Life and Growth

I first discovered this type of game through jayisgames.com, who reviewed EYEZMAZE's Grow Series. The cute look & sounds of these might disguise the challenging (for me) solutions but once you finally do get everything in perfect order, the result is soooo satisfying.

My friend Bart at bontegames.com posted Life Ark 2 the other day, and I dove right in. Roughly 40 seconds later I screamed in frustration and thought I'd better start with the original Life Ark. Similar to EYEZMAZE's Grow games but without the recipe panels, you still get the pleasure of helping the one-screen landscape bloom. I did get through the original with the help of my husband (Okay, we peeked at a walkthrough once when I couldn't find the spot on the stream).



We started Life Ark 2 and again ran into trouble immediately. I'm wimpy and searched for some help, here's one of the "useful" comments I found:

angel said...
put all figures with vulcano shape and got dimond click on bird to fly and keep the dimond

Hmmm... I can't wait to get home and try again.

Slick web toys, boop beep!

Paul Neave's website www.neave.com is a great way to kill a little time. I'm sure it demonstrates his talent in Flash and whatnot but what's really important is how entertaining -yet simple- each of his little tools are. They're not all exactly tools or games so I'm calling them web toys. I'd really like to call attention to his Flash Earth map. Sure, you could see maps of the earth on Google or Microsoft's site, but the interface isn't quite as nice as Paul's. Go have some clicky fun!

Excellent example: Niek Dekker

Niek's portfolio is a prime example of why I love Flash and am interested in creating with the program. Simple but beautiful, colorful not gaudy, smoothly interactive and even loads quickly! You can wave to him at niekdekker.com


I found his portfolio on another site I'd like to recommend, Flash Allstars (who I found on twitter). Lots of lovely eye candy!

Social coloring contest

If you are having trouble coming up with a color scheme for a website, print design or anything really, there is a really useful site called COLOURlovers. You can create and name a color from a versatile color picker, select a group of colors to create a palette, or use that palette with a pattern that reflects the feeling of your colors. Not only is this site easy to use, the lovers are really friendly too. Love notes and heart-ratings are so sweet! I'm having lots of fun but I'm sure I will be using it as a professional tool in the future. Here's a pattern I created from my "PFA palette", the scheme on this little blog:

Color by COLOURlovers

Click quickly in Headspin

This flash game combines two of my favorite things in a casual fling: eye candy and a quick start. The visuals are elegant and rich in color. While instructions are offered, the game play is intuitive and easy to pick up. It's called Headspin Storybook.