There was this dame named Valerie, see, a dame with a sharp mind and great gams. This dame, she had ambitions, she wanted to be a reporter. All she needed was some juicy dirt and a good lead. Oh, and a job at a newspaper. And a boss that didn't just send her out to pick up his lunch. Welcome to Valerie Porter and the Scarlet Scandal, a hidden object/adventure hybrid set in the roaring 20s. Designed by Game Brains, it's a tale of greed, lust, and power as seen through the eyes of novice reporter Valerie Porter. Everything begins with a rather gruesome murder of a starlet in a dingy alley next to a gin joint. Valerie arrives at the scene and wonders if a story she broke for the Daily Informer could have caused the tragedy.

There are 11 chapters and a prologue to this messy tale, each chapter containing multiple HOG scenes interspersed with a variety of mini-games. Navigate from place to place using a subway map while attempting to accumulate clues. There's lots of cut scenes and dialogue which can be skipped, but it's not advisable, as many of the mini-games depend on your recall of events that transpired during the chapter. Although there are no timers in the scenes (except for the 60 second subway challenges), you gain more points for finishing quickly and creating as many "chains" as possible.

Many hidden object scenes contain puzzles to solve as well as a fun dynamic: combos. In any HOG scene, if there is more than one item, say ten pieces of a letter or 17 dolls, you can click and drag from one to another to pick them up simultaneously in a "chain", which nets extra bonus points. Each HOG scene also includes five bells, a sort of extra scavenger hunt. Areas that need to be examined more closely or that can be manipulated will cause a blue question mark to appear above the cursor. Hints are on a refilling timer which can refill even faster with batteries, which the player can find in every HOG scene. Clicking on the name of an item in the list to be found will bring up a helpful silhouette of the object to aid in its recovery.

List items themselves are not always straightforward. Some lists contain actual item names, some lists merely contain clues, and some contain riddles. Find "an object for luck", or find "five flies that aren't flies" to add to the HOG fun. Although most dialogue passages are simple cut-scenes, there are areas where you will have to choose the correct question to get a suspect spilling their guts.

Adding to the challenge of some of the HOG scenes are the "footsteps of doom". In some locations Valerie is certainly where she shouldn't be, and if you hear footsteps you must turn of the light in the room and continue searching by flashlight, upping the difficulty in some areas. What happens if you don't turn out the lights? Well, Valerie gets caught and you have to start the whole scene over again.

Many of the mini-games between scenes are either word searches, "fill in the words" challenges, or "create the headline" challenges, all of which rely on the memory of the player. In the word searches, you will be presented with lists of words to find that relate to a section of the chapter. However, only the first words in the lists will show, forcing you to remember details about both HOG scenes and dialogue. Other mini-games involve assembling equipment, creating developer for the darkroom (with all the labels from the chemical bottles conveniently missing), and manipulating a classic old-style black and white enlarger to print evidence photos. All of the games are rather familiar, but the difficulty climbs nicely as the story progresses.

Analysis: The artwork of Valerie Porter and the Scarlet Scandal is, for the most part, bright and photorealistic. HOG scenes are a bit cluttered but not terribly so. Not, perhaps, the most stunning or original artwork out there, but fun nevertheless as everything is done up in a fabulous art deco style, from the cursor to the menu and everything in-between. Clothing and locations also reflect the time period, as do the objects that you are finding. No anachronisms here! Period appropriate music and snappy dialogue (delivered with some fine voice acting) completes the illusion of being transported to a time when women were just joining the workforce, when organized crime owned most politicians, and when alcohol was illegal (but still widely consumed).

You can skip the dialogue sections, but you will find yourself at a disadvantage when you reach the end of a chapter and have to complete a "fill in the word" puzzle based on the chapter events. All of the mini-games are skippable, but that would lessen the enjoyment of the immersion. Valerie Porter and the Scarlet Scandal lends itself well to casual gameplay, each chapter being pretty self-contained.

There are a few problems, however. The game is not as long as it could have been. As with most HOG/adventure hybrids on the market you are looking at perhaps 2-3 hours of gameplay. The click area for picking up objects is very tight, which can get a little frustrating when you are trying to pick up objects quickly. A few of the character portrayals — while perhaps accurate to the time period (or at least, accurate to movies of the time period) — border on stereotypical and even perhaps mildly offensive. The subject matter itself, corruption, infidelity, greed, murder, and suicide make the game perhaps not the best choice for younger players. The memory mini-games are a fun change from the ordinary, but they are pretty simple, and could have used some beefing up. On the plus side, extra effort was exerted to make the game playable for both the hearing impaired and those who like to play with the sound off. Places where audio clues are vital also have visual cues so that nothing is missed.

