NINTENDO'S WEB GAMES

A couple of years ago I wrote about a bunch of the little games you could play on the official Pokemon website. You know, short Flash games with a Pokemon theme, like a Puyo Puyo clone hosted by Munchlax or a Gastly-themed hidden object game which sounds like something designed specifically for me but which unfortunately turned out to be not that good. Well, now that I’ve gotten over the crushing disappointment of Gastly’s Hidden Haunt I decided I was ready to take a trip to another set of browser-based minigames, and where could be more appropriate than the websites of Nintendo themselves? Nintendo are one of the world’s most famous entertainment brands, a lot of their output is child-friendly and they make games, so I’m sure the browser games on their site will be top-notch. Right?

Here at Nintendo’s European site you’ve got the Nintendo Kids Club, where young Nintendo fans can gather to have less fun than they would if they were, for example, playing actual Nintendo games. Maybe it’s their older sibling’s turn to use the Switch or something, so little Timmy or Terri turns to the Nintendo Kids Club, where they’re greeted by your favourite Super Mario characters looking extremely cheerful. This is probably because Bowser isn’t currently trying to abduct Peach / Luigi’s not exploring a haunted mansion / Toad’s not talking so they don’t have to hear his voice. And look, there are games! Other stuff, too, but I’ll be focussing on the games. Yes, games are great, I’m looking forward to playing some.

As expected the Super Mario series is heavily represented, with Animal Crossing having a few games too plus only lonely Kirby game. More surprising is the complete lack of games based on The Legend of Zelda, Metroid or Splatoon. Okay, maybe the lack of Metroid isn’t surprising – Nintendo seem to regard the franchise with an air of “oh, and Metroid too I guess” at the best of times, but Splatoon’s pretty big and Zelda is, well, it’s Zelda. Not even a sliding block puzzle with Link’s face on it, Nintendo? Really?

Time for the first game on the list and it’s a Super Mario jigsaw. A jigsaw with a Christmas theme, bafflingly. I know Christmas starts early these days, but it’s only the beginning of September. Perhaps that’s why there’s no games based on Splatoon or Breath of the Wild – it’s because these games haven’t been updated since about December 2014.
You know what you’re getting with a jigsaw, at least, even if “Mario blasting through a Christmas wreath in his flying go-kart” isn’t exactly what I expected the first game I played to look like. The jigsaw game works fine. Not much that can go wrong with a jigsaw, is there? It’s a good job it works, too, because a bunch of the other games on this page are jigsaws, including one of Yoshi throwing an egg, an Animal Crossing scene and one starring that famous Nintendo superstar, Teddy.

You know, Teddy! Everyone loves Teddy! Okay, I have no clue who Teddy is. I looked it up and apparently Teddy is the star of a 3DS game called Teddy Together which was developed by Street Fighter EX creators Arika, so you could make the argument that Teddy and Skullomania are related. Teddy Together is a “life simulator” type game in the vein of Nintendogs, except with a teddy bear that talks in a slightly disconcerting synthesized voice that’s very… breathy. From what I’ve seen it’s a bit creepy, but not as creepy as Donkey Kong’s mostly-obscured grinning face staring out at me from behind Teddy. Donkey Kong likes to watch, you see.

I’d never heard of Teddy Together before today and I’ll be honest, doing a very basic jigsaw of the bear himself is not likely to make me rush out and buy a copy. This jigsaw is making want to rush out and buy some cakes, though. Maybe it’s stealth advertising by Mr. Kipling.

Okay, time for something that’s not a jigsaw with “Make Four With Mario.” Luigi’s name goes unmentioned despite him being right there, which does fit in with most of Luigi’s characterisation these days, so let’s assume it was intentional.

It’s Connect Four, except the counters are red and green rather than red and yellow. I’ll let you decide whether the colour was changed from yellow to green to match Luigi or to avoid Milton Bradley’s lawyers.
To reiterate, it’s Connect Four. That’s it. It has no connection to anything Nintendo-related aside from using the words Mario and Luigi for the player names. You could change the names to Rommel and Montgomery and call it “Make Four At El Alamein” and no-one would suspect its Mario-related origins. The very definition of low-effort, right? Could there not have even been some Nintendo artwork at the side of the screen, or a voice clip of Luigi saying “Mamma mia, I lost again, my existence is a hollow-a nightmare”? If only there were some kind of coin-shaped disc that Mario was famous for collecting, they could have used those for the counters instead of plain circles.

