I grew up in the 2000s with a PC but not a whole lot of money. That's the kind of combination that gets you bargain-bin Sold Out Software games from Poundland or, more so in my case, an absurd number of free-to-play online and browser-based games that were utterly pervasive across the internet.

My childhood was a never-ending revolving door of these mid-tier Flash and Java games. Some have long left my memory, a fleeting experience. But some continue to rattle around in my brain, reminding me of simpler times where I didn't have to pay taxes or subject myself to at least one hour of screen-free time before bed lest I wake up with a headache the next morning.

But where are these weird and wonderful games now? Are they still scattered across the internet? Are they in their original forms, practically untouched, or have they evolved into far deeper and darker games than they once were?

Well, as I continue to march into my 30s against my will, I've been thinking back to the games I would play as a child and asking myself just that question. So why don't we go and check in on a couple of them?

Puzzle Pirates is, if you haven't already guessed, an MMO where you are a pirate and you do puzzles. Every component of a ship's operation is done through different puzzles—bilging is a Bejeweled-inspired match three, sailing is a buccaneering Doctor Mario, patching the sails is incredibly similar to Pipe Dream.

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