Wander back to a time when men were guys and women were dolls, when gin joints and speakeasies were the happening places to be, and when an intrepid girl reporter could really make a difference.

Windows:
Download the demo
Order the full version

Mac OS X:
Download the demo
Order the full version

Valerie Porter and the Scarlet Scandal is available to download from these affiliates:

Who needs bajillions of colors, seriously? The games below illustrate that all you need for a visual presentation are a few well-placed shades of gray (or orange and black, for the last one) and you've got yourself a visual style!

ButaVX: Justice Fighter (Windows, 7.6MB, free) - A short but wholly enjoyable RPG that plays out with comic-style cutscenes and action sequences. ButaVX's favorite ball has ended up in the wrong hands. In order to retrieve it, he has to go on an adventure to find the Sword of Justice. Explore the village, head out into the wilderness where you'll encounter discarded cell phones as enemies, and return to complete your quest. Although the setup is standard RPG fare, the manga-influenced action shots and overall art style really pull you in to this pencil drawn world. You'll be sad when it's over!

Umbrella Adventure - The Castle of Cake (Windows, 48.7MB, free) - Just as you wake up, you find your stash of cakes has been stolen. Great. As you head out into the rainy night, you pick up an umbrella that can, eventually, be used for all sorts of things. Work your way through this inventive adventure platformer, smacking enemies and soaking in the surprisingly deep monotone atmosphere. There's a lot of jumping and other action skills required to beat the game, but there's also a fair amount of Metroidvania-style exploration, too.

Home (Mac/Win, 1MB, free) - Home is a brief tale of an old man's daily life. Shuffle back and forth in your room, taking care of your basic needs such as food and rest as the bars at the top of the screen begin to deplete. Talk to the nurse to keep your happiness level high. But... what happens if you let something run out?

Note: All games have been confirmed to run under Windows Vista and are virus-free. Mac users should try Boot Camp, Parallels, or CrossOver Games to play Windows titles, Linux users can use Wine. If you know of a great game we should feature, use the Submit link above to send it in!

So, picture this. You're lounging on the beach, wearing your special lounging overalls, thinking about how great it is that nobody has rammed an enormous ship into your island recently... when some jerk rams his enormous ship into the island! As if that weren't bad enough, the hull cracks open and before you know it, you're elbow-deep in smiling pineapples, green-legs-and-ham, and screaming... blue... mole... things! Clearly, this will not do, and the king demands that you saddle up to defend the land! It's a game of reflexes and good old fashioned arcade action in Super Sloth Bomber!

Oh, did we not mention you're a sloth? We thought that would have been obvious.

Control your trusty balloon with the [arrow] or [WASD] keys and drop bombs with the [spacebar]. If an enemy is close enough, you'll blow them to that great big dancing ham graveyard in the sky. Some enemies require more than one bomb to destroy, while others appear on a timer or move in a unique pattern. You can keep track of them with the onscreen radar. Not only will you have to be quick to catch them all, you'll have to keep an eye on your time and the number of bombs you have left. Run out of either and you'll be one sad little sloth, and all the eucalyptus in the world won't be enough to lift your spirits.

The game consists of five big areas, each stuffed with eight stages and one boss fight. You can access each area as they become available from the main map, which is also where you can pay a visit to the upgrade store, or even the king himself, who will give you advice, or let you hone your bomb-slingin' skills on the training grounds. What's that? Oh, so a bulls-eye with legs is weird, but you have no problem with blowing up boulders to bowl over tip-toeing weasels in sailor outfits on top of a volcano.

Analysis: If you don't find something to like about Super Sloth Bomber's ultra bright and happy design, well, I don't know what to tell you. While the cartoonish visuals might not be everyone's cup of tea, here they are absolutely spot on. From the big puffy clouds (do they look like manatees to anyone else?) to the happy-go-lucky sloths themselves, it's basically sunshine in your browser. The wacky art style is easily one of the game's bigger selling points, and helps elevate the simple premise.

Because the gameplay is so simple, Super Sloth Bomber is pretty accessible. But is it too simple? It might be for some gamers. The stages don't really start demanding much from you in the area of planning until fairly late in the game. And why not allow us to go back and replay earlier stages if we want to? Maybe we really like fighting enormous terrapins, or blowing up hamburgers on mountains. Or maybe we just want to grind for some coins to purchase a new upgrade or bomb type. Sure that means some of us will sit on the same levels for hours until we have every single powerful upgrade in the shop and potentially make the game that much easier, but shouldn't that be our choice?