"Spot the Animal Crossing Friends" next, where Animal Crossing characters slide into a picture of the village and you have to click on them. Well, at least it’s definitely based on Animal Crossing, so it just abut clears the incredibly low bar that’s been set for these minigames.
The thing is, the characters appear and vanish so quickly that it’s actually quite hard to click on them in time… but it’s okay, because you can still get credit for clicking where they were. Considering they’re supposed to be your friends, these characters can’t get away from you fast enough.

By far the best game on the site is "Kirby’s Quick Draw", based around Kirby and the Rainbow Curse. It starts off strongly by being the only game with any music, and from there it gets by on the powerful cuteness of the Kirby brand – a power that should not be underestimated. I’d probably have done a lot better on the maths portions of my degree if the textbooks had been presented by Kirby and his pals. Kirby believes in you.

The actual game is connect the dots, which does tie in to Rainbow Curse’s use of the Wii U gamepad to draw lines for Kirby to walk on. That’s synergy, that is. As a connect the dots minigame it’s perfectly acceptable, although the best thing about it was that it reminded me I need to buy a new mouse. The left button’s going on mine, which mean I kept not dragging the line properly. Someone recommend me a decent, cheap wireless mouse, please.
It’s a very simple minigame, but as I said, it gets by on cuteness. I mean, just look at this:

Hi, Kirby! If you play this minigame and don’t say hello to Kirby out loud upon reaching this screen then you’re probably some kind of irredeemable sociopath.

Naturally there are also some sliding block puzzles, including another Christmas-themed Mario one and a couple based on Yoshi’s Woolly World, like this mixed-up Shyguy. I completed none of these minigames. I’ve made my contempt for sliding block puzzles clear many times in the past and I will not engage with them if I can possibly avoid it. I tell myself it’s because they’re not fun, they’re boring and they take too long, but really it’s because I’m awful at them and I hate feeling like I’m being outsmarted by a children’s novelty.

"Shadow Spotter" is all about identifying silhouettes of famous Nintendo characters, like Princess Peach. You get four shadows to choose from – three where she’s looking regal and one in the top-left where she looks like she’s getting ready to beat the crap out of someone – and you click on the matching outline. Donkey Kong continues to stare out from the background, silently judging your every choice.

Oh, cool, there’s a proper little hidden object game in here.  I do love a good hidden object game – which is to say I love horror-themed hidden object games with wonky 3D models or images clipped out of a Halloween gift catalogue. This Animal Crossing version is neither of those, but it’s an okay way to pass thirty second while reflecting on the fact that I’ve never actually played an Animal Crossing game. Maybe that’s because I’ve seen how I run a household; the thought of being in charge of a whole town is too much pressure for me to handle.

There’s a Christmas hidden object puzzle, too. Please note that there was a turkey in the previous scene. The turkey is not visible during the village’s Christmas celebration.

And here’s "Luigi’s Word Jumble", a wordsearch with Nintendo charactersszzzzz – okay, I’m rapidly slipping into a coma here. I think I’d better head over to the US Nintendo site and see what’s on offer there. Sure the razzmatazz and spectacle associated with America will pervade the games on the US site, that should keep me awake.

Or perhaps not. Yet more jigsaws, this time with the cast of the Wario Ware series. On the plus side this jigsaw’s pieces are at least shaped like jigsaw pieces, but it’s still just a jigsaw and I had enough of those on the European site, thanks very much. A lot of the games are in a similar mould on the US site, but there are some that are a bit different.

For instance, there’s "How to Draw Captain Toad and Toadette", which gives you an outline of everyone’s favourite fungoid serf and a few pen tools and colours with which to recreate your own masterpiece. It’s a fun little tool and one that I think kids would get more enjoyment from that most of the other offerings on the site – I know that at around age six I did nothing but draw Super Mario characters and if I could have done it on the computer with traceable outlines and an undo feature I’d have been all over it.

You can even download your finished picture and print it out, or email it to your enemies with no accompanying text in the hope that they’ll take it as a mysterious threat and, in their panic, accidentally reveal their next move in your long-running game of mental chess. Personally I rather like my finished Toad. It looks crap, but charmingly crap. It’s definitely “stick it on the fridge” material.

Of course, there’s no rule saying that you have to draw Toad or Toadette. I drew a jack o’lantern, because I am extremely predictable. Hey, it’s September now, get used to it. Given the way Britain seems to be heating up in recent years I might not get to see many more Autumns.

There’s a different shadow-matching minigame, this time featuring bizarre cube-shaped versions of Pokemon. The folly of trying to turn Exeggcute – a Pokemon solely defined by being shaped like goddamn eggs – in a pile of cubes is so ridiculous I can’t help but love it. Plus, cube Pikachu looks like it ran face-first into a wall in the manner of a hyperactive puppy.

