Technabob » breakout

Can’T You See I’M Busy? How to Slack Off and Play Games at Your Job

Technabob — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:55:20 +0000

Sick of your job, but can’t afford to quit? Why not sit in your cubicle and play video games all day? But your boss is always looking over your shoulder, you say? Now that’s no problem thanks to these clever games disguised as office applications.

Just stop by over at CantYouSeeImBusy.com, choose your program, and get to work! Right now, you’ve got three great timewasters to choose from – Breakdown, which conceals a game of Breakout in a word processor (I love how the horizontal scroll bar is your paddle, and the words are the bricks); Cost Cutter, which plays sorta like a sideways Tetris, but with bar charts; and finally Leadership, an updated version of Lunar Lander, built on a set of line graphs.

The guys over at CantYouSeeImBusy are themselves actually hard at work making up new games for you to play while your boss walks by. Of course, if he’s not watching, you could always be more conspicuous and just play some of these classic games recreated in Excel.

[via oink! via Punto Geek]

Space Ark: Everything Cool About Old Arcade Games [Xbla]

Alisha K. — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:30:02 +0000

What’s both retro and thoroughly modern? Space Ark, a forthcoming XBLA title designed as a tribute to some of the colorful, crazy games that once dominated arcades.

Take a little Breakout, a little Rainbow Islands for style, give it a coat of gloss, and voila! Perfect for the Xbox 360′s downloadable games service. Developer Strawdog Studios is also responsible for the crossplatform puzzler Geon, which is a mark in Space Ark’s favor.

Pricing and release info–all the important stuff, you know–is still up in the air, but no one seems shy about showing Space Ark off. With the popularity of downloadable puzzle games, this one’s probably in the bag as a success.

[Strawdog Studios via Joystiq]

Tetris and Breakout Piggy Banks Help You Pinch Pennies

Technabob — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 06:05:29 +0000

Remember when it cost just a quarter to play your favorite arcade games? What would you say if I told you that you could play two Atari arcade classics for just one red cent a game.

While these pint-size versions of Breakout and Tetris aren’t totally faithful to their arcade counterparts, they only charge a single shiny copper penny to play.

Each mini-machine is actually a piggy bank, which encourage you to deposit coins in exchange for games. Every coin you drop triggers the start of a new game, which is a whole lot more fun than putting your pocket change in the back of a porcine ceramic bank. Check out the video below to see some gameplay action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

These rarities are tough to come by outside of Japan, but the guys over at Strapya World have started to take pre-orders (¥3850 / $39.90 USD) and are willing to ship them worldwide.