Sure, I love playing Cookie Clicker at work, but that love began with Candy Box. It starts so simply, just a handful of candies and two buttons, then turns into a genuine RPG. The sequel more than lives up to the original, and you need to check it out.

Candy Box, the quirky, text-only flash game that got a lot of attention last month, now has a rival: A Dark Room, which begins just as simply before unfolding into a much larger game of commerce and intrigue.

When I got the link from a friend on Twitter, I thought Candy Box was some kind of a test or a joke. Candies started accumulating, and the only button I could click was "eat all the candies." Gulp. Glump. OK. If eating sweets was a management sim, this would be the game.