However, the internet also requires a steady stream of deep shame to oil the switches, so the least you can do is feel bad about it.

If you don’t feel bad, I’m here to help. While most web-based Flash games coddle you with weak-minded notions like “entertainment” and “fun,” a few clear-thinking souls have created games that, in essence, punish you for playing them.

Spend some time with these sadistic distractions and you’ll feel so frustrated and angry with yourself for wasting an afternoon that you could keep an entire San Francisco data center lubricated with your shame.

QWOP

There’s difficult, and then there’s difficult, soul-crushing and sad. In this game (pictured above), you play the part of an international athlete’s lower body, manipulating his calves and thighs in an attempt to sprint your way to Olympic gold. It is, however, far more likely that you will flop on your back and kick your legs pathetically like a gut-shot Rockette. If you do manage to make some creeping, twitching progress, you’ll eventually run into figurative hurdles in the form of literal hurdles.

Hatetris

I haven’t been able to look at a game of Tetris without getting nauseated since I overdosed on it circa 1990, but Hatetris managed to replace my cautious revulsion with white-hot loathing. The game is programmed to give you the statistically worst piece for any given situation. It’s possible to clear a line or two, which just makes your steadily mounting failure all the more intolerable.

The Big Adventure of Owata’s Life

It should be lives, plural, because man does Owata go through them like a 14-year-old Halo player goes through racial slurs. This game isn’t in English, but that’s OK: A head repeatedly pounding against a rough cement wall sounds the same in any language. I personally have only managed to progress to the point where I’m kicked to death by a font-art Guile, but I’m just going to call that a partial victory and move on.

Which Way Game

Do you enjoy Choose Your Own Adventure games? Point-and-click adventures? Manticores? You won’t enjoy any of them after you stumble your way through this aimless — but admittedly very funny — game that can send you anywhere from a post-apocalyptic landscape to Utah. (OK, they aren’t that different.) The point of Which Way Game is that there is no point. This game, like life, is a series of poor decisions ending in fatal laceration.

Steamshovel Harry

I don’t want to give anything away, but suffice to say that in spite of starting this meticulously documented game several times, I was never able to make my way to the end.

Bonus Game: You Have to Burn the Rope

If you run through all these and find yourself stymied in your quest for browser-based victory — or even just a smidgen of measurable progress — you can instead try You Have to Burn the Rope, a game that will make you feel bad about yourself in an entirely different way.

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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a gut-shot Rockette. He thanks his Twitter followers for pointing out some excellently vicious games.

See Also:

• Alt Text: Giving Valve Games That Special Apple Touch
• Alt Text: Are Videogames Art? Time Will Tell
• Alt Text: Videogame Wisdom You Can Apply to Real Life

Authors: Lore Sjöberg

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