Casual Girl Gamer

IOS Game Round Up

We report on some of the iPhone and iPad games that have caught our attention recently.

Okay, we give in. When we started this blog back in late 2009, we intended to focus on free online games. We did not want to burden visitors with the hassle of downloading or purchasing games. But as Casual Girl Gamer has grown in popularity (many thanks to all the 200,000 odd who visit us each month), so have the calls for us to cover games for Apple's iPad and iPhone devices.

Published by Alex Kearns on 9th February 2011

Ten Chain Reaction Games

We have collected together the best free online chain reaction games we could find for your playing pleasure.

While sitting down at my computer to write a game review I accidentally knock a glass of water over. The contents of the glass splash over our pet cat, giving her a mighty shock. She immediately leaps through an open window and bounds across a busy road. Spotting her, a driver slams hard down on his breaks, causing the truck behind to crash into the back of him.

Published by Tasha on 6th February 2011

Icy Gifts

This fun chain reaction game takes the core game-play of the classic Boomshine and soups it up with colourful graphics, upgrade paths and achievements.

When developer Danny Miller created a little chain reaction game called Boomshine in 2007, he did not have particularly high hopes for it. The game was incredibly simple. Nothing more than an oblong box with small spheres bouncing around. All you did was click somewhere with your mouse to create an explosion, the idea being that any sphere that came into contact with the detonation would in turn blow up, setting in motion a chain reaction.

Published by Tasha on 3rd February 2011

High Tea

The UK's Wellcome Collection brings you a brilliant trading game that explores one of the more unsavoury episodes in world history.

Britain might nowadays be an insignificant little country on the edge of Europe (sorry all my UK readers but I have to tell it as it is) but there was a time, not so long ago, when it ruled the largest empire the world has ever witnessed. At its peak in the early 20th century, the British empire held sway over a quarter of the world's population and huge swathes of its landmass. No-one could challenge its military and economic might.

Published by Tasha on 1st February 2011

Electric Box 2

The sequel to one of the best Flash puzzle games of 2009 will have geeks and nerds rubbing their soldering irons together with glee.

Anyone who has met me knows that I can be quite obsessive. Especially when it comes to games. If I find a game that I like, I will play it and play it and play it - often for months on end. The game I have been obsessing over during the past few weeks is Electric Box 2. Sequel to the 2009 title, Electric Box 2 is a fiendish puzzle game where you have to complete the circuit from the power supply to the target. You do this by placing components at strategic places on the circuit board that forms the main area of the game.

Published by Tasha on 31st January 2011

Top 10 Goriest Games

The squeamish among you might want to look away for these ten games are among the goriest, bloodiest and nastiest the internet has to offer.

We at Casual Girl Gamer like to think that we are a couple of notches above the average gaming blogger. We take great care choosing the games we highlight on this site, often selecting philosophical or arty games that shed light on the human experience - see our lists of games that make you think about life here and here.

Published by Alex Kearns on 30th January 2011

Best of the web

While you sleep, we scour the web for the best gaming stories and share them with you here in our new 'Best of the Web' column.

Welcome to what we hope will become a regular column on Casual Girl Gamer. In Best of Web, we aim to share with you the gaming stories and links that have piqued our interest over the previous week. This inaugural issue includes a flick through the portfolio of a game studio with a great artistic style, coverage of a fantastic retro RPG game for the XBox and the launch of new competition to uncover the best HTML5 games.

Published by Tasha on 26th January 2011

Aurora

If there is one game that should convince you to install the Unity browser plugin, it is this stunningly beautiful solar system sandbox game.

I almost did not play Aurora. It uses the Unity plugin and I have had bad experiences with Unity games in the past. Some have run dreadfully slowly on my laptop. Others have actually crashed my browser. So when I spotted the Unity loading screen, my first reaction was to immediately close down the game. I am glad I resisted this urge because Aurora is an absolute gem of a game. Certainly, it is one of the most beautiful browser games I have ever played.

Published by Tasha on 25th January 2011

Tank World

HTML5 might still be in its infancy but it is already being used to create some highly impressive games, as Tank World amply proves.

In September last year, we introduced our readers to a new technology for creating online games. HTML5 - as the technology is called - has the great advantages of being both completely open source and not needing a browser plugin. At the time, we published a list of the 30 best HTML5 games to show the potential of this powerful new technology.

Published by Alex Kearns on 24th January 2011

Top 10 Games for Liberals

From a time-management sim about fast food production practices to a gaming protest against British police tactics, these are the games every self-respecting liberal simply has to play.

Can games be political? Do conservatives/Republicans and their ilk prefer some types of game - Deer Hunter, for example - and liberals/Democrats others? To be honest, I don't know the answer. But I thought it would be fun to compile a list of free online games with a political edge. We have started with this collection of games we thought would appeal to liberals but over the coming weeks we will also be publishing lists of games for conservatives and socialists.

Published by Alex Kearns on 21st January 2011

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