Just like Kung Fu (or Kung Fu Master, the arcade original) a drunken, raging Santa battles his way through waves of foes - including Christmas shoppers and elves - before fighting bosses on five levels. if a chiptune "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" isn't your cup of nog, you can choose the soundtracks of Ice Climbers, Slalom, Dr. Octoroc, Gyromite or the original Kung Fu. Be sure to check out the gruesome Game Over screen, too. It'll fill you with holiday cheer.

If the Flash version isn't your speed, or your connection's slow, there's also a downloadable version.

Santa Fu [I-Mockery]

Vleugels, designer of 16 flash games, has put together "Kenney's Bite-Sized Non-Adventures" (above). Part 1 is "Watch a movie." In it, you play our hero, exploring his apartment while finding the remote control and DVD that will unlock his happiness. For the next 90 minutes anyway. (The DVD, not the game.)

"Up next I'll try to make you experience my morning ritual," Kenney writes. Uh, if it's anything like mine you can keep that to yourself, bub. Thanks.

Kenney's Bite Sized Non-Adventures [Kenney Vleugels]

Here's a delightful little flash game that trivializes a serious problem faced by millions of Americans - the need to fart on a long elevator ride. You're accompanied by the most clueless olfactory-impaired elevator attendant ever, as every one I've ever ridden with could detect the presence of fart in concentrations as small as one poot particle per billion.

I get to about seven floors and 21,000 points before I either rip enough ass that the bellman notices or I crap my pants (that is the implied ending, I believe.) Anyone have any protips? Besides, you know, taking the stairs?

Oh, and let me tell you what else is hilarious - crop dusting Plunkett. That guy always pins it on McWhertor.

Elevator Fart [GamesGames]

There are multipliers for speedy finishes, and objects that can temporarily shrink you, turn you into a ball so you may pass certain gates, or traps that significantly expand you as a penalty. A web cookie allows you to resume your progress later. Add in an excellent soundtrack and you have a great Sunday timewaster. Enjoy.

Growbox was developed by Flash Tangent.

Growbox [King.com]

The Games and Extras page of the official U.S. Air Force website is chock full of interesting little activities to help demonstrate how much fun it is to be in the Air Force. While a majority of the selections amount to nothing more than slightly interactive demos, the ECHO ZULU section has several scenarios to play through, from using flares to scare insurgents, to using remote-controlled planes to scare insurgents. I'm sensing a theme.

Sure, it might not be as entertaining as America's Army 3, but it probably cost us U.S. taxpayers a whole lot less.

Games and Extras [U.S. Air Force]

That's the idea behind the annual Life. Love Game Design Challenge, now in it's second year.

Jennifer Ann's Group today announced the winners of their second annual flash game design contest, handing out $1,500 to Jared Sain for first place. Runners Up Brian Crick and Toronja Concepts each received $100. A door prize of another $100 was awarded to Bence Joful.

All four of their games are playable over on the Jennifer Ann's Group webpage. As a judge I've already played through all of the entries and was surprised to find how the developers tried to tackle the serious issue this time around.

The games include versions of tower defense games, a music game and even a few click adventure titles.

Other judges for the challenge were group founder (and my brother) Drew Crecente, advisory board member Dr. Elizabeth Richeson, Independent Games Festival chairman Simon Carless, Kotaku's Stephen Totilo, GameDaily editor-in-chief Live Goad, Persuasive Games co-founder Dr. Ian Bogost, and professor Brenda Brathwaite.

2009 Game Contest Winners [Jennifer Ann's Group]

Everyone who's played this and blogged about it so far instead have created abstract art or raced each other to a fastest death time, some taking hours. I tried halfheartedly to work on clearing a line, but once you screw up the first piece and realize just how goddamn long it'll take to lay the foundation just to clear the line above it - forget it. I start dropping pieces like I'm a kindergartener drizzling out colored sandcastles.

Certainly there is at least one masochist out in Kotakopolis who's willing to try to clear a line, or race their way to death. Good luck. Post your times in the comments below. Winner gets a big ol cookie.

Tetoris [Soviet Russia, via IndieGames.com]

I had no idea zombies could be considered livestock. Anyhow, this short, to-the-point timekiller just went up this weekend. You can challenge others to beat your scores via Facebook.

Zombie Herder [ArcadeLoco]

The object, bobsled your shopping cart down a hill and then up a ramp, collecting dollars for the distance, height and difficulty of your jump. Use them to buy upgrades such as better wheels, rocket boosters, and ride-along groupies, all of which alter the trajectory and length of your jumps. While you have unlimited lives, crashing will kill any groupies onboard, and you'll have to go back and "buy" them up all over again.

Protip: There doesn't seem to be any performance bonus to hopping in the cart (up arrow) when the game prompts you to do so. And with an engine-equipped cart, your afterburner kicks on as soon as you hop in. Just hold down the run key at the start as long as you can; the guy will hop in automatically, and your jets will stay on longer through midair.

Shopping Cart Hero [Monkey Want Banana]

Fishing Girl is a simple fishing game played with one button. It illustrates a design pattern called sequentially linked mechanics. Often when you try to simulate a complex exercise like fishing, you can’t easily create a single game mechanic that captures the entire experience. Instead, you string together a series of activities. Each activity is simplistic by itself, but in sequence yields a good approximation of the complex experience. The fishing game is split into the following activities:

1. Casting
2. Positioning the lure
3. Hooking a fish
4. Reeling in the fish
5. Scoring the fish
6. Buying new equipment.

Each section should take 1-3 evenings to prototype in Flash. String them all together and you have a fishing game. The nice thing about this challenge is that it is all about bite sized chunks that are easy to build and iterate on.

I'll be looking forward to seeing the results and seeing if someone manages to put together a 'gold medal design.'

Fishing Girl: Game Prototyping Challenge [Lost Garden]

Meat Boy

Karoshi Suicide Salaryman [Armor Games]

Sorry about the lame screengrab. I couldn't get actual gameplay, for reasons that will become obvious.

Don't Shoot the Puppy [rrrrthats5rs.com]

The opening tutorial is pretty helpful, and many of the opening levels are easy to beat in minutes or seconds. As for the general appeal of flash games, I think XKCD summed it up best.

Fantastic Contraption [Site, thanks Alex B]

Marshmallow [forrent via IndieGames]

星探３ [hoshi saga 3] [nekogames via IndieGames]

Bounce Shot [Nigoro via IndieGames]

Aether [Armor Games via IndieGames]

Attention Hog [Chris Basmajian via Water Cooler Games]

You can skip up to five levels if you find you're just not getting the hang of one. It stores your IP address and lets you continue.

Orbitrunner [Gamezhero.com]