Ladybugs and gentle-mites! Bring your larvae and hatchlings to see the spectacular Buzz and his friends become stunt rider legends in Stunt Bugs! Ride and flip across 48 high flying levels to collect star balloons and coins to hire new trick performing dreamers in this bike-riding physics adventure game. This bunch of feat performing pests have special moves to wow their fans and make grabbing extra points so much easier. It is a cutesy game with a wonderful cartoon visual style that the whole family can enjoy on most major mobile devices. Maybe these little critters' antics will keep those young, impressionable children from being dare-devils themselves. No promises, though.

No handlebar peripheral needed to control these airtime enthusiasts; just tap and hold the virtual throttle button on the device's bottom right corner to start moving. The star button in the screen's bottom left corner activates the bug's particular stunt move and is quite handy for grabbing those out-of-reach balloons and coins. As you jump and soar through the air, you can tilt the device to rotate your rider for sweet flips or direct their flight if they are floating on air currents. Your goal is to hit the big time at Bugopolis, but you need to pass each level with at least one star to hit your next action venue. Everything you run into gets the player points, but coins are only for employing new stunt bugs and the balloons are for increasing your star rating for the level. Its got the high score beating fun of Angry Birds with a child-like charm that makes reminisce of the classic cartoons of old.

Stunt Bugs takes the combo-scoring stunt games away from the norm and puts loads of thoughtful game assets that these games typically lack. The standard Hero's Journey plot structure, if a bit overused, gives Buzz and the gang a reason to achieve their dreams and they look good doing it with the delightful game art for all the riders and environment. Random House Digital made a quirky casual title that will put a smile on your face with its mild difficulty and adorable little insect friends to cruise around with.

The game has some great riding tunes for each different area that ranges from a barnyard hoedown to some city-slicker rock 'n' roll. I still wait at the main menu just to hear the buzzing theme song every time I open up the app. Can you reach the legendary status of Weevil McNeevil and become the next big star of Bugopolis? It will take a few friends and a lot of determination to figure it out.

iTunes App Store (iOS):
Get Stunt Bugs (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch)

Android Marketplace:
Get Stunt Bugs (Android)

Nook Apps:
Get Stunt Bugs (NOOK Color/NOOK Tablet)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on a iPod Touch 3rd Generation. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.

Ports galore! Mobile markets are a great breeding ground for new and interesting game ideas. They're also ripe for ports and remakes, since almost everybody loves taking their favorite games with them wherever they roam.

realMyst for iOS - Myst for iPhone has already happened, as well as Riven for iPhone. With iPad support for both games still in some sort of strange lymbo, CyanWorlds has released a teaser video for realMyst, the fully-3D remake of the original Myst game (read: no still screens, you can actually walk around). realMyst has been around for a while, but the mobile port should spark some renewed interest in the classic series. The release date is still listed as "spring 2012", so, you know, that could be any time now!

Trainyard does Android - Fans of the phenomenal iOS logic puzzle game Trainyard by Matt Rix have had a monopoly for long enough! Just a few days ago, Trainyard was released for Android, sporting 100 levels and half as many extra-difficult bonus puzzles. The game features a draw-your-own-solution puzzle mix where you guide trains from spawn points to stations, mixing colors and switching directions as they pass. It's a brilliantly-designed game from top to bottom, sporting a hefty level of challenge and a robust community of users who are just as stumped over certain puzzles as you are!

Linux Tycoon mobile bound - Fans of Linux are everywhere, as are fans of tycoon sims. Combine the two and you get Linux Tycoon, the "premier Linux Distro Building Simulator game". If you've ever wanted to design and release your own version of Linux, maintain it, streamline it, and get the world to download it, but were too afraid to, you know, actually do it, this is the game for you. It's already out for Windows, Mac and Linux, but Android and iOS versions are also in the works, which is a pretty geeky and exciting thing to look forward to!

Fans of Metroidvania style games, rejoice, and put on your virtual sneakers! SubMu Entertainment's latest release, Blockstachio, incorporates quirky, blocky graphics, and a soundtrack that solidly consolidates retro bleeps and bangs over the top of the heroic theme music that will drive you towards your goal. More importantly, it also packs enough platform action to keep you happily satisfied, while running and jumping your way through each level, in your pursuit to save the world.

