Smokescreen is a new alternate reality game (ARG) from entertainment company Six To Start. Social networking, blogging, and chat lingo are all part of this game that takes on the task of warning players about the dangers of the Internet in a way that makes you feel like you're experiencing them first-hand.
Cake Pirate is a tower defense game in which you add elements (ingredients) to your towers (cakes) to make different power-up combinations. The twist here is that your lives are also cakes, and you can sell those cakes for money to upgrade your cake towers. And it has a cake that shoots bees!
Sometimes it's nice to kick back, relax, and enjoy the scenery and the truly casual gameplay of a room escape. The puzzles themselves are tricky without being difficult, adding to the relaxation factor. While there is only one way out, there are three different endings based on your methodology. Having trouble getting over the mid-week hump? Then sit down, relax, pour a drink, and spend a little time escaping the Strawberry Cafe.
An unnamed cubicle slave grinds his way through another day at work, his biggest worry being whether or not someone left the coffee pot dry. That is until the scream comes. Now you have to help him get home to his wife before zombies get her or you in this choose your own adventure style game.
The end is just the beginning! Bring all the connectors into harmony in this simple puzzler from Veewen, but don't mistake its simplicity for lack of difficulty! After the first few levels, the difficulty ramps up rather quickly and stays high until the end. Luckily, the zen-like atmosphere helps to soothe frustration.
Indulge your inner siege engine in Crush the Castle: Players Pack, a sequel comprised of devious maps made by fans to test your destructive physics skills and push your ability to smoosh tiny kings to its limit. While it doesn't bring much else new to the table, the Players Pack is a great showcase of some genuinely clever community talent from people just like you. Although we're sure you have much better hair.
Abuba is most definitely not ready to survive in the hostile environment that is suburbia. Cold, hungry, tired and scared after crash landing, Abuba just wants to go home and it is up to you in this short and cute point-and-click adventure from Pencilkids. Take a casual gameplay break and help get Abuba home! Abuba say thank you. And so do we.
If you are looking for a break from the standard RTS fare, or just want to play through a really well-made game, then look no further than Shadez II: Battle for Earth. This 2D side-scrolling title is extraordinarily well-made from top to bottom, providing enough strategy, explosions, and alien killing machines to keep most RTS fans busy for some time.
My Kingdom for the Princess is a casual resource management/building game from Nevosoft. Mixing elements from simulation titles as well as borrowing from the time management genre, the game puts a big casual gameplay hat over itself and delivers a deceptively linear resource management experience with a surprising amount of strategy.
In the latest Women's Murder Club murder mystery game, you play all four members of the titular group of friends from the books of acclaimed crime novelist James Patterson. Lindsey Boxer is a detective with the San Francisco police force, Claire Washburn is a medical examiner, Cindy Thomas is a reporter on the crime beat, and Jill Bernhadt is the District Attorney. Each of these characters' skill-sets will come in handy as you make your way through this series of bizarre murders.
With Zuma's Revenge Popcap has hit a homerun. As with the original, you can easily waste hours and hours playing this game with no end in sight. Humorous, beautiful, addictive, Zuma's revenge includes everything a casual gamer could desire, with 50% more boss fights!
Distort the magnetic force of the world to smash through the targets in this psychedelic puzzle game with a warped sense of style. MagnetiZR requires a sharp eye, a dose of patience, and a willingness to experiment. Don't worry; this is one time when it's okay to play with magnets on your computer.
This platform puzzle game from Edmund McMillen brings to the platformer table multi-dimensional planes. Press the [A] key to switch planes and alter what is visible on the screen. Sometimes you can see the other planes while you are occupying the current one, but you can't see what overlaps between planes. This creates an interesting dynamic that involves a lot of guessing with your jumps, especially when movable blocks make their appearance.
More door locks to figure out? Check. More machinery to fiddle with, hoping to not blow up the place? Check. Annoying cell phone still telling you what to do? Check. Yet another really ticked off creature from beyond ready to rip you to shreds? Uh, why in the world did we leave that lovely, peaceful green vat again?
