If you’ve had a boring desk job at any point in the past 8 or so years, you know all too well how powerful and time-consuming a Flash game can be. Similarly, if you were in high school at any point in the same time period, you probably know equally well.

Let me start over.

Do you hate work? Then you know what makes a good Flash game.

I hate work. However, I love physics. Physics games are the perfect timewasters. The randomness of them means they lend themselves perfectly to being infinitely replayable. However, they can’t be completely, truly random or else you end up having no control over them. A balance has to be struck.

Here are the five games that, as far as I’m concerned, strike that balance best.

5. MagicPen2

MagicPen2 has a pretty appealing, universal premise: you make crude crayon drawings that, once drawn, become physical objects that you use to solve a series of increasingly difficult puzzles. With the additional help of push, erase, pin, and hinge tools, you can manipulate the game world into doing just about whatever you want, and the intuitive functionality of the drawing tool you’re provided with does a lot to elevate the great concept.

However, the concept that should seem pretty familiar to a lot of you. MagicPen2 is a Flash clone of famed physics game Crayon Physics Deluxe, albeit a pretty respectful one. The title screen provides a link directly to CrayonPhysics.com, where you can grab the free trial for the game MagicPen is aping.

As long as you know that it isn’t an entirely original work, you can have a lot of guiltless fun with MagicPen2. As far as Flash games are concerned, it’s probably the best implementation of the drawn-to-life concept to date.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/AlejandroG/magicpen2

4. Splitter

This one answers a question that was put in everyone’s head the first time they sliced up a wooden sign with a sword in Ocarina of Time: what if someone made an entire game about that?

Okay, so that might not have been everyone’s first thought, but try not to get hung up on that part. Splitter is an incredibly satisfying and tactile little Flash game wherein you’re presented with a ball, a circular goal to get it into, and some obstacles in between you and victory. Your only way of interacting with the game is through a knife, which you can use to slice through any wooden object in the environment any way you want to using a limited number of cuts.

The sequel, Splitter 2, came out a couple months ago, but it comes down to which you prefer: the clever, complex one-solution-only puzzles in the sequel, or the do-it-your-way mini-sandbox puzzles in the original. Myself, I prefer the original, but both are games worth playing.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/EvgenyKarataev/splitter

3. Incredibots 2

To use a physics game analogy, Incredibots 2 is not fun in the playing-Peggle way, it’s fun in the watching-insane-Peggle-replays way. There might be a game in Incredibots somewhere, but you’ll probably never find it because you’ll be too busy watching Rube Goldberg machine after intricate Rube Goldberg machine.

Inventive users have found ways to use Incredibots to make everything from mechs that you control with the keyboard to competitive air hockey games to short, copyright-infringing cartoons, but seriously, it’s all about the Rube Rube Goldberg machines. See the one in the screenshot to the right? It needs to be said that what you’re seeing there is maybe a fifth of the entire machine. The entire replay takes 100 seconds to play out. It’s nuts. So nuts, in fact, that I’ve linked it here: http://incredibots2.com/?replayID=Wrath71004ab195d76ce8b8.74066461

When you’re done watching that, hit Load Replay or Load Bot and poke your nose around. Pretty much every machine in the Featured section is a feat of incredible patience and genius.

2. Double Wires

Double Wires by D_OP_I is the epitome of grappling hook gameplay. It sure as hell wasn’t the first to do it and the way it does it might not be the prettiest, but it captures that elusive feel that makes minimalist, sorta ugly games like these pseudo-masterpieces. Like Avalanche 2, playing Double Wires is completely intuitive and you catch on in a matter of seconds.

However, the game’s biggest hook (HA!) is the totally unexpected sense of exhilaration you feel when playing. Double Wires is packed with great near-miss moments and is full of that Spider-Man 2-quality freedom of motion. Despite having simple, goofy, totally thrown together graphics, you can’t help but think “Man, I wish I could shoot absurdly long and tensile wires from my hands.”

Also, the way your dude walks in it is hilarious.

You can play it on D_OP_I’s Japanese blog here, but true players play it fullscreen: http://blog-imgs-27.fc2.com/i/s/h/ishi/DoubleWires.swf

1. Ragdoll Avalanche 2

Ragdoll Avalanche 2 is the ragdoll physics game. One of the first games developed by Ragdollsoft (who, in reality, is just one dude), it might not be the most sophisticated, or the best-looking, or even the best ragdoll game period, but there is something about it that makes it truly the perfect ragdoll game.

The thing about Avalanche 2 is that when you die, it’s virtually always your fault. The game is fair and controls beautifully and intuitively, and you can feel yourself improving every time you play it. So yeah, maybe the graphics are primitive and the music is grating and the scoring system is nonsensical and inconsistent. But the game just works, and is just as fun now as it was 4 years ago. That says a lot.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Ragdollsoft/ragdoll-avalanche-2

Which glaringly obvious physics Flash games were left out? Let us know in the comments!