I broke down and decided to try Angry Birds on Google+. Most surprising was how I was immediately compelled to try and outdo my contacts’ high scores. It didn’t take long until I moved up into first place.

Here is my technique:

How many of the top 100 most common English words can you guess?

I got more than I expected with 72.

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Careful, World Wars is a great little flash game, similar to Risk, that may keep you coming back for more—it’s very addictive.

You’ve listened to backwards music, now check out Jump on Mushroom, a mind-bending video game that’s played in reverse. Trust me when I say, it’ll force you to rethink the way you learned to play Mario Bros.

www.hempuli.com/JoM.zip

I never read the instructions very carefully and didn’t figure this out until the level 1 (the last level): you can skip the rewind (or forward) sequences by hitting Esc. Good luck.

A beautiful physics flash game: Auditorium.

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It’s a terrible time waster, but if you’re looking to kill your afternoon, try Whiteboard Tower Defense.

A short time waster, Crappy Cat isn’t the kind of flash game that rewards dexterity and reflexes, but instead curiosity and morbidity.

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Warning: The following link leads to an extremely addicting flash game. Luckily there are only 20 levels and then you can go to sleep. At least, that’s what I did.

Fantastic Contraption.

I tried out Google’s new Second-Life clone, Lively. Never having played Second-Life, I’m not so sure what all the fuss is about, but just for kicks, embedded below is my Lively virtual room.

Update: Lively has been shut down.

Here’s a fun distraction for your Friday: Sign in, wait for the green light, and type as fast as you can.

Typeracer.com.

I did pretty well with my average 65wpm speed.

Even better than the homemade touch screen hack, Johnny Lee has come up with a head tracking hack that could certainly be turned into many REALLY cool games.

[Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote - YouTube]

Using a couple of homemade infrared pens, a Wiimote, and some software he wrote, Johnny Chung Lee of Carnegie Mellon University has come up with, what must be, the coolest Nintendo Wii hack ever. Since the Wii tracks IR lights, Lee found that practically any surface—a projector screen, a tabletop, an LCD screen—could be turned into a multi-touch screen reminiscent of the iPod Touch or Microsoft Surface.

[Low-Cost Multi-touch Whiteboard using the Wiimote - YouTube]

For those do-it-yourself types out there, the software can be downloaded here.

Would you like to see something that looks like a trick, but is actually not a trick?

[Dice Stacking - YouTube]

[Dice stacking - Youtube]

Yes, it’s real.

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Paul Preece, creator of Desktop Tower Defense, shares some inside info about his tremendously popular game in a recent interview. He claims to be making nearly $100,000 a year in ad revenue.

Check out the top ten best 8-bit games as rated by the Game Trailer Countdown. A couple of my favorite 8-bit games, Tetris and Excitebike, didn’t make the cut, but the GT list does have some classics.