Cookie Clicker

There comes a point every so often where I look at some of the things I do in my free time and just think "why?"

Cookie Clicker is a free web browser "game" that I discovered through a forum.  In Cookie Clicker you click a big cookie on the left hand side of the screen in order to earn cookies.  Once you have earned enough cookies, you can buy upgrades that will earn cookies for you even when you are not clicking.  After some more clicking you can buy upgrades for those upgrades so the rate at which you gain cookies goes even faster.  There is no goal, there is no end, just click the fucking cookies until your cookies per second is sky high.

When I first heard about this game I thought "that's fucking stupid", but after actually trying it out, I'm sad to say that I'm hooked.  I kind of have to question what's wrong with myself because when you really think about it I'm not actually doing anything except clicking an upgrade on the side bar every so often yet I get a great sense of satisfaction when I buy a new thing or get that upgrade I've been waiting for.

I'm now at the point where I'm generating so many cookies per second that I'll just leave it building in the background while I play other games and when I'm done I buy a few upgrades.  I don't know why I do this or why I enjoy it so much, but I do.  What's worse is that everyone that I have linked it to has become strangely hooked to it, I guess we are all just easily entertained by increasing numbers.

So if you need something to stare at while you have downtime at work or you just want to veg out and mindlessly click things for a while, Cookie Clicker is the place to go.

Check it out here
http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/

Free Game Saturday: Dracula's Riddle

Due to Saturn month, I've once again not been playing all that much free stuff, but I want to share with you a "game" that took me and a group of about 4 friends over a month of solidly playing it to beat.

It's quite old so I imagine there are already a lot of people who know what the deal is, but for those who don't Dracula's Riddle is a series of stupidly hard puzzles that you must solve in order to banish Dracula.  These puzzles are fucking hard hard as well, you may find that you will breeze through the first few only to hit a massive block as one puzzle stumps you for days on end. 

That said, none of the puzzles are unfair or have bullshit solutions, they just require you to use every ounce of brainpower that you have and when you do eventually figure out one of the super hard puzzles, the feeling of satisfaction from seeing the browser load the next riddle is unmatched.

So the way you play this game is simple.  Every riddle contains a picture, a bit of flavour text that sometimes contains a hint, and the page source which will almost always contain a hint.  When you solve the riddle, you replace the last part of the URL with your answer, and if it is correct, it'll load the next one.  If you are wrong, it'll come up with a little message saying "YOU ARE LOST!"

So if you're into puzzle games and you think that all the currently puzzlers are too easy for you, give this one a shot, you'll be scratching that noggin for weeks.