Techlife readers are the best. Our large arctic readership’s excitement with Yeti Baseball prompted a bit more searching and we found way to appease all our Yeti readers, you know who you are.

While first arriving on scene in 2004, Chris Hilgert’s funny flash games based on Yeti’s and penguins have grown over the years to include a whole collection, called Yeti Sports. They include the following:

• Pingu Throw (Yeti Baseball)
• Orca Slap
• Seal Bounce
• Albatross Overload
• Flamingo Drive
• Big Wave
• Snowboard Free Ride
• Jungle Swing
• Final Spit
• Icicle Climbing
• Tournament
• Stage Diving

Yeti Sports Commentary on YouTube
These games are similar to the mini-games people see on the Wii, and one day could show up as part of a WiiWare collection. Each one has a single point, and simple controls. We lost *cough* a day or so playing testing these games for our loyal readers. So get that furry yeti to toss, hit, surf, spit and more on the penguins. It is just plain fun.

Note: The final item on their site, Yeti Puzzle Kick is apparently a broken or old link. But they did make a few extra games for Fox’s Ice Age 2: The Meltdown which are pretty fun too.

Make sure to post your high scores in the various games in the comments.

Techlife readers are really amazing. You send in some of the best things on the web. Once again loyal reader Dan found a gem, with Alan Becker’s Animator vs. Animation movie. It follows the story of a small Flash animated stick figure as he wreaks havoc on the flash desktop of his maker.

Watch Animator vs. Animation on Techlife TV

Being the inquisitive bunch we did a bit more research and found that this gem is really part of of a larger collection of work by the talented Mr. Becker. After the success of Animator vs. Animation, Alan built Animator vs Animation II. In this story, the animator does the unthinkable and risks his entire computer to a stick figure’s wrath.

Watch Animator vs. Animation II on Techlife TV

Alan’s wild success was recognized by the world,  and he teamed with Charles Yeh and Atom Films to create Animator vs. Animation: The Game, which is a blast. (pun intended). And then the duo modded it a bit and created Animator vs. Animation: The Game SE (Special Edition).

There are a lot of small touches Alan added to these animations, be sure to keep your eyes on areas like the backgrounds and text labels to catch all the attention to detail. I enjoyed Animator vs. Animation, as you can see the care and effort Alan put into his first masterpiece in the genre. Animator vs. Animation II is great second effort with some out of the box thinking and a real ending. I hope Alan is plotting Animator vs. Animation III, I’ll be watching.

Alan’s inspiration likely comes from the original Stick Art films. Stick art animations have been around for a long time, and are often violent and a bit comedic. What’s your favorite? Post the link below.

People everywhere are excited for MLB’s Opening Day. It is a day when everyone has a clean slate. Everyone has an even shot (at least the media gives that impression.)

We all know the owners and players are in this to get paid. Well once again, loyal reader Dan writes in with an Opening Day gem to give Techlife readers their shot at a payday. (Pete Rose, this one’s for you!) I was a bit skeptical at first, but it’s free money and fun too. Nearly as good as fun at the old ballpark.

CentSports is a new kind of social gaming site where you risk nothing but can win real money. First off the site gifts you $.10 to bet on sports. Lose that and get another gift of $.10 and so on. (Yep, they are unlimited in their generosity.) Start winning and you can cash out as soon as you reach $10. Sound to good to be true? Sounds more like spam you might get, right? Trust Techlife it isn’t. It is actually a lot of fun

Do you like hardwoods, frozen ponds or field of dreams? CentSports has NCAA, the NCAA Tournament, the NIT Tourney plus the full slate of NBA games. They also have NHL hockey and starting today they have baseball’s MLB all ready for Opening Day action. They are planning on adding soccer and bringing back boxing and tennis. (Apparently those pesky tennis players will retire mid-match which screws up the betting a little.)

As a person with little knowledge of sports betting it is a lot of fun to learn on someone else’s dime (pun intended). They have all the standard bets including point spread, money line, over/under and let you parlay or combine these bets to get higher payouts.

The best part is the social aspect of the site. You can see what others bet, invite friends, publicly chat about each bet made and send private notes too.

How can CentSports fund the payouts? Advertising. They have a unique feature after placing a bet you will get the chance to see an ad which can give you bonus cash if you win. (Hint: Always hold out for near the top tier of the bonus.) There are other ads scattered around the site as well.

