Those players would probably prefer a way to display the time directly in games. Applications that can do that are limited to a handful. One of the better solutions is to use the free software Xfire which is some sort of Instant Messenger for gamers. It’s like Steam in many aspects as it provides access to a chat and the installed games even when playing a game.

One of the features of Xfire is that it displays the time in the screen overlay. The feature can be activated by pressing the chat hotkey while playing the game. This opens up the time and other interfaces. Don’t worry, everything can be closed so that only the time remains on the screen. Once the overlay has been activated each element of it can be moved around the screen.

Move the time to a location where it does not interfere with the gameplay. A corner at the bottom is usually a great spot.

Click in the tiny pin to pin the time to that location. Now close the main overlay again. Everything that has not been pinned will be closed again leaving only the time on the screen.

Xfire requires registration before the features become available which is a nuisance. Does anyone know of a better application or way for the purpose? Let us know in the comments.

While that is not that difficulty it could be a problem for inexperienced users. Flash games can usually be found in the browser’s Internet cache. There are also many programs and browser plugins that can download them right away.

Once the flash games are stored on the computer system’s hard drive they can be added to FlashOffliner. A click on Create New FlashOffliner Package opens a windows that might confuse some users at the beginning.

The whole process of adding web games to FlashOffliner can be broken down into two steps. The user picks a swf files in step one from his hard drive that he wants to add and selects a destination for that file in the second step. It is a good idea to store all web games in the same folder to be able to keep an overview of the games.

Once a web game has been converted into the FlashOffliner format it has to be added to the application. This is done by clicking on the Install FlashOffliner Package link. The user simply has to pick the file that he just converted from his hard drive.

Every game that has been added this way can then be started from the system tray. One interesting feature is the option to set the game size. Available sizes range from 400×300 to fullscreen.

The advantage of using FlashOffliner over executing the flash games separately is twofold. The application provides easier access to the games from the Windows system tray. It also offers the option to set the window size of the web game.