Sunday Spotlight: Web Games – Cookie Clicker, Frog Fractions And Superhot

We don’t usually cover web games on TSA, but there are some I’ve played this week that I thought would create a nice distraction on this rainy Sunday. Something which should draw you in and give you something to waste your free time on before it disappears on Tuesday due to your attempts at balancing GTA V and real life.

Cookie Clicker might seem simple, but it is in fact a surprisingly smart game, which features excellent progression and pacing. The goal is to build up your collection of baked treats by first clicking the cookie on the left, before buying extra cursors to do the clicking for you, Grandmas to bake cookies, Farms to grow cookies naturally, and even Alchemy Labs, Portals and Time Machines to grow your cookie collection at an alarming rate.

At first you’ll start off with a few cookies per second, but as you progress you’ll be making thousands and thousands as your cookie count grows ever higher. It’s quite funny and ultimately really addictive, with some neat features such as statistics and the ability to save your game and come back to it later.

Sadly it doesn’t reward you with real cookies.

I don’t really want to say too much about Frog Fractions so I don’t spoil the fun, but know this: the first time I played it, I gave up after about five minutes of aiming the frogs tongue at various bugs and fractions popping up on the screen – I didn’t even learn anything about the fractions!

But that’s not the point, there’s a whole other game inside of Frog Fractions which you have to discover; it’s hilarious, brilliant and one of the most varied and expansive flash games I’ve seen. I’m not going to spoil the surprises here (seriously, just play it!) but the Wikipedia page has a run-down of everything included.

Superhot surfaced this week and it features one of the most impressive gameplay mechanics I’ve seen all year, surpassing most triple-A titles with its originality. You see, in Superhot, time only moves when you do. It’s built with Unity, so the web version is nothing more than a trial, as we’ve seen with games such as Surgeon Simulator before it.

It brings a whole new meaning to bullet time in games, and is simply incredible to behold. There’s a lot of room for expansion with this game too, such as enemies who can move only when you’re stopped or various types of weapons and perhaps even different time powers. Even from this short trial, you can see the time and love put into it.

Everything from the collision detection to the gunplay to the fantastic visual style is amazing. Thankfully, like Surgeon Simulator, Superhot looks as though it’ll be developed into a full game for Steam, and it has recently hit Steam Greenlight – so get voting!

If you have any suggestions for something you’d like to see featured in Sunday Spotlight from around the web (or even real life) then let us know!