The goal of Springen, the latest physics puzzle on the block, is to get every red ball on the black ring, or at least as many as you need to progress to the next level. The majority of the puzzles require crafty feats of ball-flinging, and you'll have to learn to use some of the obstacles to your advantage if you hope to make it through all 30 levels of phuzzling goodness. The balls are heavier than they look, and when you add a wealth of bumpers, gravity wells, and other gizmos between you and the ending hoop, some of the puzzles test your luck as well.
From Nitrome comes a game about space, stars, and making aliens blow up. Guide a fledgling star across thirty levels requiring a steady hand and quick reflexes. While the control scheme may take some getting used to, Nebula is a cute, quick little game that would be at home in any arcade, thirsty for your quarters. And remember, kids. Friends don't let friends play with space bombs.
Make It Good is a dark, noir-esque detective mystery from Fail-Safe author Jon Ingold. You are cast in the role of a down-on-his-luck detective struggling to solve a murder case or risk losing his job. Moving about a complete, living world, you'll turn over every potted plant, scrutinize every room, and question every character as you attempt to stitch together shards of information to discover just what happened.
Although most experienced gamers could blow through this in 10 minutes or less, slow down, take your time. Enjoy the headache-inducing clash of carpeting and wall patterns, contemplate the meaning of the displays, or just gaze at the monkey head and wonder, is that post modern or post-post-modern? Dali or Dada? Stay in the game too long and you will half expect dripping clocks to appear across a landscape. Perfect for casual gameplay, Escape from Blender Art Gallery is a fun break from whatever you are doing. Just remember afterwords, it was only a dream.
The first in a creepy new point-and-click series set in a Wonderland a few degrees off from the one you may recall. A gruesome sight greets you when you open your eyes in this fractured fairytale... but just who are you, anyway? To find out, first you'll have to find your way out and dig a little deeper into the mystery. Provided you're prepared for what you may discover on the other side of the looking glass.
A colorful match-3 game set in the lush rainforests of a distant land, where you'll have to make use of quick matching skill and magical powers in your quest to piece together broken talismans. Bend the elements to your will with enchanted tiles and clever swapping, and see if you can't discover a little Jungle Magic.
Someone in Station 38 needs your help, and you'll never guess who it is! Pat Kemp's Station 38 puts you at the helm of a lander-type spacecraft, thrusting and sputtering its way through 38 levels in response to an SOS from deep within. And when you receive a distress call from Station 38 in deep space, well, you've just gotta answer it!
If a pirate's life involves as much escape, danger, punches, and angry dogs as Tortuga 3 has, then it certainly isn't the life for us! After managing to escape the first two episodes, find a way ashore and stay one step ahead of your scurvy pursuers in this latest installment of a classic pirate point-and-click adventure. Just remember to keep one hand on your dubloons!
A lot of games cast you as a criminal. It's fun to flirt with the dark side, flaunting the rules, casting off the ethical concerns that imprison the weak and cowardly. Now, in this new puzzler called Copy Cat, step into the nefarious shoes of a truly abominable villain: an art forger. DUHN DUHN DUUUUHNNN.
Protonaut is best described as a platform physics puzzler: a platformer covered in a velvety layer of physics, served with a generous dosage of puzzler. The premise of the game is fairly simple: you are a small character (presumably the Protonaut), tasked with collecting all of the gaseous elements in each level. Run, jump, and shoot projectiles to solve each level's puzzle.
Ben Leffler continues his popular horror point-and-click series in Exmortis 3, when your time for revenge may come too late to do mankind any good. Introducing new abilities, new locations, and dripping with atmosphere, Exmortis 3 is exceptionally well made, but may be over too soon for some players.
