Back in the days when "computers" was still an entire class, free time at the end was always the best. Recently, I've gone back and played a few of the games I always turned to and they were still just as great as I remembered them to be.
1. "Bloxorz"
This game involves turning blocks strategically to fit them into a hole to win the level. I remember there was always that one kid in class that was a Bloxorz legend and he'd secretly pass along advanced level access codes so us peasants could know how the other half live.
2. "Coffee Shop"
This game makes you the owner of your own coffee shop where you set the price, recipe, and buy the supplies. I remember getting unreasonably angry at the townspeople not liking the disgustingly sugary mix I made. They just didn't appreciate the art I was serving up hot.
3. "Lemonade Stand"
This game is the Coffee Shop of lemonade, except more bad things happened to your supply stock. After playing that game for a while, I was ready to go into extermination to get the ants away from my sugar myself.
4. "Webkinz"
Webkinz, for those who lived under a rock in the late 2000s, was an online game that you got access to from buying real stuffed animals. You could then take your stuffed animals online and play games and build houses and do just about anything with them in the online world. I had way too many of these boys and way too hardcore of an addiction for Polar Plunge.
5. "Papa's Games"
These, by far, are and were my favorite games. You were a worker in some sort of restaurant (they came out with tons of different varieties of restaurants like tacos, pasta, pizza, burgers, cupcakes, sushi) and you got to take the orders, cook and prepare their food, make sure it looked good and send it out. As the games went on, there were more cool things that you could do with the game. You could get upgrades to make food prep easier, decorate the lobby, dress up your character and server, play minigames to win prizes, and celebrate holidays for tip bonuses. I'm really hooked on Papa's Scooperia right now which is a cookie sundae shop.
6. "World's Hardest Game"
This game really was the world's hardest. I think I got past the first level maybe a few times ever. The object is to safely get your little icon across a minefield of danger. It's really hard and I remember being overwhelmingly frustrated by it.
7. "Sugar, Sugar"
In this game, you have to draw lines to guide falling sugar into a mug. I had a lot of fun with this one and remember thinking I was pretty darn good at it because I could get to some high levels. Looking back, it really isn't all that hard to draw a line to a cup.
8. "Snake"
This is an absolute classic of a game. You play as a snake that can't hit itself that's trying to eat something. You get longer with each thing that you eat and the challenge increases. You can play this for hours and get plenty frustrated over and over again.
