Kick-Ass Asteroids Dashboard Widget

Excellent rendition of Asteroids as a Dashboard widget, programmed by Paul Neave and turned into a widget by Christopher Marks. Very faithful in spirit and feel to the original coin-op version: the sounds are perfect, the game play is simple (the only controls are rotate, thrust, fire, and pause), and, in a cool twist, the high-score board is shared globally. Free of charge.

Marks also had a Pac-Man widget (also based on code from Neave), but had to remove it after getting a nastygram from Namco — but as of this writing you can still nab a copy at DashboardWidgets.com. (Namco’s response is reasonable — I think Namco is still making money on the Pac-Man brand.)

(Via Andy Baio.)

★ Monday, 11 July 2005