1. Spelunky
Spelunky is about anger, hate and, most of all, death. It looks like a simple enough platform game – an Indiana Jones pastiche set in a cavern full of tricks and traps – and it is. There's nothing complicated about it. Every enemy is avoidable. Every trap can be dealt with.
The catch is that every time you play, the entire game is randomised. In one game you'll stumble through screen after screen of spiked horrors and swarming monsters; in the next, the software will bend over backwards to give you gold and help you on your way.
http://www.spelunkyworld.com/
2. NetHack
Much like Spelunky, this open-source classic makes heavy use of randomisation to give you a new adventure every time you fire it up. However, instead of being a platform game, it's an epic RPG with the unofficial motto, 'The dev team thinks of everything'.
Do you want to blind a basilisk with a custard pie? Abuse shape-changing spells to lay deadly eggs that can be used as weapons? Get blasted by your patron deity if you try praying to them when they're in a bad mood? It's all in here, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
http://www.nethack.org/
3. Quake Live
This is how far the web has come: one of the best deathmatch games ever created is now available to play from within the confines of your browser.
Well, technically, no, it's not actually in it – Quake Live uses a plug-in and then goes full-screen when you play – but the spirit is still there.
Any modern computer is now able to handle Quake's modest demands, and the game's blisteringly fast action makes it quite unlike any modern shooter. Forget realism. Forget objectives. Sometimes, all you need is a rocket launcher, a perfectly timed shot and the lamentation of the noobs as time permits.
Beware, though: if you haven't played id Software's classic shooter for a while, the frenetic pace of the online action might be terrifying.
http://www.quakelive.com/#home
4. Beneath a Steel Sky
A classic adventure from British developer Revolution, and one that serves two purposes. First, it's fun – a comic-style sci-fi adventure with a wry sense of humour.
http://www.scummvm.org/downloads/
5. Desktop Tower Defence
It's not just a game, it's a whole genre. The idea is simple. In most RTS games, you build units such as soldiers or tanks and pit them against your enemy's army.
In Desktop Tower Defence games, you put down fixed turrets, each with different abilities, with the aim of stopping the enemy making it from one side of the screen to the other. It sounds easy and, like most casual games, for the first few levels it is.
http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/Game.asp
6. Digital: A Love Story
Remember the excitement of logging into your first BBS? What if you'd found something more than just files and chatter and naked pictures of assorted Star Trek actresses?
To explain Digital: A Love Story would be giving away too much, so let's just say that it's a great nostalgia trip with a bit of future-gazing thrown in for free. Played out entirely on 1988-style bulletin boards, it starts when you respond to an email from a lonely-sounding girl called Emilia.
The relationship plays out as a hacker's romance as you jump between BBS systems to uncover a conspiracy, mostly interacting by firing off emails to the characters. You never get to see what you've said, only the responses, which adds an unusual but effective disconnect to the conversations.
It's not a long game – only an hour or so of action at most – but it's a testament to the writing that you quickly get sucked into what is basically just typing out a lot of phone numbers. The authentic-sounding music and sound effects help: the sweet siren song of a modem connecting still sends a chill down the spine.
http://www.scoutshonour.com/digital/
7. Neopets
Neopets doesn't feature just one game to complete; instead, it's stuffed with hundreds of minigames. Each of these is located in a different area of Neopia, a virtual world that you must explore with your trusty Neopet (which you design and name yourself) by your side.
http://www.neopets.com/
8. Neptune's Pride
Do you have good friends? Want to lose them all over the course of a month? Then this is the strategy game for you.
The idea is that you only need to log in every now and again to direct your intergalactic fleet around the universe. Your friends, hereafter referred to as 'former friends', do the same.
Read the diaries to see a typical game played out from start to finish.
np.ironhelmet.com
9. Online poker
Who said you needed a massive bankroll to play poker online? If you know where to go, it's possible to earn fairly large amounts of money without investing a penny through multi-table tournaments known as freerolls.
All of the major online cardrooms run tournaments like this to lure in new users in the hope that they'll become addicted and pump fistfuls of their hard-earned cash into the site for many years to come.
Sites to keep an eye on are Full Tilt, Pokerstars and PartyPoker – they're always running promotions. For a day-to-day breakdown of freerolls and their UK times, visit: http://www.freerolltimes.co.uk/poker_freerolls.php.
10. Dwarf Fortress
If you find games like SimCity or Civilisation a little too simple, Dwarf Fortress is the game for you. Technically, its full name is Slaves to Armok: God of Blood: Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress, but absolutely nobody calls it that.
Here for instance is one forum's game, served up in episodic Lets Play format: http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/intro.html. Excellent, yet bewildering.
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
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