Overall: If you like sports and are too chicken to try using your own money, you can’t lose. Literally! CentSports is sports gambling for the rest of us. No skill required.

I hope you try it out and see if you can beat me, I was up to nearly $2. Let us know in the comments what your user name is and we can add you to our friend list on the site.

A winter wind whips a lone rider on his trusty sled. With only a small hat and a candy cane scarf his entire existence is to ride the line. Can he keep it up? Will he make it? Only you will determine it. Only you can make the flight of the Line Rider.

It’s been a while since Techlife has brought us another in the series of Friends of Line Rider. Can you tell we missed the little guy? Today we find ourselves enjoying Line Rider Zada v1.3.

A modded Line Rider version with everything that is missing in the first Line Rider. Use the eraser, speedups and zoom for a better Line Rider experience.that is Zada!

Line Rider Zada is really quite the fun afternoon and perfect for adults and kids alike.

Techlife has just learned that XGen Studios is now a developer for the WiiWare program.  Might Stick Arena or Stick Arena Ballistick be released for the Wii one day? We were pretty shocked too. Nintendo has a developer program with the Wii, known as WiiWare for smaller developers to build content for the platform. Combined with all we know about Stick Arena’s long awaited title, it appears a multi-platform release might be in the works at some point. While we can’t confirm this, a recent press release from XGen says:

XGen Studios is developing an original title for Nintendo’s upcoming WiiWareâ„¢ service…

It goes on to say:

…inspired by an existing cult classic from the studio, and will allow up to 4 simultaneous players while leveraging the unique capabilities of the Wii Remoteâ„¢…

and

…classic game play enjoyed by Millions is coming to your living room in the form of a new title with compelling additions…

and finally

…jump-in, jump-out casual style appeals to a broad audience for both quick and extended play sessions…

Reading between the lines it would appear that we are in a for a treat. The real question is will the 6.3 million Wii owners be able to interact with the PC gamers, I would think they won’t. But your username might port between the two, allowing a character to travel with you. Imagine playing Stick Arena Ballistick on your Wii online and on your PC online.  Once we all are playing Ballistick on the PC, imagine having a party and Grandma slices Uncle Charlie, only to find herself on the end of a barrage of gunfire.  Brings a whole new meaning to “The war at home.”

And in other Stick Arena Ballistick News…there is an impatient group of loyal Techlife readers who have logged over 700 comments about how excited they are for Ballistick. For all of them, I want to give them a heads up, an exciting announcement is coming shortly. We are targetting next week on Techlife and TechlifeTV the news. As a teaser, we have confirmed that there are 6 new weapons for Ballistick. For a bit of fun, we are going to release their initials…

• CG
• LS
• TH
• FT
• CS
• RG

Got any guesses? Let the comments begin!

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Google has achieved the “Field of Dreams Effect”. Simply put, this effect coined by Techlife, means there is no longer a preceding qualifier to the famous phrase by author W.P. Kinsella’s character of the “Baseball Announcer” in the book Shoeless Joe and the movie Field of Dreams:

If you build it, he will come.

Techlife’s “Field of Dreams Effect” states:

“Build it and they will.”

Purposely left open ended, this phrase intends to cover both people who build (in this case Googlers) who build cause they can, and users or customers (Google’s users) who will use what Google has built, because it exists.

Google Image Labeler is one of these creations, hatched using some licensed technology from Carnegie Mellon University. Google wanted to improve the results from the Google Image Search tool, and realized that using the power of “us” they could improve their results dramatically. They created a social game, where the blindly pair up two people for 2:00 minutes and let you race to match terms about random images that show up.

It is easy, free and rather addicting. For those of you social context types, you could be helping improve search results for a global audience. For you cynical types no question it is a sweatshop and you get paid in points redeemable for nothing. For you gamers, it is a highly addictive free game where the goal is to be cooperative with your partner to gain the most points.

Techlife previously covered Guess the Google, a very addictive game also based on Google Image Search. Which do you like better? Tell us.

In 1984 Sierra On-Line released King’s Quest I: Quest for the Throne. (Bonus: The link contains a playable remake on today’s computers, that has been downloaded 190,000 times.) It was a new kind of adventure game with a great story, amazing visuals (for the time) and a bit of humor thrown in for good measure. The player was dropped into the middle of a story, in the middle of a world they had no real connection with other than knowing it was a game. After many sequels and genre’s, the games only live in fan’s minds.

