The Next Floor is an interesting blend of side-scrolling action game and tower defence game. In The Next Floor your goal is to defend against the incoming waves of bad guys. You start off on one floor of a building, and you have an elevator in an elevator shaft. You move using either the arrow keys or the A and D keys, and you point your mouse at the bad guys and click the mouse button to fire your gun.

Killing bad guys earns you money, and it's a good thing, since the waves of bad guys get increasingly fierce and you must buy weapons that you can station in your elevators to automatically fire at the bad guys. Wait, did I just say elevators with an 's'? Yep -- as the game progresses you will find additional floors of the building open up, and you have the option to buy additional elevators to defend those floors.

One thing that was not immediately obvious to me is the fact that you can move the elevators around by dragging them with your mouse, and they can move even if there are elevators occupying every floor. If you drag an elevator to a floor that already has an elevator on it, the two elevators will magically swap positions. You can use the elevators to move your man around from floor to floor, but fairly quickly your elevators will have more firepower than your poor little dude's pistol, and you'll find you're not really using him.

The 15 levels of The Next Floor provide just the right amount of gameplay; any more would have become tediously repetitive, and any less wouldn't have given enough time to build up your elevators to the incredible killing machines they can become.

The Next Floor - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.

Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.

The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, and you need to move around the game board collecting yellow coins or keys, and make your way from the green starting area to the green end, without getting touched by the blue hazard balls. The only controls in the game are the arrow keys to control where your red square goes.

Like I said, it looks simple. But in practice, I gave up at level 4 after over 100 attempts. I wouldn't same I'm a video game expert, but I've certainly played my fair share of games in my time, and this one is certainly one of the most difficult.

How far can you get?

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

[Update] The folks from A Story Before Bed contacted us and have offered a coupon code that allows users to try the site including sharing a story for free. The code is good until the end of November. Just enter MT9C-WN6Y-TF6J at the point of checkout, when you're asked to pay for the story you recorded.

Having to be away from your young children at bedtime is probably the absolute worst part of having a job that requires travel. Worse, sometimes it's not practical to call and talk to them before bed. A Story Before Bed is a site that is looking to solve this problem for traveling parents.

The idea behind A Story Before Bed is that you choose one of the stories in their library, then you record yourself reading it using a webcam. You can then send a link to your child's caregiver, who can then open the book on their computer, and watch as you read the story to them. They see the full pages of the book with your face inset, and the experience even includes animated page turns. To make sure that what you are reading relates to the page being displayed, the video of you reading is actually split up on a page-by-page basis, so you can only ever be listening to the correct voiceover for a given page.

A Story Before Bed is not a free service, but recording a story is free. The service charges $6.95US if you want to keep your recording so that you can pass it along to the young people in your life.

A Story Before Bed lets you read to your children when you're not there originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The best time wasters are games that are intellectually challenging, but not necessarily frantic or anxiety-inducing. Too many puzzle games rely on a beat-the-clock scenario to make games more challenging instead of simply making the puzzles more challenging. Well, Sleepy is a time waster that doesn't do that.

In Sleepy, the goal is to remove all of the colored blocks from the screen without waking them up. If you wake them up, a wakefulness bar starts to drop, and if it reaches the bottom, you lose at that level. The more blocks that wake up, the faster the bar moves, until they settle into new positions and fall back asleep.

The challenge in the game comes from the fact that you can only remove blocks of the colors given on one of the two indicator cards at the bottom of the screen. When one of the colors is a block that is sitting on top of a pile, it's not a problem, but soon you'll run into a situation when the only block you can remove will dislodge a bunch of other blocks, waking them up.

Sleepy is a cleverly-designed game with lots of replay value, a perfect distraction for your coffee-break or lunch time. And the soundtrack is perfect if you've got insomnia - just play Sleepy for a little while and you'll be headed back to bed.

Sleepy - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google's SafeSearch mode gets safer with new lock feature originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Maybe I'm old, but I remember back when arcade games were not powerful enough to do 3D video. Then one day along came a new technology called vector graphics, and 3D games became (sort of) possible. Instead of seeing a fully rendered 3D model of the various objects in the game, you instead would be presented with wireframe representations. Still, in its day vector graphics were amazing.

Fast-forward to today, and you can play a modern game based on classic vector graphics. Vector Conflict: The Siege is a shooting game where your goal is to protect your outpost from an ever-increasing onslaught of enemies. You are literally surrounded on all 4 sides, and need to carefully plan your movements between views (north, south, east, and west) to ensure that none of the baddies sneak up behind you when you are not looking.

