海角大神

I鈥檝e been an electronic gamer most of my life. I was playing games on my older brother鈥檚 Atari when I was four. I mastered Super Mario Brothers when I was nine. I鈥檝e owned at least one video game console from every console generation.

Yet, today, I spend more time playing free games than anything else.

The simple reason for that is that there are so many excellent free games out there that a person can play on their computer that I scarcely feel the need to pay for a game.

In order to prepare this post, I kept a list of all of the free games I鈥檝e played on my computer over the last two months. Here鈥檚 some of that list, just so you can get a great sampling of the free computer games available.

League of Legends
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听League of Legends is a fast-paced competitive online game that mixes fast-paced game play and careful planning in an interesting mix. In the game, you play as a champion who battles other champions in online matches. The gameplay is really straightforward 鈥� mostly, you鈥檙e competing on a large map (that鈥檚 extremely reminiscent of Warcraft III) where you move your character around with the mouse and order it into combat against the enemy. As you battle, your character grows stronger, learning new abilities, and it also picks up gold, which you can use to buy better weapons and armor within the match. Usually, you play in groups, where two teams of five players compete against each other. The game also includes a really smart matchmaking system which pairs you against people of a similar skill and experience level as you.

Desktop Tower Defense
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听Desktop Tower Defense is a very simple game in which you place towers within a small rectangle while little critters run across the screen. The towers you place shoot the critters and, with each critter taken out, you earn a bit of gold. However, each wave of critters is a bit stronger than the next, so you have to use your gold to either upgrade your current towers or place new ones.

MotherLoad
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听MotherLoad is a game not unlike the classic video game Dig Dug. In this game, you鈥檙e a miner that鈥檚 landed on an alien planet and your job is to dig deep into the ground for valuable ore and jewels. Of course, you need to return to the surface regularly to re-fuel and sell your goods, and if you can鈥檛 make it鈥� you get the idea.

Bridge
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听I love playing the card game bridge, but I don鈥檛 really have any opponents in my area. Thus, I play online, and this is my favorite place to play. However, if you go here and don鈥檛 know how to play, you鈥檒l be in trouble. I suggest learning using the , which is also free.

The Kingdom of Loathing
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听The Kingdom of Loathing is a free comical RPG (think games like Final Fantasy, but with humor and stick figures). It鈥檚 completely free, can be played in your browser, and has loads of things to do. It鈥檚 fairly hard to describe; thankfully, they of the game.

On top of these, there are a ton of games to play for free on social media sites such as Facebook and Google+. I confess to having not explored these much, but I do know there are many, many options available, both for casual gamers and for in-depth gamers, too.

The thing to remember is that many of these games finance themselves either through advertisements, donations, or micropurchases (where you spend a dollar or two to buy additional items). Be very careful with the micropurchases. Often, there鈥檚 plenty of games to play without diving into them.

Regardless, if you enjoy playing games, there are a lot of great games out there to play without spending your hard-earned money.

This post is part of a yearlong series called 鈥�365 Ways to Live Cheap (Revisited),鈥� in which I鈥檓 revisiting the entries from my book 鈥�365 Ways to Live Cheap,鈥� which is available at Amazon and at bookstores everywhere.