Honestly, the US site doesn’t have much in the way of actual games, focussing much more on quizzes and goofy polls, and these do feature a lot more “real” Nintendo content even if that does just mean pictures of the characters that the games are supposedly involved in. Here’s one about matching the emblems from Mario Tennis to their respective characters. Not the most difficult mission, but it gives me the chance to see Mario and Luigi looking annoyed that Toad and Bowser aren’t taking this tennis tournament seriously, having turned up in their normal outfits (or lack thereof, in Bowser’s case).  I suppose Toad’s little Aladdin vest allows him freedom of movement, but he could have slapped on a couple of sweatbands or something.

I know I’m supposed to be focussing on the site’s games, such as they are, but I can’t leave without mentioning this Zelda quiz that gives “North American Vampire Inc.” as a possible origin for Navi’s name. I know it’s the wrong answer but in my heart it’s right, right, right. What the hell would North American Vampire Inc. even be? The cynical, topical answer would be “the US healthcare system” but it’s definitely a construction company that builds ornate Gothic castles and mouldering crypts that suit both your unholy needs and your budget.

Okay, that’s enough of these websites, I can’t handle the excitement any longer. They were a disappointingly low-effort bunch of timewasters, especially on the European site. It’s a real downgrade from the Pokemon web games, which weren’t amazing but at least had some quality to them and even the generic ones had plenty of Pokemon art and stuff. I must admit I expected more from Nintendo, especially when compared to the web games offered by big toy companies like Lego and Playmobil. On the Playmobil website there’s a Ghostbusters game where you run around the firehouse zapping ghosts and you can even play as Janine, which knocks bloody Connect Four into a cocked hat.
I am being a little unfair, though. There are some fun things on these sites, especially the downloads section of the US site where you can get printable things like greetings cards and party invitations. Oh, and this.

That’s right, a pattern for carving a Goomba into a pumpkin for Halloween – and by “Halloween” I mean “however long you can make a pumpkin last because you wouldn’t throw out a Goomba pumpkin until it was a pile of brown mush, would you?” This discovery alone has made this entire article worth it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to camp outside my nearest greengrocer.

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SUPER MARIO SPIN-OFF COVERS

Today’s article is all about the cover art from various Super Mario spin-offs, but I don’t mean the kind of spin-offs we’re all familiar with. We all know about Mario’s secondary careers as a doctor or a go-kart driver or a competitor in a multiverse-spanning fighting tournament where he may or may not be a child’s toy brought to life by a magical floating hand. No, these are the really obscure Mario spin-offs. Knitting is involved. We’ll get to that, but let’s begin with something you might actually have heard of.

Mario’s Time Machine, NES

One of several games in the Mario Discovery Series, Mario’s Time Machine is all about learning history. What you’ll actually learn from this cover art, and all the others in this article, is that Mario never, ever closes his goddamn mouth. I think there’s one, maybe two pieces of cover art I looked at for this article where Mario’s gob isn’t hanging open. Sometimes he’s smiling, sometimes it’s the slack-jawed gaping of a man partway through a complex dental procedure, but his mouth is (almost) always open.
As for the rest of this cover, what’s going on? Well, Abraham Lincoln is there, posed in a way that suggests he’s doing his best Tommy Cooper impression. I thought the upside-down bloke at the bottom was Phil Collins at first glance, but I think it’s supposed to be Benjamin Franklin. That’s disappointing, because Mario really does look like the kind of person who would use a time machine to return to 1985 so he can catch the No Jacket Required tour.
Also, the trail coming out of the time machine implies that Mario flew out of that dinosaur’s mouth, promising a level of excitement that Mario’s Time Machine simply cannot provide.

Mario’s Time Machine, PC

The PC CD-ROM version of Mario’s Time Machine also comes with this cover art, and it’s a real artefact of nineties graphic design, huh? Ugly elements placed seemingly at random, logos all over the place and Mario pointing at a bunch of clipart Koopa Troopas. “Look,” says Mario, “Koopa Troopas. I will jump on them.” He’s a simple man with simple needs.

Mario Is Missing!, SNES

He’s right there, Luigi! Are you deaf? Bowser’s not the stealthiest of villains, I can’t believe he’s abducting Mario without making enough noise to get your attention. This is why Mario’s the hero and you’re the sidekick, Luigi. Unless… oh ho, I get it, Luigi is fed up of languishing in his big brother’s shadow, so he lets Mario be kidnapped and prepares to step into the limelight. Well, congratulations, Luigi. You’re the star now. Unfortunately the game you’re starring in is Mario is Missing, so you’ve ended up with a real monkey’s paw of a wish there.

