Probably the easiest pick for web game of the week I’ll make in some time, Record Tripping, the latest from Flash duo the Bell Brothers, probably couldn’t survive easily on any of its individual parts, but adds up to a fantastic circular whole.
Using your mouse’s scroll-wheel (or, more fittingly, if more uncontrollably, two fingers on your MacBook trackpad), Tripping requires you to solve a series of vaguely Through-The-Looking-Glass-inspired puzzles, all plays on rotational mechanics: unlocking safes, spinning windmills to blow seeds into pots, or manipulating time itself to help White Rabbits make their train.
Which again, fair enough on its own, but it layers on top of that a turntabilist scratch effect with backing music by Gorillaz, Beck, Death Cab for Cutie, and Spoon and Peter-Pan-record narration of Alice’s adventures in Wonderland.
The design’s slightly at odds with itself — all the challenges are time based, which means more often than not you’re causing a groove-skipping cacophony rather than working your way through to the beat, but it’s still the cleverest use of the mouse wheel (an otherwise altogether overlooked part of the computer interface kit) I think I’ve ever seen.
When you’re done with that, there’s also the Brothers’ beat-matching Gorillaz spinoff game, and a decent enough similar bongo-along featuring Weezer (heavily inspired by Namco’s Taiko: Drum Master) awaiting your perusal.
Record Tripping [via Capy’s Kris Piotrowski and .Tiff]