This Week's Waste of Time

Dry your eyes, faithful readers (reader? anyone?) the weekly free gaming column is back. My apologies for the hiatus. We restart our adventures in browser distractions with Interlocked. And, no, you won't need 3-D glasses to play, but it is a rare example of a simple game that uses all three dimensions without confusing your computer's mouse.

The game comes from the fine folks at We Create Stuff who made a previous Waste of Time, Portal: A Flash Version. There isn't much to Interlocked other than pulling at entangled and awkwardly shaped blocks, like Jenga if the blocks did everything they could not to get removed. Roll and spin the clump of shapes and look for some wiggle room that may lead to the liberation of one block or another that will inevitably lead to complete disassembly and, for you, victory. My experience with the game involved mapping out solutions to the first eight levels or so. After that there was a lot of trial and error pushing and pulling every block in the hopes that something will come loose. By the time you get to the hardcore levels, hair will likely be pulled.

What's most impressive with the game are the solid physics and intuitive (if slightly buggy) controls. To control numerous interlocked objects in three dimensions with an interface (the mouse) that is designed primarily for 2-D. The ease of use helps players focus on the problem at hand.

Click here to play Interlocked.