Use the [WASD] or [arrow] keys to maneuver around and jump on the heads of your enemies, and to avoid the obstacles and traps that you will encounter, and [spacebar] to fire once you obtain the ability. Keep your eye out for upgrades and powerups, as some will allow you to explore new areas, and others will toughen up your character, to turn you into a more finely-tuned killing machine. Expect to encounter bosses along the way that are tough, but not unbeatable, especially as you refine your strategy while you play. Finish the standard game to unlock the impossible level, or store your progress at one of the many in-game save points, and attempt the challenge level, if you are feeling particularly ambitious.

With its perky graphics and easy to conquer style of gameplay, this is pure platform fun. The world needs saving, and it is up to you and your cubic hero to do it. Are you up to the challenge?

Play Blockstachio

Let me tell you. You might not be ready for this Jelly Escape, a puzzle-platformer by Taw Studio... but you'll have a lot of fun with it. The goal is as simple as moving and jumping your jelly through each level with [WASD] or [arrow] keys, collecting bonuses, and avoiding death either by flame, or, more insidiously, your rival jellies. You'll find many of the standard platforming elements herein: springboard to hurtle you through the air, triggers that will shift the gravity, lasers that will destroy blocks of the appropriate color, screen edges that will transport you to the other side, unstable blocks that will crumble once you've landed on them, portals to teleport you around the levels, and so forth. It sounds like a lot to take it, but each new concept is presented quite naturally.

Games about anthropomorphic blobs making their way through dangerous obstacle-laden settings are nothing new, but Jelly Escape is a quality interpretation, with a fluid progression of 60 levels, a comprehensive checkpoint system that allows the game to be challenging without ever feeling too tough, and a hilariously whimsical sense of humor. The Pro-Jelly propaganda posters that are displayed between levels is a great touch, as is the unexpected cameos from other flash gaming Blobs. It's not perfect: the pace your Jelly moves at feels quite sluggish, especially when hit with CPU-lag. It can be really frustrating when you can see all the moves you're supposed to make, but have to wait for your Jelly to catch up with your mind. Even if it doesn't quite break the mold, Jelly Escape is a nice slow-paced time-waster. U Jelly?

Play Jelly Escape

Dinos in Space is, apart from being a very cool thing to draw in your notebook while ignoring the math lecture going on in your class, a cerebral flow-based logic puzzle game from John Saba. Using arrows, switches and teleporters, your goal is to send dinosaurs from their dispensers into the appropriately colored satellite elsewhere on the grid. Sure, it sounds simple on the surface, but get your head wrapped in this game, and when you take a break, you'll still be solving puzzles in your brain.

Everything is laid out nicely on a grid, with mouse-based controls and keyboard shortcuts to make everything flow as smoothly as possible. Levels begin with the dinosaurs safely in their hold and you staring at your inventory of colored arrows and other items, wondering where to put things to get the dinosaurs where they need to go. Use [Z] to cycle through your inventory, the mouse to place and rotate tiles, and tap the [spacebar] when you're ready to launch.

Different dinosaurs need to go different places, and they get there by different methods. Red dinosaurs, for example, need to make it to the red satellites and are the only ones who are affected by red directional arrows. Same goes for blue, yellow and green dinos with their respective tiles and goals. Gray items will affect all dinosaurs, meaning any dinosaur can trigger a gray switch or be guided by a gray arrow. In addition to sorting the dinosaurs into their respective satellites, many stages contain delicious snax that can be collected for the dinos when they get the munchies.

Analysis: Dinos in Space shares some similarities with a few other games, including the mega-challenging mobile puzzle game Trainyard and the underappreciated downloadable indie game Pragmatica. It has a distinctly more casual slant, though, presenting a streamlined interface and fewer inventory elements to worry about. Don't mistake "casual" for "easy", though. Some of the later levels are larger and wickedly complex, so if you're worried the difficulty has been scaled down, well... don't!

