There but for the grace of my ten-speed and a bunch of hand-printed fliers go I. Jackson Lango's Canvasser tells the story of what it's like to be really invested in a cause and trying to get everyone on board with it. Through gameplay that's part strategy and part sim with just a dash of arcade action, you're tasked with helping a charity raise money to prevent a forest from being clear cut. But as anyone who's ever tried to do it will tell you, successful canvassing requires a bit more than waggling your brows and thrusting a donation tin at someone, and you'll need to be persistent, people-savvy, and even thick-skinned to survive meeting your goals each day... and your coworkers!

Just click people to interact and make choices. Each day you're given a target donation amount, then sent to a different location to try to raise awareness... and funds! How much people are willing to donate depends on a lot of things, from their mood to the location, but most importantly, how much they care about the matter at hand, and how much they trust you. Those two factors can be raised by talking to them about different related topics, but be careful not to bore them or scare them off by asking for a lot of money. Equally important is your confidence, which increases not only by hitting certain milestones, but by performing well in interactions. Keep an eye out for power-ups that can randomly spawn during a stage, since nabbing one can temporarily give your stats a boost. Watch your time, though, since when the clock in the upper-right corner ticks down, you're done for the day, so be sure to move fast and talk to as many people as possible. When your confidence bar is filled, that's your time to strike, since people will be much more receptive to you! Just be careful, since if you fail to meet your goal three times in a row, you'll lose your job... though meeting your goal at least once resets the three strikes.

Despite looking fairly simple, Canvasser has a bit of neat depth to it. Factors like the weather can influence how people react to you, and even the age of a person can determine how long they're willing to listen to you talk without getting bored. The game is, undeniably, more than a little repetitive, and not everyone likes scrambling within a time limit. Especially when you fall a single dollar short of your goal and are still treated like a failure. But on the other hand... Going out day after day, worrying about meeting deadlines and quotas, the frustration of getting brushed off or knowing who you're talking to isn't really listening to... by presenting all of this in an arcade game-like format, Canvasser gets its point across in an entertaining way without beating you over the head with it. Of course, whether that point still remains fun as a game is up to you. Sometimes funny, good looking, and definitely unique, Canvasser is worth a look... and just might make you think twice the next time you go to reflexively brush that person on the street corner with the clipboard off when they ask for a moment of your time.

Play Canvasser

Captain's Log: Stardate: 52120.13*: After a weekend viewing of a certain blockbuster release (no points for guessing which one), the JayIsGames Vault Commander wishes to share some of the greatest space games from the JiG archives with the rest of the universe. As this is well within the parameters of our five year mission, this week in The Vault, we now present a smattering of classic action, strategy, and physics titles. End transmission.

• Omega Crisis - There's nothing quite like the rush of exploring the unknown, being the first to set your eyes upon planetary vistas never before encountered... and then exploiting all the available resources to the fullest as you fend off the streams of filthy xenos who are sore they came in second. Omega Crisis, a 2010 defense shooter by Lucidrine, truly captures the tenseness of being a tiny pocket of humanity possessing only a few thin walls standing between them and annihilation. That is to say, it gives you the stress of both frenetic PEW-PEW-ing, but also the necessary strategic resource management needed to ensure spindly face-huggers don't randomly start pouring in through an overlooked weak spot in your barricades. It's a heck of a crisis, yes, but, fortunately, a very enjoyable one.
• Star Relic - There is comparatively less PEW-PEW-ing Star Relic, a 2010 turn-based strategy board game by Indigon, but that's just because your weapons of choice aren't blaster, but armadas. It's a game of careful planning against tough-but-fair AI opponents, with a unique "orbiting" mechanic that justifies its interstellar setting. Star Relic is easy to pick up, and hard to stop playing, as players will be ever-wanting one more go, certain that THIS is the time those slimy reptiles and confusing asexual space blobs will know defeat... or those slimy, confusing humans, if the reptiles or asexual space blobs happen to be your team of choice. Star Relic is nothing if not equal opportunity in its sliminess department.
• Gravitee 2 - After all that future warring, you might be ready for a fun, simple, relaxing game of golf. Well, Gravitee 2, a 2009 physics sports game by FunkyPear, will help you out on two of those counts: fun and relaxing it is, no doubt, and slinging your space-ball around planets starts out easy enough. By the end of the course, however, getting all the medals will anything but simple. Gravitee 2 may use planets and hoops in the place of sand traps and holes, but the joy of achieving the elegance of a perfect shot remains. And, with the game's replay code system, you can share your mad skillz with all of us! We promise not to get too jealous!