Playing Vector Conflict is made quite enjoyable by the forgiving shooting mechanics. As long as you are aiming near an enemy, your weapons will lock on and make destroying it easier. If it sounds like the game is easy, think again. The sheer volume of enemies attacking will make sure that you are never bored.

Make sure you play Vector Conflict with the sound up, as it has one of the most engaging soundtracks of any time waster I've played. In fact, you can download the tracks if you enjoy them as much as I did.

Vector Conflict: The Siege is an old-school, Battlezone inspired Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Don't forget to feed your kids during the economic downturn -- use this iPhone app!! originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Small Worlds is a beautiful and uniquely relaxing pixel-art platform game created for the Casual Gameplay Design Competition. The point of the game is to move around exploring each level to find he exit.

Though Small Worlds uses the typical side-scrolling view of a platform game, what makes it unique is that you start each level zoomed in tightly on your very simplified character, and you can only see the area immediately around you. Moving about reveals more of the level to you, and the camera pulls back and back so that you can see the big picture of the level you are exploring.

Small Worlds is all about exploration. You're not dealing with the plethora of bad guys that most other platform games have. Instead the enjoyment of the game comes from discovering just where you are, in a relaxed, distinctly non-anxious state.

If most video games make you feel agitated, Explore may just be the game for you. It's a charming little distraction.

Small Worlds is a stylish, pixelated Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Have you ever wondered just how big a red blood cell is in comparison to a grain of salt or the influenza virus? Now you can, visually, using the Cell Size and Scale page on the University of Utah's Genetic Science Learning Center's site.

To be honest, I wasted a bunch of time using this page to look at the various sizes of things, though I can't in good conscience call it a Time Waster. It's too edumacational for that.

I'd love to see this same approach extended to things at a macro size, so that you could zoom from a carbon atom all the way out to the universe. But for now, I'll take this.

Cell size and scale viewer originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Pandemic 2 is a strategy game where you play the part of a virus, bacteria, or parasite. The goal of the game is to infect and then kill all of humanity.

At the start of the game you choose to be either a virus, bacteria, or parasite. Each has their own unique characteristics, like being more or less virulent, and mutating slowly or quickly. Once you've chosen the type of pandemic you represent, you move into the gameplay.

The game starts with you infecting a very small number of people in a specific country. You can then increase the rate of infection by purchasing symptoms, resistances, and modes of infection like airborne and waterborne. You can also slow things down by getting rid of a symptom or resistance, but doing that also costs points, so you need to be careful not to waste your moves.

Pandemic 2 ends when either you win by wiping humankind off of the face of the planet, or the humans successfully develop a vaccine and prevent you from infecting everyone.

There are two modes of play, the traditional simulation mode, and a shorter, simplified mode. The short version of the game can be played in about 10 minutes, making it a good coffee break game.

Pandemic 2 - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Fatty Bum Bum - delicious Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Open Office 4 Kids is good for adults, too originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Cyclomaniacs is a side-scrolling bike racing game with solid gameplay and tons of charm. There are multiple goals in the game. As always in racing games the goal is to win, but quite often there are a number of other goals as well.

For example, it's possible to do tricks like wheelies and flips. Often unlocking new levels or new characters relies more on performing tricks than it does on winning the race.

Speaking of characters, they might be the most intriguing part of the game; you start with just a robot character, but quickly start to unlock other riders with bikes that have very different characteristics. My favorite so far is the King (and Elvis-like character) that seems to make performing wheelies quite easy. He's not the fastest, but I find him the easiest to control.

Cyclomaniacs is a very deep game for a Time Waster, providing tons of levels, and even lots of reasons to replay the levels you've already opened. One tip: to silence the game's annoying music, start a race then hit the Pause button in the lower-right part of the screen. Once you've paused the game you have control over music and sound effects.

Cyclomaniacs - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Fragger is a physics-based game in a similar vein to the tank war games that you played as a kid. In Fragger, you choose the angle and power for your grenade launcher, and you try to blow up the people on each level. The game has a cartoony quality, and while the explosions are blowing up little grey people, they're still somehow satisfying.

The challenge level ramps up fairly quickly, and it becomes increasingly difficult to pinpoint a grenade's landing spot right where you need it to go. You can cancel a given grenade before it blows up by pressing the spacebar, but you have a limited supply, so you can't abuse that feature.

Fragger is a good time waster for people that don't like games that have time limits. There's nothing anxious about playing Fragger, but it is surprisingly fun.

Fragger - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Water Werks is another Time Waster where the aim is to get the balls to the goal. In this iteration of the well-used concept, you can only influence the balls by spraying water at the objects in the environment around them. The balls themselves are impervious to the water's effects.

