I don’t believe you need violence to make a game fun. You can find violent games all around you. I don’t need to make more.”
-Ferry Halim, creator of orisinal.com.

It’s called Orisinal, and it’s not exactly “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.” The main characters are monkeys and balloons, not prison-hardened street thugs. Objectives include gathering apples and flying kites, not going on drive-bys and soliciting prostitutes.

In other words, it’s the exact opposite of almost everything else on the gaming market these days.

orisinal.com

But Chris Smith, a sophomore at Haverford College, said it’s the originality that makes it so irresistible.

“This is weird,” he said. “It’s so simple…yet so addicting.”

Orisinal is a gaming Web site currently featuring 56 mini-games, although a new game is added every couple of months. It is completely free to play, and can run on most computers, as the games only draw a few hundred kilobytes. Most of the games feature a cuddly hero, such as the frolicking panda bear, and feature simple objectives, like capturing bumblebees in a net. Individual games usually last no longer than a minute. Controlling is simple; almost every game requires little more than moving the mouse. The graphics are soft and smooth, easy on the eyes. The music that accompanies the game play follows a similar tone—soothing, almost like a lullaby.

Although such a description might make Orisinal seem more for the Teletubbies crowd than for undergraduates, players of all ages flock to the site. The site guestbook is signed hundreds of times everyday, with many signers singing the praises of Ferry Halim, the creator of Orisinal.

“Believe it or not, some people do play [the games] for hours and hours, even though I don’t expect that,” said Halim, a 31-year-old software designer from Fresno, California. “In my mind, they’re simple games that I hope can entertain for a couple of minutes. If you can take just five minutes of your time and make it enjoyable, I’m happy.”