Zamby and the Mystical Crystals is a top-down puzzle adventure game with a lot of retro charm. Similar to the Wonderland Adventures and Professor Fizzwizzle series in concept, its simple visuals hide a box-pushing puzzle game with a surprising amount of challenge and content. It also takes itself serious as a casual game, offering a full, move-by-move undo option along with hints and full solutions for every level. It's old-school gaming without the old-school headaches!
From building neighborhoods to buying movie-star houses, from constructing railway stations to buying a lion for the zoo, Be Richer! is even more engaging than the original. Perfect for casual gameplay, beautiful, addictive, and just downright fun, Be Richer! once again delivers (as do the new pizza parlors)!
Combining the visual presence of flOw with a few casual real-time strategy and shooting elements, Deep is an intriguing hybrid game that's friendly to a variety of playing styles. You control a single cell-like critter who can move and shoot in any direction, but you're also in charge of a thriving colony of warriors who want nothing more than to eliminate the enemy. Play it like a shooter, play it like a strategy game, or play it like a little bit of both. Either way, it's an interesting dive under the sea.
Unleash the power of the written word in The Wizard's Notebook, where your keyboard can conjure up cats, make the sun shine, and much more. Type words and reach for the stars in this clever little platform puzzler from Turtle Soup Games! And if you want to call yourself The Gamer Who Lived, we won't tell anyone.
Bleep, bloop, assimilate! The life of a robot is hard. When you're slated for that big old junk heap in the sky, do you go quietly into that long good night? If you're playing Mechanaughts, a quirky little action platformer, you fight your way to your oppressors and take your mechanical revenge. Since robots tend to have cold, unfeeling metal pincers for hands, that revenge is unlikely to consist of hugs and a heartfelt discussion on your feelings.
Short and sweet, Para Cute sends a teddy-bear out searching for a gift for his beloved the old fashioned way. Parachuting through a series of caves and warp points to collect as many hearts as he can! At only six levels, Donut Games has crafted a tasty little title suitable for your coffee break, or any other time you feel the need to go awwwww.
Magical Sphere Escape evokes that Myst-like sensation of not just solving puzzles, but solving history. And despite its flaws, Magical Sphere Escape is one of the best escape games I have played. There are a couple places where you'll need your Veteran Escaper Sense™ to find a clue or item, but the major puzzles are astonishingly logical. But be sure to read our review and consult our translation notes to get the most out of hidden gem.
The incredibly simple goal of Higher! is to get, well, higher. An unassuming little house sits on the ground patiently, surrounded by a picket fence, next to some picturesque trees. Suddenly a balloon floats by and gets caught on the roof, pulling the house skyward, freeing it of its mundane existence. This pleases the house greatly, and when another passing balloon gets caught on the roof, an adventure is born.
Alchemia is an absolutely gorgeous new animated point-and-click adventure from Springtail Studio. Play a little hero after he shoots from the sky a bizarre looking creature. He sets off on an adventure to figure out what happened and to help his unfortunate new companion. Brilliant puzzles, illustrations and music abound, and some puzzles will require lateral thinking and problem solving rather than just simply clicking in the right areas in the correct sequence.
Similar to a few puzzle games we've seen before, On the Edge is simple to understand and yet will challenge you to complete all 30 levels. Use the arrow keys to roll the little red block from the starting point to the red ending point, while traveling across and removing all the other tiles first.
The main goal in Osmos is simple: you, an amoeba-esque organism known as a "mote," must absorb smaller motes to become bigger. As your size increases, you are able to absorb more and more motes until you are the largest one in the area. This seems like a simple objective, and at its core it is. But, in order to propel yourself around to capture motes, you must expel a part of your own mass, which in turn decreases your size. It's a beautiful and unique game of calm strategy and intense thought.
Nancy Drew has returned in a brand new hidden object adventure! The ink is still warm from her previous case, so one would think Nancy gets a little vacation. It's anything but time to relax when a series of "construction accidents" (explosions!) rocks a posh spa/resort, forcing Nancy to investigate without alerting the wealthy clientele.
