Ragdoll Avalanche II

It's a dance with death! A simple idea, "executed" quite nicely beneath a rainstorm of blades.

http://www.ragdollsoft.com/ragdollavalanche/

Face Dances

Mono-1.com (a progressive advertising agency) has posted a fun "mix and match" game where you can assemble all the elements of the human head into a freaky photorealistic picture, called Monoface. They say there are 760,000 possible "monofaces" you can make with the various random mash-ups of eyes, noses, mouths, and hair/shoulders. Create your own mutants and have a ball.

Ye Olde Gore

In Armor Games' free online simulation, "Dark Cut," you play a medieval surgeon, summoned by your king to perform offbeat, primitive surgical procedures -- like removing an arrow or lancing a nasty boil or dispensing with a...well, I won't say.

It's a relatively easy operation, because you're given instructions virtually all the way through it and the "game" doesn't involve much challenge -- all that's required is a steady hand and a dark sense of humor. What makes it worth wasting your precious time is the disturbing surprise of each patient's symptoms and the anticipation invoked by each repulsive-yet-cute cartoon graphic that goes along with it.

http://www.armorgames.com/games/darkcut.html

If this sort of thing is your cup of glee, you also might have some fun with this medieval surgery mad lib. It was designed to be educational, but I recommend printing it out and using your own randomly chosen words!

Surreal Flights: High and Low

While surfing the web looking for online games that involve clubbing baby seals and other juvenile diversions of that ilk, I somehow stumbled across a delightfully gentle and whimsically surreal game -- "Fly Guy" by Trevor Van Meter. It involves an ordinary bloke standing at a bus stop, who spontaneously develops the ability to fly, and zips off into the sky. You steer "Fly Guy" around in the heavens (and if you can figure it out, outer space!), interacting with various floating oddities just to see what they'll do with (or to) him, trying to avoid getting shot back down to reality. It's a simple, serene, light-hearted touch of irreality, artfully done.

http://www.trevorvanmeter.com/flyguy/

Oh, okay, from the sublime to the ridiculous. In a Mario Bros. clone called "Dolph: Operation Thule" you will club seals, bash hippies, and get impaled by falling icicles while being cursed at in Danish. It's worse than crass, but also surreal in its own way. (Click on "Start Spil" to begin).

http://www.dr.dk/spil/dolph/

Rock and Roll Apocalypse

Here's some wacky nonsense that for some inexplicable reason addicted me for hours. The idea is to restore the fabric of space and time -- and heavy metal itself -- by swinging a strange swinging object around a series of constellations before the universe implodes. The opening introduction is not to be missed and I dare say this crazy game is quite a challenge!

Rock and Roll Apocalypse

This ridiculopathic treatment is brought to you courtesy of humorist Mark Arenz. Check out his funny site at ridiculopathy.com

[This game requires the Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash Player. If you haven't updated your Flash Player in awhile, now might be the time to do it.]

It Wants You to Eat It

Most free movie-inspired online games are trite gimmicks, and Slither: Hunting Season -- based on James Gunn's 2006 campy horror film Sliver -- is certainly one of them. But Hunting Season is astonishingly well-made for a simple 3rd person shooter that has you do little more than point and click to shoot at random on-coming targets while offbeat sound bytes from the film randomly play over the speakers. The game puts you, a desperate cop with a rifle, slightly off the center of the screen, generating a sense of helplessness as the camera peers straight down from above in an bird's eye view. The player's job is to keep on the lookout for approaching monster worms, targeting the cop's rifle at them as quickly as possible. As if pinned to the hub of a wheel, you don't get to move. Instead, things come crawling at you -- and the better you are at picking them off, the harder and harder it gets to shoot them all. The game play is excellent, because it truly succeeds in making you feel "surrounded" by the enemy... which wants to jump in your mouth, wriggle down your throat and infest you with its slimy body. You'll get a gratuitous gore clip when you get killed in the game, which makes the impossible survival of the onslaught sort of worth it. ("What kind of animal WANTS you to eat it?" one sound byte from Slither asks. The answer? Hollywood.)

Bring on the worms: http://www.slithermovie.net/hunting/

Hunting Season requires the latest Shockwave Player (installed automatically as a browser plug in). It may also require a fast internet connection and a decent graphics card in your computer, because the design is richly competitive with most modern shooting games for the PC.

Knife Throw

You've seen it in every carny movie ever made. Now's your chance to throw blades at the person tied to a spinning wheel. It's simple, childish, time-consuming fun -- like darts for the demented.

http://quickflashgames.com/games/knifethrow/

Trapped in a Well

Trapped in a Well is a cruel way to experience the existential horror of starvation. What a lovely idea. Thankfully, it ends quickly.

[The game is really just a joke by the new humorists at awesomefunny.com. But I think it's actually quite profound.]