Mario Teaches Typing 2, PC

Mario teaches typing, but he’s not doing a very good job at it. If you follow the trail he’s left behind, he appears to have typed out “wsx.” That might be a word in the Mushroom Kingdom, friendo, but here in the real world it doesn’t mean anything unless you’re showing your appreciation for the obscure and short-lived wrestling programme Wrestling Society X. Phil Collins and unloved wrestling franchises? I’m painting a really weird picture of what Mario’s downtime consists of here.
Aside from his poor typing, there are a couple of interesting thing in this one. The first is that this picture of Mario should clearly be airbrushed on the side of a dodgy carnival ride rather than appearing on the cover of an official product. I can see it now, Mario on the side of a swinging pirate ship ride, in between a picture of a bootleg Batman who looks like he’s just smelled one of Ace the Bat-Hound’s farts and a Minion. The other is the age rating on the right. I think if you reach the age of 102 without having learned how to type, it’s fair enough to suggest you’ll never master it even with Mario’s help.

Mario Teaches Typing, PC

Of course, there being a Mario Teaches Typing 2 means there was an original, but the cover’s not very interesting. Mario looks just like official art that’s been placed on top of a keyboard. Neither cover really sells the idea that Mario’s teaching typing rather than fleeing from a giant keyboard.

Mario Roulette, arcade

To play Mario Roulette, you load a single Bullet Bill into the chamber of a revolver…

Mario’s Early Years: Fun With Numbers, PC

Okay, that last one got a bit dark, but the image of Mario being caught unawares by a photographer, looking guilty as he hangs around a playground full of children, is a whole different thing. Jesus Christ, could you not have shown Mario actually having fun in his usual wholesome manner? You know, maybe avoid drawing him to look as furtive as possible? Instead, let’s focus on the kid at the top, who is definitely about to smash the other kids over the head with that giant number 3.

Mario’s Early Years: Fun With Numbers, SNES

Don’t lie to me, Mario. You can’t have fun with numbers. This is fun on a see-saw, with numbers nearby. Sure, mathematicians will tell you that every aspect of the universe is controlled by numbers and as such all fun springs from maths – especially physics-based fun like you’ll find on see-saws – but who ever listened to a mathematician? Not me! That’s why I failed the maths parts of my degree. Twice.

Mario’s Early Years: Fun With Letters, PC

That’s more like it. You can definitely have fun with letters. Not on this website, but in other places.
Mario’s problems with keeping his mouth shut have reached crisis point in this one, with his gob desperately trying to reposition itself to the back of his neck.

Super Mario Bros. Print World, PC

“Now you’re printing with power,” hah. As someone old enough to remember using dot-matrix printers and continuous paper, I can testify that using those things definitely sounded powerful, by which I mean they made a right racket. But what better use could continuous paper be put to than printing out enormous Super Mario banners? I know if I’d had this software as a kid I’d have done nothing but. Every square inch of my house would have been covered in low-resolution computer copies of Super Mario Bros. 3-era Mario artwork. Getting a birthday card with best wishes from the Mario Brothers themselves? What could be cooler than that? However, some of the print-out choices on this cover are a little strange. “Thank you! Here’s a picture of a fire-breathing snake!” is a weird one, unless you’re thanking someone for helping you beat Tricylde in Mario 2. As for the Super Track Meet banner, I’d imagine Nintendo’s lawyers would be all over you if you tried to hang it in your school or wherever.

Hotel Mario, CD-i

Welcome to the Hotel Mario: such a lovely place, or at least it would be if “Mario” had four syllables so I could do a parody of the Hotel California lyrics. It must be a lovely place, if it’s home to Goombas that dress like Elvis. I know Hotel Mario is one of the least-beloved of all Mario games, but I’m looking at this and imagining the Mushroom Kingdom’s version of Las Vegas, where Elvis-impersonating mushrooms do sets including such hits as “Blue Suede Shrooms” and “Viva Las Fungus.”
I’m not so fond of how the bad guys seem to have undergone the same process that they put Kirby through when he appears on American box art. That Boo’s the worst, their usual spooky mischievousness replaced by a look of genuine rage directed towards Mario. The worst thing of all, however, is the position of Mario’s leg. Take a close look at it, and you’ll notice that it’s sticking directly out of Mario’s crotch rather than being attached to his hips. I’m a little worried it’s not a leg at all.