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!

* Stardate may not be at all legitimate in any way.

If Beret Applications' Demon Chic were a person it would be a Brooklyn-dwelling record store clerk riding a fixie to a farmer's market while listening to Yo La Tengo. It would be of the species Homo ironicus—in other words, the creature popular culture has dubbed the hipster. Yet, astonishingly, the game is neither as insufferable nor pretentious as this analogy would suggest. Instead this mobile piece of art instead is an entirely successful marriage of action RPG gameplay with an absurd, darkly funny, and frequently touching story.

Gary and his boyfriend Ashok are forced to take in Ashok's brother Devraj as a roommate after Devraj finishes college and can't find a job. The game's allusive and frequently tangential narrative follows the trio as they battle the demons induced by schizophrenia and drug abuse in both figurative and literal forms. Battles are conducted by dragging floating letters to the bottom of the screen to form words that deal damage. You start with FIRE and ICE but as the game progresses offensive and defensive buffs are added, and enemy weakness make the psychotic plants and disembodied heads that much easier to defeat. You can select skill improvements every few battles, but overall the roleplaying aspect is downplayed in order to allow the player to focus on the aesthetics and narrative.

Analysis: Like the guy that spends an hour every day perfecting his bed head, Demon Chic's shambolic exterior belies the effort that it took to produce. The dialogue tossed back and forth among the three central characters deal with race, sexuality, mental illness, and other topics you wouldn't expect to see in an RPG based around pulverizing demons. It's a testament to the realistic quality of the dialogue and situations that we wondered if the three main characters were based directly upon real-life counterparts. Coming as it is from three young friends, Demon Chic's dialogue is heavy with references to sex and drug use, yet these are incorporated naturalistically; it never feels as if the writer is out to shock. This is the rare game in which the label of mature content does not mask embarrassingly juvenile presentation or sensationalist posturing.

Demon Chic is a message game, certainly, but its offhanded nature works in its favor to soften the capital-I Importance of its underlying themes. It's perfectly possible to just enjoy Demon Chic purely as the idiosyncratically gorgeous work of New Media art that it is, but it's also impossible to step away from the game without subsequently pausing to reflect briefly on what you have just witnessed. It is remarkably neither heavy-handed nor polemic despite referencing situations that most games never venture near.

The gameplay, interesting enough but rudimentary, is completely overshadowed by the stunning audiovisual display. Each screen is a legitimate work of art, with endearingly cartoonish and sketchy backgrounds interspersed with surreal watercolor illustrations. You will want to progress the story just to see what absurdist delights wait around the next corner. The soundtrack is as equally high quality, with tracks coming from psychedelic rock vets Queen Elephantine. Imagine a band led by Jim Morrison's stoner metal cousin and you're halfway there.

We initially expected this unusual presentation to become grating, but thankfully it never does. The narrative is inventively spry and changes direction and form frequently, switching between slice-of-life vignettes and hallucinatory side stories in a way that keeps the flow pacy. As soon as you tire of one section, a fresh change in perspective appears.

It can't be emphasized enough: Demon Chic is a visual narrative in which gameplay elements are only a minor presence in an overall experience. Those expecting deep roleplaying mechanics will be disappointed. Yet although the gameplay is basic it is not extraneous—art and game are tied together. The art could not exist without the game, and vice versa. By the inclusion of this participatory element the metaphoric impact of the narrative is increased, and a product is created that presents an kind of experience unable to be duplicated by other forms of narrative.

The late Roger Ebert famously questioned the ability of the video game to ponder great questions about the human condition without becoming a mere ghost of existing text based forms. A uniquely involving and often wryly funny meditation on human tolerance and difference, this game answers the question implicit in Ebert's statement: what can a video game say that other forms of art cannot? A landmark in app design and an indication of the medium's emerging maturity, Demon Chic deserves to be experienced by every iPad owner with an open mind.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to egg the Flintstones' car, you're about to find out. Disaster Will Strike 2 is Anton Koshechkin's sequel to the physics puzzle Disaster Will Strike!, and it picks up where the original left off. Your goal is to destroy all the eggs on the screen by destroying the structures around them (à la Sieger), and your tools are various natural (and un-natural) disasters. (Haven't you ever wanted to use bees as an offensive weapon? I know I have.)

