Stick Figure & Action Flash Games

Five lines and a lot of attitude

Stick figures were the perfect Flash hero: quick to draw, easy to animate and endlessly expressive. In the early 2000s, Zhu Zhiqiang's Xiao Xiao films and games – kung fu stickmen taking on whole crowds – travelled around the world by email and forum link long before video sites took over. This box starts there and collects the action games that followed.

Fights, shootouts and gladiators

• Gun Mayhem 2 is the two-player classic: stick figures with guns on floating platforms, and the goal is to knock your friend off the map. It is one of the few games here built for two people at one keyboard.
• Dad 'n Me by Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin of Newgrounds is a brawler with the studio's trademark sense of humour.
• Sift Heads turned stick figures into hitmen in a long-running point-and-shoot series.
• Sword and Sandals 2 lets you build a gladiator from scratch and fight your way up the arena, one stat point at a time; Swords & Souls adds training mini-games and a full RPG.
• Fancy Pants Adventures: World 4 is the smooth, fast stick figure platformer with the triangle trousers.

Arcade echoes

Some games here are tributes to the arcade: Raiden X is a vertical shoot 'em up, and NS-Shaft – known in Chinese as "be a man and go down 100 floors" – is a frantic descent through falling platforms.

Controls

Most action games use the keyboard: arrow keys or WASD to move and a couple of letter keys to attack or jump. Click inside the game first so it catches your key presses, and check the Controls button under the player if you forget which key does what.