Five games that make you think about life

Do you ever get that feeling, when playing games, that you really should be doing something more edifying with your life. I do, usually at about three in the morning after a marathon session of slaughtering undead in Sacred 2. It is a sad fact that most the computer games I play are about as intellectually stimulating as a fart. 1Passage It is very rare - nay, impossible - for a game to reduce me to tears. Passage can be played on Mac OSX, Windows and Linux and can be downloaded here. 2The Majesty of Colors "Last night I had a dream". The Majesty of Colors is a game that can be played multiple times - the decisions you make during the game determine between the many different endings. 3The Game The Game starts by telling us that there are no rules, just play. Trust me, The Game will change your perception of what games are about. 4Gray Gray is a riot - quite literally. Super Karoshi In Super Karoshi, dieing is not something to be scared of but celebrated. 5Super Karoshi

CANABALT Wait, I thought you didn’t like ads around your game? I don’t. But I'm using something like 2.5TB of bandwidth each month serving this game up (i.e. A LOT) and Kong hosts good games by good people and is helping me pay my hosting bills! Ten games that make you think about life At the start of this year, we decided to come up with a list of Flash casual games with a philosophical bent. To be honest, we struggled. After days of research, we could only find a handful of games that had the thought-provoking depth we were looking for. Our list (which you can view by clicking here) was therefore only five games long. Fast forward to now, and it is remarkable how much difference a few months can make. Thanks to the work of pioneers like Daniel Benmergui, Gregory Weir and PixelAnte, there is now an abundance of clever arty Flash games to pique our intellects, and as a result creating this follow-up list of games that make you think has been a doddle. In a wonderful twist, it seems it is the Flash gaming space - until now known more for the throwaway nature of its games rather than depth - that is leading the way in this exciting new area of gaming, as we hope the following games prove. 1Immortall The game starts with you crash landing on a planet. 2Loved 5Coma 6Loondon

Ten more games that will make you think about life Life, eh? It's all a bit mad really, isn't it? Here we are, the products of millions of years of chance chemical and biological reactions, wandering around on a dying rock as it spins through the vast, indifferent universe with nought but the knowledge of our own inevitable oblivion for company. A sobering thought. 1 One Chance Here's something to think about - every decision we ever make, no matter how seemingly inconsequential it may be at the time, has the potential to fundamentally change our lives forever. Of course, the thing about decisions is you normally only get one chance to make them and, once they're made, you can't go back. You are the super-smart scientist whose discovery appears to have conquered one of the most devastating diseases known to humankind. 2 A Mother in Festerwood Kids, eh? As a mother, it's your job to keep your little tyke in the safety of the homestead until they have enough experience to survive the monster-infested woods. 3 American Dream 4 As I Lay Dying

Another 20 games that make you think about life - StumbleUpon First we gave you five. Then we gave you ten. Now we are giving you 20 games that make you think about life. As with our previous lists, we have focused mainly on free games that you can play in your browser. 1 Elude Developed by Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab, Elude is a dark, atmospheric game that aims to shed light on the nature of depression. The forest that you start the game in represents a normal mood. This is a gloomy underground cavern, with a sticky muddy base that sucks you down. 2 Air Pressure You will have to play through Air Pressure - a Flash port of an interactive novel by Bentosmile - more than once to truly understand the characters and themes in this game. 3 Symon Another impressive production by Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab, Symon is a point-and-click adventure game with a difference. You also get to solve a lot of puzzles. 4 Ulitsa Dimitrova The Russians have never been the most cheery people. 5 Ute I am not quite sure what to make of this game. 6 Aether 8 Yet One Word

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