There are a lot of great online games that you can play for free and strike out on a self-improvement regimen. And remember, just because they’re online and free doesn’t mean you should play games at work.

Update: fixed broken GameSheep links.
Update: also check out Red Square Escape, hosted here at Brittlefish.

Word Games
Games or puzzles that exercise your linguistic mind will help you learn new words and remember old ones.

• Babble - You have to register to play Babble (a screenshot at right) but it's a more relaxed, more polished word search than WeBoggle (which is great in its own right, see below). The deal with Babble is that each game lasts until midnight. It supports player rankings, chat, and friends lists. High quality design makes this game a pleasure to play. (It's by the same folks responsible for the superb Iron Sudoku - see below).
• WeBoggle - If you like word games, this is a great way to waste a quick three minutes or three hours. WeBoggle allows you to pick a name and compete against other online players. Though Ajax'd and spiffy, it's clunky at times, and gets itself confused once in a while. Another bother with this flawed masterpiece is occasional performance problems. Tip: play as a team by signing multiple players in with the same name. Caution: the names people choose are often NSFW, chosen to offend, or chosen in opposition to names chosen by others.
• Book Worm - PopCap's basic word game is playable for free on the web. Book Worm is a cross between the standard word search and a falling tile game (think Bejeweled). Watch for bonus words under the worm. If you find that word you get additional points. You can of course pay for the more features, such as saving high scores, improved graphics and sounds, and other game modes. PopCap is notorious for delivering well-conceived and polished games.
• WordCoil is like a mix between a word search, a crossword puzzle, hangman, and Wheel of Fortune. You search for a phrase snaking around a crossword-like board. Nice twist on word games and good execution. Free registration gets you the "coil of the day" email, the ability to publish the coil of the day, etc. (via)

Shooting Games
Scientifically-documented improvements in hand-eye coordination and … heck, shooting games are primarily just a whole lot of fun. Oh, and they’re good for you like Vitamin C.

• Crazy Monkey Games - these guys have a whole slew of Flash-based online games, some good, some… not so. Be sure to check out Thing Thing 3, a dark and bloody shootout amongst a menagerie of robots — yours included. Other enjoyable games are RaidenX, their tribute to the old RaidenX arcade game, and Tanks, the standard trajectory exercise.
• GammaBros - a pixelated, retro space game. It's a cross between Galaga, Robotron, and other games. It's downloadable, but you can play it online. The graphics are, well, old-timey but effective. The audio is decent enough. Gameplay is fantastic. (via)
• Bunny Hunt - Loads of fun for a short while, shooting bunnies. Don't shoot the dead bunnies, always shoot the bunnies with bombs. No sounds, cute bunnies to shoot. (via)
• Neave Games hosts Flash-based versions of classic arcade games like Space Invaders and Asteroids.
• Update! - Gunmaster Onslaught is a fantastic shooter. Not great graphics and not great sound, but great gameplay and lots of shooting.

Eating Games
Games where you eat stuff can improve, um, your understanding of the digestive system and how important it is to eat.

• Flow Beautiful, elegant, superb. Swim around (direction controlled by the mouse, swim faster by holding left mouse button), eat stuff, grow, evolve, swim to deeper or shallower water. There's a version you can download, but you can play online. (via)
• PacMan Originally from neave.com, this Flash version of PacMan captures the 1980’s blockbuster arcade game. Be sure to check out all the other games at Neave’s website.

Board Games
Your ability to mix strategic and tactical thinking can be honed by playing chess, go, and even checkers (British “Draughts”).

• At FlyOrDie you can play go, chess, checkers, pente, gomoku, and other games against other players.
• BrettspielWelt is an online board game server with about fifty available games that you can play online.
• Yahoo! serves up Java-based board games, including chess, go, checkers, backgammon, dominoes, and others.
• Gameknot is a popular Java-based chess site. They also have Reversi and Lines.
• Go - KGS is a Java-based online go server where you can play online against other players and attend “lectures” on go. Other options include FlyOrDie’s Go server and TaiwanGo.

Puzzle Games
Whether it’s sudoku, line-up-the-shapes, or whatever, puzzles are a great excuse to sharpen your brain.

• Sudoku There are plenty Sudoku sites where you can download and print boards, but the best of the online-playable versions are Iron Sudoku and MiniClip Sudoku. Iron Sudoku requires that you register (for free) but has rankings, a chat feature, and reasonable encouragement to upgrade to a "Pro" account ($14.95 for life). The interface for Iron Sudoku is very nice, as you'd expect from the folks who created Babble. (via) MiniClip Sudoku is Flash-based and easy to play, using the mouse-wheel to select the number you wish to play. (via). Also check out the other MiniClip puzzle games.
• RSVP - this card game from Lifetime TV has you matching card colors to keep your party guests happy. Simple and sometimes tricky, RSVP is a gorgeous Flash-based waste of time. (via)
• Bola - this game is a hexagonal variant of Bejeweled. It seems a little sluggish but is nevertheless fun and free to play.
• Makos - another line-up-the-shapes puzzle, Makos has decent graphics and a very groovy soundtrack. (via)
• EyezMaze - Very interesting, and slighty weird, Flash puzzle games by Japanese game designer On. They are all captivating, so give them all a try if you have the time to puzzle through them, but make sure you see Chronon (via), Grow v3, and Hatch. There are very few instructions posted but keep in mind that in On's games you typically build on what you've done before. The final result depends on critical timing or order of earlier efforts in the game. In Grow, for instance, you want to maximize the growth of all the pieces you place. Besides the full puzzles, there are some cool On experiments posted sometimes on On's EyezBlog, including a Movie Puzzle, Solitaire, Grow nano, etc.
• Parking Zone - This is a updated sliding-tile puzzle game where you try to get a bunch of colored cars parked in their respective colored parking spaces. Tough stuff. (via)
• HapLand 3 - The latest in a series of artistic puzzles from Foon’s Farcade. Another Farcade puzzle game, reminiscent of 10 Rogue in its textness, is Super Serif Brothers.(via)
• Levers - This weird and infuriating Flash-based puzzle game is good for killing time.
• Tonypa has created nice Flash-based games that are both elegant and addicting. Geartaker is a good example; it’s simply, loads of fun to play, and ends up looking like some sort of mechanical engineering diagram. You simply jump from gear to gear, accumulating points for each jump, based on distance. Amazing.
• Update! This is a unique set of riddles where you guess the next URL in the sequence. The clue for the next URL is the contents of the current page. This is a tough one; searching with Yahoo or Google, and using Wikipedia or similar resources can be of great help.

Tags: Boardgames · Free · Mini-review · Online games