I haven't given up totally on the kids of today's generation - nose so deep with their technologies, their iPads and Samsungs, their Facebook and Instagrams, online gaming and such. When I was a kid my mom would practically kick me out of the house to play outside when we wanted to play games on our Nintendo 64 back then. But when I showed my 6 y/o grandson (urghhh.. I feel old) this game I played when I was a kid, he fell in love, dropped his Nintendo DS and entertained himself for a good half an hour trying to pass the levels. 

To the generation that is mine, kids of the 80's, I present you, a blast from the past : FULL SCREEN MARIO! It is THE game on Nintendo 64 back then -  a must have entertainment especially for rainy days (of course we MUST finish our homework and earn a few hour on it. Remember back then? No save points, no memory cards, not even a feature to select the stage! we have to play it from the beginning every single time, yet was never bored by it!

It is what it is, folks, I sh*t you not. A full remake of Super Mario Bros. from Nintendo 65 using HTML5. It's the fifth version of HTML (that's HyperText Markup Language) and provides better multimedia support for browsers on any platform. The aim is to improve the sHTML standard so that it can service more range of multimedia input and output (not only pictures, videos and audios but also animation and interactive media) while maintaining human readability and consistently understood by computers and devices.

I suspect that Full Screen Mario is built to demonstrate the capabilities of HTML5 in handling multimedia support - but regardless of the purpose, it is just simple amazing that someone put up a huge effort in developing it for the web, and best of all, free of charge! You can also choose to donate - say a thank you for their effort. Kudos to the developers!

For those who wanted to reminisce on their childhood memory, or even try to persuade your own kid to play the game you played as a child, give it a go at www.fullscreenmario.com. The game can be played on any browser, does not require any installation and there is no ads or malicious software (think of it as just surfing a site that is interactive). It is possible to play it on your mobile devices given you have a keyboard, but I haven't tested it out yet. If it works, do let me know. If it doesn't, well let me know anyways! Ahahaha!

**P/s : not all kids can appreciate the 8-bit pixelated graphics that is Super Mario. It takes a special breed. My nephews of 10 and 12 both commented "It's like they're not even trying back then."  ~.~"

Tired of losing lives at Candy Crush? All huffin' and puffin' about Temple Run and not getting anywhere? Can't sleep thinking of your Plants and Zombies? Well, lemme make an attempt to bring you out of your (current) misery and introduce you to a new addiction - Alien Hive! 

Sliding Tile Puzzle

LOL I made myself sound like a cheesy salesman there. But in good faith, if you remember the sliding tile puzzle - hours upon hours spent trying sliding and attempting to align the pieces to the proper order wither in numeric sequence or to reveal a picture, together with every frustration that came with it - you are going to love this game! I for one, am addicted to it! Much of the childhood memory planning strategies to move the pieces across the board, the painstaking effort, crunching your mind just trying to get the pieces in place without causing other pieces to go out of place came flooding! It's insane! Add move counts and limit to that - you just HAVE to try it!! 

Alien Hive is just like that - and more. It's a combination of match 3 or more and the sliding tile puzzle. What it means is that across the 6 x 6 board, one tile is left blank. You slide the tiles vertically or horizontally in attempt to create a match of three or more of the same pieces. To make it even more interesting, the pieces don't just disappear off the board, but evolves into a higher level "being". Match three or more of those to get a higher level being until you manage to get a supreme alien! 

CUTE!!!!

Get the objective yet? There are basically three different types of "beings" in Alien Hive - the crystals, match three or more of these to get more moves; the plants, also gives moves as well as Magic Fruit in the final evolution; and finally the star of the show, the aliens - match three or more eggs to make an egg-womb, three or more egg-wombs make an alien embryo, three or more of those make a baby alien, three or more of those make an alien, three or more of those makes an alien coccoon - and frankly that's as far as I could go for now. 

A look at my hives!

I'll be nice and post some tips I got from the developers website :

• Always plan a few steps ahead.
• Look at the whole board, don't just focus on the area surrounding the empty slot.
• Try to use minimum resources to gain maximum result – use as few moves as possible!
• Each powerup is valuable, try to use the proper item at the right moment.

Here's a demo video to get you started :

For you puzzle game addicts out there, I seriously recommend this game. Watch out for those Naughty Bots too, they're nasty! Visit Google Play or tap on the Play button to directly download the game into your phone! Enjoy! 

Use these links to get play  Alien Hives on your iPhone / iPad or Blackberry.