Fancy a Quickie?

We play games for a living here at VideoGamer.com but some of you aren’t so lucky (we write a lot about them too, to be fair), so every Friday afternoon we’ll introduce some gaming into your workplace. “Fancy a Quickie?” presents 5 bite-sized Flash gaming nuggets for you to sneakily play in your web browser while the boss is busy dealing with an important client or stuck in a meeting.

Helicopter

This game must go down in history as one of the greatest Flash games ever made, yet it’s incredibly simple. You must guide a constantly forward-moving helicopter through an increasingly dangerous cavern. The only control is your left mouse button: hold to increase your altitude and let go to free fall. It’s frustrating to see your chopper clip a cliff (when you clearly didn’t. Damn hit boxes!) over and over again, but you won’t be able to stop. If you’re of a volatile nature, be warned.

Curveball

This is another classic that’s been popping up on forums and in emails for years. Curveball is a virtual game of futuristic squash, played against a computer player. Your opponent becomes increasingly more adept at the game as you progress through the levels and your high-score rises along the way. After a while it becomes about how quick your reflexes are rather than skill, but as far as ‘zone’ gaming goes, this is one of the best Flash games available.

Flash Geometry Wars

Most of us enjoy a bit of Geometry Wars now and again, but what can we do while we’re at work? Assuming you don’t have a copy of Sierra’s Geometry Wars Galaxies for the DS, then this Flash-based version of the game should fill the high-score sized hole preventing you from working. Although not as fast as the games you’ll play on DS or consoles, Flash Geometry Wars is more than good enough to waste a few minutes on a quiet Friday afternoon.

Portal: The Flash Version

First a word of warning: don’t play this unless your boss is willing to overlook hours of slacking off. If you’ve played the much applauded Portal from Valve then you’ll know what to expect, but this time it’s all on a 2D plane. After a few minutes to adjust to the different perspective you’ll be firing off portals like a pro and catapulting your tiny character around the screen. James managed to play this for 2 hours without doing any work a few weeks back. Can you top that?

Nanaca Crash

It’s hard to explain this game without sounding like a lunatic. Put as simply as possible, you play a girl who rides a bike into a guy, who propels you into the sky and sends you bouncing along the landscape. You can interact by initiating mid-air boosts or downward angle kicks, and the people you land on give you boosts, slow you down or stop you completely. It’s completely bonkers and insanely addictive.