Fugdale’s Funhouse

Guess what? Nope, guess again. That’s right, you got it! The Funhouse brings you four totally different guessing games. Some involve words, some involve pictures, some played with others and some played alone. These games are sure to keep you guessing.

Today’s Games

20Q Game

Discordi

Fake Out

Guess The Google

20Q Pocket Game Demo - Anyone for a Litle 21?

Everyone has played 20 Questions. So this cute online game demo should appeal to everyone. It certainly has a lot of appeal. Too bad the application only lets you play one side of the game. You must come up with a word and the computer will ask you 20 Questions and try to guess your word.

Start by classifying your word as animal, vegetable, mineral, other, or unknown. After the game asks each question, players have the option of answering yes, no, probably, sometimes, and unknown. Having these extra options helps a little, since not every word can fit neatly into yes or no answers.

The computer does a pretty good job of guessing the correct word as long as it’s fairly common. I didn’t find it too difficult to stump the game on a few occasions and when the little rugrat gets the answer wrong, it gracefully admits defeat. It will continue to ask questions beyond the original 20 until it gets it right or gives up, but if you stump it by 20, you win.

The game actually serves as an introduction to various handheld versions of the game available for purchase on the same site, but the free demo plays pretty well.

Discordi - What Would Other People Say?

I discovered Discordi several years ago when I still used Windows. Now I’m a Big Mac Paddywhack guy, so I no longer have access to this Windows-only game. Therefore, my review comes forth from the deep well-spring of my mind. Years later, this multi-player game still has a freshness to it. Just to make it clear, this is Windows Only and you must download the game to play.

Discordi brings together random gamers (at least 5 people must play at once, but the game accommodates many more). Players start as tiny people at the bottom of a large pyramid of steps, which looks like an extremely difficult Towers of Hanoi game. The game poses a series of questions to all players. The questions don’t involve facts, knowledge or trivia, but rather personal preferences, such as “Would you Live on a Lunar Base?” or fill in the blank questions, like “Mortal _____”. Players must choose the answer that they think the majority of the group will answer. The answers are tallied and the more popular your answer, the more steps you will climb.

Along the way to the top, players will have to face many obstacles. Several specialty steps cause various events to happen. You can get stuck on a step in goop or get shocked or lose IQ points, etc. Additionally, a series of random ’storm events’ randomly occur, including Ice Storms, Meteor Showers and Solar Winds. These events cause havoc to the players who get hit by them. Since players get hit more or less randomly, an optionto purchase insurance along the way can help protect players against these events. The player who makes it to the top of the tower wins.

I really enjoyed playing this game and I hope the designers port it to Mac or an online Flash version sometime.

Fake Out - Big Words for Little People

Fake Out comes to us from Education Place, a site for kids and teens to learn. So the game aims itself for Kindergarten through 8th Grade Kids. However, I found the game challenging and fun for adults as well.

In this simple concept, a new list of challenging words appears each week (divided into grade level). Choose a word and you will get a list of about 8-10 definitions for that word. Only one definition is correct and you simply choose the one you think is the correct definition.

Similar to party games like Dictionary (or the hilarious board game version Balderdash), Fake Out allows players to submit definitions for upcoming lists of words. After players choose an answer, the game displays the number of people who chose each of the answers listed. So you can submit your own answer and see how many people you fool next week.

I suppose since this game is really aimed at the educational demographic, it’s a bit unfair to throw it in with the other games today. Oh well, sue me.

Guess-the-Google - Google for Gamers

From the brilliant mind of Grant Robinson comes one of the most refreshing games I’ve seen. Based on a simple mash-up concept. Guess-the-Google chooses a random word and culls together 20 images from a Google Image search of that word. Your task is to guess the correct word in 20 seconds or less by looking at the various images. You get more points for speedy answers. A list of all your incorrect guesses forms to the side of the play field for easy reference.

The game puts you through a series of 10 questions. If you don’t get the correct answer, the game will give you the first letter as a hint, but won’t reveal the real answer. I’ve played the game numerous times and haven’t yet encountered a duplicate word, although I’m sure the word list has a limit eventually.

All you squares out there, listen up! I have a collection of 10 free online games that will appeal to you exclusively. No, I’m not talking to the Nerds and Plain Janes. (Although you will no doubt like these games as well). I’m talking to the actual squares…the ones with four equal sides and ninety degree angles. Each of these fun games or puzzles utilizes squares into their gameplay.

