Kongregate: Social Gaming Site for the Masses

Back when I was in high school, flash games sucked for the most part. Aside from 3D Pong (which is still badass) and Spank the Monkey, there wasn't much worth playing that wasn't an interactive flash video or stick-figures doing stupid crap.

However, a while back, I read an article about a flash game called "Desktop Tower Defense". The concept interested me somewhat, because I had played many tower defense mods for Warcraft 3 in years past. Eventually, I googled it, and tried it out. Was great fun, and I wasted many, many hours trying to stave off my inevitable suckage. Through this game, I learned of a flash portal known as Kongregate. Always leery of words that needlessly start with "K", I visited it to find the most amazing and diverse collection of flash games I had ever seen.

Using a format similar to youtube, the site lets you play games, upload games, rate games, favorite games, and links all games together with a series of mutual chatrooms, so you can make and talk to friends while you play. Not bad. But even better (or worse), the people who manage the site saw fit to not only integrate tech for scoreboards hosted on the site, but to add XBL style achievements and points to some games, allow players to amass badges and points, to increase their rank (which means literally nothing). Even better, Kongregate actually publishes a few games of it's own, most of which are multiplayer. One such game, Kongai, is a cross between MTG and rock-paper-scissors. You collect cards that are offered as rewards on a twice weekly basis, and use them to play.

Now, all of this is fine and good, but the most important aspect of this site is the games that it hosts and offers. Games are divided up by category, and ranked accordingly. Among my favorite games are shooters like Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar!, intrusion, Bubble Tank 2, Last Stand 2, Luminara, Endless Zombie Rampage, and Areas. Even with a premise as simple as "shoot some shit", each one has a very amusing and unique flavor too it. No two play alike, yet all have simple, and sometimes very similar, controls.

The people who develop these games can win cash prizes based on how well their game is ranked, both on a weekly and monthly basis. Furthermore, tech was implemented that allows players to directly donate money to a developer, with a system that somewhat resembles paypal. The incentive to create and release games on this site seems solid.

I'll probably be ranting and raving about games from this site more and more as time wears on, so look forward to some very entertaining flash games in the future.