I’ll be honest here, Flash games got me through high school. Without the constant presence of Newgrounds and Homestar Runner I very well may have failed before getting my hands on that diploma. That said, there’s not a whole lot of variety in the sea of simple time wasters and imitations. That’s what makes Nitrome’s Megamash so exciting.
Megamash takes 7 different retro-styled games and mixes them up into a series of 20 levels. The further you progress in the game, the more intermingled these game mechanics become. Starting from a Mario-esque platformer, you find yourself not-so-subtly dropped into a horizontal space shooter, a Tetris clone, and a few more. These mechanics meld and build off of one another to an impressive degree. Playing Tetris to build a set of stairs for the platforming sequence was pretty clever, albeit a bit simple. If you’ve got some time to kill, check out Megamash over here.