Still, it's hard to dislike a game about sloths, especially one as bouncy-fun and well made as this one. It probably won't take you long to complete, but you can spend a lot of time ignoring the oddball baddies and bombing the equally ridiculous terrain, too. So don't delay, young sloth. Tighten up your overalls and saddle up your balloon. Your island needs you!

Play Super Sloth Bomber.

Elementals: The Magic Key is a new hidden object game from the game developers at Playrix Entertainment. In it you take the role of a young wizard named Albert. He's a little flaky, a little flighty, and he didn't get the best grades in his spell-casting classes. One day while using his fortune telling table he sees a vision of the Key of Eiron, the artifact protecting their magical land from the forces of evil, being destroyed by the evil wizard Sibelius. When he goes to tell his sister Lily, the protector of the Key, he finds she's been kidnapped! Thus begins Albert's greatest adventure, with the aid of his faithful companion Felly: to rescue his sister Lily, restore the Great Key, and rid the land of the scourge of Sibelius and his evil minions forever.

As the game moves from scene to scene, you'll find yourself faced with a string of hidden object puzzles. Each time you're looking for something specific, such as pieces to a broken mirror, and then putting them back together. Unlike many hidden object games, you won't have to find random objects from an arbitrary list. Everything you need is directly related to your task. By not falling into the pitfalls of many other hidden object games, Elementals keeps you involved in its rich atmosphere.

Mini-puzzles pop up quite often during play. These range from memory puzzles to rotating puzzles to a variation of the classic Towers of Hanoi. In order to activate the portal to each of the lands that you will visit, you must solve a logic puzzle that has you reflecting colored light around a board. While many of the puzzles are fairly straightforward, some are quite challenging and will take some thought to work out. Should you get stuck for too long, you will (after a set amount of time) be able to click the "help" button and skip the puzzle. A rather unique feature of this game is that once you have faced a puzzle, regardless of whether you solved it or not, you can go back and replay it. Gives you a chance to spend more time on the more difficult puzzles without holding up your adventuring.

The other major game element you'll encounter are enemy battles. These are handled by playing a special board game that can be best described as turn-based combat on a chessboard. Each player has a number of pieces set at random around their side of the board. The goal is to move your piece into range of enemy pieces and attack. Move to the middle boundary and you'll see an attack range displayed. By moving pieces next to each other in horizontal, vertical, or diagonal lines, you can make more powerful pieces that require more hits to destroy. Of course, so can your enemy. There's a lot of strategy to this part of the game, and learning to master it is both challenging and entertaining. Add to this magical artifacts that allow you to cast spells in later rounds and the combat could almost stand on its own as a casual board game.

Analysis: The hidden-object genre has become one of the most popular in all of casual gaming, and developers have stepped up to provide content to feed that need. With so many games out there, good developers are constantly trying to find ways to make their games stand out from the crowd. Playtrix has done an excellent job by focusing the hidden object sections to relevant items, by creating challenging puzzles, and by creating a battle system that's fluid and unique in its own right.

The way the hidden object scenes in Elementals function, they almost feel like a point-and-click adventure. There's a lot of clicking to operate devices, clicking to go places, and clicking to look at things. It really helps to elevate the game above other hidden object games, especially the ones that have you finding a laundry list of random items.

The puzzles are well implemented, never too tough (if a bit too easy), and the mechanics work nicely. There are a couple of true noggin scratchers in there, and, even if they do stump your grey matter, there's always the skip button. In fact, that little button almost becomes too much of a temptation, constantly nagging you to just skip puzzles/battles and turbo through the rest of the game.

After such an amazing journey, with lots of great characters and a good story, Elementals supplies a truly terrible ending. Without giving it away, it's derivative at best, seriously clichéd at worst. But, how does the old saying go? The fun is in the journey, not the destination. And, luckily, that applies to Elementals.

While it may have its flaws, Elementals: The Magic Key is a fun fantasy hidden object romp. With the ability to not only revisit the puzzles, but to battle against different creatures you have faced, as well as six others after finishing the game, there is actually some replay value here, which is something that is rarely said about this genre.