Disaster Will Strike 2 ramps up the difficulty much faster than the original, and it has more levels, but the only really new element it introduces is the Epidemic tool that lets you infect an egg, which then infects other nearby eggs. But each level presents a unique challenge, and fans of the first game will simply crack over the sequel. (There had to be an egg pun in there somewhere, don't look at me like that.)

Play
Disaster Will Strike 2

It has been but days since you and your sister were forced to move to Ashbane, The City of Rats. For all the rumors you've heard, the experience of being in the Hernessian Guard is ten times worse, with threats both magical and scientific threatening the populace from every side. Recently, you uncovered evidence of a conspiracy to assassinate one of Ashbane's leaders through the use of a horrific weapon that has already killed dozens of innocents. You must track the assassin, bring them to justice, and, maybe, shine a little light of truth into the Kingdom of Liars. Kingdom of Liars 2 is the second in the series of dark fantasy point-and-click adventures from Hyptosis, and the plot only gets thicker from here.

Point and click to interact with the main game window, and be sure to note to the way your cursor changes to denote people to speak to, items of interest, or objects to pick up. Once something is in your inventory at the bottom of the screen, just click to select it, and then again wherever you want to use it. With his admittedly admirable drive for experimentation, Hyptosis' games have been a little hit and miss as of late, so it's refreshing to see him revel it what he's great at: world-building, colorful characters, humorous descriptions, intriguing twists... and smacking players with the ending just as things are getting good. Oh well, even a short trip through Hyptosis' mind is a good one, and, no fibbin', Kingdom of Liars 2 is excellent.

Play Kingdom of Liars 2

Such a friendly edition of Mobile Monday, this is. Everybody's our friend, especially those who deliver good games to us. We also seem to have a penchant for puzzle games, which are basically brain BFFs.

Nono says Yesyes to iOS - Mmm, delicious picross puzzles. We love 'em, and you probably do, too. If you don't, we can't be friends anymore. Our current BFFs at Graycode Software released NonoCube earlier this year for Android and Kindle devices, bringing a fantastic touch interface to dozens of amazing 3D picross puzzles. Now iOS owners don't have to be left out, as NonoCube has finally hit iPhone and iPad! Rejoice! You can also win a free copy of the game if you're clever enough!

Timbuktu lands on Android - Earlier this year, Green Eyed Games released a charming puzzle game for PC/Mac called Last Train to Timbuktu. The game elegantly combined a Rubik's cube with a sliding block puzzle, challenging you to arrange tiles so the train could make it to the station on time. Now the train is pulling into mobile territory where it fits quite nicely, landing on Android devices as a free download. This thing was made for the touch screen!

Sparkle 2 coming this summer - 10tons continues chugging forward with more great (and gorgeous) mobile games. The team recently released Clowns in the Face, which is every bit as fun as the name implies, and has now announced the impending release of Sparkle 2, a sequel to the original marble popping matching game. Allows us to make some preliminary observations: mmm, pretty picture. That is all. Sparkle 2 will hit iOS, Windows and Mac this June. Eep!

Free App of the Week: Pudding Monsters - Each week on the iTunes App Store, Apple drops a single release down to the tasty price of "free". This week, that freebie is Pudding Monsters, a game we reviewed and thought totally rocked. Just tap and swipe on a Pudding Monster to set it in motion, and it'll keep sliding unless there's something in the way. If that something is another Monster, they'll squish and merge together, and the goal is to make sure all Monsters in a level have been assimilated. Easy? Ha, yeah right!

Go Home Dinosaurs! doesn't sound like anything a sane person would say, mainly because dinosaurs are awesome and inside all of us lurks a five-year-old (or Ross Gellar) giddy at the thought of dinos in our house. But it's only a good idea to have them around if you're not barbecuing, and unfortunately that's what the gophers happen to be doing, and now the only defense against the BBQ-hungry horde of giant lizards is the tower kind... tower-defense, that is! Fire Hose Games delivers a gorgeous comedic and colourful game that's big on strategy.

At the start of each level, you'll be given your choice of cards to fill your maximum hand... since different cards summon different units with their own unique effects, you'll want to think carefully about what you're up against to decide and and how much to use. Dinos will flood in waves from the cave and head along the path to your barbecue. Two piles of dynamite will protect your delicious meats at the cost of a single steak each time a dino triggers one, but when those run out, it's game over, man! Initially, all you have is one gopher who will dig anywhere onscreen you click on and attack anything within range. To get help, you need to send him to collect coconuts when they appear, and these are spent to use the cards in your hand. Each card, when picked up, will show you the size of your unit and the range around it, so right-click if you need to rotate it and think carefully before you place it since you can't rearrange a unit once it's down. Collect coins to spend in the store for special cards with temporary boosts, or fancy new outfits to class up your gopher.

Analysis:Go Home Dinosaurs! is not a game to be played without an eye for strategy. You'll want to eye the lay of the land to figure out what cards to pick at the start of each level, since some units are useless on certain stages where the terrain prevents them from being placed effectively. And speaking of being placed, since you can't move units once they're down, you really need to think carefully about what you're doing. Why can't I spend more coconuts to move or rotate towers? And why can't I choose which dino my gopher attacks when there are a whole bunch of them within range? These two seemingly small things can lead to big frustrations if you accidentally plop down a tower in the wrong position, or realise late in a long level you're going to have to restart because your placement isn't working out. This, along with other things like the lack of an option to speed things up or see how many dinos of each type you'll be facing, means die-hard tower defense fans may find a few things lacking.

Of course, you shouldn't take those criticisms as an effort to warn you away from it, because if I didn't think you should play Go Home Dinosaurs! I wouldn't be here telling you about it or tabbing back into game to play another level when I should be working. The challenging yet accessible gameplay and beautiful character design makes this the perfect choice for casual fun. The card setup is actually a clever one, forcing you to really think and plan your layouts to get the most out of them, especially when it comes to figuring out just how to fit each unit to its best advantage. As a result, the game's vibrant design packed with pop culture references masks a perfectly engaging little gem. There's even an optional vegetarian mode to replace all the barbecue with veggies... though you'll have to grind a whole lot of coins to pay for it first. With a ton of levels, unique towers and baddies, and some serious challenge to boot, Go Home Dinosaurs! is a vibrant little game that deserves a spot in any defense fan's library.

Windows:
Get the full version (via Steam)

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

Sometimes you're simply in the mood for a fairy tale. Let's face it, the grown-up world can get complicated and drab, and there's nothing like a bit of old-fashioned fantasy to lift your spirits. So come and spend a few hours in the enchanted realm of the newest hidden-object adventure, Princess Isabella: The Rise of an Heir by Gogii Games. There are fairies, a dragon, magic of all sorts, not to mention a whale with a Scottish accent, what more do you need? Young Bella is a pretty golden-haired teenager, blissfully oblivious of the evil surrounding her. The witch has discovered her whereabouts and has sent her hellish minions to take away Bella's fairy godmothers, leaving her without protection. Bella is now the kingdom's only hope, and she must find a way to end the witch's reign and lift the curse which envelops the land.

As far as gameplay goes, Princess Isabella: The Rise of an Heir offers more than your standard hidden-object adventure. In each scene, you can mouse over different objects. If your cursor turns into a hand, that means you can pick up an item; if a question mark appears, you should use an item from your inventory to interact with it. Hidden-object scenes are indicated with sparkles. However, in addition to this, you can use a flute to call your dragon for help and a wand to break things with (hey, not all princesses have to be dainty and gentle!). Your fairy godmothers will also accompany you as you save them one by one, and you will be able to use their powers to change the world around you.

Analysis: Compared to its predecessor, the game offers some definite improvements. For one thing, the astonishingly annoying blue fairy has decided it's time to tone down, so she's now content with giving advice during cutscenes. The sound effects are unobtrusive and more appropriate, meaning that not every action you take is followed by harps and fanfares. The graphics haven't had a major overhaul, but the scenes look royally grandiose and it's always wonderful to see cursed rooms come back to life and fill with joy and merriment.

A Disney-like atmosphere can be felt all through the game, so the animations, which are more cartoonish than realistic, fit in quite nicely. The hidden-object scenes could have done with a little variety. In the olden days, we were used to the click-on-stuff-to-cross-it-off-a-list variety, but it's 2013 and we now appreciate some more puzzliness and challenge. Speaking of which, the mini-games vary from extremely simple to relatively tricky, but never venture into the difficult territory. It is obvious that the developers made an effort to give the series a more grown-up air, but it's still probably a tad too easy for most casual gamers.

What sets Princess Isabella: The Rise of an Heir apart from other similar games is the way fantasy is built into the gameplay. Magical creatures abound, each with their own power, so there's always enough variety to hold your attention. The creatures are characters in their own right, rather than just sidekicks, and they add colour and depth to the plot. Some suspension of disbelief is needed, of course, as the story is one prince short of Sleeping Beauty, but that's the whole point – this is first and foremost an interactive fairy tale and as such, it works beautifully.

Princess Isabella: The Rise of an Heir is currently only available in a Collector's Edition, which includes a bonus level, concept art, wallpapers, behind the scenes footage and more. Remember that Big Fish Game Club Members pay only $13.99 for Collector's Editions (or 2 club credits), and collector's editions count 3 card punches of 6 total needed for a free game.

Windows:
Download the demo
Get the full version

Mac OS X:
Download the demo
Get the full version

Look, up in the sky! Now tip your head down just a bit. That skyline is the key to solving the puzzles in Skyscrapers Light, the newest logic puzzle addition to Conceptis's series of puzzle samplers. Like a sudoku puzzle, the goal is to fill the grid so that each number appears once in each row and column, but all of your clues are sitting outside the grid!

Imagine that the grid is a city block, made up of buildings of different heights. A 1 in the grid represents a one-story building, a 2 represents a two-story building, and so on. When all of the numbers are placed in the grid, the numbers on the outside of the grid tell you how many buildings are visible in that row from that direction, keeping in mind that a tall building will completely hide any smaller buildings behind it. These outside clues are all you get to fill in the entire city block, so it'll help if you become familiar with common patterns that come from clues in relation to each other. Do you have the street smarts to rebuild the city?

Play Skyscrapers Light Vol. 1

The woods are no place to be stranded in. You can lose your way; you can lose your mind; you can even lose yourself. Developed by Simulated Culture, Rootwork is a new strategic card game that drops you into the heart of the deepest, darkest forest and challenges you to make it out safely. However, a stray critter or a thorny bush are the least of your troubles here. These woods are full of dark forces and malevolent spirits, and at the center of the dark maelstrom is "She." Who is She? That's uncertain. But these are Her woods, and if She wants you to stay lost forever the odds are stacked against you.

Luckily, you are not alone. A mysterious Hoodoo man and his son Lucas appear to guide you and protect you with the power of Rootwork. Rootwork refers to Hoodoo practices of using found objects — a feather, a key, some river stones, etc. — to weave together powerful spells. With these simple items at your side, you might just stand a chance of escaping. Maybe.

The game begins with a thorough tutorial explaining the mechanics of Rootwork. Your goal is to flee the forest by visiting three specific Milestones before the sun goes down. Each round, you draw up to five Survival Cards. These are the tools you will use to bypass the Threats that block your passage. You then draw two Threat Cards and one Site Card, which hopefully contains one of the Milestones you need. There are four suits: Fury, Corruption, Deceit and Loss. Every Threat Card and Site Card contains up to two curses in a given suit. In order to access the Milestone on the Site Card, you need to nullify the curses on all three cards by placing Survival Cards of the same suit upon them (by tapping and dragging). However, if you're short on suits, every Survival Card can be turned face down (via a quick double-tap) and placed on any card to remove half a curse of any suit.

There are also special cards such as the Dense Underbrush, which acts as a wild card, and Strange Cairn, which allows you to peek at the top card of any of the four Site Decks. You also have pocket space which can be used to hold extra cards, although only one pocketed card can be played at any given time. Should you fail to remove the curses of either of the Threat Cards, you wil incur their wrath. Menaces will burden you with fright (get frightened more than three times and it's game over) while Sticks will take up pocket space and become irremovable.

Of course, there are a few more intricacies to the game, and it takes a minute or two to get the hang of, but Rootwork is by no means overly complex. Once you grasp the basic mechanics, jumping in is actually quite simple, and a game only takes a couple of minutes to complete. And once you've got the hang of one character, you can switch to another, which changes how many cards you can carry in your hand and/or pocket.

Analysis: It's always refreshing to see a card game that isn't based around battling a series of increasingly redundant monsters. Even if the backbone of Rootwork is a simple suit matching game, the idea is conceptually pleasing and has clearly been given plenty of thought. By escaping the forest multiple times you can unlock extra cards, characters and videos explaining the origin of the four great menaces, Ruin, Blight, Snare and Mourne, and the dark force controlling them all. There's certainly plenty of atmosphere and intrigue to be had here, which is something you don't often get with a card game that is this easy to play.

If there's one downside, it's that the unlockable cards and different characters don't add a tremendous deal of strategic variety to the mix. And since all of the unlockables and achievements basically require you playing through the game a bunch of times (and we do mean a bunch — one achievement requires over 1,000 wins) tedium can set in quickly if you're just playing game after game after game. You can unlock all the cards via an in-app purchase, but if you do so, Lucas will berate you for cheating. (You can't buy your way to victory!)

But like the old standby Solitaire, Rootwork is a game you just find yourself coming back to for a quick round or seven. And unlike Solitaire, Rootwork is atmospheric, aesthetically pleasing and full of mystique. If you're looking for an interesting and unique card game, you could do far worse than to get lost in the woods of Rootwork.

Everybody knows to stay out of the forest. It's dark and dangerous and, ever since the last Forest Rite, the forest has taken on a life of its own, trapping the citizens inside Willow Ridge. But what happens if the forest doesn't stay out of town? One night, your lighthouse keeper husband disappears into the darkness, taking with him important secrets about Rite of Passage: Child of the Forest. That leaves you to play the heroine and save the town from the encroaching trees in this thoroughly engaging and beautiful hidden object adventure from Mad Head Games.

When you begin, you're in the dark about why the forest is attacking the town as much as everyone else. You know only enough to arm yourself with a special amulet that can ward off the nefarious darkness. When it is broken, though, shattered into pieces, your first task is to search for the pieces in a fragmented hidden object search scene. Just as in Rite of Passage: The Perfect Show, you'll find animated story scenes to fix which provide chapter structure to the game and help draw you deeper into the town's story. There are several refreshing varieties of search scenes and puzzles you'll encounter in Child of the Forest yet the game is as much about the story, exploration and adventure. That means traipsing back and forth through a wide variety of locations but a well-designed smart map lets you go anywhere you want with just a click, meaning your time is always spent engaged in the moment.

Analysis: Many times you'll need to search for or piece together tokens and keys to open new areas, other times you'll have to solve a puzzle or riddle. Whether these tasks are easy or challenging is completely left to player's choice. There's eight options that can be separately modified in the difficulty customization menu at any time during the game. Want no distracting sparkles yet don't want to wait more than 15 seconds for a new hint? Prefer almost no lifelines as you struggle to find answers and solve the town's dilemma? You can have it your way. You seem to be the only capable person in an entire town, which does do fabulous things for the ego. Even so, there's a great deal of logic and sense holding the story and gameplay together. For example, there's a reason you have to click on a list of seemingly random items in a search scene: to move them aside to find the pieces to the object you truly need.

Your suspension of disbelief does need to work on overdrive much the time and those who are impatient to understand why things are awry will have to grit it out until the end, when everything is explained. As for why only you can save the town, that's explained later, too. This surreal fantasy adventure doesn't take well to being described in mere words, though. Nothing I can say about Child of the Forest quite lives up to what it is. The best way to tell if this game is for you is by trying the demo and see if you, too, are entranced by Mad Head Games' astute talent for stunning visuals and engaging storytelling.

Currently only the Collector's Edition of this game is also available. It contains bonus content not found in the standard edition: a bonus chapter, replayable minigames, strategy guide, wallpapers, soundtrack and more. Remember that Big Fish Game Club Members pay only $13.99 for Collector's Editions (or 2 club credits), and collector's editions count 3 card punches of 6 total needed for a free game.

Windows:
Download the demo
Get the full version

Mac OS X:
Download the demo
Get the full version

To be an effective ninja, one must possess three things: speed, agility, and a healthy supply of liquid gold coursing through one's veins. In N v 2, you can put these skills to the test in 500 levels full of relentless enemies, deadly traps, and of course, gold. N v 2 is the follow-up to the original download version published by Metanet Software back in 2005, and plays practically identically to the original high-difficulty platformer, with the addition of a new co-op mode.

Each of the 100 "episodes" consists of five levels, all of which must be completed in 90 seconds or less. Move around with the [arrow] keys and jump with [Z] to hit the button that opens the exit, and get out of the room as quickly as you can. Each piece of gold will add two precious seconds to your life, so be sure to grab as much as you can. And as for the blue drones, weapons turrets, and red mines scattered around the room? AVOID THEM. Bumping into these will kill you instantly, and your progress in that level will be reset. You've got an unlimited number of lives, but being blown to bits when you're so close to the finish is never a fun feeling, so be careful out there.

N v 2 adds a two-player co-op mode that allows a friend to join in the fun. For this mode, player 1 uses [A] and [D] to move and [left shift] to jump, and player 2 uses [,] and [.] to move and [N] to jump. Both players' efforts are cumulative, and only one player has to reach the exit for both players to be successful. Nonetheless, the levels remain as tricky and deadly as ever, so be prepared for the long fight ahead as you progress down the path of N once more.

Play N v 2