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

Are we just not mentioning the obvious free online in-browser game for some reason

there's w0rd1e talk in the spelling Bee thread

which is naturally searchable by the word "tomtit"

Also searchable by "spelling bee."

What fun is that

https://jesper-hustad.github.io/NoPixel-minigame/index

idk who follows nopixel but this has been my recent brain recalibration.

ouch that hurts my brain.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1260520/Patricks_Parabox/

free demo that's worth playing

https://antgame.io/ - place red ant hills, get ants to eat as much green food as possible. Try to get near the top of the leaderboard, near impossible imo!

this reminds me too much of my "back porch situation", i will have to bow out

been doing the brain bashers daily tracks for a while now (the 10x10 take about 3 minutes each generally - https://brainbashers.com/tracks.asp )

but looking around he has others and these are a similar kind of fun, but longer:

https://brainbashers.com/3inarow.asp

(colour the boxes, avoid runs of 3 in a row, equal number of each colour in each row / column)

Thanks koog, those are fun...
I suspect a bunch of them use the same underlying math just with a different visualization...

i have thought about the train tracks thing and the random walk for generating the tracks is easy enough but i can't get a handle on how you'd decide which squares to reveal to make it solvable and distinct.

the three in a row, again, trivial to write a solver that looks for two in a row and puts an opposite square on the end, or for two with a gap and full that gap, but when you've exhausted those, recursively, there's still a way to go.

https://nandgame.com/

Man that’s homework

things i haven't really thought about since ~1989.

iirc a combination of NAND gates can do anything, NOT and therefore AND is trivial and de morgan's law says !(A AND B) = !A OR !B so OR is easy enough. i am thinking about XOR... (it's not a great experience on a phone...)

Fun Threes / 2048 / slider game with corn and poop of farming -- feels less like homework because there are no numbers!
https://kryogenix.org/farmbound/

https://grimacesbirthday.com

one-button game
https://seudonimm.itch.io/hold-space-to-fly-straight

that is nifty but i agree with the comments that you should never actually try to fly straight

https://kloonigames.com/wordsolitaire/

got within five letters of clearing it today.

I've played this a couple of times and managed to clear it both times, but it took me ages. It's a good game but it doesn't feel addictive like a wordle or semantle.

yeah i definitely don't have the patience to backtrack and try again and again.

i wish there were an "appeal to the judges" feature
https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/j7mmcopj3k7.png

https://corru.observer

holy fuck.

Someone ported wipEout to the browser
https://phoboslab.org/wipegame/

wow! despite being a huuuuge fan of 2097 and wip3out i've never actually played the original, maybe now is the time. though i'd have to get a controller, is that even possible for browser games on macos? and maybe it's not the best use of my time...

https://gridlochgames.itch.io/21st-century-roguelike-pac-man

pac-man having a minimalist renaissance!
https://abagames.github.io/crisp-game-lib-11-games/?pakupaku

Ha I love it

paku paku is very fun. i think it would reach flappy bird levels of stupid/addicting viral simplicity by adding mute and pause buttons

i know this is extremely beatable (even by me!) but after playing 10 times or so my hi score is about 3100. you get multipliers every time you pick up a power pellet so staying alive for an additional 30 seconds or so would probably quadruple that

4723

Does anyone else like these stripped down versions better than the originals? I don't remember actual Pac-Man being as instantly fun.

6269

https://itch.io/jam/bigmode-2023/entries

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPhNzYCQtCc

This is dumb but I keep coming back to it to try to make Doctor Who: https://neal.fun/infinite-craft/

I played it a few days ago and got some firsts pretty quickly. seems like there aren't nearly as many now.

time + unicorn = time machine
time machine + captain = doctor
time machine + doctor = doctor who

Looks to be heavily indebted to this: https://littlealchemy.com/ / https://littlealchemy2.com/

There's a few predecessors, Doodle God and it's versions are others

If you somehow get goku, you can perform "his power level is increasing!" by continually plopping goku on top of goku
goku + time machine = trunks naturally.

free game 20 Small Mazes
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2570630/20_Small_Mazes/

Infinite Craft is hilarious

Eldritchvania, a free PC game that dropped last month: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2423710/Eldritchvania/

maybe the most La-Mulana-inspired game ever? i'll take whatever scraps i can get.

https://downpour.games/~terry/a-proper-cup-of-tea

I love that every combination is the perfect cup of tea. Amazing.

spoilers??

You know what, yes, that was totally spoilery. Hidden now.