Windows:
Download the demo
Order the full version

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

Elementals: The Magic Key is available to download from these affiliates:

Welcome to your Friday! Specifically, your Link Dump Friday, where we've assembled for you a fantastical conglomeration of some of the 'net's Link Dumpiest games. You want ninja? We got yer ninja. You want weaponry? Yeeeeah, boooy-eee, we got yer weaponry! You want a game with dozens of hours of engrossing play, unlimited replayability, and some of the hottest achievements you'll ever unlock? Well, too bad! We'd like a pony, but it ain't gonna happen! Geez, we had a good thing going together here, and you had to go and get greedy, didn't you? Some people!

• Number Ninjas - Crouching number, hidden mathematical problem! In his entry for the Experimental Gameplay Project numbers theme, Peter Groeneweg taps the pulse of today's youth with a stylish game of... math! Woooo! Actually, while not without its issues, this oddball little game where you throw different shurikens to solve problems as a sneaking, leaping ninja number is surprisingly stylish and certainly worth a look.
• The Gun Game - As a proper, refined lady, I am typically only interested in gun games if they involve the application of weaponry upon the undead. By contrast, this physics game has no shambling zombies for you to unleash your (wo)manly rage upon, but it does boast a variety of detailed weapons, achievements to earn, and an admirable attempt to make every weapon behave realistically, down to recoil and reloading. Learning is fun-damental!
• B.C. Bow Contest - Hey, Nitrome! Long time no see! A really long time, if the cavemen are any indicator. Designed to be played solo or with a friend, Nitrome's latest offering is a game of prehistoric skill where you compete against various stoneage champions to prove who has the best unibrow of them all. I mean, archery abilities.
• Cat Got Lost - It's hard to nail down precisely what about this little pixel puzzler is so weirdly interesting. Pick up the right keys in the right sequence to unlock the doors leading to your cat across twenty levels. It'll probably only take up about five minutes of your time, but we dare you not to crack a smirk at the progressively more plaintive one-liners that crop up between each level. It's fast and strange, but I like it. (Perhaps because of my inherent kinship with the "strange" part.)
• Bubble Guinea Pop - This is a game about guinea pigs who kick butt and chew bubble gum. Actually, wait. Apparently, they just chew bubble gum. And they do it to save zoo animals by flinging themselves around the screen and blowing bubbles of the sticky stuff. Obviously. I mean, what else would a guinea pig be doing with bubble gum? It makes so much sense! Thank you, Longanimals! Now I can finally sleep at night.

You know what your day needs? Tanks. Specifically, tanks shooting at other tanks. Whoooole lotta tanks. You may not know it, but right now, along with some tactical turn-based warfare, tanks are exactly what you need. And what better way to fill that void than with the next chapter in Urbansquall's Battalion series, Battalion: Ghosts.

Continuing on where Battalion: Nemesis left off, Ghosts throws you right back into the middle of the action, commanding your troops to lead them to victory over the course of the game's story, told in scenes before and after battles. While the humour is rather predictably corny, the writing is at least competent, and serves as a nice way to tie the game together rather than turning it into a string of unrelated battles. It actually manages to nicely capture the goony, cheesy feel of old console or handheld titles.

Gameplay has stayed the same turn-based tactical combat you're probably familiar with by now if you're a fan of the series. (If not, we recommend paying a visit to the tutorial.) Click on a unit when it's your turn, then click on an available square to move there, or nearby enemy to attack. If you're not so much into the, you know, being good at strategy, like yours truly, you can also adjust the difficulty between stages. It alters the AI of your opponents from "lemmings", to "competent", to the always popular, "my face, my face, oh God I think they broke my face". There's still no multiplayer, but, well, isn't that what Battalion: Arena is for? Still, it would have been nice to allow the opposing faction to be controlled by either a CPU or a fellow player. Sure it means your friend would have to wind up taking the fall for you to, you know, progress and finish the game, but I always say a true friend is someone willing to take a humiliating, crushing dirtnap for you.

Analysis: In terms of core gameplay, nothing has really changed since Nemesis, but the whole game has gotten a facelift. Visually, Ghosts is a step above the first chapter of the planned trilogy. The art has swung around to be comprised almost entirely out of pixels, and the whole game looks better for it. Animation is also smoother. Hey there! Who's a good looking little turn-based game no longer suffering from sketchy graphics compression? Is it you? Izzit you? Yes it is! Yes it is!

The bad news is that most people will probably fly through the whole chapter fairly quickly.While some scenarios are trickier than others, the first few stages are disappointingly easy. Sure it's friendlier to newcomers, but for anyone who has played the first chapter in the series, the hand-holding just serves to get us impatient for more challenging battles. And after the wide array of weapons and strategies at your disposal in Battalion: Arena, Ghosts' structured battles with new technology doled out at the speed of plot may chafe a little. Players who want careful battles where they have to consider their every move may find the initially limited arsenal a welcome challenge, but the rest of us just want to play with the biggest tanks around. (Although maybe it's best we don't given how small the maps here tends to be.)