Techlife just finished playing a game that has a great story, amazing visuals and a bit of humor, but also has a great musical score, and an enjoyable interface from Amanita Design. Samarost1 and Samarost2 are free point and click, puzzle games built in Flash. If you get hooked they offer a downloadable extended Samarost2 for just $6.90USD. This company from Brno, in the Czech Republic was founded in 2003 by Jakob Dvorsky.

Amanita Design has done a few other great projects like Samorost, check out The Quest for the Rest a commission for The Polyphonic Spree. And their upcoming game Machinarium looks really amazing and already is getting a following.

Thanks to one of my editors of all people, who pointed out Samorost1 and Samorost2. (Suck up alert) Any editors that are looking for a great syndicated column for their publication, please contact me. We welcome submissions from anyone, even editors. Send them to techlife [at] dkworldwide [dot] com.

Everyone has their favorite games. Techlife recently has been addicted to Casual Collective’s Multi-Player Desktop Tower Defense (invites available here). Good games have that effect. WoW or World of Warcraft fans take their addiction to new levels.

But one of the best games of all time is XGen Studio’s Stick Arena. Skye Boyes, friend of Techlife, is one of the creator’s XGen’s popular 4 person flash game. We interviewed Skye to talk about gaming, Stick Arena and Ballistick their newest game, that has been a long time coming. Skye was kind of enough to provide us three exclusive game images of Ballistick. Nearly a year ago XGen posted this trailer of Ballistick to wet the appetites of Stick Arena fans. So the real question is: When is Ballistick coming? Read on to find out.

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Our readers are really the best. Where else would we get Penguin Baseball? A reader sent in this flash game gem, where you take batting practice, except replace Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez or Prince Fielder with your favorite abominable snowman, the Yeti. Cute lovable penguins jump from a cliff (pitch themselves) and you take aim.

From what I can see there are two types of power hits. The moon shot gets you at most 490. The more line drive takes the svelte penguin aerodynamics and really can increase your score. Our reader said, “It took awhile and I think I am still missing something, but beat 593!” My best was 587. What can you do?

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Techlife has invites to the private Casual Collective, the casual gaming multi-player site we have been beta testing for a little while now.  To get one, comment and we will invite you.  This will get you a free invite to the Multi-player Desktop Tower Defense.

We even set up a Techlife Collective, that we would love if you join. (It is our little mini-group.)  You get to compete against all the other readers and still against everyone else too.  Paul and Dave have really thought of everything.  If you like Stick Arena or many of the other flash games we have covered, this is a must have invite.

I know I am addicted.  Who wants in? If you want a free invite just leave a comment and I will invite people first come first served.

DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!

For those unfamiliar with Desktop Tower Defense, it is a simple concept stop the circles from traversing across the playing field. As with most great games, its simplicity is compelling while its mastery is more than a challenge.

Since version 1.5 has been released, as seen on the Prepare to meet your next challenge in casual multi-player gaming, Multi-Player Desktop Tower Defense (MDTD) from Casual Collective.

I have just taken a break finished playing one of the most addictive multi-player Flash games since Stick Arena in order to write about the new, invite only beta trial.

The game is a bunch of mini-races that culminate in an overall winner based on score. The new angle is now your “Defense” is not just against circles but also against your live opponents who can in one game mode use Super Powers, special powers including Lights Out (blacks out your board for a few seconds) or Gold-lock (which stops the spending of gold for a few seconds.) I played in arcade mode which speeds up the gameplay and leaves little time for in-game chat or taunting.

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Raise your hand if Stick Arena or Line Rider are were your favorite time wasters? A new game has taken center stage, Desktop Tower Defense.

It’s quite simple, yet grows in complexity. You are defending against invading circles each with special powers such as speed, morphing and spawning. The circles goal is to cross the desktop. Your goal: Stop them! The best thing about this game are all the variations and how easily no two games could be alike. In addition the author Paul Preece has added many various types of levels and challenges to the game. The game is often talked about online with bloggers providing strategy and even covering Desktop Tower Defense’s advertising partners. Get practicing now.

Why the rush? Paul has teamed with Dave to create Casual Collective and they have something new up their sleeve. Just announced is their goal to have multi-player Desktop Tower Defense and other multi-player gaming. Register your username now.

Did you get the hang of the game? Join the Techlife readers in posting your score to our group scoreboard. Got a great strategy? Share it here. Link to your map and let us see how you arranged things.