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USB News Flash: Thumb These Portable Zip Drive Games and Applications (Now Accepting Applications in Comments!)
Max Pips
United States
Lititz
Pennsylvania
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I like portable games, especially ones playable on computers. However, I do not want to install games without permission on other computers wherever I go. Some computers will not even permit this to occur depending upon the operating system or network configurations (i.e. workplace intranets), especially when Internet access is blocked.
Recently, I've copied Java-Kingsburg by Thomas Arnold to my 1.0 GB Cruzer Titanium USB flash drive and have enjoyed playing it during breaks at work. Now I'm searching for other games to add to my USB flash drive collection.
Please add games to this list for others to enjoy ... no matter what computer they play games on!
The criteria for games on this list:
1. They are directly playable from a USB flash drive, whether powered by Java or executable through another program, like Excel.
2. They are playable off-line and do not require Internet access.
If you have additional applications, utilities, programs, and games that can be useful for USB users, please add them to the comments at the end of this geeklist. Thanks, Twinge!
Note: The name of this geeklist was intentional to enable searches for all manner of USB devices, including flash, zip, and thumb drives. "Thumb These ..." was not a cry for thumbs, but I do appreciate all the ones that I have received.
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1.
Board Game: Agricola
[Average Rating:8.25 Overall Rank:2]
David Henry
United States
Anaheim
California
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There is a Solo version over in the files section.
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Max Pips
United States
Lititz
Pennsylvania
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This game is by Tony Mitton (TonyMitton) and can be played via Excel with macros enabled.
Puerto Rico Evolver, A Microsoft Excel Macro
http://www.tonymitton.com/ for the latest version.
Requires: Microsoft Excel
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4.
Board Game: Go
[Average Rating:7.78 Overall Rank:43]
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I have played with this program for years. It is a free 9x9 version
of the "Many Faces of Go" software program. It is good for keeping your tactical skills sharp.
http://www.smart-games.com/igowin.html
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5.
Board Game: Ra
[Average Rating:7.58 Overall Rank:52]
Len & Amy Billingsley
United States
O'Fallon
Illinois
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This is an excellent version, grab it while you can.
http://snapper.rooms.cwal.net/ra.zip
We now own this game, but never considered it until playing the java version.
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Ben Vögel
United States
Golden Valley
Minnesota
I've been on this site for 8 years now, and I'm far from sick of games, but I think I am, to some degree, sick of learning too many new games. I'm also tired of playing 4+ hr multiplayer games, but I'll still happily play really long games 2 player.
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This runs well off a flash drive.
http://www.westpark-gamers.de
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Max Pips
United States
Lititz
Pennsylvania
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The inspiration for this list comes from Thomas Arnold who wrote Java-Kingsburg, found here http://mitglied.lycos.de/thunderfall/. Many thanks for contributing to my USB gaming
experience!
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Ben Vögel
United States
Golden Valley
Minnesota
I've been on this site for 8 years now, and I'm far from sick of games, but I think I am, to some degree, sick of learning too many new games. I'm also tired of playing 4+ hr multiplayer games, but I'll still happily play really long games 2 player.
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I play this off of a flash drive on my work computer (only at lunch, boss)
Available here:
http://www.westpark-gamers.de
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14.
Board Game: Chess
[Average Rating:7.10 Overall Rank:251]
Max Pips
United States
Lititz
Pennsylvania
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ChessV, including many variants, can be downloaded from http://www.chessv.com/.
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15.
Board Game: GIPF
[Average Rating:7.16 Overall Rank:337]
Max Pips
United States
Lititz
Pennsylvania
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Download GIPF for One (GF1) at http://gf1.sourceforge.net/ and add it to your thumb drive.
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John Harley
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
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There is a first rate implementation of Blue Moon available here
http://keldon.net/bluemoon/
Not sure if it plays from a flash drive, but maybe if you have the librarys installed
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United States
Jeffersonville
Pennsylvania
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This is an awesome little abstract that only pretends to be a wargame. Anyone should be able to enjoy it (but it does surprisingly well at representing the theme.)
Java based version available here - should work fine off a zip drive, I'd think. I must have played it over a hundred times since downloading it a few weeks ago - the AI is tough; I've won less than a dozen times.
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Berthoud
Colorado
Berthoud
Colorado
.kkrieger - Sort of a novelty, really, but I'll mention it anyway. This is a full, 3D First Person Shooter game that takes all of 96 kilobytes of space. Really nifty that they can do so much with so little. Plenty playable, though not an amazing game. Also note that this requires a halfway decent system (~1.5Ghz, video card made in the last ~8 years, etc.)
Fracas - A risk-like game with a ton of customization options to fine tune the experience how you want. This includes stuff like starting neutral armies, may size and layout, effectiveness of naval attacks, etc. Multiplayer or single against the AI.
Parsec 47 - A fast-paced generic shooter that's pretty good. Several difficulty settings with individual high score lists. By the same guy that made Tumiki Fighters.
Squares 2 - A simple flash game where you collect black squares and avoid red ones. The game speeds up over time and your square grows larger. One can download the flash file and play offline as long as you have a browser on the system to run the file.
CurveBall - Another flash game that can be downloaded and played offline with a browser. A fairly nifty 3D Pong variant, basically.
Toblo - A unique FPS game where you throw blocks, taken from any structure including your starting base, at enemies to kill them or take down their base. You try to grab the flag and throw it back into your base (but you can't fire while you have the flag). Note that I'm not completely sure this will run on a flash drive; it does have an installer so it might not.
Base Invaders - This one is part puzzle game, part RTS game. You're defending your base by building up various defenses to protect from a variety of invaders. As with the one above, this is an installed program and I'm not completely sure it'll work on a thumb drive, but it is a nifty freeware game so I'll go ahead and list it for now.
That's a good chunk of the completely freeware games I've set aside as good that are playable offline. Now, if we go into abandonware, my horizons are once again broad
Revere
Massachusetts
Ugh, I really can't recommend Every Extend for the 360. As a fan of the original freeware title, I was disappointed at how easy they made the game. Due to the proliferation of time-extending items and no limit on lives, it's no longer a game so much as an exercise in patience. It took me all of about an hour to get to the point where I could play for an arbitrary amount of time and get an arbitrarily high score. Just keep collecting time, then when you fill up your time, go for points. When your time gets low, go for time again. Repeat until bored.
Berthoud
Colorado
Failure. I never got especially good at EE (I never made it to the special boss
Dayton
Ohio
That link for Every Extend leads to a page not in English. I can't even figure out what link to click on to download the app. Can someone provide a direct link to the app please?