Much like the Dream Chronicles series or the more recent Princess Isabella: A Witch's Curse, the new casual adventure game Drawn: The Painted Tower drops you in a gorgeously drawn world filled with items to find and puzzles to solve. The story and artwork wrap the game in a brilliantly mysterious package, delivering a feast for your senses as you devour the simple (but tasty!) gameplay.
The Cake Mania series is one of the most widely-recognized names in casual gaming. Three main installments have hit PC and Mac platforms over the last few years, and you can even find Cake Mania on mobile phones! Now, with the release of Cake Mania: Main Street, the series veers into a slightly new direction, providing more varied gameplay and a host of new and interesting challenges. It's not just cake anymore, as now you'll be slinging sushi and building burgers in order to raise money to revive Jill's home town!
Civiballs 2 is a phuzzle, heavy on the uzzle. Guide colored balls to their respective urns by cutting chains and letting momentum do its thing. This is one sequel that packs just as much oomph as the original!
A tiny world is at your fingertips, ready for you to shape it. Create a cavern teeming with life... provided you can discover all the creatures hiding inside. Using sandbox tools, manipulate the environment to coax each creature into the open, or how to create them. A charming little simulation tool that encourages experimentation.
Taking a few cues from other tower defense games, Silver Maze contains the perfect system for beginners while being challenging enough for expert TD gamers. While it's not the flashiest game on the block, its tower upgrade system more than makes up for it, and brings it to another level of awesomeness. Definitely give this one a try.
Your journey as Arkus Rei, space pirate, continues in this series of extremely challenging platform adventures. Follow the instructions given by your new found human companion to uncover treasure beyond your imagination. But first you must travel to several different dangerous locales and, well, survive.
Enter the world of the Waker, an enigmatic creature charged with guiding wayward dreamers to their respective awakenings. With the help of some magical orbs, you'll be able to fashion platforms and bridges out of dreamstuff, but be wary of how the platforms are constructed, or else you may steer yourself directly into the darkest nightmares.
U-Sensor is a fun, engaging escape game from Japanese development studio, HILG (G-Sensor). Short enough for casual gameplay yet complex enough (three different ways out) to have fun playing more than once. Escape the doldrums of office work by escaping from the office!
You tell yourself you don't care about her anymore. She broke your heart and to forget the pain you throw yourself into your ninja training, pushing your muscles further than any human should rightly expect of their body. You tell yourself it doesn't matter, and for a while you think you might believe yourself. It's not until your friend informs you that she's been kidnapped by the ruling species, werewolves, that you come to understand that it's all a lie. You still love her enough to rip through every single werewolf keeping you from her, or die trying.
Adam Atomic's "minimalist" action/arcade side-scrolling game about a man fleeing the destruction of his city is both remarkably well presented, and fiendishly addictive. Vault over the obstacles in your path as you try to stay alive and get the high score. Those giant robots rampaging in the background? They're not there to play patty-cake, so we'd keep moving, if we were you.
Qbox is a neat little variation of a Jumble or a crossword, in which you try to decipher famous quotes from one of three historical eras. These quotes are laid out in a grid, and the letters have been scrambled within their respective columns only. Swap letters in the same column and when the correct word is formed it will lock into place.
When explorers are ransacking your ancient ruins, who ya gonna call?!... well, no, not them. You call Guardian Rock, foul tempered smasher of trespassers and the curious hero of this quirky, cute arcade-style puzzler from Torpedo Lab. Slide your way across 48 levels of explorers, spikes, dynamite, and more. Your ancient civilization needs you!
Ahoy, matees! I be here to tell you the gruesome tale of The Adventures of Mary Ann: Lucky Pirates! It be— ahem, it is a match 3 game that combines three methods of puzzle gameplay with casino games to create an adventure of near-epic proportions. The game itself takes place along a Caribbean that exists only in tall tales and Disney movies. Your job is to help Mary Ann defeat all enemies and find all treasures until she rules the Pirate world.