Mario’s Fundamentals, PC

It looks like Mario’s added “game show host” to his long list of careers, huh? He looks so happy, firing games and pastimes out of his tuxedo jacket. He’s probably just glad he won’t have to jump over any bottomless caverns or lava pits while he’s compering.  The worst he’ll have to deal with is Yoshi eating the draughts board.
As with so many of these covers, this image brings home how just how many times I’ve seen Mario over the years and just how fixed his official image is. Mario’s look shifted around a bit in the NES era and certainly back when he was appearing in arcade games, but since Super Mario 64 he has looked identical in pretty much every single piece of artwork Nintendo have put out. The side effect of this is that you can tell, immediately and at a glance, when Mario hasn’t been drawn by Nintendo themselves. This one’s an obvious case, because Mario doesn’t usually look like an over-inflated pool toy, but even when the images are very accurate they still always seem to be missing that essential Nintendo-ness that marks them out as the real deal.

Mario Party-e, GBA e-Reader

This one’s just nice. Everyone seems to be having a good time together as friends, which implies they’re not actually playing Mario Party. Princess Peach is in a relaxed mood during a rare period in which she’s not an abductee, and she offers the audience a playful wink. Wario and Waluigi look like the inseparable buddies we all know they are. Princess Daisy is shocked by Waluigi’s monster mushroom. However, best of all is Donkey Kong up in the top-left corner. He doesn’t have a bloody clue what’s going on, does he? They should have called this game Mario Party-e feat. Donkey Kong Screaming Invective Into The Uncaring Universe.

Super Mario World redemption game, arcade.

Super Mario’s back and he’s taking quarters, beating up Toads and stealing their dinner money! Finally realised that carrying around those massive Mushroom Kingdom coins is a pain in the arse when he needs to fill up the parking meter, has he? According to this flyer Mario’s the number one most recognisable character in the world, so you’d think he’d be able to park wherever the hell he likes, but I guess not. Relatedly, isn’t it nice that a chubby Italian plumber with a carefree nature and a big bushy moustache became the world’s most recognisable character? When you describe him like that, it’s a wonder anyone remembers him at all and a shock that he’s never been replaced by a “cooler” character. Fortunately, Nintendo seem unconcerned with the notion of “cool.”
As for the artwork, it’s all tracings of official art that seem to have been coloured with felt-tipped pens, so it looks pretty okay. Still, I’m not sure why the artist positioned Mario and Yoshi to look as though they’re about to slam face-first into the ground. The artist’s yellow pen obviously ran out at some point, and it’s strange to see some of these familiar foes coloured in green. I don’t know why Koopa Troopas aren’t coloured green in the first place, actually. Surely turtles are usually more green than they are yellow?

Super Mario Bros. Special, PC-88

Just two quick things to mention with this one: one is the charming expression of slow-witted contentment on the mushroom Mario’s holding. That mushroom might be about to get eaten so Mario can double in size, but it’s just happy to be out in the fresh air and meeting new people. The other thing is the Hammer Brother on the left. Every time I look at it I see the ear-guard of its helmet as its left eye, giving it a strangely Cubist vibe, or more accurately making it look like one of the many, many Super Mario character I drew when I was about seven years old.

Super Mario Bros. And Friends: When I Grow Up, PC

Mario’s quest to become the ultimate dilettante continues as he takes on a job with the police force. Don’t worry, he’ll be bored with it soon enough. He’s only on traffic duty, it’s not like he’s having shoot-outs with drug lords or anything. He’s even convinced Luigi to get a proper job as a firefighter, and aren’t they both having a jolly old time in their uniforms? Ho ho, what fun. Until you see the speed lines coming off Luigi’s fire engine and realise there’s no way he’ll be able to brake in time to avoid committing fratricide. It’s a good job this is happening right outside a doctor’s clinic, they might at least be able to save some of Mario’s organs for transplant. And hey, maybe Donkey Kong’s moonlighting as a nurse or something? That’d be fun.

I Am A Teacher: Super Mario Sweater, Famicom Disk System

Finally, as promised, knitting. Yes, this is a “game” that lets you design knitting patterns for sweaters with Super Mario pictures on them. As far as I can tell, despite the title it doesn’t actually teach you how to knit a sweater. It’s hardly the weirdest thing to have Mario’s name attached to it, not when the Super Mario Bros. movie exists, but it does mean that somewhere in Japan, stuffed in the bottom of a wardrobe and long forgotten, there must be at least one Mario sweater made using this software. You can just imagine some kid pestering his grandparents to make it for them, wearing it to school and showing off the 8-bit Goombas emblazoned across their chest, and that’s a strangely affecting thought. I know I would have wanted a Mario jumper. It’d have made a nice change from the fluorescent-coloured bootleg Simpsons t-shirts I seem to be wearing in every photo from my childhood.

