Browser games have been with us as long as people have had the skills and resources to make them. So long in fact, that I frequently forget that they are as much games as the games on my phone or Steam Account.
Fueled by a mixture of boredom and procrastination, these short bursts of entertainment are closely related to the modern smartphone app but still exist on sites like Kongregate and Newgrounds in their own right and have some very interesting modern relatives.
Some of the first browser games I remember playing in the early 2000?s were simple recreations of mini-golf or classic arcade games.
Suffice it to say that they have come a long way since then, and advancing technology as well as the developing skills of the community have resulted in a plethora of free games for anyone who wants to play them.
Good examples of successful and high quality flash games are the Bloons Tower Defense games and the Epic War series. Bloons Tower Defence is on its fifth iteration and also has successful Mobile versions of its games on app stores.
Whilst you?d think that the rise of free-to-play games would have negatively impacted the dedicated flash games site; yet, this doesn?t seem to be the case and not only are the sites and the communities around them still going strong but the developers themselves are still making new games.
Not only has the browser games community maintained its presence, the advances in technology have prompted the growth of new browser games. Google?s Chrome browser has what amounts to an app store built in, and has some interesting experiments with how far browser technology has come.
Head over to chromeexperiments.com to see some of the interesting things which browsers are now capable of. A personal highlight is Geoguesser.com which sets you down in art random part of the world with a Google Streetview to guide you, and you have to guess where in the world you are by clicking on am map. The closer you are the more points you score. For the record, my best so far is about 18,000 points over five guesses.
Chrome is also capable of running the mech-based MOBA game AirMech. Over the last ten years, one of the most notable changes of browser based games is the transition, along with the majority of the gaming world, from local to online multiplayer.
Whereas once I might have sat with my friends paying mini-golf on penny arcade, now I might be paying against other players online in Kongregate games.
It?s not only the features of browser games which have developed, the variety and genres of browser games available has skyrocketed. Going through sports, collectable card games, tower defence, first-person shooters, to RPG?s and puzzle games.
With the development of more and more complex browser games like CS Portable a browser-based version of popular shooter Counter-Strike and similar games, all available for free it?s a wonder we pay for games at all. Especially given their almost universal availability.
I?ll round out this weeks FreePlay with some recommendations from me. Here?s are my three favorite browser games, all courtesy of Kongregate.com:
Tyrant: This is a Collectable Card Game with some serious depth. You select 8 cards from your library to form your attacking deck, and 8 for your defensive deck. There are plenty of different card attributes and abilities to get to grips with, and a lot of extra card packs to get. If you like CCG?s this game will keep you occupied for quite some time.
Kingdom Rush: At first glance this tower defense game is fairly simple, selected tower types to go on the points, waves of mobs spawn and move towards the exit. However, a steep learning curve and branching upgrades for the towers, along with upgrades and multiple mission modes give this tower defense game a shelf life far longer than many of its contemporaries.
Contract Wars: Contract Wars is a modern style FPS with a variety of weapons, maps, and game modes. It?s genuinely a testament to the scale of improvement in browser based games over the last decade that this is possible in browsers.
Source: http://gamesareevil.com/2013/05/freeplay-browser-meet-game/
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