Mr. Jones' Graveyard Shift is a curious combination of a free-form simulation, tycoon management title, and time management game. As customers come in, you custom-create grave plots based on their requests and budget. You have an enormous amount of freedom in how you create your graveyard, allowing you to be creative, inventive, or just plain efficient. Plus, there's no time pressure!
From turbo starts to spectacular crashes, Heat Rush successfully captures the heart of arcade racing games of the past. Strap yourself in, pull on the leather driving gloves, and get ready to go VROOM!!
Enter a strange 3D world of blocks and puzzles, where the wildlife is hostile, the footing is treacherous, gravity isn't on your side, and the solution isn't always obvious. Solve each level to get to the exit in this ambitious sokoban title from Eketech Games or make your own to confound your friends and enemies. Top hat sold separately. Please don't feed the moose.
Frantic 2 is as calming as a warm, lilac scented bubble-bath on a late summer night. Assuming your idea of calming is a screen filled with dozens and dozens of enemies, projectiles, power-ups, and laser fire. With three big levels, five modes of difficulty, upgrades, and more, Frantic 2 is prime scrolling shooter action for the twitch gamer in all of us.
Battalion: Arena is a grand way to get the morally questionable thrill of outwitting a fellow human being with miniature tons of steel and explosives at your command. The multiplayer chapter of the Battalion series may not stray far from its Advance Wars roots, but then, Advance Wars is a great game.
Our favorite green-skinned favor trader is back and he's learning a very potent lesson from the last time he performed A Small Favor. Performing political assassinations can be bad for one's health. Still, once a favor trader, always a favor trader. Use your point-and-click skills to scrub your ID badge and keep the government goons at bay.
GUMP has done it again! The boy with the pink hair is back! Uranus picks up where Neptune left off, in that same mysterious ivy-lined passage, only to trap you in yet another strange room you must escape. But not alone! Prepare to meet a most... unusual companion. Uranus is not terribly taxing but still an enjoyable weekday escape.
The Metalix have hidden their power source deep within their lair, and it's up to you to seize it! If only you weren't so... naked. Dungeon crawl the night away in this addictive roguelike from Point Zero as you search for gold, items, weapons, and, yes, clothes on your way to stop the Metalix. With randomly generated treasure and dungeons, steel daddy-long-legs, giant eggs and killer babies, you're in for a long trip.
The first 99 Bricks stuffed the standard Tetris formula full of physics, and now the sequel has crammed a whole bunch of RPG elements in there. How many genres can Tetris possibly hold? With your help, the vigilant Garry must save the kingdom of Brickonia from dire peril, and that means you need to build a whole lotta towers out of tetrimino blocks. Weird like a beard, man.
The tender story of a boy, his bow, and all the monsters that needed to be shot full of arrows. Medieval Rampage 2 is a top-down shooter chock full of upgrades, arrows, achievements, arrows, and fast-paced action across 25 levels and impossible odds. What it lacks in strategy it makes up for in action. Also, arrows. We can't stress this enough.
Tanaka is throwing a party. You help Tanaka invite all his friends to the party. They will show up, everyone loves Tanaka. Tanaka always tries his hardest. He will try his hardest to find all 72 of his friends to join his party. Can you help him find all 72 of his friends? Tanaka hopes so.
Pirates and golf, the unlikeliest pairing since chocolate syrup and trombones. Navigate your way through eight stylishly illustrated holes, including some unique obstacles and moving terrain. It's cute and fun, with good level design and an almost unprecedentedly cheesy story. Kids will definitely enjoy playing it, yet it offers plenty of challenges for adults as well.
Dungeon Scroll Gold Edition is a now-classic word game that gracefully blends a dungeon crawling RPG setting into a letter arrangement game. Much like Bookworm Adventures has done for the puzzle/RPG hybrid, Dungeon Scroll helped move word games a step out of the brainy category and into the realm of casual entertainment. You still have a meaty word-based puzzle experience on your hands, but now you have more than a high score to keep you addicted.
