Developer: Shizmoo.com Games
Genre: Parlor
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Billiard Boxing is a browser-based game that spawns in a new window once you install a program from host site shizmoo.com. You play as either a white or black billiard ball with eyes. By right-clicking your mouse on your ball, you can determine where you'd like an invisible cue stick to strike your ball--doing so shows a simple shadowed line that roughly indicates where your shot will go. The game features believable billiard ball physics with respect to bank shots and ricochets, and like on a real pool table, you can't apply much force to a shot if your ball is stuck near other balls (because, on a real-life table, you wouldn't be able to lean your cue stick against the table for momentum). It also features a twangy, simplistic country-and-western-style background music track as you play.

Shooting pool was never quite this wacky.

The object of the game is to sink all balls of your type (stripes or solids) before sinking the eight ball (if you prematurely sink the eight ball, you automatically lose). But as the game's name suggests, there's also a combative aspect to the game. You can aim your billiard ball to crash into your opponent's (which causes the eyes of your opponent's ball to become stunned "X's"), hopefully sinking it into a side or corner pocket. This causes your opponent's ball to briefly disappear from the table, then reappear as an insubstantial "ghost" ball that passes through other balls, giving you time to sink extra shots. The game tallies high scores and keeps them in a running ranking. Billiard Boxing exists solely as a two-player multiplayer game with text chat functionality, though most players will wait until after a match to start typing in messages (otherwise, they'll lose the opportunity to make another shot).

Developer: Astromanic Games
Genre: Puzzle
Download the demo

Most zoos and animal parks discourage patrons from feeding the animals, but that's the whole point of Chomp! Chomp! Safari. You'll need to place the right type of food next to the right type of critter to fill its belly and advance through this addictive tile-based puzzle game, which has you stuffing the faces of monkeys, lions, zebras, crocodiles, and more. While you can feed each animal individually, you can also feed groups of the same animal with a single food item if their tiles are adjacent to one another, triggering chains. You can also place numerous food items and then set off massive feeding-frenzy chains to clear the board of ravenous creatures. These techniques are necessary to advance, particularly in later stages.

Do feed the animals--and be quick about it!

There are actually several game modes to choose from, and each has a slightly different emphasis that will appeal to different sorts of gamers. Puzzle mode presents an untimed board with a limited amount of food, and you'll have to think carefully about where to place that food to clear the stage and move on. Adventure mode requires you to feed all the animals and continue on your safari, but there's a hunger meter that steadily fills, and your game will end if you're not serving up dinner fast enough. Additionally, there are obstacles in adventure mode, like rocks and tree stumps, that you'll need to clear away with dynamite--but if you use too much dynamite, the animals will stampede! Poachers will also set up huts in vacant spaces if you don't hurry up and either blast the poachers or fill the spaces with food. The last mode, attack mode, gives you a set number of animals to feed and then steadily drops more tiles on you, Tetris-style, until you've either met your quota or been buried by beasts. Racking up points in the adventure and attack modes will unlock bonus stages and earn you chomp bucks, which you can spend on things like extra continues.

If you've ever taken issue with those "Don't Feed the Animals" placards, or even if you're just a puzzle game enthusiast, you'll want to go on a Chomp! Chomp! Safari.