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THE WEB GAMES OF POKEMON.COM

Last week saw the announcement of Pokemon Sun and Moon, which I'm sure is very exciting for a lot of people. Personally, I ran out of patience with the main Pokemon games a couple of releases ago - after dozens of games following the same "grab the critters, collect the badges, beat the Elite Four" pattern, the exhortation to "catch 'em all" has worn extremely thin. That's not to say I'm anti-Pokemon or anything, though. I have a lot of affection for the games I did play and the Pokemon I raised, and I'm still interested in what's going on in the wonderful world of Pocket Monsters. To that end, I visited the Official Pokemon Website and you know what? It's got minigames!

That's right, there are about thirty-five Flash browser games that you can play if the idea of playing a proper videogame is a bit too much for you. Are they mostly clones of simple and overly-familiar games with a hastily applied coat of Pokemon-coloured paint? I don't think I really need to answer that. I'm going to play a few of them - not all of them, because while I still like Pokemon I don't think I would after playing thirty-five Flash games - and report back.

I will be skipping this one, however. I don't need to see a weird tree goblin flinging its seed, thank you very much.

First I have to set up a Trainer Account. You get Pokemon Fun-Bux for playing the games, you see, and I don't want them to go to waste.
Here's my attempt to recreate my glorious presence in the Trainer Creator, and I have to say it's a pretty accurate likeness of me... circa 2002. The same shoes and everything, although I was perhaps even paler back then. I'd aim for a more up-to-date recreation of the VGJunk look, but there are no options for greying temples or pot bellies, so I'll have to spend this article looking at myself from a time when I was fresh and full of life.

It was the most prominent game featured on the page, but I would have headed straight for Escape From Gengar's Mansion even if it had been tucked away in a hidden corner of the Pokemon server, my finely-honed spook-senses pulling me towards it. This will come as no surprise to anyone who's ever read VGJunk in October, but ghost-type Pokemon are generally my favourites, (with poison a close second,) so this was a natural starting point for this Pokemon oddysey.

Ghost Pokemon are desperately lonely creatures, and they just want you to stay and be their friend. Alternatively, this is a ploy to trap a human in a place of inescapable, non-Euclidean geometry so they can feed on their captive's life essence. That's one of my favourite things about Pokemon, some of those Pokedex entries can get pretty messed up.

A Gastly appears - always a good start, because Gastly and it's evolutionary line are some of the very best of Pokemon's first generation - and tries to trap you in the house by giving you directions in the form of a big arrow. However, ghost Pokemon are tricksy sorts and pathological liars, so to escape you must follow the opposite direction. That is, when a left-pointing arrow appears, you hit right on the keyboard, and so on. It sounds simple enough, but you have to hit a certain amount of correct answers within the time limit and making one mistake results in a game over. I'm not sure why one wrong answer is a game over, mind you. Is the Gastly trying to direct me to my death? Yeah, let's go with that. He just wants a friend, even though this mansion is already packed with ghosts.

Clear the first stage and you go up against Haunter, the unimaginatively-named haunting Pokemon. It's the same thing but with more correct answers required to pass, and the addition of the random Pumpkaboo. A friendly and helpful ghost that died without without the lingering resentments of its more purple compatriots, the Pumpkaboo tries to help by showing you the correct button to press. Of course, all this does is throw off your concentration and cause you to fail, so maybe that was Pumpkaboo's plan all along.

Finally there's Gengar, looking as always like a ten-year-old bully and a teddy bear died at the exact same moment, causing their souls to fuse together in the afterlife. Look at the bead of sweat trickling down his fat head, Gengar knows that I've cracked the secret to his directions and will soon be escaping the mansion. He seems a little embarrassed about it.

There you go, Escape From Gengar's Mansion is complete, and as a reward you're given a link to download a desktop wallpaper based on the minigame. I am using this wallpaper right now, because I really do like ghost Pokemon, so I guess this was time well spent. I won't upload it here, but you can just about see what it looks like in the screenshot above and if you really want it you can play through Escape From Gengar's Mansion. Don't despair, it only takes about five minutes, although it is one of the more involved games on the Pokemon website so that'll give you an idea of the kind of things we'll be seeing next.

Things like Drifloon's Fill and Float, a game of bubble, balloons and rainbow-coloured potions. Hang on, isn't Drifloon the Pokemon that sometimes kidnaps children? Maybe this is how it gets close to them, blending in with all the other balloons until bam, sorry mom and pop but little Timmy is gone, spirited away to live in the Cloud Kingdom as a slave to his rubbery, soulless abductors.
Oh right, the game. You hold the mouse button down to make a bubble. The longer you hold the button, the bigger the bubble. If the bubble touches a balloon it bursts, so to score points you need to blow and release the biggest bubble you can in the gaps between the balloons. It is precisely as interesting as it sounds. Next!