Span the globe as you track down clues left for you by your late grandfather in a race to find the Jade Coin. Visit exotic locations, uncover priceless artifacts, and solve cunning puzzles in this hidden object adventure.
Appearing out of nowhere like a crazy tropical storm, Coconut Queen has arrived and is ready to give Build-a-lot (and, heck, even Totem Tribe) a challenge for its casual sim throne. Combining the "neighborhood improvement" concept with some inventive unlockables and a subtle sense of humor, Coconut Queen provides a phenomenal gaming experience with enormous replay value.
You are presented with a series of letter tiles, scrambled into gibberish. Your job is to swap tiles two at a time, hopefully uncovering the hidden palindrome. At first, most of the words will induce some eye-rolling, as you'll get "ott" and have a hint of "a small child". But watch out when the game starts flipping open other languages' dictionaries to find some truly heinous fare.
To boldly go where no one-eyed, rocket-propelled cat has gone before, Rockitty needs your help in this bouncy, bizarre arcade space adventure from Nitrome! Explore the milky way, battle dangerous space squid, collect delicious fish, and more across 22 levels of space cat fun. It's a wondrously weird, frequently squishy game that plays like pinball. In space. With one-eyed green cats. Just as Mother Nature always intended.
Coinciding with H.P. Lovecraft's birthday today, we review Necronomicon, a single player trading card game by Games of Cthulhu. If you're astute, then you could probably assume from either the game's title or from the developer's name that this trading card game is one steeped in H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos.
Nudge may look like a bit of a brute, but that's all show. All the little blue guy really wants is to keep his beloved balloons safe. Personally, if we wanted to keep our balloons out of harm's way, we wouldn't leave them lying around mazes with moving blocks and walking mines, but that's just us. Help Nudge across 40 challenging levels in this charming and devious little puzzler!
Atomic Cicada brings us another original puzzle game, with a light math flavor, and an atmosphere somewhere between "excessively subdued and calming" and "horror film waiting to happen". Whether the game is trying to imply an ominous black cloud puzzle OF DOOM! or just a strange twisting of "relax" spelled backwards is completely up to you.
Colony is a tribute to Starcraft from Jakrin "Krin" Juangbhanich, the developer behind the successful Sonny series. Crush your opponent's base with soldiers, tanks, helicopters, and walking mechs, while a computer-controlled AI acts as your partner and even speaks with you through a chat box. Plus, online multi-player!
It's not often that you'll find yourself attempting to escape from an industrial hole in the ground. Unless you went in after your model airplane, and now the ladder is too slippery to let you back up, that is. Welcome to Tesshi-e's Escape from the Underground Space, a fun way to spend a coffee break, or just to take 10-15 minutes away from whatever you're doing.
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy, all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage. I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for avoiding the solid black lines of architectural blueprints as they whiz by at unsafe speeds while you struggle to stay upright on your bicycle built for DEATH.
Everyone has heard the phrase "Like a kid in a candy store". But how about "Like a kid in a warehouse full of expensive, fragile items. With a cannon. And physics." Less whimsical and more terrifying, isn't it? Max Damage wants you to cause the maximum damage to carefully arranged items across 49 levels using various types of ammunition to rack up a big score. It's a game for the sandbox bully in all of us, with none of the mess to clean up afterwards.
Every gaming sub-genre has to grow up and develop angst some day, and for a lot of them, that means they go steampunk. Use your clockwork pistol scalpel to reshape blocks and sever ropes in this collection of over 40 physics puzzles. If you're a fan of Splitter or Ice Breaker and you want some more levels, possibly a bunch of really obtuse and particular ones, here they are. They are here. Enjoy.
Roses are red, violets are blue, this little point-and-click adventure is just for you! Learn the language of love to help one confused fellow win back his sweetheart after taking her for granted. Short, sweet, and silly, Finding My Heart is a clever take on the genre where hunting for words and actions instead of objects is what you'll need to do to win the day.