Here's a great bonus: a puzzle editor! Dinos in Space ships with a full-featured editor you can use to make levels just as complicated (or more so) than in the game. It doesn't take too long to get the basics down, and with a little planning you can pull of some great tricks. There's even support for playing user-made levels, which adds a nice bit of replayability to the 40+ level strong main game.

The interface in Dinos in Space is retro, to put it succinctly, and it almost feels like a classic C64 or DOS game from a few decades ago. It isn't clunky or awkward at any moment, though, so don't let the simple looks scare you. Even if you're frightened of keyboard shortcuts, everything in the game can be accomplished with the mouse.

A surprise puzzle game with a budget price, casual-friendly learning curve, internet-approved sense of humor, a beefy demo, and smartly-built levels. It's pretty much everything you could want from a logic puzzle game, including dinosaurs and snax!

Windows:
Download the demo
Get the full version

Mac OS X:
Download the demo
Get the full version

Dealing with a hyper youngster all the time can really take the wind out of a parent's metaphorical sails, but when your kid wants to play, they REALLY want to play. Monsterland: Junior vs. Senior by Alma Games has you helping Monster Junior to reach his father's exhausted back and stir him from slumber. Sadly, there are mean monster blocks in the way, and the only means to get rid of them is by left-clicking on them. Junior will fall, roll, and slide in this tumble drop physics game so he can get the attention he wants and you have a fun time that you were craving.

The game captures the feel of child-like wonderment with its bubbly soundtrack and colorful monsters that never cease to ... *gulp*... stare right into your soul. Monsterland learned a few life lessons from its brother-from-another-mother, Red Remover, to bring physics puzzle gamers a quick, fun experience without adding anything really new to the tumble drop genre. You may find it familiar, but playtime with Junior and his papa will last 32 solid levels of moderate difficulty that any casual player can waste a half an hour on. After all his son's shenanigans, Monster Senior could use some relaxation away from Junior.

Play Monsterland: Junior vs. Senior

Why does negligent parenting get such a bad rap? If it wasn't for bum parents, we'd never have this lovely launch game, Billy The Pilot, from Erik Sombroek, about a little boy who just wants to fly, and who has a mom and dad that don't seem to notice he's building a launchpad in the backyard, right in the path of the family flower bed.

To control little latch-key Billy, just use your mouse to adjust his launch ramp and release to send him flying. [WASD] and arrow keys guide his flight, while the [spacebar] initiates booster rockets once you've bought them. The backgrounds and animations are impossibly cute and the upgrades a lot of fun, especially the ability to build a pet dragon! But the gameplay is repetitive and the in-flight controls are clunky. It also isn't very hard. Really, Billy the Pilot is just an excuse to explore a beautifully drawn and colorful Never Never Land where kids are kings and parents nowhere to be found... as it should be.

Play Billy the Pilot

Lexcavator is a wonderfully chirpy word-based puzzle game by Adam Parrish that combines elements of Dig Dug with spelling games like Bookworm. Your goal is to bash away letter tiles by spelling out words, clearing the way so the protagonist can hop further down the level. It requires a lot of careful thinking to prevent capturing yourself in a corner, so enter only if your vocabulary and tactical skills are up for a challenge!

You control a cute little @ as the main character in Lexcavator, moving with the [arrow] or [AD] keys and jumping with [W] or [up]. Use the mouse to click on letter tiles and spell words. The minimum length is three letters, but naturally your goal will be to snake your word chain around as wildly as you can. When you make a valid word, those tiles disappear, clearing space for @ to move around. Green tiles drop power-ups when cleared, adding a nice bit of oomph to the game with abilities like blast, erode, and alchemize. Be careful, though, as power-ups can leave you stranded if you don't use them carefully (just like everything else in the game!).

There's a careful sort of strategy involved with this curious hybrid game. On the one hand, you want to spell impressive words so you feel like a smarty pants. On the other, digging down is just as important as the words themselves, so you have to keep in mind the blocks that will be cleared with each word and where @ can move after each match. It's an unusual balance you have to strike between wild word creation and platform gaming, but it's one that works wonders once it finally clicks.