No collection of low-effort minigames would be complete with a jigsaw puzzle, and here's Pokemon's take with Zorua and Zoroark Puzzle Pack. Can you call something a "pack" if it only contains two things? I suppose there could be different jigsaws unlocked over time or as you reach higher scores, but I doubt it. Instead you get an "Easy" jigsaw, and a "Challenging" one. This is the challenging option, and I could see where a larger jigsaw with some pieces that show nothing but pure white might be difficult, but this is small enough that it's doable by all but the youngest Pokemon Trainers pretty easily. The real challenge of Challenging mode is surviving the soundtrack, a four-second loop of nondescript parpy tunes that would work much better for forcing dissidents to leave occupied embassies than AC/DC does.

My least-favourite gameplay mechanic - the sliding block puzzle - rears its ugly, pointless and boring head in Eevee's Tile Trial, with "trial" being a fairly good descriptor for it. You slide the blocks to make lines of three matching tiles, which then disappear. At the start of the game you can choose between fire, lightning and water, and if you manage to complete more groups of your chosen element than the other two then your Eevee will evolve, for reasons that don't extend beyond "more points" from what I can see. The problem is (aside from the core issue of this being a sliding block puzzle and therefore The Worst) that the tiles you're dealt are random, so even if you care enough to think hard about your moves you might not be able to evolve your Eevee anyway.

Against my better judgement I actually played this one twice just to show you what happens when your Eevee evolves, other than the high-pitched whining sound generated by Darwin rapidly spinning in his grave. You get points and a picture. It wasn't worth it. There's at least one more sliding block puzzle in this minigame collection, too, so it's lucky (or unlucky, depending on your take) that I didn't play those two games first or I would never have written this article.

Classic three (or four, in this case) card monte action in Psyduck's Shuffle Surprise, where you're told to remember a card's location as it's shuffled around. Pick the correct card from the mixed-up deck and win, which is entirely possible because this is a Nintendo product and they're not running a scam on you or anything. It's probably the best computerised version of three card monte I've ever played, and this is solely down to the inclusion of Psyduck's confused face peering in at the bottom of the screen. Does that make me shallow? Probably, but I feel such a kinship with Psyduck's default emotion - bewilderment so intense it's giving him a migraine - that I'll give him a pass on appearing in this barely-there Flash game. I was trying to figure out why they chose Psyduck specifically for this game when he has no bearing at all on the gameplay and any Pokemon could have filled the role, but then I figured it out: Psyduck is using its psychic powers to shuffle the cards through telekinesis, which is why Psyduck is better than Pikachu. Speaking of Pikachu, I was very surprised to see that none of the games are based around Pokemon's rosy-cheeked mascot. There's a Raichu game, but Pikachu is conspicuous by his absence, something I never thought I'd say about any Pokemon product.

This is Gothita's Portrait Panic, and before I get into the game itself, two things: firstly, I know I said I was burned out on Pokemon games but now I've found out there's a goth pokemon I might have to get back into it. As a closet goth, having a Pokemon that probably listens to The Danse Society on my team appeals to me. I'll catch one, name her Bauhaus and assume she spends all her non-battling time shopping for corsets. According to it's Pokedex entry, Gothita "stares intently at everything," presumably judging the world for its inability to see the dark majesty of the grave. Secondly, that duck has no idea what is going on.

Definitely one of the more interesting games on this list, the aim of Gothita's Portrait Panic is to use your catapult to fire paint-balloons at a drawing of a Pokemon with the aim of colouring in the whole picture. Where most of the other games featured here are extremely simple, GPP is one of the few to try and expand on its basic mechanics: for example, you have to hold the button down to fill your balloon, but hold it too long and the balloon will pop, wasting time and paint. The pictures are suspended on boards, and the boards swing about depending on where you hit them, sometimes making things more difficult but also giving you opportunities to use the motion as an advantage. Because the paint-balloons "splash" in a semi-realistic way, if you can land a shot while the board's at an angle the paint will splash further. These kinds of things, plus a bonus mode and rewards for firing small, rapid shots, mean that GPP is the one game of the bunch that I'd recommend you try if you're desperate to play a Pokemon minigame.

Oh look, there's Pikachu now. If you ever wanted to shoot Pikachu in the face with a catapult, here's your chance to get some practise in.

If you didn't see Turtwig's Target Smash and immediately hear a mental voice yelling "Break The Targets!" you're either a liar or you've never played Smash Bros.

Another of the Pokemon website's more enjoyable games, and as someone who's never played Angry Birds I assume this is what Angry Birds is like except, no-one is ever angry in the twinkling technicolour world of Pokemon. They ought to have called it Happy Turtles, really. Turtwig moves up and down on an elevator, waiting to throw energy balls at the targets. Hold the mouse button to charge up your shot - the longer you hold, the flatter the trajectory - and try to hit as many targets as possible with each throw. Things are made more complicated by obstructive blocks and special coloured targets that disappear quickly if you don't smash them. This one's a pleasant enough time-waster, particularly if you like seeing cartoon turtles vomiting up molten plasma energy.

