Getting smashed with Flash

screenshot / Adam Avramescu Giving a new meaning to the phrase, “vodka headache.” 

Flash games are one of my favorite ways to kill time, so I think it’s fair to say I know my way around the genre. The problem with Flash games, of course, is that some people are really crappy at designing them so you get a lot of boring, poorly written “click on a certain point on the screen” or “avoid stuff with your mouse” odysseys.

What makes a good Flash game? Graphics help. So does coherence (although there’s a joy to playing some indecipherable Japanese game where you’re, like, balancing a dog on a stick or something). But the real keys to a good game are innovation and in-game physics. The former is important when you realize how many games are essentially “click on things that are one color but avoid things that are another color.” Horribly uninteresting. The latter is why I never play Flash Mario games — they never feel quite right.

So here’s my new Flash addiction: Drunken Masters. It combines service-based games like Diner Dash with just about every physics element you could think of: You’re constantly serving customers drinks, which you have to mix precisely using the liquor, juice, ice, and garnish behind your bar — there’s even four types of glasses — and if you’re far enough off, the customer will reject your concoction and you’ll get points off. Plus customers’ satisfaction levels are constantly dropping unless you perform tricks to appease them.

This is where the cool physics comes in: You can flip bottles into the air, balance them on their nozzles, use them to pop up glasses, throw glasses up to catch ice, do high pours, catch bottle caps, and more. Tricks become essential to winning bonus challenges in the game, and they add to the game’s fun factor (I’ve had rounds where I’ve put the customers on hold just to see what kind of tricks I can pull off).

It’s such a simple idea. I can’t believe nobody’s thought of it, and yet it’s almost perfect in execution (aside from some glitches, which I hear the game’s creator is working on). Drunken Masters combines everything a fun Flash game should be, and rolls it into an innovative and amusing premise — even the game’s script is hilarious, all things considered. And, because you have stuff behind your bar like sweet vermouth, bitters, and grenadine, you’ll have equally hilarious moments when a butch dude wanders into the bar and makes you serve him a Rob Roy or a Shirley Temple.

One big caveat: The game is a complete resource hog, so if your computer is less than decent, you’ll either want to mess with the game’s quality options or borrow your rich friend’s brand-new laptop. Happy ’tending!