuclear transport. Not sure why that’s something one would want to do, but I guess these game developers don’t always have a grownup around to troubleshoot their concepts. Which would explain games like Kitty Throw, which although not quite as pointlessly brutal as the classic Kitten Cannon, still involves throwing a cat around for no particularly good reason. And they wonder what’s wrong with kids these days. Finally, if you at last ARE awake, and more amazingly still reading, try Electric Box, which actually requires that you do a little reading and thinking. Which is probably more than you would have accomplished by now if you’d gone to work. And cetainly more than I’ve accomplished by finding this crap for you. Happy Monday!
Monday De-Motivators: The Final Edition
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 19, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Monday, January 19th, 2009You’ll have to find a way to be late for work on your own from now on…
It occurred to me after the feedback on last week’s Monday De-Motivators that not only was I not succeeding at making anybody late for work on Monday (most visitors are clicking on this stuff after 9pm), but I was getting ahead of the visitors that actually enjoy the games linked to. So this may be the last Monday De-Motivator for a while; as much as I take pride in creating a few Stack The Cats addicts (you know who you are), finding this stuff is exhausting, especially (as I’ve stressed repeatedly) if you don’t like computer games in the first place. It’s kind of like being in AA and having to taste bourbon for a living. For example: Sling Wars, though quite simple, quickly gave me a mild brain-ache. I got all the basic principles right away, but didn’t really feel like spending the time necessary to get a feel for the weapon. I also struggled with the idea that even though I chose to be a Native American, my only choices were to fight in Africa and Europe. Looking at the top scores was quite worrying, by the way. I’m pretty sure “El Turco” – who scored 2,147,483,647 - is someone I probably don’t want to have lunch with. Domino Pressure is a little more my speed. Zero learning curve, immediate results. Though I’m still not clear on how or why a domino would smash a tomato. And GlobalPlayer actually looks kind of interesting, but it gave me a mild panic attack on the first go. My first job as a teenager was in warehousing, and it brought back some of the trauma of that. Now that I’ve steadied my breathing and had a cup of coffee, I might give it another try. And last up: I didn’t know there was a Stoneage Sam One, so I think Stoneage Sam Two: The Ice Age lacked a little of the intended “You loved it so much, we’ve done a sequel” feeling. It was however, quite an insight into a game designer’s mind to have to use a child and a piece of vine as a simple tool to advance the score.