Lexcavator features a short tutorial to introduce the game's basics, as well as three modes of play that include time trials, arcade, and the timer-free quest mode which offers a series of challenging tasks you must complete in order to progress. There's something for just about every type of gamer, and its premise is just unusual enough that even casual fans of puzzle or word games should give it a shot!

(Note: Lexcavator is available as a pay what you want game, which includes paying nothing. If you really enjoy it, no one will be sad if you help the developer out by chipping in a coin or two!)

Windows:
Download the free full version

Mac OS X:
Download the free full version

Linux:
Download the free full version

Ever wanted to do something, found out how unbelievably overwhelming the task would be, then decided it'd be a better idea to stay home and have a sandwich? Our hapless knightly protagonist in Climb to the Top of the Castle knows that feeling all too well, only in his case, sandwiches probably haven't been invented yet, and he's got a king breathing down his neck pretty much forcing him to haul his armored rear to the top of the castle and save the princess. Did we say "castle"? Because really, it's pretty much a mountain!

A few simple controls are all you'll need in Climb to the Top of the Castle. Jump with [X] and slash your sword with [Z]. You can switch weapons with the [C] key once you get something other than your blade. You can jump from, grab on to, or walk on most of the surfaces in this vertically-oriented game, allowing you to hop up platforms, hang from ledges, grab onto corners, and just generally feel like your own modern-day Prince of Persia.

Climb to the Top of the Castle draws a lot of inspiration from classic platform adventures, but it's got a distinctly active and humorous style to it. You never really stop moving, as between sliding down chutes and dealing with mechanical spiders and rhinos you've got your work cut out for you. But the levels are tightly woven to create a clear path from one end to the other, and you'll usually have to deal with lots of enemies as well as a few levers, switches, and other creative modes of transportation in-between.

Now for the even funner bits: mini-games, hidden items, and challenges! Climb to the Top of the Castle has a strong arcade slant, stocking you with ten lives and giving you opportunities to earn more by completing level specific challenges, such as beating the stage without dying. When you do kick the bucket, you start again where you left off, so beyond the extreme retry limitation, it's actually a fairly forgiving game. You'll also want to pick up the junk you see while exploring the castle, as there's a market you can spend it in that has some nice unlockables. There's even a few booths that let you spend your "cash", like the 1UP machine or the in-game platformer mini-game.

And yes, there's that lovely hand-sketched visual style. It looks fantastic in still screenshots, and unsurprisingly it looks just as good in motion. The graphics in Climb to the Top of the Castle help push this charming platform game over the top, making it a sure-fire hit with anyone who wants to save a princess, investigate an unusual mechanical castle, and swipe a sword to destroy everything you see along the way!

(Note: Currently Climb to the Top of the Castle is available for free via Indievania. To download it, you will need to click the "buy" button, select the free option or choose a donation amount, then receive the download link via e-mail.)

Windows:
Download the demo
Download the free full version

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

Yeah, the conservation of endangered animals is a worthy cause, but some interstellar vagrant is going the extra mile, or parsec in this case, to bring this crusade to a deteriorating avian planet as the Chain Champ. Since he can't run with his legs and these birds cannot fly with their wings, he feels a deep kinship with them and wants them saved. Due to his physical impairment, the heroic gentleman must grapple his way through various tunnels and caves to recover these vulnerable birds in true action adventure fashion.

With only a grappling hook arm at his disposal, aim shots with the mouse, fire by left-clicking, and left-click again to release Champ from the chain and jump. If your mouse control skills aren't too strong, you can switch the control scheme to use the [arrow] keys for aiming and the [Z] button for firing/releasing. The angle at which your mighty hook shot arm attaches to a surface determines how much Champ will swing and his momentum once you unshackle the chain. The farther the chain travels to hit a surface, the longer it will be for you to hang from and the more movement speed you will get. It takes a certain amount of finesse and timing to successfully maneuver this hapless hero across lakes of lava, grab a precarious zip-line block, and land safely so you can reclaim the fearful birdies. This green Samaritan won't stop until your grappling prowess is top notch or you, well, want to take a break from the plight of the flightless.