Our 3rd Casual Gameplay Design Competition received a ton of great submissions from a number of talented game designers. Taking first place in that competition was Wouter Visser's Gimme Friction Baby, a strikingly simple arcade-style game of skill involving a moving turret and expanding orbs. Now, just over two years later, Bitforge has come and updated the game for iPhone and iPod Touch users. Orbital is the new incarnation of Gimme Friction Baby, adding some slick visuals, tweaking the physics a bit, and adding a new gameplay mode along with multiplayer support!
Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink! Actually, that couldn't be any more inaccurate here. In I-Fluid by Exkee, you are a drop of water, and your task is to navigate an intricate 3D world of a kitchenette that seems to be rather devoid of water. With the outward appearance of a platformer but the heart of a phuzzler, I-Fluid boasts an incredibly realistic atmosphere and a solid set of challenges to go with it.
Wierd, colorful little worm-like creatures with a hunger for colorful fruit and a penchant for musical instruments. Sounds like the formula for the latest pre-school PBS sensation. Instead, we're talking about a fun, quirky little puzzler called Yumsters! 2.
Oh no! The famous Willmore Candy Factory is on its last legs! Orders are being delayed, the pipes in the Chocomat are out of alignment, the furnace has broken down, and there are bits of metal getting into the candies. What's a recently graduated college gal to do? Why, save Grandpa's Candy Factory, of course! It's a fantastic puzzle game packed with variety and visuals so gorgeous, you'll want to eat them. Mmm.
Who knew that something as boring as real estate management would make a good time management game? Hipsoft, the creators of the wildly successful Build-a-Lot series, did, and boy were they right! The latest installment in the series, Build-a-Lot 4: Power Source, has arrived, bringing with it the same balanced and challenging gameplay with a brand new theme: energy efficiency.
A spot-the-difference game that turns your childhood on its head, Little Red Riding Hood: A Post Apocalyptic Adventure is a short but sweet story about... well, you know what! Featuring a smart hint system, gorgeous visuals, and loads of character, it's just the thing to brighten your day in this dystopian future.
Searching for her twin sister who vanished while exploring an enormous mechanical cube discovered in space, Rua ventures deeper into enemy territory with her companion Cedric and quickly finds herself in over her head in this stylish, fast-paced shooter. Upgrade your abilities, increase your proficiency, buy new weapons, and discover new ships while you try to stay alive long enough to unravel the mystery behind the disappearance of Rua's sister.
The new game from Gregory Weir is an unabashedly highbrow and experimental platform game, where the ground is made up of literature. Try to touch as many words as you can, as prose by H.P. Lovecraft, T.S. Eliot and others stretches out before you. It's interesting enough just to be forced to read by a platform game, but the real treat is all the visual embellishments.
Boxed Inn: Panic Room is an enormously impressive escape game, particularly considering that it is Samgine's first venture into the genre. While the game does have room for improvement, particularly in regards to the inventory interface and handful of imperfectly logical moments, there is plenty here for the escape game lover to dive into and enjoy.
In an era-spanning adventure, you'll guide the bizarrely adorable GOBTRON through epoch after epoch of pesky Earthlings who believe that the planet isn't big enough for the both of you. The trustiest weapon in your arsenal is a gob of mucus, swaying from your pink, furry nostril. Click on the snot to grab it, pull it back to ready your strike, and then release to fling the sticky missile in the opposite direction of your pull.
The Lost Vikings? Old news. This is Hans Hans the Biking Viking, who, along with his friends Freya and Thor, must escape from the nefarious but incompetent Loki's lair. Use Thor's strength, Freya's magic, and Hans's... well... jumping bicycle to outwit an 11-level dungeon full of tricks and traps.
Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a robot bicyclist free falling down a cliff into a pit of lava! If you think that sounds far too silly, you may not be ready for the sort of freewheeling craziness CycloManiacs is here to dish up. Featuring 20 different riders, unlockable stages, achievements, upgrades and more, it's a fast-paced racing game of a different breed.
Deeper, darker, and lots more bloodridden (thus living up to its title?), with Episode 2 the plot sickens. Will all the episodes eventually be strung together to make a cohesive narrative? Will the next episode be longer and more involved? Will you ever get out of this creepy lab? Only Psionic knows and he's not telling...
The source of BOXGAME's name is obvious: it's basically a puzzle platformer wrapped around a box. Perhaps by M. C. Escher. The direction of gravity changes depending on how you cross from face to face, turning walls into ceilings and pits into doorways. Jump and rotate your way to the exit in this unique game by Sophie Houlden. Don't forget your teddy bear!
After discovering a photo of a young boy in her attic, a boy her parents insisted wasn't real, Rosemary returns home in this bittersweet point-and-click adventure to uncover the truth about her childhood friend. A remarkably well made game that centers around invoking the proper memories to reveal the past, Rosemary is a sweet, sad, thoughtful story that could wind up staying with you much longer than it takes to play.
You reprise the role of the resilient young castaway, Mina, and her adorable primate pal, Jep. When last we left the duo, we thought we had made our way safely off of Nemo's island, but it seems we were a little naive. Now you must guide them both through more explorations of the island in the hopes of getting off of it... again!
Strange Cases: The Tarot Card Mystery is a new hidden object/adventure/mystery hybrid by Sulus Games. You play FBI agent Claire Ellery assigned to a case in a fishing village so small it can't be found by GPS, which should be your first hint that something's rotten.
Observe this failure of an elephant. It is tiny. It is blue. It has forgotten every level of this new platform game by jmtb02 but the first. An animal known for its memory can't remember anything about the game it's starring in but a single configuration of blocks and spikes. This is it. This is the only level. What a failure of an elephant.
The Lost Inca Prophecy, from Seppia Interactive, blends match 3 gameplay with the look and feel of a hidden object/adventure hybrid. You play as Acua, a young Spanish woman living around the time of Columbus. One day a book in your beloved library speaks to you, giving you a prophecy about the doom of the Inca Empire. The next thing you know you are on your way to the New World with your friend Juan de Salcedo — a brave conquistador — as your only companion.
If you're a big fan of sports games and have been dying for something to play at work on break, this is it. Even if you aren't really that into sports games, Crunchball 3000 boasts quite a bit of accessibility. So gear up, warm up, stretch out, and pay no mind to the 6'4", 320 lb behemoth giving you the evil eye. Scars build character and you ain't got time to be scared. Are you ready for some Crunchball?
Gravitee 2 is space golf! In space! Send a ball out into the cosmos, whipping around planets and barreling through hoops. With 90 achievements, 4 different medals awarded per level, rewards to unlock, and a well-crafted level editor, you'll want to put your space pants on, grab your space mouse, fire up your space computer, and spend some serious time playing space golf.
Finally, a game that allows you cheer that most cherished of subjects: math. With a shiny new facelift, exploding tiles, and the ability to rotate the board 90 degrees, Drop Lift v2.0 is a major upgrade to the original. Link together chains of numbers that add up to nine in this awesome block-dropping puzzler.
What doesn't get mentioned often are games where the gameplay is the art, the thing of beauty. These games are often misunderstood, classified as boring by those who like a game to have such devices as characters and a story. Consider Pixel Grower, by Joey Betz. Visually, it's appealing, but not awe-inspiringly so. Likewise, the gameplay also appears simple, ...at least initially.
Solitude begins with a brief animation of a plane, one wing trailing smoke, plummeting from the sky into the ocean. A young man pulls himself out of the water and collapses onto a beach, exhausted. Playing as the sole survivor of the accident, can you solve puzzles, collect objects and unlock the secrets of this mysterious island and escape?
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