Psycopath - The Shortest Distance Between Two Squares

Don’t let the title confuse you. This game doesn’t involve twisted brains or murderers. In this puzzler, you only have to move your shimmering square onto the goal marker in the exact number of moves allotted.

As you continue through the multitude of levels, the size of the grid and the target number of moves will change. Obstacles include black squares which you can’t move over and blocks which you must push out of your way.

If you make a wrong move you will probably have to hit ‘R’ to restart the level. The same will happen automatically if you run out of moves.

Psycopath has very appealing interludes. After each round, the squares fall off the board in a cascade and then reappear. The soundtrack consists of driving, but pleasant techno dance music. The game requires a free registration in order to keep track of your progress and allow you to continue after leaving. And as a bonus feature, the game includes its own level editor, so you can create your own puzzles.

Fulfillment - Fill the square up!

In this mild progressive puzzler, your task is to fit several puzzle shapes into a giant square. Several smaller squares combine to create the various shapes.

The game starts out fairly simple and then quickly progresses into more difficult puzzles. You not only have to solve the puzzles, but you have to solve them before time runs out. Unfortunately, for the spatially challenged types (like myself), the timer doesn’t last very long. The game ends if you cannot fulfill the requirement in time.

The game doesn’t feature any soundtrack or sound effects and the visuals, though very basic in nature, have a clean design to them. The pieces move well and if place a piece where it won’t fit, it gently floats back to the sideboard. If you don’t solve the puzzle in time, all the pieces float ghost-like to their proper place in the solution. You can’t save your progress, however the game has decent replay value because the puzzles dynamically change each time you play.

Crossword - Words in Squares

The internet offers hundreds of online crossword puzzles. That’s nothing new. But this Crossword has a slightly different variation that makes it stand out…the lack of numbered clues.

You start with a partially filled-in crossword puzzle and a list of all the letters which have not yet been placed on the grid. When you click on an empty square, it will turn yellow, along with all the other squares on the grid which contain the same missing letter. Click on the leftover letters and the game will fill them in. As you go you can quickly tell if you have something wrong when many of the words don’t add up. But as you start to fill in the correct answers the game rapidly moves along.

Each round you have fewer letters filled in at the beginning and the puzzles do get extremely difficult, but anyone who loves words and crossword puzzles will find this game a treat. According to the comments below the game you may find that a few words have misspellings, so watch out for subtle game flaws, but otherwise this game is lots of fun.

Brick Break - A Conglomerate of Squares

I’ve seen this same game in another iteration somewhere online before, but I actually like this version a little better as it adds some new features. Basically, you have the task of eliminating a cluster of colored squares from the middle of the playing field.

In order to accomplish this task, you will shoot various colored squares from the four sides of the playing field. The squares appear in rows and columns and you must shoot them in order, but can choose any row or column from which to shoot. If you cluster 3 or more bricks of the same color on the field, they will shatter like glass. As each brick gets shot, it has a directional arrow attached to it. In order for a brick to remain on the field it must make contact with an existing brick, otherwise it flies to the other end of the playing field. When you remove bricks from the field any bricks adjoining them will continue to fly in the direction they were first shot in. (A difficult concept to explain in words).

Brick Break also features specialty bricks you can turn on and off. These special bricks allow you to use any color brick, explode existing bricks or change their direction.

This puzzle can frustrate new players a bit because the strategy behind eliminating the bricks doesn’t become apparent until you’ve played it a while. Even the most seasoned players will still find their bricks piling up in the middle. This game definitely has uber replay value. The better you get, the more addicted to it you become.

Squares 2 - Collect the Squares

This game presents a very basic challenge, collect as many black squares as you can. The screen consists of a white screen in which various sized squares travel from side to side or top to bottom. You move a black square around the screen with your mouse.

Grab as many black squares as you can while avoiding red squares and all circles. If you touch just one, its ‘game over’ for you.

The game plays well and when you get on a roll, it even gets exciting. This genre of game has a lot of contenders out there, and Squares 2 fits in as one of the better in the field, but the gameplay feels pretty one note and the music seems very familiar. I can’t recommend this game for a truly unique experience, but it will entertain most people for a few minutes. It will put your collecting and avoiding skills to work.