This is especially true when you finish the stage and Turtwig suddenly remembers Goku is living in his tonsils.

Maractus's Blooming Blossoms is a colour-matching game where you aim is to rotate the circles to make circles containing only one colour, and it works just as well as any other colour-matching game although in this game - as well as a few others - there is a tendency for the playfield to become obscured by the various effects and messages that pop up as you play. It's hard to plan your next move when there a big grey dialogue box covering everything, you know? It's nothing special as a game, but Maractus's Blooming Blossoms does have one thing going for it: a decent soundtrack. Most of the other games have music ranging from "blander than an unmarked manila envelope" to "the blasphemous chimes of Satan's alarm clock," MBB's salsa tune sounds like the kind of music a sentient cactus creature would make, if it had opposable thumbs and external ears.

If I was trying to describe Munchlax's Berry Bonanza succinctly, I'd say "floppy Puyo Puyo." You drop berries into the arena one at a time, and if three or more of them touch they disappear. Beyond that, MBB diverges from the usual in a couple of ways. For starters, the berries don't conform to a grid like, say, Tetris pieces, and will obey physics to an extent as they roll around, bounce off each other and eventually settle into place. The other unusual feature is that any group of three or more you create won't immediately disappear. Instead you have to stop dropping berries and wait a while, and after five seconds or so any completed groups will disappear. This makes MBB feel surprisingly different to other falling-tile puzzlers than it first appears, allowing you create huge piles of fruit before allowing the whole thing to collapse in on itself. It's a more sedate approach to the genre, then, and one that I reckon could make for a fairly compelling game with some tweaking.

I suppose it makes sense that a game starring Munchlax would be a slow, deliberate affair regarding the consumption of food, even if most of those berries look rather unappetizing. You've got spiked red hell-chunks, lumpy purple ones that are clearly poisonous, cartoon bombs disguised as berries, the Spotted Arse-Fruit and those things on the left that look like the unholy union of grapes and corn. That's the world of Pokemon, where getting your five-a-day will almost certainly result in an agonising death.

More berries and more knock-offs of classic puzzle games with Tepig's Tasty Treat Toaster, which is Puzzle Bobble. Puzzle Bobble with a picture of a cartoon pig nearby is still just Puzzle Bobble, you know? It's not even a great version of Puzzle Bobble, my enjoyment hampered by some inaccurate ball physics and the game's steadfast refusal to give me any bloody yellow berries.

It's Jumpluff's Sky-High Glide! Help Jumpfluff get wherever the hell he's going - the shops, a high-powered business meeting, alcoholics anonymous - by flapping him through the air, using air currents to speed him along and collecting extra spores for added lift. Watch out for trees and evil winds that will push you backwards! Wonder why you're still playing bad Flash games! Marvel at the fact Jumpluff has precisely zero frames of animation and floats across the screen like a cardboard cut-out!

For the final game, I went back to where I started and indulged by affection for ghost Pokemon with Gastly's Hidden Haunt, although frankly I wish I hadn't bothered. As I slowly moved cursor through the exact same background for stage after tedious stage, I couldn't help but think that this was an ironic punishment for my slightly shameful admission that I like spook-themed hidden object games. The focus of the game is light cleaning duties, as you search the house for cobwebs to eliminate. There's some interesting stuff done with hiding cobwebs between the layers of parallax scrolling, but because the background location never changes you soon learn where all the hiding spots are, making it one of the few games here that gets easier the more you play it.

There you go, I found Gastly. Now we can all return to our homes and play better, more interesting videogames. Before I sign off, however, because I've played so many games on the Pokemon website I've managed to amass 150 Trainer Points, which can be spent on items of clothing for your avatar. Let's see what all those points can buy me at the store, shall we?

With my 150 coins, I could afford a grand total of two measly items: the ugliest piece of clothing available, because nothing screams "class" like brown and gold spandex, and a Gengar hat. I'm happy enough with the Gengar hat. If I was going to choose a Pokemon  to decapitate and skin in order to use its hide as a hat, Gengar would be near the top of my list.
So, those are some of the games available at pokemon.com. If you are responsible for a small child who likes Pokemon - although I don't think there are many of those left, what with all the sexting and knife crime they have nowadays - then these games might keep them occupied long enough for you to get twenty minutes of merciful rest. Otherwise, I would stick to trying to catch 'em all in the relaxingly predictable and unchanging world of the proper Pokemon games.

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