Hexxagon
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Hexxagon happens to be one of those games that's easier to play than it is to explain.  You play as the red diamonds, and your goal is to take over the board by leaping into the spaces adjacent to your opponent's watery globules.  See what I mean?

Hexxagon was an adaptation of the board game Othello written in 1992 by the now defunct Argo Games.  My version is an almost identical recreation of that original.  Enjoy.

Pac Man
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Here's a fantastic idea for a brand new computer game.  Firstly, there's this yellow blob (with a mouth) which has to roam round a maze swallowing little pills.  Meanwhile, four ghosts (named Blinky, Pinky, Inkey, and of course, Clyde) are chasing you as you listen to a high-pitched wailing noise.

I'm not insinuating Namco were off their heads when they came up with the concept, but I wonder if there is a hidden meaning.  The more pills you eat, the higher you get (no pun intended) where the ghosts become more meddlesome and the bonus fruit more exotic.  OK, it's barmy, but I luvvit.

Simon
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"Simon's a computer, Simon has a brain, you either do what Simon says or else go down the drain."

You can hear sound of jaws hitting concrete as copywriters across the globe are stunned into amazement over that there Simon Says slogan from the mid '80s.

The idea of the game is a simple one, as Simon likes to say.  Follow the pattern of lights and sounds for as long as you can remember them.  The lights show up faster the more sequences you correctly recall.  The obvious cheat is to write down each light in turn, but let's pretend we can't do that...

Space Invaders
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Japanese company Taito had the inspired idea around 1978 that killing aliens was extremely good fun.  So they invented a game called Space Invaders, lots of history then followed, some people got rich and so on...

It's a simple game with simple graphics, but it has one of the most vital assets for any computer game — gameplay.  Modern games seem to forget this with their fancy "3D graphics" and "millions of dollars".  All you need is a pointy green thing which shoots white stuff at a rampaging invasion of wobbling blobs.  They don't make 'em like they used to.

Tic Tac Toe
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What can you say about Tic-Tac-Toe?  Erm... I used to play Noughts and Crosses on the school bus when the windows were fogged-up with child-breath.  By myself.  It got a little repetitive.  I tried it blindfold once, but then I knew I had to kick the habit.

Thankfully this version allows you to play with someone else, if you know such a person.  If you're lacking an opponent, the computer will gladly play you instead, just like in that '80s film WarGames.  But minus the threat of a Russian nuclear war.

Tetris
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Most people have come to know Tetris through hours of playing on the Game Boy.  But the real hero is a one Alexey Pajitnov — a Russian genius with too much time on his hands and an affinity with beards.

For the Tetris novice: shaped blocks fall into a pit where you must arrange them so they fit neatly — a sort of juggling in one direction.  The more blocks you can place into a horizontal line simultaneously, the more you score.

Snake
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This game has been around since sometime last century, but it only recently took off since it came as standard on Nokia mobile phones (or 'cellphones' as those crazy Americans like to say).

My Snake is a back-to-the-roots version of the game, with cheap sound effects and a slight plasticky feel.  The idea is to guide the snake to eat the food.  The sooner you eat, the more you score.  And just like real food-eating snakes, the more you gobble, the fatter you become.  And don't eat the walls — they taste of awful.

Asteroids
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Let me take you back... back to a world before pixels.  In those days, all people had were lines.  A company called Atari had recently wowed crowds with their clever use of lines in a game called Pong, but now line technology had advanced.  It was 1979, and lines could be made to look like spaceships and big rocks and flying saucers... as long as you squinted a little.

And so, Asteroids was born.  It's an elegantly simple game, but beautifully gratifying.  You float in space and shoot the asteroids, but the more you shoot, the more asteroids you create.  And be careful — you only have one ship for each 10,000 points scored.