You can move your hose around and adjust the spray nozzle from a wide to narrow stream, which influences the strength of the stream as well as its direction.

I found Water Werks to be more difficult than an average time waster, but certainly not impossible. It's a fresh take on a potentially tired genre.

Water Werks - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Use Boxmen is a Flash game that requires you to solve each level by reaching the goal, which is a box that your Boxman must collect. You can run and jump like in most games like this, but your Boxman has an additional ability: he's able to spawn clones of himself which will continue to do whatever it is he's doing at the moment the clone is spawned. So, if your Boxman is standing still, the clone will forever stand in that place. If he's running to the right, the clone will continue running to the right.

The puzzles get fairly complicated, requiring multiple interactions between the clones in ways that are sometimes not intuitive.

Probably the nicest surprise of Use Boxmen is the soundtrack. The first thing I tend to do when trying a new time waster is look for the mute button for the game's music. In Use Boxmen, I found myself muting iTunes. That doesn't happen too often.

Use Boxmen - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Destroy the Wall 3 is a straightforward puzzle game. Your goal is to throw a ball so that it knocks down a wall (or walls) in such a way that a specific number of blocks fall out of the level, without losing your ball out of the level. The challenge is that you can only grab the ball in a small pink area, so you really have to actually throw the ball in the direction you think will cause the most destruction.

The more difficult levels later in the game can involve using levers to knock the blocks about, or pushing larger balls around. There are even levels featuring teleports that move your ball about the screen in confusing ways.

The somewhat random result of throwing the ball using your mouse (this is not a game that plays well when using a trackpad) means that even though you might have the right idea, it can take multiple frustrating tries to pass the level. The game unfortunately does not remember your progress, but you can start from any level, so you're not stuck back at square one if you reload the page or come back to the game at a later date.

Destroy the Wall 3 is one of the more addictive time waster's I've tried recently. Give it a shot, and let us know what you think. What levels are the toughest?

Destroy the Wall 3 - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If you grew up in the 80's in the golden age of video game arcades, you're going to like this Time Waster. Classic 80's Arcade Games is actually a mega time waster, since it's a site dedicated to 80's arcade games, with tons of free online-playable games. Games like 1943, Commando, Contra, Defender, Dig Dug, Frogger... the list just goes on and on.

The games are built on various platforms - Shockwave, Flash, Java, and even DOS and Windows games. Some are offered on multiple platforms, and some have downloadable emulator ROMs available.

It's not clear to me what the legality of these games is; in most cases they are abandonware, but I imagine that copyrights still exist for many of them. Classic gaming is big business, and even though underground trading of game ROMs for MAME setups has been going on for years, that still doesn't legitimize the practice.

In any event, Classic 80's Arcade Games is a wonderful compilation of the games from my youth that I loved. I hope it doesn't go away any time soon.

Classic 80's Arcade Games - the ultimate Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Dynamic Systems is a physics-based puzzle game. As is common for this type of game, your goal is to get the ball into the goal. In this case the ball is metal, and the goal is a cup. You move certain objects into place and rotate them into the correct orientation to allow the ball to roll, bounce, or otherwise be moved into the cup. Thankfully, unlike most puzzle games, Dynamic Systems offers solutions to each level's puzzle right in the game.

The feel of the game is somewhat like Collider, with floating metal bars and dirty industrial graphics everywhere. The background music in Dynamic Systems is relatively soothing, but as the game gets more challenging, the repetitive nature of the music becomes pretty frustrating. Thankfully, you can turn it off.

The difficulty in Dynamic Systems grows slowly but steadily, making it a fun game to come back to.

Dynamic Systems - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gravitex 2 is a classic gravity-based time waster. You pick a direction and amount of power, and shoot a ball off into space where various orbs' gravitational pull affect its trajectory. The goal is to collect all the green coins and get the yellow ball safely to its goal.

Interestingly, the green coins are not persistent; if you collect one and get the ball to the goal, that coin does not return again if you replay the level. That means that you don't have to come up with a single magic trajectory that will collect every coin in one go, but instead you can tackle a level multiple times in multiple ways to try to conquer it.

The graphics in Gravitex 2 are simple but do the trick, which can also be said for the soundtrack. The game offers both mouse-based control, and keyboard control. Given that this is very much a trial-and-error based game, you'll want to get comfortable with the keyboard controls, though for very tough levels the only way to finely control the settings is to use the mouse.

Gravitex 2 is pretty much a perfect casual game for people who enjoy physics games. You can play it for five minutes on your coffee break, and come back to it for a few minutes on your lunch hour.

Gravitex 2 - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.