• Cranes are impressive machines.crane image by Tammy Mobley from Fotolia.com
  
  Cranes are used by skilled operators to lift incredibly heavy objects and place them into position. They are often used at construction sites and junk yards. Give your kids a chance to operate this machine by playing crane operating games online. They are diverse and offer a wide range of gaming opportunities.
  
  

"The Junk Yard"

• Being a crane operator in a junk yard involves lifting heavy pieces of trash and stacking them in new positions. You work in limited areas, so you have to be careful to stack carefully or you may cause a dangerous collapse. "The Junk Yard," available at TheGamesList.com, gives your kids a chance to be a junk yard crane operator. Each level presents you with a different challenge. You must move a series of crushed vehicles from the trash compactor to their stacks in the junk yard. You have to carefully keep the stacks at a certain weight to avoid tipping them over. You also have limited time so you can't dilly-dally. You start on the trash side of the screen where your crane sways from left to right. Click your mouse on a car to shoot your crane's claw at it. If you're able to grab it, you then go to the next side of the screen, where you click your mouse to drop the car. This is made difficult by the continous swaying of your crane, but it is surprisingly intuitive. Finding the right rhythm is a snap in the early levels but it gets much harder later.
  
  

"Crane Simulator"

• "Crane Simulator," available for free download at TowerCranes.com, is a much more realistic crane game. It attempts to actually simulate the real-life physics of operating a crane. You play the operator of a tower crane. A tower crane is a crane on top of a tower that lifts heavy girders and other materials during the construction of tall buildings. You pick up objects and move them to their correct positions using a combination of two joysticks,controlling the horizontal and vertical movement. However you can simply use one joystick or the keyboard if you like. The angles can be shifted to give you a different perspective on your job. This is as easy as a simple button press. The game simulates wind and inertia into the simulation, making the game much more difficult than the comparatively easier crane operator games. You can even operate the crane during a thunderstorm where lightning can damage your crane.
  
  

"Crane Wars"

• If "Crane Simulator" is a realistic depiction of crane operating, "Crane Wars," available for free at Blurst.com, is definitely a bit over the top. You control your own crane by using your mouse. Click your mouse on an object to pick it up and hold the button down to keep the object held. Once you release the button, it will fall. The game has realistic physics so you have to watch out for inertia. You are making a building so be careful. Sloppy stacking can result in a collapsed building. Where this game gets over the top is the competition aspect. A non-unionized job is working next door, and they don't like you. They will attempt to steal your blocks and throw objects at your buildings to knock them down. You can do the same to their jobs, so it's all-out war. Although this could never happen in real life, it brings an aspect of competitiveness to the game that other crane operator games lack. It may drive you to play the game longer.