Well, it’s almost Halloween. And what could be scarier than a fat cat with a craving for donuts?  Add in a spooky house, and you’ve got a cute animated adventure that’s fun for the whole family. Both Garfield’s Scary Scavenger 1 and Garfield’s Scary Scavenger 2 games are set up with the same sort of gameplay.

You have to search a spooky mansion for clues and donut boxes. Get all the donuts and solve all the puzzles and you’re free. But watch out. Garfield is sort of a scaredy cat. There are lots of scary ghosts and ghouls who jump and scream. If Garfield’s “scary meter” gets too full, he runs away in fear, and you start the game over again.

In Scary Scavenger 1, you have to figure out a way into then out of a haunted mansion. In Scary Scavenger 2, you start out in the dark basement of the mansion, and have to get out. With great music, cool animation, scary sounds, and some familiar faces, this is one game that’s funny and scary at the same time.

Go ahead and play, if you dare. I know I wasted some Halloween time on this fun game.  I even made my kid play with me - and we had fun! Truly frightening.

Want to solve a puzzle without any clues? With this Crossword game, you’re given letters, and you have to add them to the crossword correctly so that all the words match up. Sounds easy, right? Well it is, in the beginner level. The game gives you lots of “starter” letters that help you solve the puzzles quickly.

However, if you go up to expert level, the number of starter levels decreases dramatically. It’s a fun puzzle that tests your word skill.

To play, click on the empty white square, then click on a letter to fill it. All the other squares with the same letter will automatically be filled. If you make a mistake, click on the box with the letter you want to remove, then click on the space bar image.

Click here to start playing this challenging flash game.

Another great game from Gamedesign, Peg Solitaire is simple. Jump the pegs over one another so that the last peg is on the black circle. Easy, right? Well, at the beginning, yes, but after a few levels, you’ll be using the “reset” and “undo” buttons a lot.

Stained Glass is a flash game with a colorful twist. The opening screen is two squares. The left one is full of blue sky, the other is full of squares with triangles. The object is to move all the squares from the right to the left side. The trick is that colors on all sides of the squares must match. Drag the squares from the right to the left with your mouse.

Stained Glass starts out with a 9-square puzzle, but each successive level adds more squares. It’s a deceptively simple game that gets harder the more you go. Try it now.

Many puzzle purists insist that solving puzzles isn’t about the picture, but about the shape of the pieces. Some even make a point of putting together puzzles backwards so that they don’t see any part of the picture. Well, the White Jigsaw flash puzzle is made for them.

Every piece of this jigsaw puzzle is white. That’s right, no picture, only shapes. The object is to drag the pieces onto the board with your mouse. The puzzle gets increasingly harder each level, since the number of pieces keeps increasng.

I’ve spent hours doing these!  

The Monster Viking Invasion game is really an advertisement disguised as a game. There are a lot of those out there. This one is fun because, well, Vikings, especially monster Vikings, are always funny. The cartoon graphics and sound effects are good here, and the gameplay is different. You must spring traps to keep London safe from hordes of Vikings. A short game, but fun nevertheless. Click here.

Nevashut is a funny, if not totally politically correct, game featuring everyone’s favorite potato chips - Pringles. Actually, although this game was obviously made to sell more chips, the real star of the game is Sanjeev, owner of the Nevashut gas station. Get it, Neva Shut?

Anyway, your object is to win all 5 flavors of Pringles by talking to Sanjeev and making him happy. You don’t need to say anything complicated, just ask him to do something, or compliment him. Get all five to win the game, although the real-life contest is over.

Sanjeev has some funny reactions to what you tell him. He also has some great lines if you say something silly or don’t say anything at all. The best, I think is when he dances to music. Tell him to “dance” and watch what happens.

It’s a fun way to pass the time. Can you win all 5 cans, including the extra-special onion one? Click here to find out.

Submachine 3 - The Loop follows the tradition of the other Submachine games. You’re plopped into a world and have to escape it. This one is even more intriguing, because there is no map or diary or anything to collect. It’s a free flash game, simple to look at, but hard to beat.

3 simple tips:

1. Also, the first thing you pick up is a compass of sorts - it tells you which room you’re in and on what floor. Use it so you don’t end up wandering around and losing your mind.
2. When you are transported to a puzzle, look on the top of the screen. A password will flash. Write that down to access the game at that point. Sign into the game with the password to avoid starting from the beginning.
3. Each level has a map in the room on the right to where you “land.” Use this map to determine where you are and what you need to do.

Good luck! And if you need more help, go to my hints page for a walkthrough.

I’ve posted some flash games here on my website. They are simple, but fun ones. I haven’t had a chance to play all of them, but I will be going through them slowly, and also adding more. The categories are:

• Arcade
• Casino
• Classic
• Puzzle
• Racing
• Shooting
• Space
• Sports
• Strange

Hope you enjoy them!

The JCB Song by Nizlopi combines a sweet song about a small boy and his dad, with a gentle, whimsical cartoon. The song and visuals go together so perfectly that you’ll be smiling, even though the subject matter is a little sad. I love the simplicity of the lyrics, and the joy in the final chorus. Check out this wonderful video and song that both won awards in England.