LOATHSOME FUN, ETC.

Links!

Kingdom of Loathing: A hilarious online game. Part of the appeal KoL had over me (I've been inactive for about a year now) was that it reminded me of the text-based PC games (Zork, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) I used to spend hours playing as a kid. These games were frustratingly clever, and sometimes you had to type in an exact phrase, like, "Point the Rod of Levitation at the reliquary," just to make the game move forward a line. Nevertheless, the descriptions in the text were vivid (they had to be — there wasn't anything else to base the game on) and the puzzles were well-thought-of (Hamlet the game had me pondering over lines of Shakespeare at six years old — beat that!), and was the closest thing to an interactive novel, or an interactive anything, at that time. KoL has illustrations that look more like the scribbles of a toddler, which goes well with its cornball, pun-filled humor, and the gameplay's more point-and-click, but it's still a text-based game at heart.

Flipbook: Release your inner animator. Draw anything on the blank sheets on your screen, which you can then play in sequence to appear like a cartoon. Get to view other people's creations as well.

Meebo: Chat using just your online browser. Better still: log onto your YM, MSN, and Google Talk accounts all at the same time. A nifty little lifehack for offices with Internet restrictions (wink, wink).