Cube Field - Fly Through the Squares

As in the previous game, Squares 2, your task here is to avoid squares that come at you at a rapid pace. However, this time you don’t want to touch anything. The squares (or cubes rather) lie on the ground and you fly through them. Game play ends when you crash into one. Actually, you kind of absorb into them.

Although the game is quite fun to play and the controls feel pretty good for arrow key controls, you don’t really have too much time to see ahead on the course and if you choose the wrong path you have no way of avoiding hitting some of the cubes. I like the smoothness and fluidity of the game and it definetly presents a good challenge, but it doesn’t have the little extra something to keep me coming back.

Blocky - Rid yourself of the Maniacal Squares

This game is so damn cute and clever, it makes me want to giggle. OK, we’ve all seen the multitude of glass block elimination games that try to copy the success of Super Collapse. If, at first glance, Blocky appears to use the same principal, you will be pleasantly surprised to find it has its own unique structure.

The game presents you with a field of colored squares, randomly placed on a large grid. Many of the squares have Blockies (square giggling creatures) on them. Using your mouse, you click and drag a rectangular outline around a cluster of squares. If all four corners of your outline have the same color, then all the Blockies inside will disappear. You must surround all the blockies on the board and eliminate them before the timer runs out. This feels very simple the first few rounds, but as the grid becomes larger and the number of different color Blockies increases, you will find yourself manic with panic trying to find the right four matching corners to make your square.

I usually can only get through about 6-7 levels before dying, but I do enjoy trying. The ads at the beginning of the game as well as the instruction click throughs are the only drawback to this very original concept.

Cubeoban - Fling Squares to the Goal

I don’t much care for the title, but this simple square pushing progressive puzzler has a few twist that set it apart from similar puzzlers. Many puzzles of this type require you to push a block in certain directions and it can get trapped in a corner and you have to start over again. While you will probably have to restart many levels in Cubeoban, it won’t often be for getting stuck. In this game you click on squares and then send them in whatever direction is open.

If you go down the wrong direction, just flick it back the other way. But don’t think the ability to change directions will make the puzzles any easier. In fact, these brain teasers get solidly difficult pretty quickly.

The graphics don’t really blow me out of the water, but the design and layout of the puzzles are well conceived. The mechanism to send the blocks in different directions feels a little lagging in the response department. A more fluid control interface would speed up game play.

I wouldn’t say this game is the best of its kind, but it will satisfy some of the logic hunters out there. And you can write down passcodes for each level so you don’t have to replay the tough ones over.

Orbox B - Squares in Space

Very similar in game play style as Cubeoban, Orbox B sticks to a more classic mechanism. You work your way through progressively harder puzzles by using the arrow keys to send your square in any direction. However, you must shoot it into a brick wall or other obstacle that will stop it, otherwise it floats off the screen into outer space. When you find the right course through the obstacles you will send your square to the exit goal.

As with the previous game, this concept has had many variations in other games. But, the graphics and sound effects have a strong appeal to them and the square moves quickly when you need it to (which helps when you have obstacles that disappear after a moment or two). Plus, the inventive obstructions and tricky courses defy common sense and thereby can frustrate the most logical thinkers out there. I sometimes had to try certain courses many times before finally discovering the right sequence of directions to get to the goal.

It may not be the most original game out there, but it provides strong challenges and has nice responsive controls and a few unique features all its own. You can save your progress through the use of level passwords.

Bloxorz - Move a Marble Monolith over Squares

This game features the same level building effects as Psychopath. Before each level, a cluster of floating cement squares floats into place and forms an obstacle course. On top of the course lies an elongated rectangular marble block. You must work the marble piece to the end of the course and get it to fall through the single square hole in the ground. Getting the marble to the goal isn’t always difficult, but getting it to land in the hole just right is where the challenge lies.

You see, you have to turn the rectangular piece over on its narrow end to get it to fit through the hole, but most of the time you don’t have enough room to flip it around the way it needs to be.

To add to the challenge, later levels throw in several obstacles for you to work around including triggers, bridges, and unstable flooring. The graphics feel very realistic and the marble sound effects are stunningly accurate. The challenge presented by the game is fresh as well. And the solutions are not always very easy to come by, so be sure to note the passcode number before you complete a level otherwise you have to go back to the previous one.