Jay is Games Casual Gameplay
Often refered to as JIG Casual Gameplay this is “simply the best selection of (mostly) free casual games you will find on the Web today.” In the year or so that I have been reading JIG I have watched it grow from a one person blog to a group project that has recently completed and announced the winners of the first ever JIG game design competition. There is a real sense of community over at JIG, with reader’s submitting games for review, guest blogging spots and a comment section that provides help for those of us who get stuck on the simplest of games.

Black Gay Blogger
On January 25 2005, after deciding that New Year’s resolutions are “tres gauche,” Karsh (author of bgb.com) came up with a list of 101 things to do before 25th September 2007 i.e. 1001 days after the list was completed. This list covers e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. Karsh really wants to do it all and judging by the number of items he has crossed off he might just get to achieve 101 in 1001. Oh and I can’t mention this blog without mentioning the design – it is beautiful!

tiffany b brown
Tiffany b Brown is the eponymous blogger behind this fantastic web design blog. She describes it as her “personal playground [a] place where [she] experiment[s] with web markup and programming languages….” To me it is a very useful learning tool for all things Internet/Blog/Site design related. (her other blog Black Feminism is equally fantastic)

Lynne D Johnson’s Diary
I don’t consider it an overstatement to refer to Lynne D Johnson as the best Hip Hop blogger in the blogosphere. Prior to listening to the SXSW Blogging While Black Revisted session (of which both Lynne and Tiffany were panelists) and hearing Lynne speak of the abuse she has been subjected to because she was a female Hip-Hop blogger I had no idea how prevalent sexism was within the Hip-Hop blogosphere. Her account of how she handled this abuse was truly inspirational especially after going through her archives later on and actually reading the extent of the attack.

Avalon Star
Possibly the best blog design I have ever seen. It is almost hard to believe that this blog is based on K2. Everything about this site is amazing, even the categories, which according to Bryan Veloso (the man behind the blog) “aren’t like your mother’s category archives!” he does not tell a lie, each category is like a whole new blog. Though it was the site design that won me over, I also enjoy reading this blog because Bryan has a very friendly, conversational style. I particularly liked this post which touches on an issue that am sure affects many bloggers: how to explain to non-blogger friends what we bloggers do.

And that concludes my Blog Day 2006, so till next year – Happy Blog Day.

JonB, in his capacity as one of the reviewers at JayIsGames, which in my view is one of the best gaming blogs in the blogsphere (Lazylaces comes a close second) has introduced me to the wonderful world of Gwigle.

Though I class myself as a casual gamer I am not very good at reviewing games so below is a snippet of the review:

[It]…teaches you Google search tricks as you play. Each screen shows a few search results along with the search string at the top. One word is replaced with question marks; it’s your job to fill it in. It’s hands-on education that feels more like you’re playing a game than learning useful knowledge.

The full review can be found here.

I have successfully managed to play the game up to level 1.9 and I can vouch for the ‘hands on education.’

Go on…have a Gwigle and if you get stuck the comments section over at JayIsGames contains lots of hints and a walkthrough.

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*Image from JayIsGames