The Best Free Online (in-browser or downloadable) Games

Huh - does that play better with a controller? Found it really unnatural and jerky with a keyboard, just kind of bouncing all over the place. Nice look, mind you...

okay, who's gonna make an ilx idle game
http://orteil.dashnet.org/experiments/idlegamemaker/help

xp game is cool, great sprite work, but i agree the KB controls are too loose

http://color.method.ac

very cool, love cheesy skill tests like that

Just now finally got around to Cave Story, first mentioned in-thread by Penguin USA Paper in 2007. Got hooked on it for a few days and had a ball, thinking it was one of the best Metroidvania type games I'd played (though considerably more linear than the genre ideally implies) - in particular I thought the difficult curve was just about perfect. Plus you just have to admire the "one man's obsessive project" aspect of it.

Then I got to the last boss, got completely stuck, checked a walkthrough and realized I'd missed all this stuff and was consequently totally underpowered and probably screwed totally. Kinda pissed now. In particular, to get fully powered and save everybody and so on, at one point you have to just walk past and ignore a key NPC who's shown up seemingly injured and out of place, who wants to give you a jetpack. This is just brutally counter-intuitive, a real beast of a beginner's trap. The only thing I can figure is that Amaya was counting on hardcore players to come back through the game and challenge themselves to win without the jetpack - and then pleasantly discover all this other cool shit happening as a result. On one level, I totally respect that, but on another...WTF???????? Super frustrating. It's possible I might be able to beat the last boss without all this, but a) who would want to? and b) it's a run of four consecutive bosses with no save or recharge along the way, so each attempt is kind of a brutal marathon. I dunno if I have it in me.

I never beat it either fwiw, basically for the reasons you mention

That stuff is secret, and for second playthroughs only. The last boss is beatable without them.

yes, this ^ - you can def beat the boss w/ a very minimal runthru. good luck tho beating the boss (and hell) after doing everything else.

Hrmmm, maybe I should give it another go then. It's really the multi-stage boss experience that makes it hard to invest in that. Probably this is a sign of how debased 'difficulty' has become for me in games at this point. I mean, if I was still 10, bring it on!

Yup, you're right - went back and tried again, and beat the final bosses on the first try. Ha!

http://nothing-to-hide-demo.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html

also Infinity Wars is a free to play ccg on steam that i'm enjoying atm (mac + pc). if u sign up + use my invite code: D0202, i think i'll get free cards or something. not quite as crisp as hearthstone, but more mechanics + a theme (vaguely dystopian post-apocolyptic biohorror sci-fi cyberpunk?) that i prefer over generic WoW fantasy.

nothing to hide, neat idea, inverse stealth game

Are people playing much Hearthstone btw? Been trying it the last few days and am really enjoying it (it's my first ever ccg), up for matches if anyone else is on there.

http://www.matchesandmatrimony.com

Hm, not free? But temptingly cheap...

oops! i thought it was free but i must've been looking at a demo or something

Looks like a free 1-hour trial, but Big Fish are offering it for $2.99... not sure I'll go for it in the end, though I think I might actually prefer Austen in game form.

http://www.twitch.tv/twitchplayspokemon

What the hell is this?!

lol i love the running commentary

i used to know a "way" to unlock all big fish games. i wonder if it still works...

http://mightyvision.blogspot.com/2014/02/cybergallop.html

not the best but looool.
http://ramirocorbetta.com/2a/
after you finish, the interview

delicious bird is a game about how we live today
http://gamejolt.com/games/arcade/delirious-bird/22825/

lol that on my first try with delirious bird i did five times better than i ever did with flappy bird

same

Been playing around with some stuff from this list - http://indiestatik.com/2013/12/23/free-games-2013/

A bunch have already made this thread - Candy Box, No One Has To Die, Super Hot, Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing. So far none of the ones I've played would make the "best" in this thread's title, but they're all kinda memorable, good conversation-starters maybe.

PUNKSNOTDEAD - cute, charming aesthetic...but clunky control and becomes hard in an un-fun way. Kinda worth 'seeing' though. http://gamejolt.com/games/action/punksnotdead/13721/

Don't Escape - very short adventure game with a nice idea: you're a werewolf trying to keep yourself from going on a rampage tonight, and you try various means of doing that before hitting the 'go' button and seeing if your approach worked. Reminds me that this would be a great premise for an 'Incredible Machine' type of game actually - as is, it's a little bit rote, with the solutions being too pedestrian - but a promising concept. http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/don-t-escape/16037/

Famaze - Dungeon-crawler with cute graphics and satisfying sound. I don't know the genre well enough to say if this is really successful at what it does. I found some things frustrating, and you kinda wish you grew in power more, or that there were equippable items or other ways to improve yourself beyond leveling up. But kinda mindlessly addictive. http://oryxdesignlab.com/famaze/

Looking forward to trying some of the others...lots of attractive sample images and cool-sounding high concepts.

Wow, "Kingdom" is really lovely, haven't even really got to the gameplay yet but I'm charmed.

i just tried naya's quest, seems pretty fun

http://static.echonest.com/TokyoTuneTrain/gallery.html

Keep having errors loading audio, but I'm definitely interested...

Tried Don't Escape, liked it. You should give Lakeview Cabin a try if you liked that one

Famaze very good- seems destined for an iPhone port

I liked Don't Escape but found it a bit hard to see things that I needed to click (not quite 'pixel-hunty', more just dark).

My favourite that I've played out of these (or possibly tied with No-One Has to Die) is Save the Date, it's a funny 'dating sim' that really unfurls into its own after a couple of playthroughs.

Save the Date was a good one, enjoyed it much more than No-one Has to Die

Will try that and Pom Gets Wi-Fi this weekend, but I feel so lazy these days about *blaaah* actually installing these games *blaaah**

haha I'm the same way, it's really terrible. I have to... open an executable? And pick a directory to put this thing in? Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez

Got Tokyo Tune Train to work - cute, good for some lols, def worth checking out.

using chrome did the trick for me. using it as a scratch muxer is fun

http://gradinggame.com/prototype.html - First Person Tutor, you find spelling and grammar errors for money. Good concept, but a few small irksome things in the execution. Worth 1-2 spins.

also on ios

can't beat yr score doc!

ha! Well, I do do a lot of this in real life.

man i can't get past stage 9

I can finish it every time, but the last few usually get F+ grades. Just not quite quick enough.

http://www.deconstructeam.com/games/gods-will-be-watching/

did this get on here yet

Kill everybody besides dog but remember to light a fire

if you kill everyone but the dog your dude kills himself!! anyway i don't think that's actually the optimum strategy. unless this is just, like, life advice yr giving me here