Two short but sweet games for you this week. They’re from rather disparate genres, slapped together here due to their ever-so-sleight simularities to other games that are important to me at the moment.

First is Super Serif Brothers, which is exactly like Super Mario Bros. if there were only one of them and he were the letter “I” rather than a portly plumber with a tendency to dress as a racoon.

Pound signs (#) serve as the generic building blocks of levels, meaning anyting that isn’t a pound sign is special. Special characters can be used to navigate the level by serving as platforms, switches, exits, or things to collect. It’s simple fun, with some of the later levels getting pretty tricky. Miyamoto would be proud.

The real gem here, though, is the Level Pit, an ever-growing coloection of user created levels offering a vast array of challenges ranging from beginner to impossible. At the time of writing thre’s 3,556 of the things, all of which can be played for free. You can also play with the level editor (free and browser-based as well) if you fancy making and uploading your own. Like many other Flash games its simple appearance hides significant depth, and in this case the creators have managed to build a healthy and growing community around a simple browser game with no graphics and nearly limitless possibilities. Take note, MMOs: if you want your users to stay, give them the ability to make their own toys.

Next is Which Way Adventure, a choose-your-own-adventure game about nuclear annihilation, time travel, lady acrobats and manticores. Sometimes all at once.

Your options are truly limitless, provided you’ve ever wanted to destroy Western civilization, ride the rails as a hobo indefinitely, become a shoe cobbler’s apprentice, or be devoured by a manticore. In fact, no matter which way your journeys take you, odds are good you’ll wind up at the wrong end of said manticore, proving once again that art imitates life. Largely worksafe, depending on how your boss feels about crudely drawn cartoons of toppless circus women.

The reference here is only slightly less tenous than the Super Serif Brothers = Super Mario Bros. = Mario Galaxy one above. Tomorrow sees the commercial release of CSI: Dark Motives for the Nintendo DS, a port of the PC game from a few years ago of the same name that I produced. It might not seem like a lot, but this is kind of a huge thing – it’s a real thing in a real box on real store shelves, and it has my name in the credits section. I’ll talk more about it – and my actual job thing, which I just realized today I haven’t so much mentioned here before – over the next few days when I’m less about to pass out. In the meantime, if you or anybody you know are fans of the show or like playing detective in the style of the adventure games of yore, Dark Motives can be found at better videogame stores or via this handy Amazon link.

Filed under: Flash Games, Games, Things What I Made