Plus, I have a dictionary, and I know how to use it. The Word Jumble in the newspaper is much more fun because you get the reward of solving the silly pun when you're done. Again, groovy music and pretty graphics aside, I just couldn't get hooked. In Bad Dog 911, you form as many words as possible from a group of letters. In Fish Shtick, you unscramble letters to form words. I'd much rather play Lode Runner 2, with its tricky puzzles, mad monks, and crazy power-ups. The problem with these arcade-type games is that the gameplay isn't compelling enough to master them. If you can avoid the red blobs and swirls, you can head for the level exit and go on to the next. Roger Dodger is similar you control a little gem and race around collecting little green blobs and swirls. To advance to the next level, you must mow the entire lawn. You drive the lawnmower man, collect objects, and try to avoid baddies, such as mean dogs, gardeners, and ghosts. Mowin' Maniac is Pac-Man, pure and simple. As I find myself returning to this never-changing, always bland game, I wonder if the real reason I keep playing it is because I'm bored and want a quick ten-minute diversion, or I can't be bothered to fire up the PlayStation and attack the wonder that is Crash Bandicoot 3. Its gameplay is just pared down to the point that the only challenge becomes keeping your Hula Girl on the screen as the platforms speed by faster and faster. This game resembles just about every single Game Boy, console, or PC platform game I've every seen. If you are unlucky, you can land on a platform containing a treat (candy, ice cream, or sodas) to fill it back up. You try to avoid landing on platforms that have nasties (bugs, frogs, and spiders) that drain your Yuck-o-Meter. In Hula Girl (one of the most fun games), you assume the role of a hula hoop-spinning chica who jumps from platform to platform. The only difference is that After Dark Games incorporates the objects and characters from the screen savers. Each game is either a blatant rip-off of better-known games or is just so close, the only puzzle to solve will be trying to figure out what game it reminds you of. It's obvious that the developers took time to produce sharp, clear graphics, and each game has original music (the fact that the short music bites loop endlessly until you're in a homicidal rage is beside the point).īut under the veneer of sharp, colorful graphics and engaging music and sound are games that just don't bring any life to the desktop puzzle genre. The puzzles range from word games (Fish Shtick and Bad Dog 911) to arcade games (Hula Girl, Roger Dodger, and Mowin' Maniac) to a Tetris-type game (Roof Rats) to a trivia game (Zapper). Included in the eleven are versions of solitaire and shanghai. But, thanks to those kooky flying toasters, screen savers became firmly rooted in computer culture.Īfter Dark Games is a collection of eleven desktop distractions. Nowadays, monitors are advanced enough that burn-in is a thing of the past. Umpteen years ago, some wacky guys over at Berkeley Systems created a series of screen savers that subsequently appeared on just about every single office computer in existence.