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"Nosebreaker" is the odd name of this highly addictive game for Windows. The premise is simple – try to arrange the colored balls in groups of the same color, then click on the group to remove it. The object is to remove all the balls in as few moves as possible. It sounds sort of silly, and perhaps even easy, but it's type of you end up methodically playing in your dreams.

The latest version of Nosebreaker allows you to choose to play with the traditional round balls, or to play with squiggly shapes called "splashes", or rectangular bricks. You can also "buy a color" for an isolated ball by charging against the points you've accumulated. The game is a nice, slow-paced way to relax after a hard day at work, or, (what the heck), even at work.

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Here's your chance to be a hero. Save a loud and obnoxious kangaroo from the gallows in this amusing variation of the game, "Hangman". The premise is simple if you've ever played Hangman, or have ever watched Wheel of Fortune — try to figure out a phrase by choosing different letters of the alphabet to fill in the blanks.

Hangaroo tries to be educational, and offers over 8500 terms and phrases in 120 different categories. There are even phrases which are in the form of "Did you know…?" facts. If all those possibilities aren't enough for you, you can create your own customized phrases and store them in external datafiles. The software developer will even upload your phrase database to the site so it can be shared with other users.

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If you've ever woken up from a bad dream, trembling at the thought of chicken hordes invading the planet, perhaps you're too delicate to tackle Chicken Invaders. On the other hand, if you're sitting in front of your monitor with a bucket of KFC, you'll want to immediately download this fun one or two person game from InterAction Studios. The game is an updated version of a classic from the 1980s. You must defend the Earth from an invasion of intergalactic chickens, collecting weapons and missiles as you move through increasingly difficult levels.

The high score table in the game is Internet-based, so you'll be able to see how you stack up against other players. The game is not at all processor-intensive, and the only requirement is a Pentium 166mHz PC and a lowly 32MB of RAM. After you've completed Chicken Invaders, there are two more games which continue the storyline, but only the first level of each of those is free to download.

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Neverball is a fun game with an odd name. Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Neverball can be enjoyed by Mac, Windows, and Linux users alike. This is a game truly trying to build bridges within the gaming community.

At its most basic, Neverball is a game where you roll a ball around obstacles by tilting the floor around it. The game is controlled by either your keyboard or mouse. More than that, though, it's a game of stunning and unusual graphics, as the game seems to take place in some three dimensional alternate universe. The colors are bright, full of reflection and movement. As you try to move your ball around obstacles, you'll encounter coins that you need to collect in order to progress to the next level. There are 75 levels total, so you might be playing this game for the next few years. If you do a web search, you'll find a few sites which keep track of high scores and maintain "The Neverball Hall of Fame".

The Neverball download includes another program called Neverputt, where you use the same principles from Neverball to play miniature golf.

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Arcade! Classic Arcade Pack is a bundle of six familiar arcade classics. Whether you're old enough to have played them when they were cutting-edge, or whether you're that guy's kid, you'll get a kick out of playing Asteroids, Pacman, Pong, Snake, Space Invaders, and Tetris. I'm not sure if "Snake" is quite as fun as "Centipede", but regardless, the developers promise that each game features its original graphics and sounds.

Each game has an online score mode, so you can keep track of all the best players world-wide, and compete against them for imaginary honors like, "King of Pong". Tech support for these games is probably non-existent, but they seem to be Flash-based and fairly straightforward to download and install.

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BOTS are virtual workers who have been called to save cyberspace from viruses. You can get your very own BOT by signing up for the BOTS game and downloading it to your PC. Your BOT can be customized using different wings, heads, weapons, and other features. Once created, you can battle through cyberspace by following a path through an online playing field with other players (that's "Sector Mode"), you can have head to head battles, of you can play in Base Mode where your team tries to destroy the other team's base.

BOTS is free to play — just download the software and create an account to get started.

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Logical Games has created a truly beautiful and thorough version of the popular boardgame Scrabble. You can play with a friend, play against the computer, or watch the computer play a demo game if you're not sure of the rules or procedures. You can save a game in mid-play so you can return to it later. There's even an "undo" feature, so if you don't like the last move you made, you can forget that it ever happened.

Scrabble is all about words, and Pro Scrabble comes with a searchable dictionary database that you can use during play to find words to create with the letters you have available. Add your own words to the dictionary, or import a word list from another site if you find a list you prefer. When you've played a game of which you're particularly proud, you can export the table as a jpg file to save for posterity. With Scrabble becoming more and more popular, there are even professional players who make a living playing this game, so here's your chance to start training to be the next national Scrabble champion.

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The game of blackjack is all about probabilities. To have the best chance of winning, you can rely on your lucky pair of shoes, or you can practice, practice, practice and develop real skill and understanding. Blackjack Analysis Toolkit is for the serious gambler who wants to best shot at beating the house on their next trip a casino, and who doesn't mind some hard work along the way. The software author claims the program will teach you to play perfect strategy blackjack, with an even higher rate of accuracy than card counting.

The program is not a blackjack simulator, so you don't really "play" the game as you learn. You instead drop different combinations of numbers into program (cards a player might hold vs. what the dealer holds), and the program will calculate your correct play (whether to stand, hit, or double down). It will show you not only the best result, but all results, so you'll be able to compare the "perfect" answer to your own answer. You can mix and match the number of players and number of desks.

Blackjack Analysis Toolkit is written in Visual Basic, and requires that Microsoft .NET Framework be installed.

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If you're not allowed to goof off at work, don't download 123 Solitaire. This is a free collection of twelve highly-addictive versions of the card game solitaire. The assortment includes classic solitaire renditions like FreeCell, Spider, and Forty Thieves. The games are complete with sound effects and detailed help files to get you started, and the TreeCardGames claims that each game has more than nine trillion possible variations to play.

To keep things interesting, the full-color games are compatible with Windows XP Themes and are skinnable.

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Circuit Weaver began as a 2D game where you would "move your energy mass around a circuit by rearranging the circuit elements". It sounds like a game only electricians would want to play, but it's now been totally revamped and re-released as Circuit Weaver 3D. Unlike its rather plain-looking predecessor, Circuit Weaver 3D has beautiful 3D graphics and arcade-like audio. To win the game, you must guide Robi the Robot safely across the surface of his home planet, trying to avoid evil robot interlopers in the process. The game's unique colorful 3D playing field is quite mesmerizing.

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