This week I took a human head, a confused and frightened baby, some pilgrims, a Victorian lady, and... some... little magical... cloaked dude... and taped them all together! In totally unrelated news, if the police contact you, we were watching So You Think You Can Dance together last night.

News and Previews

There's Something Incredible Going On Here... If you love building things, then you've probably played around with The Incredible Machine, and for good reason. It's one of the most engaging, creative bits of puzzle-solving around. Well, you can never have enough of a good thing, and that's real good news since the team behind the original Incredible Machine is bringing it back for the modern gamer with Contraption Maker, a game where you make stuff happen by building stuff that gets stuff done! The game will be out for PC and Mac, and players will get more than 100 new items to build complicated Rube Goldberg machines with, so stay tuned and start drawing up your blueprints!

Sleep Tight Krillbite Studio has achieved success with their Kickstarter for their upcoming horror game Among the Sleep, a game where you play as a toddler who wakes alone in the middle of the night and finds his house the center of unsettling events. How much of what you experience is real and what is the overactive mind of a child? You don't have to wait to try it out, though, because there's now a free Alpha demo for Among the Sleep available for PC, Mac, and Linux! Go ahead, try it. This is shaping up to be one of the most eerie, deliciously surreal and otherworldly adventures in a long time, and we can't wait for the finished product.

For the Thick-Skinned and Black of Humour Remember Alone in the Park? Part text adventure, part point-and-click, and part double-yu tee eff, the game followed you on a quest for map fragments in a massive park filled with people you might politely call unique on quests you could politely call "weird as heck". Well, get ready, because it's almost time to head back out again. On June 15th, Alone in the Park hits for iPad, PC, Mac, and Linux bringing an updated and swank-ified version of the original game. If you like snarky humour and off-the-wall adventures, this is definitely the game for you if you don't mind a bit of blue language and some mean-spiritedness. Now if we can just get Alone in the Parp to happen...

Download? Or Browser? One videogame is fine. But many all mushed together in one deliberately chaotic gem? That's where the action is! Previously only available as a download, Farbs's crazy action-packed game is now available for free right in your browser. Can you survive Rom Check Fail, when the game is always one step, and one title, ahead of you?

Beautiful AND Challenging SpryFox has already proven their talent with games like Leap Day, and they're not slowing down yet! Billed as a roguelike puzzle adventure game, Road Not Taken is a stunning looking game set in a chilly wintry forest that will tell a tale of life and loss. It looks and sounds a little melancholy, but also absolutely gorgeous. Keep your eyes open for more details, and get ready to play this one later this year!

Kickstarter/IndieGoGo Projects

Old School is the New-New School Edge Entertainment's upcoming classic-styled RPG Dormant Sky won't cost you a penny when it's released, but with funding from generous donators they can finally complete their ambitious project and improve its original concept. Following two young men who are feared by the very kingdom they protect for the power they weild, it promises to deliver a SNES-era styled RPG with a compelling story and tactical combat. Sound good? Then head on over to find out more!

Not Covered By Your Insurance So you've gone and unleashed the seven deadly sins on your stately Victorian manor, which is going to make having those lovely demure tea services a bit more challenging. Now what? Well, if you're the heroine in High Class Kitsch's puzzle adventure Pandora: Purge of Pride, you set out to harness the very powers you unlocked to try to get them all under control before they consume you. Planned for PC and Mac, it looks like a clever twist on the first-person puzzle genre, and its unique premise and powers should provide ample reason to check it out.

Murder With Friends Facebook games tend to get a bum rap for being, well, essentially human hampster wheels by and large with little actual gameplay or originality. BlankMediaGames wants to change all that with Town of Salem, a multiplayer game of stealth, strategy and role playing where you and friends take up residence within the titular town. The catch? Each person is assigned a role, and you're all either working against or with one another... but you don't know who you can trust. Serial killers work by night to kill without getting caught, while sheriffs interrogate people to find out the truth... and those are just two of 29 possible roles. By day, the town meets to vote on who should be put to trial, and it's up to the accused to defend themselves and everyone else to find out the truth before it's too late. Morbid? Sure, but exactly the sort of weird and sneaky little title that could make for some seriously fun playtime.

Press X to Hide Under Bed and Cry! Playing with friends is fun. Terrorizing them is better. Available for funding on IndieGoGo, Damned is a cheery little game where four players are trapped inside a hotel... and one gets to play as the malevolent entity haunting it. While survivors are searching the building for the keys they need to escape, they're also trying to avoid the notice of the monster, who can not only influence their surroundings to try to frighten them, but also physically manifest itself to chase players down and kill them. Each play will be randomised, and sounds like the perfect option for a group of freaky friends who don't might a little good-natured slaughtering.

Miscellaneous

FREEBIRD! The Free Bundle is back again, with five fantastic free indie games for you to download. From an episodic adventure game based on a well-loved classic, to an undead tower-defense game, there's something for everyone and all of it proves the community of indie developers who consistently put out high-quality freeware games are just as talented from the big names... but maybe just a bit more generous, too.

Uncanny Valley With the way games continue to develop and impress, I always find myself thinking, "This is it. Where do visuals possibly have to go from here?" Apparently, short of forcing actual people to come to your house with movie sets and act out gameplay on your command, the answer is Ira, a free download from Nvidia that showcases just how realistic their new technology is. He may only consist of a head right now, but experimenting with Ira's facial expressions and marvelling at the way the light reacts to his skin should give you a real appreciation for how far games have come. You know, unless you're one of those kids born after the year 2000 and all of this is just something you expect.

Do you know an upcoming indie project or some community gaming related news you think deserves some attention? Send me an e-mail with LINK DUMP FRIDAY in the subject line at dora AT casualgameplay DOT com with the info, and we'll judge it with the all-seeing glare of our own self-importance for inclusion in a future Link Dump Friday article!