I’d like to try making this a regular thing – some time every Monday links totwo Flash games worth your time go up with a screenshot and a little blurb. I have actual stuff I want to talk about, and several half-formed posts kicking around, but time and will power haven’t been able to come together at the same time this week. Blame Valve’s latest box of tricks.

Speaking of, our first game for this week is Portal: The Flash Version. It’s the mechanics and central thrust of Portal from The Orange Box, only with a side-scrolling perspective and, erm, in Flash.

While it lacks the creeping dread, singing turrets, and the wonder that is GLaDOS introducing each test room to you with just the slightest tinge of loathing in her sing-songy computer voice (much, much more on her later), the joy of its puzzles remains largely intact. You have a gun that shoots portals, allowing you to create two at a time on any surface that will support them and you can point at. Portals are entrances and exits – going in either one instantly pops you out the other, and any momentum you have going in stays with you coming out. This last part is particularly important, as you can use that momentum to fling your self across wide chasms or go shooting off into the sky. The point of each room is to get from point A to point B without being slaughtered horribly, which is quite often much easier said than done. If you’ve heard the faintest bit about Valve’s first-person puzzle-em-up, Portal: The Flash Version is a great way to start training your brain to think with portals. Now if only it offered me cake like its big sister…

Carrying on in the leap-of-faith-as-puzzle-mechanic theme, next is Geartaker from Tonypa, maker of many a fine Flash curiosity. Get to it by clicking “games” in the first sentence, then “geartaker”, the third title in the list. Silly all-flash pages.

In Geartaker you leap your little stick man from gear to gear by left clicking on the one you want him to leap to when he’s lined up well enough to land on it. Points are earned for your air time, making the gear farthest from you always the most valuable (and most dangerous). Gears and the paths between them fade over time, layering up on each other to create genuinely lovely patterns of daredevil geometry while clearly reminding you of your progression thus far. It’s simple, no frills (other than the music, which never quite becomes as irritating as you think it will, instead opting to be hopelessly addictive), and much more compelling than you might think at first. Make sure you have a bit of time to spare when you play it, as every time I start clicking through it I end up lost to the world for the better part of an hour.

Filed under: Flash Games