Some media leeches kept asking me questions on the Twitter this week, so, you know what? I'm done. The Vault is cancelled. Goodbye!... Too soon? Okay, I guess we'll keep featuring excellent works from the JayIsGames archives for the foreseeable future. This week, your life will happily compare to mine, as we serve up adventure, action, and puzzle perfection
- Johnny, Why Are You Late? - The editors here are usually pretty chill about article deadlines (though it may earn you what I lovingly refer to as "The Dora Stare"), but I would have to admit that even they would consider the tardiness tale spun in Keybol's 2010 point and click adventure to be a little far-fetched. Johnny, Why Are You Late spins a lot of humor out of the supposed steps the average adventure game protagonist must take just to get out of the house in the morning, random kleptomania and blatant sociopathy included! But hey, any game that gives you an achievement for adding a toilet-paper-tube sight on top of your make-shift potato gun can't be all bad.
- When The Bomb Goes Off - Tom Sennet's 2009 collection of microgames might not be the browser gaming answer to "The Day After", but its action manages a perfect balance of charm and morbidity. A strangely gleeful look at the end of the world, When The Bomb Goes Off is as odd as a Warioware game forcing you to confront your own mortality should be. However, it does pose a question equally appropriate in a game as in a life: How much time do you have left?
- Rings and Sticks - While not quite as flashy as some of the other entries in 2007's Casual Gaming Design Competition 2, Komix's puzzler Rings and Sticks has proved its staying power by virtue of clever concept and implementation. Making fractals fun for the whole family is a tall order, but Rings and Sticks manages it with zen aplomb. There'll be trials. There'll be errors. And yet, watching the trees grow is so hypnotic that you almost won't notice how insane the challenge level gets by the end. Almost.
While we welcome any comments about this weekly feature here, we do ask that if you need any help with the individual games, please post your questions on that game's review page. Well, what are you waiting for? Get out there and rediscover some awesome!
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