"It's like Whac-a-Mole, but with Cyclopses!"

This is one of those games that comes along every once in a while that just annoys the hell out of you, and yet you cannot stop playing!!!

The best way to describe Tontie is that it’s like Whac-a-Mole, but with Cyclopes wielding flails! In a minefield!

The mechanics of the game are quite simple. You use the keypad of your keyboard, or if you have a laptop, you have to turn on the keypad part, and each key corresponds to one of nine boxes on the game screen. When a cyclops-guy (called a Tontie) pops up, you hit the button, and your hammer magically appears and satisfyingly knocks the bad guy in the head.

This game was released upon the world in 2004, back when Flash games seemed to be ditzy little concoctions that you only played because you were just that bored, or a Flash developer learning more about the way Flash works.

Eyezmaze came along and made such an intriguing game called GROW, which I’ll get to eventually, once I remember how that goes. I couldn’t understand that game, but this one…! Well, I loved grabbing the hammer and whacking moles upside the head whenever they came out of their little mole holes.

Now I have different hammers, coins that I can hammer into my pockets, a Tontie that steals my money, and the one who replaces his head with a bomb to avoid being hurt.

There’s also a yellow one that plays Peekaboo! And when he’s hiding his eye, you can’t touch him.

I’ve been playing a few web-games over the past few weeks, while avoiding actual work as much as possible. Some of them were fun, like the bridge game or the stacker game, but they’re not as entertaining as this one.

You knock the Tonties over the head and take their money—unless you meet the one without a face, who takes your money when you hammer him—and buy better hammers, some wings, a stone tablet, more life . . . .  The stone tablet is like a secret codebook that gives you a better hammer to start the game, and the wings make your hammering faster. There are twenty levels in this game, but my brain is slow and I can’t comprehend anything past level 10. Oh yeah, there are also TVs that you have to smash, but you have to hit a different button to attack them.

The game is a great way to pass the time when you have nothing better to do, or to avoid doing work. The graphics are simple, yet fun, and the sound effects, while sometimes too loud when you get the RAY GUN, have a crisp, poppy theme. But if you hate brass instruments, you won’t last because the game has one theme, and it could drive you up a wall.