The dynamic duo of Todd Luke and Shelby Smith cranked out a top notch indie grapple adventure that mixes a noble theme with a retro pixelart art style you can't help but love. The eighteen small, pixel levels may seem a little lacking for most adventure platformers, but the slowly increasing difficulty will have you re-materializing because you couldn't stick that epic swing past the falling lava. Champ never really learned that you can fire your grapple in midair, but it adds another level of complexity some players will probably have mixed feelings over. The game makes sure to combine all the obstacles thoroughly as you progress so the gameplay never gets stale and fizzles out your immersion into the game. If you don't want to see these birds scorched like a rotisserie chicken, oil up that hook chain arm for some swinging casual excitement.

Windows:
Download the free full version

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

Pop culture has taught us that caves are horrible places, literally packed to the brim with horrifying monsters, bat poop, and certain other hazards. Nitrome's first spelunking session was no walk in the park, and now things are getting even trickier with Cave Chaos 2, a platforming challenge where the hazards are bigger and the monsters are grosser.

Use the [WASD] or [arrow] keys to guide your furry little miner through a series of increasingly elaborate caverns chock full of explosives, beasts, minecarts, and crumbling platforms. As you move, new platforms will fly up for you, carried by helpful bats. Certain levels will tempt you with golden power-ups, like the double-jump, or a butt-bash that will allow you to crush enemies beneath your mighty hindquarters, or even the ability to "glide"... which should here be translated as "flail frantically around in the air with your feet like a Yoshi". Move with caution, but not with slowness, since the terrain will gradually crumble away to nothingness behind you. Most levels have at least one checkpoint you can activate, however, so even if your nice, shiny rocket-propelled minecart takes you on a nosedive into a cliff, you won't have to start the whole level over.

Cave Chaos 2 definitely lives up to its name, with frantic, chaotic levels that are packed full of action and surprises. There is a lot going on here, and all of it rendered absolutely beautifully. The downside is that there are times when the game expects you to take leaps of faith, and there are also times when it doesn't always seem like platforms trigger when they should which can lead to a few frustrating reloads. As a result, the game might require a bit too much trial-and-error for some players, but those of you with nerves of steel and twitchy fingers will prevail as long as you balance cautiousness with expediency. If you played the original, you'll definitely appreciate all the new hazards and elements here, from the addition of checkpoints to the new monsters and other environmental obstacles that overall makes it feel a lot more varied, but perhaps a lot slower, than its predecessor. So the only question remains... are you miner enough?!

Play Cave Chaos 2

You remember the little piggy who went to the market? Well, that pig had to walk while the piggy in Eliot Pace's anticipated physics puzzle game Pigs Will Fly could... you get the idea. The potion-guzzling pig is back for more time distorting fun as it needs your help to realize its dream of flying once again. It may need a liquid stimulant to get this slothful swine off the ground, but the challenges it faces to get the potion are more formidable than it has faced before.

For those familiar and unfamiliar with this high-flying ham, each level you need to get the pig to somehow reach the rainbow potion and it can get its wings (no, not with Redbull). You are given certain colored potions each level that, when left-clicked on, allow you to manipulate any object of the same color. It records any actions and movements made with that color and lets you enact different opreations with the next color potion you choose. The actions of each color will remain intact and animate as long as you do not select a color you have already used. The timing and synchronization of each color's actions is where the player's difficulties lie and is what really brings home the bacon in solving these puzzles.

Since April when Pigs Can Fly was reviewed here, Pace took what made it such an excellent casual hit and tweaked the problem areas some people might have found bothersome. The user interface loses its messy row of buttons and upgrades to a more pleasing pop-out menu, while the in-game art gets revamped with sharper sprites. The game screen is larger this time around so there is more room for large scale and complex puzzles that require precise commands. Although there are five less levels in this iteration, the improvement in challenge more than makes up for that, and the mobile (iOS) version has ten more levels than its browser counterpart. What isn't there to like about ten extra levels and the FREE price tag? The game claims that pigs WILL fly and it delivers, so get to work! The pig won't move itself you know!

Play Pigs Will Fly

iTunes App Store (iOS):
Get Pigs Will Fly (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch)