TonyPa first came to my attention with his impressive tutorials on tile-based games in Flash. Later, I discovered his games page, which includes a maddening simple and addictive game called “Gear Taker.” If you go to his site, click on “games” then click on the first game in the list “GEARTAKER” that’ll lead you to it (sorry, no direct links available). This is the finest example of a “one button game.” To play the game only requires pressing a single button (the left mouse button, of course). Yet with only that one means of input the gameplay is as addictive as any good game of Tetris or Bejeweled. And the aesthetics… well, the visuals are black-n-white, stick figures and gears (as simple as it gets), and the music has a single sample played at various pitches and tempos. And while the aesthetics perfectly understate the simple design, the music perfectly understates the incredible tension induced as your hapless stick figure flies across the screen.

Two words: perfectly simple. TonyPa, your creation serves as an inspiration to the rest of us. Thank god I don’t have this on my mobile phone.

I would only add one option, an advanced mode for the masochists that involves timing. But it’s probably for the safety of the masses that he didn’t include something such as that.

My best score is between 2500 and 3000, around level 6 or 7. Good luck!