Exmortis

Exmortis is an excellent haunted house game, reminiscent of the "Silent Hill" series of twisted "crawlers". You click your way around a creepy abandoned house, picking up clues (and weapons) as you try to solve the mystery of where you are, why there's a head in the microwave, and why there's blood all over the furniture. Try to solve the symbol puzzle before you die in a horrible fashion.

Sure, you'll spot a lot of familiar horror images and feel like you've been here before. But there's something about the way this game is put together that makes it really creepy. Combining nice art and a moody score, Exmortis is effectively chilling, even if it tests your patience as you try to figure out what to do next (a link to a helpful "walkthrough" is included below for the frustrated).

Play Exmortis (warning: the game is a 5 mb file that downloads when you load the game)

Brought to you by Ben Leffler Web Design

Need help? The Exmortis walkthrough can assist, as a last resort.

[Note: Exmortis requires Macromedia Flash, which is probably already plugged into your web browser]

Skeleton Marionettes

Manipulate the actions of skeletal figures using virtual wires and other devices. Weird "x-ray machine" fun from Andries Odendaal at Wireframe Studios.

Dance, Skeleton, Dance!

Also see....
Wireframe's Portfolio and Odendaal's Whizzball

***
[Requires Macromedia Flash, which is probably already plugged into your web browser.]

The Zoomquilt

You may have already seen this one, but if not, you're in for a treat. This collaborative art project is mesmerizing as you fly through a surreal tunnel of cascading bizarre art. For some reason I was reminded of The Phantom Tollbooth as I scrolled through its infinite recesses, but I can't explain why. (The "flash" version is best...check it out!).

The Zoomquilt

[Thanks to Judi Rohrig for mentioning this one.]

Mrs. Pac Monster

Fans of Jeff Strand will really dig "Grave Robber." In this quirky Frankenstein-Meets-Pac Man game by Sam Bellman, you play a lonely scientist who's out to create the perfect woman. You race around a graveyard, digging up body parts and dodging mindless zombies, all while doing the "Monster Mash." It's not easy...I haven't been able to survive it yet. But it's addictive and hilarious.

Grave Robber
Sam Bellman's game portfolio
Grave Robbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary), by Jeff Strand

[Requires Macromedia Flash, which is probably already plugged into your web browser.]

German Corpse Tossing

A German television company, Vox.de, has a pair of fun (and morbidly funny) online games inspired by the HBO television series, Six Feet Under, hidden on their website. Both are twisted javelin competitions, where you must throw gross things for as long a distance as you can muster.

In one of them, you play a mortician who is removing the pacemaker from a body cavity and throwing it away. Since the instructions are in German, here's how to play: use the spacebar on your keyboard to drop the device, and then hit the spacebar again to bounce it off the trashcan and send the pacemaker flying across the room. (The bloody thing can bounce off of sponges, which you can arrange with your mouse). Click on "neustart" to play again.
Six Feet Under: Our Second Game

In another, easier, game, you play a hearse driver who is tossing coffins. Accelerate the hearse by hitting the right arrow key rapidly. Once you're off the asphalt, press the spacebar to brake just before you hit a brick wall...and then see how far you've hurled the body.
Six Feet Under: Our Game

Both games require Macromedia Flash, which is probably already plugged into your web browser. (Special thanks to my wife, Renate, who translated the instructions!).

A Murder of Scarecrows

Having figured out that scarecrows are really just straw, the jaded ravens are pulling the stuffed dummies apart with their nasty little beaks. But you can bring them back to life by zinging magic seeds to them from nearby trees. Make sense? Well, it will if you check out the artful and surprisingly difficult game from The Skeleton Shop, "A Murder of Scarecrows." In something akin to "Tim Burton meets Missile Command," this game will keep you entertained for hours. Be sure to read the opening poem and remember to ring the churchbell to resurrect the dead!

http://www.theskeletonshop.com/

Scuba Steak

If the characters in Open Water drove you crazy, then now's your chance for revenge. Play SC Stoddard's "Mad Shark" and you get to be an insane great white shark who must feast on scuba divers before they attack you with their steely knives. Time to sink your chum or cut bait!

http://www.shockwave.com/sw/content/madshark

Surrealism Calling

Pick up the receiver and dial Michael Clague's bizarre AOOA Telephone before the clocks start melting. Every call leads to an uncanny little puzzle, but this isn't a game in the traditional sense. You might just reach the alien mothership. Or a sad clown. Or Satan himself. You never know.

The telephone is ringing.

