Fugdale’s Funhouse

If the words ‘Obstacle Course’ make you tingle down below, then I have a treat for you. Three games step out of the crowd in this sub-genre. Each game has its own unique twisted way of throwing obstacles at you. Hope you make it through.

Maze Frenzy - Somewhat Amazing

Deftly subtitled ‘NoName Game #1 by NotWorthy’, this simple obstacle course game packs a mean punch in a pretty pastel package. Recalling games like Puki , the color pallette for Maze Frenzy consists of almost white and baby blue.

You start by clicking a tiny red ball with your mouse button. Once you have the ball, you simple move it through the intricate moving course avoiding touching any walls or objects along the way. Similar to games like Operation, you have to have a steady hand…one slip and the game ends.

With all the turning gears and tight spaces in the game you will need all the stabilizers you can get. This game will frustrate anyone who likes to breeze through levels onto the next. It takes some serious skill to get through the course. Those who have a low threshold for starting over will quickly exhaust yourself on this one. But I think everyone will want to at least give it a try.

Everybody Panic! - Line Game - Obstacle Course on Crack

I love this game. I hate this game. Think Maze Frenzy on crack. You work your way through very similar 2-D obstacle courses full of swirls, traps and rotating areas. If you touch the sides of the walls or any object you get sent to the beginning. It takes all you have to get through these very tricky mazes. And you have 8 fully-relized courses to choose from. You can also choose between using your mouse/trackpad or your arrow keys. You can master it with any of these techniques, but each has its own dynamic, so you will want to experiment.

The cursor responds sluggishly to the motion and direction you move your mouse or keys. If you hold down the button you will speed up and if you suddenly switch directions you will quickly brake and reverse, but a definite lagging response from the cursor adds to the intensity of passing through the course. I guarantee only genius savants will stand a chance of making it to the end of any these mazes unscathed on the first try. Due to the massive size of the courses, you only see a portion of the maze at any time. Therefore, you won’t be able to anticipate the many twists and turns which lie just off screen.

An intense and nervewracking challenge course, Everybody Panics, will have you going back again and again just to get a little further than the last time.

The Game of Disorientation - Trip Out and Die

This twisted, acid flashback take on the obstacle course genre scores high marks in my book due to its truly disorienting visuals and gory death scenes.

You view the 2-D game as if hanging directly above the main character. You control a tiny man and guide him through some very simple mazes. The character has to cross over timed slicing machines or risk bloody massacre from the spike-lined walls, but those obstacles alone don’t cause much havoc. Whatever drugs this little man has taken cause the room to twist, turn and stretch like sheet of mylar in a windstorm.

As you progress, using the arrow keys, you must remember which direction you travel at all times because as the room morphs you must continue pressing in the direction you started in. This game quickly becomes a bizarre nightmare as you work your way through. I actually managed to make it through all the courses fairly quickly and only died a few times, but not without considerable challenge and entertainment. So I encourage everyone to give it a shot. Just watch out for those spikes!

Relax…Breath…Balance. You will find yourself testing your sense of balance in these two unique games. Both feature the physics of balance and weight distribution in their designs.

Levers - Balancing Act

Levers starts off simple enough. A calm ocean scene with a simple two-sided scale hanging above. An item falls from the sky and you place it on the hanger. If you manage to hang the items on the appropriate hooks, the scale will balance. When it stays balanced long enough a new item of a different size and weight will fall and you have to rearrange the items to set things right again.

The items include more hangers to extend your scale, as well as, an odd assortment of bird houses, squid, glasses of water and bowling balls. As you add more items the scale gets much harder to keep in balance. Making things even more difficult, a small army of blackbirds emerge to shake things up on the scale and some of the items you hang have a life of their own. You sometimes have to wait for the mobile to turn far enough to reach certain hooks to hang your items on. The game’s physics are pleasant and the ambience created by the ocean and the various splashing noises helps calm things down.

The game becomes like a meditative puzzler quite quickly and I think players of various levels will reach their comfort zone and quit playing after about 10 items or so. But for those who have a sense about weights and balance, this game will please you.

Top Figures - Balance or Drown

Your objective in this tricky puzzler requires you to remove support beams from a structure one at a time so that the swimmer (aka: the top figure) standing on top never falls in the water. You quickly realize why the little person wears a life preserver, as you repeatedly dunk the little fella, trying to figure out the best way to pull the planks out.

