That’s where these games enter the picture. They’re designed to let you jump in, enjoy yourself and hop right back out when the boss strolls by, bedtime arrives or the line for the plane starts getting long. Best of all, these titles run the gamut from sports to action-packed science-fiction to thrill-a-minute races and puzzles to brain-teasing strategy.
Bring some joy to your Mac
Developer Mac Joy typifies that wide range of genres. Bricks of Camelot takes the Breakout gameplay to new heights, sending you on a journey through not only a series of castles and dungeons but also Sherwood Forest and other medieval-themed locales. There are 120 levels in all, but you don’t tackle them unarmed: swords, torches and other power-ups are available to help you out.
Bricks of Camelot: Smite thy bricks.
When you’re done, travel to new places with Bricks of Egypt, where the tombs that lay deep inside the mysterious pyramids offer treasures aplenty, if you can get past the hieroglyph-covered traps that conceal them. 96 levels of fun challenge you to use your lasers, fireballs and other power-ups wisely.
By the way, fans of Egypt will also want to try out Inside Mac Games’ Luxor 2, in which you must stop a string of spheres from entering the pyramid at the end of the maze. You use your scarab to fire balls into the string and creating matches of three or more, which vanish and slow the others’ progress. Power-ups help you destroy the balls faster while every 30 golden Ankh coins you collect grant you an extra life. Luxor features 88 levels of action that take you across Egypt, from Alexandria to Philae.
Spin & Win: Bring a little bit of Vegas to your Mac.
If you’d rather visit Vegas, Mac Joy’s Spin & Win offers slots, dice, wheel of fortune, horse racing and other games of chance. Save your prizes in a trophy room that you can visit any time you want to admire them and remember your successes.
Of pirates and chefs
When the craving to combine puzzle games with adventure tales strikes, set sail with Mac Joy’s Pirates of Treasure Island, which features 35 levels packed with brain-teasers that help Captain Gingerbread and his crew locate a fabled trove of goodies. Treasure hunting also forms the backbone of Gold Miner Joe, a platform adventure game in which you traverse 50 levels of a gold mine, using dynamite to reveal hidden gold.
Superstar Chefs: Help the chefs complete their recipes.
For more straight-up arcade action, Superstar Chefs offers madcap bedlam in the Mario Bros. vein. Guide a chef in his hunt for the fruit he needs to complete his recipes while avoiding crazed bees, ghosts and other creatures. Play solo or team up with a friend.
The fun continues in Funny Faces, in which you must pop groups of balls to clear the screen and move on to the next level.
Digi Pool: A perplexing pool puzzle.
Finally, Digi Pool combines puzzle action with the physics of pool, challenging you to knock same-colored balls into each other to clear them from the screen. Fans, magnets and other objects help you achieve your goals.
Seek out new places for fun
If you’d like to add a strategic element to your arcade action, make a reservation to play Diner Dash. This game from developer Play First tasks you with serving hungry customers as fast as you can, before their rumbling tummies take them elsewhere. The better service you provide, the more customers stop by and the higher your tips get.
Diner Dash: Who had the ham on rye?
While you start your career as a restaurateur with a basic diner, you can save your tips and remodel the business four times, making it swankier each time and increasing your income. Five different types of customers, each with unique behaviors, keep you on your toes as you try to complete all 50 levels in the game. Two modes of gameplay, Career and Endless Shift, provide an extra dimension of possibilities.
In addition to the Egyptian adventures found in Luxor, MacPlay offers more arcade-oriented puzzle fun in Zuma Deluxe and Bejeweled 2. The former takes you to the jungles of South America, where over 20 ancient temples wait. Control the frog idol of the god Zuma and fire balls at the chain of spheres advancing on the golden skull. Create groups of three or more of the same color and eliminate them from play. If they reach the skull, you lose a life; lose three lives and your game ends.
Zuma features an Adventure mode that lets you explore the temples, saving your progress along the way, as well as Gauntlet mode, which tests your skills with a variety of scenarios. Both offer power-up balls that grant special abilities when struck, the ability to score bonus points by creating chains of color matches that happen when you eliminate one group of balls, and more. Fill the Zuma meter to stop the addition of balls to the chain.
Zuma: Choose Adventure or Gauntlet mode in this Luxor-like game.
Bejeweled 2 takes the action of the original even further with new game modes, including secret ones, as well as new game pieces and more. Classic mode replicates the gameplay of the original — swap adjacent gems to create rows of three or more that are identical to clear them from the board — while Endless mode lets you play as long as you want and rewards you with jewelry every time you clear a board.
Action mode challenges you to beat the clock while Puzzle mode takes you across the galaxy, solving special, handcrafted game boards along the way. New game pieces that grant exciting abilities include power gems, hyper cubes and time bombs. Match four jewels in a row to get a power gem or five in a row to earn a hyper cube.