You wake up locked in a deserted jail cell, completely alone. There is nothing at all in your cell, useful or otherwise. What do you do? The MS Paint Adventures site reminds me of the old school, text-based adventure games, where the player would type in commands. There are some “choose your own adventure” aspects to it, but it’s the entertaining illustrations done with the state-of-the-art technology of MS Paint that really impress. Expect to spend hours clicking through some funny stories.

Sushi Go Round - You are the replacement chef, you have to use the correct recipes and serve the customers in the Sushi Restaurant. Keep your patrons happy by filling their order in a timely manner and keep the owners happy by making money. Good luck!

After playing this game a bit, I can offer you some helpful tips: you can buy yourself some time with the customers by giving them sake, be sure to watch your inventory and don’t forget to clear the dishes after the customer leaves. This game is a lot of fun and it slightly reminds of an old favorite of mine, Root Beer Tapper.

Mass Attack - Just create weights to balance the scales. It’s much more addictive than it sounds! Even if you’re not a physics major or taking a class in Newtonian mechanics, you’ll still enjoy this brain bending game. If you’re not throughly satisfied with the game, you will receive a full refund of the time you’ve invested - *if you’ve figured out how to build a flux capacitor first. (You should have paid more attention on the chapter about time travel in your Quantum mechanics class.)

In this game you begin life as a little bubble. Use your arrow keys to collect more bubbles while avoiding the falling mines. There’s a catch though - the more bubbles you pick up, the bigger you become, making it harder to avoid the mines. Be sure to grab those fun power-ups like bullet time, minesweeper and noir. My best score so far is 1405. Keep an eye out on the psychedelic power-up, it gets a bit trippy.

Tricks are for kids. This little guy thinks your cursor is a carrot and wants to grab it. Enjoy this little interactive Flash game by Andrius Kirvela: Crazy Rabbit.

Manifold - This game has a bit of a learning curve, but is quite captivating after you get the hang of it. Use the arrow keys or A, W, and D to move your character to the finish. Retrieve anomalies by placing your mouse over them and pressing the space bar. To avoid obstacles or get over high walls, create an anomaly to help you. Click and hold the mouse where you want to fire and then drag the mouse in the direction you want gravity to flow. (You probably need to use the R key too - it restarts the current level.) Good luck!

Bend gravity to your will. Dizzying heights and insurmountable slopes are no problem with the Gravitational Manifold Anomaly Device.

Note: You can also play a similar game called Fold, by the same guy. You only get a few lives, but it keeps your score.

When you think of MS-DOS games what comes to mind when you think of two gorillas throwing explosive bananas at each other? This game was one of my favorite back in the QBASIC days and now you can play it again (in these FLASH days). Gorillas.bas has all the action, excitement and guesswork you’ve come to expect in a turn-based, banana game. Go all apey on your friends and smack the smile off the sun.

Qix - A classic game from early 1980’s, which I recall playing at the arcade. You’ve gotta draw boxes to claim as much screen as possible (75%) without getting in the path of the “Qix” and “Sparx”. Draw slower for more points, but keep an eye on the time meter located at the top of the screen. Simple and very, very addicting! Here’s your Qix emulator and a game strategy to get you started.

Your goal in Clix is to drag and drop the tiles in order to fill the complete game board. It’s fun for your brain as you also have to flip, rotate and puzzle your way through the increasingly difficult levels. This is just a fun diversion from the rest of your day, so try not to get hooked.

The website MindHabits.com offers a research-based software with which people learn to modify their mind habits, focusing attention on positive social feedback and inhibiting attention to the social threats and rejections that can cause stress. So it’s stress relief through simple, daily games like ‘Matrix’, ‘Words’, ‘Who Are You’ and ‘Grow Your Chi’. Try the free version online and improve your wellness.

Grow nano vol.3 - It’s another great Grow Flash game! In this game you’re growing each panel to its maximum potential and bringing the little guy to 100% health. This time around it only took me about 7 tries, so I feel smart. Have fun and enjoy the groovy tunes.

Test your skills and reaction times with this quick paced game of sheep. Be sure you’re wide awake to play. See how alert you are with this game and test the impact of a cup of tea or coffee on your performance. I don’t drink much coffee, it makes me jittery. Here’s an impression of me on coffee. (Yes, I’m just like Brak.)

If you like fun strategy games, check out the Campaign Game. Play armchair presidential candidate and use your dirty tricks to attack the opposition in order to win the country. I suggest reading up on the instructions to get a leg-up on your competition. Play it once and you’ll be hooked. (Don’t forget to get out and vote!)

Stackapolis - Just follow the building blueprint and stack the blocks accordingly within the time limit. There’s even level codes so you can come back and play later. Playing with blocks hasn’t been this much fun since you were knee high to a grasshopper.

Use your anger in a positive way and play Cubicle Freakout. As you can tell from the picture, you can look pretty crazy when you loose your temper. I don’t know about the re-playability of this game, but at least it’s something to get your mind off that TPS report you’re working on while sitting in that tiny cubicle. Or just take a nap.

(With that fuzzy hair and big eyes, he reminds me of the Honeycomb Craver.)