With very simple graphics and easy gameplay, I wonder why I had such a difficult time figuring out some of the sequences. The physics and timing really add to the challenge. Sometimes you can pull a plank and quickly pull an opposing plank before the man loses his balance. In fact, you will do well if you think in terms of balance as opposed to logic. Yet, the game tests my patience quickly and I end up wanting the top figure to take the plunge.

You’ve probably seen all the Simpsons images floating around the web ever since the Simpsons Movie came out. But do you know where to get your own? I have pulled together several of my favorite Face Transforming sites. Some of these sites actually transform an image of your face into something else. Other sites allow you to build your own faces from their graphical interfaces. These sites come in very handy for creating interesting myspace images.

Simpsonize Me - Change your image to a Simpsons Character

You’ve seen them all over the web. People changing their faces into Simpson’s Characters. Here’s the popular new site where you can do it yourself. Upload an image of your face with an uncluttered background. Then choose your skin color (yellow is popular). After that you can adjust the image however you like with a wide assortment of hair, body types, eyes, noses, outfits, backgrounds, accessories and more.

Sometimes the site gets a little sluggish and spits your image back out, but keep trying. It seems like it really doesn’t matter too much what your source image looks like as the program will pretty much choose a different angle that comes close to your original shot. In this way it doesn’t really transform your image truly, but rather chooses the closest match from it’s database.

Nevertheless, this site rocks for all the Simpsons Fans out there. Who doesn’t want to know what they would look like if they lived in Springfield?

Ultimate Flash Face - Create a sketch of your face

This site doesn’t really transform any image of yourself. In fact you don’t upload an image at all. You just use the palettes of noses, heads, hair, eyebrows, eyes, glasses, moustaches, mouths and chins to create fun faces. In the sample image I created a close proximity of my face pic.

The images this site produces look a lot like police sketch art and could come in handy if you want to create a wanted poster or something to that effect. While building your face, you can place each element, resize it and change the opacity.

The interface feels pretty intuitive, however, each element layers on top of others, so sometimes moving things around can get annoying, but after you place and element you can scroll through the other options and the face will change instantly. Create that dream partner you’ve always dreamed of or your alter ego.

You can post your finished face to a database online for future reference, but I didn’t find any way to save your face to your computer. So ready the ’screen print’ button to grab a snap of your finished product.

Mr. Picasso Head - Paint yourself like Picasso would

Here’s an artistic twist on the face-building genre. No photo upload necessary. Just click on the somewhat limited palette of options and your Picasso masterpiece draws itself.

You have all the familiar categories–faces, eyes, noses, lips, ears, eyebrows and hair. In addition you have a few abstract shapes and a signature line. You can flip, rotate, color and resize any element for endless combinations. Your face ends up on a gradient canvas where you can upload it to a database of other faces. You can also email your final image to yourself or others.

In the end, the images really do look like Picasso paintings.

Image Mosaic Generator - Turn your image into a mosaic of tiny images

You’ve all seen the mosaic posters. Images recreated using hundreds of tiny images. Now you can easily upload any image (not just your face) and turn it into your own mosaic poster. You can watch the screen as the generator builds your image using hundreds of flickr images. (The tiny images each have a copyright from their respective flickr owners).

After the program completes the image you can view it in several different sizes and you can download a full sized version with the click of a button. Unlike some other mosaic images I’ve seen, it appears that none of the smaller images repeat, so you can spend hours browsing through all the flickr images that make up your masterpiece.

Face Transformer - Hilarious transformations you won’t believe

I saved the best for last. This java applet rocks and I found myself uploading and playing around with several different images. Some pictures lend themselves better than others, but with the right shot you will get amazing and hilarious results.

Upload a closeup, straight-on shot of your face with minimal background and choose your sex, race and approximate age. On the next screen you draw a box around your face and then place circles over your eyes and mouth so the software can accurately morph your image. Then select from several different transformations and moments later your trippy face will appear. This is the part where you will laugh hysterically at the results. Save any image by clicking the ’save’ button.

You have numerous transformation options to choose from. See yourself as a baby, a child, young adult, old person, change your sex, change your race, transform into an comic book character, a Botticelli, even an ape. For even more fun, start the application over and instead of choosing your actual sex, age and race, try choosing alternates and you will get even more twisted results.