[Requires the Macromedia Flash browser plug-in. You've probably already got it in your browser, but you might like to update yours or install a new one]

(They Burn) Just Like Ants

Chances are good that because you're reading this newsletter, you were the creepy sort of kid -- excuse me, I meant "curious" sort -- who enjoyed crisping leaves, frying insects, and even burning tattoos onto your kid brother's forehead with a magnifying glass on a sunshining day. If that description brings back fond memories, then you're going to LOVE this month's strange gizmo. It's called "Ant City" and the premise is simple: you're a giant with a magnifying glass that lets you fry all those pesky little human beings (and dogs, and cars, and so on) down below. http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/games/gameson4/ant_city.html

If you like this diversion, then go to bossmonster.com for even more weirdness (I recommend the bizarre "Just Not Cricket")

[Requires the Macromedia Flash Player, which is automatically installed if you don't already have it in your browser.]

Blackout

So you think you've got what it takes to survive the mindless zombie hoard? Think again. Your boom stick can only help you so much when you're cornered in a fenced in lot at night...in the middle of a blackout. Not easy!

Check out this mindless -- no, brainless -- high quality first person shooter from the publicity crew for the Dawn of the Dead remake (their full site also contains a password guesser and a virtual autopsy gizmo!):

http://www.dawnofthedeadmovie.net/experience/blackout.htm

The Uncanny Face

It's so simple, it's unsettling. Dominique puts a face on your computer monitor. Sure, any large photo of a hairless, ear-less, squareheaded person gazing back at you from behind the glass will always be a little freaky. But it's Dominique's playful smile and glinty wink that will truly freak you out. She's new media flesh, so be sure to tweak her features with your mouse, clicking on the skin like pinching clay, and see how uncanny she can really be. (Hint: this might make for a fun "Active Desktop" in Windows).

http://www.alterfin.com/dominique/

Last Words

You've been lacerated twenty times by the blade. The killer takes your fingertip with him for safe keeping. But little does he know that you're not dead yet. You dip the quill of your gored fingertip into the inkwell of your own blood, conveniently puddling on the kitchen floor beside your intestines. You write the name of your murderer on the tiles. It's....

Bloody Finger Mail!

Here are my last words.

[Requires the Flash MX player, a plug-in which will auto-install in your web browser if you don't have it already.]

Meet Gory Gary

Remember the good old Garbage Pail Kids? They're back and have their own animated website, complete with more juvenile scatology and bizarre behavior than you'd expect. You can watch "Bustin' Justin" turn a crank that pops an alien out of his belly. Or watch Cheesy Charlie cut off a slice of his pizza face and take a bite. The Kids site also features a cool gizmo that lets you create your own mutant children! The contest it was a part of has officially closed, but you can still have a lot of fun creating your own diabolically sick siblings. The only limit -- beyond their stock clip art -- is your perverse imagination. (You might want to browse what others have done first for inspiration before you start).

Hop right to the site and get started on procreating your own offbeat offspring:
http://www.garbagepailkidsworld.com/

Or step right up and see Gory Gary, the Gorelets Poster Child

[Requires the Flash MX player, a plug-in which will auto-install in your web browser if you don't have it already.]

Eye Prodding

You've probably used your computer to generate funhouse effects on photographs before -- smearing someone's face into a surrealist masterpiece or smudging someone's nose clean off. It's fun the first time you "goo" a graphic. But the shock effect wears out quickly -- when you've seen it once, you've seen it a million times.

But there's something genuinely disturbing about prodding Arseiam's Eyes. I can't put my finger on it. The concept isn't new, but it somehow creeps me out every time.

Be sure to click around and visit all the bizarre graphic experiments on Arseiam's page and see if you can find another favorite of mine: "the illegible poetry generator."

[Requires the Flash MX player, a plug-in which will auto-install in your web browser if you don't have it already.]

Five Finger Fillet

Put your hand down on the table. Spread those fingers wide. Now don't move....

Five Finger Fillet is a remarkably addictive game of virtual Mumbleypeg, brought to you by the defunct site for "13th Street" by Universal Studios.

When you've finished filleting your phalanges on one hand, try the alternate version of the game from Makai Media on the other.

And if you want to save on long distance, play it on your cell phone!

Stare Down Sally

Remember those staring matches from childhood? The ones where you'd stare at someone until your eyes watered, seeing who would blink first? Think you were good at it? Gutsy enough to risk astigmatism? Well I dare you to Stare Down Sally!

http://www.stairwell.com/stare/

The Gender Genie

Paste a snippet of text into this online
form at BookBlog.net, and -- applying
an algorithm from groundbreaking
linguistic research -- the Gender Genie
will determine whether the writer is
male or female!

How is this possible?!

In a nutshell, it assumes that men write
more about objects than women, who
tend to write more often about
relationships. Whether that's hogwash
or not, the Genie is apparently right
80% of the time. Are you?

Check to see if you're unknowingly
writing in drag. Or test one of those
ambiguously-gendered author names
and/or suspicious-looking
pseudonyms. Or do some detective
work on your Instant Message buddies.
The Gender Genie won't grant any of
your wishes but it's lots of fun to, um,
fool around with.

http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.html