But even with the shortish campaign, fans of the genre will probably welcome Ghosts with open arms. It's undeniably well made, fun and accessible, and a great homage to turn-based strategy games of yore. Will we have to wait another year for the last chapter in the series to come out? Hopefully not. But for now, it's time to slap on your elaborately festooned helmet of choice, leap astride your brightly coloured war machine, and ride gloriously into battle. Onward, fearless leader!

Play Battalion: Ghosts.

Ah, curiosity. It may have killed the cat, but it is one of the most defining characteristics of humanity. From the person who wondered; "hmmm, what if I shave off the corners of this block, flatten it on two sides, put a stick through the middle and see if it will roll?" to the one who thought; "what if I take a fissionable material, say, and surround it with shaped charges that will rapidly compress it from all sides equally and then maybe drop it on a city?" The answers to these questions have changed civilization (for good or for ill is up to you to decide) and reinforce the fact that occasionally we're just too inquisitive for our own good. We simply cannot resist tinkering. So, what will a naturally curious person do when confronted with a point and click puzzle like The Control Panel? Why, push the button, of course!

Well, push several buttons, anyway. And maybe some switches, too. Created back in 2005 and designed by Shaun Salzberg, The Control Panel is something that you just can't resist playing with. What will happen if you push that button? Or slide that knob? Or rewire that panel? Or...

The game begins with a simple statement: turn on the uppermost lights to solve the mystery. Easy, yes? If you choose to solve the mystery you will be confronted by a simple panel comprised of different controls and a basic monitor in the middle. There's no looking around the back or sides, no movement involved at all (except the movement of the switches, buttons, and wires). The Control Panel is an exercise in pure logic. There's no navigation involved, just click on things to see if you can affect them or not. If you can, then the next step is to determine what to do to activate the lights. What numbers do you enter? What switches do you flip? What happens if you do...this?

Analysis: The Control Panel is an oldie but a goodie. Despite its age the game is a tight, well-constructed puzzle solving treat. Stripped of everything that usually accompanies a puzzle of this sort, no story, no background, no instructions, be prepared to sit back and let the gameplay blow your mind (and perhaps cause a concussion, if you end up banging your head against the nearest flat surface in frustration).

The graphics are, well, pretty basic. Primary colors and flat, cartoony visuals make up The Control Panel. However, the unreality of the visuals do not detract in any way from the joy of driving yourself nuts trying to get those darn lights on. There's no music, but that's all to the good as it would soon become distracting, and when trying to solve this puzzle the last thing you need is distracting. A save button would have been nice for those who would like to take a break between the cursing and the headbanging.

So if you want some casual gameplay that involves lots of logic without any of that messy story stuff, then pull up a chair, hunker down, and start flipping some switches. Just remember: curiosity did, indeed, kill the cat. Will satisfaction bring him back? Perhaps...

Play The Control Panel!

Cheers to Black Drazon for the suggestion! =)

Warning: This game contains honest-to-goodness scientific content. Those looking for aliens and space battles should continue at their own risk.

Helium-3 is an RTS with an educational slant from the folks at Discovery.com. It is the year 2035. The energy crisis of the 90s and new millennium has led to a global energy crash. Fossil fuels are being depleted at an alarming rate, and renewable energy sources have not been able to keep up with global demand. The world is on the brink of a complete shut-down, unless a new source of energy can be found. Luckily, one already has been located.

During the Apollo space program, numerous samples were retrieved from the moon and brought back to Earth for study. Among other things, scientists found an element originally discovered back in 1934 called helium-3 (³He). This non-radioactive isotope is sought after for use in nuclear fusion reactions. And it is this element that will save the human race. The decision is made to mine the moon for helium-3 and start using it to power helium-helium fusion reactors. 100 tonnes of the element can power the Earth for a year, and there is thought to be over a million tonnes just in the first few meters of lunar soil.

Of course, as with any opportunity like this, people are going to try and profit from it. Thus begins a rash of claim-staking the likes of which hasn't been seen since the early 19th century. At over $4 million per kilo, there is a lot of money to be made. As they say, everyone remembers the first person to the moon, but no one remembers who was second. Don't be second.

Each game consists of a competition between four rival miners on a section of the moon containing various amounts of helium-3. During each ten-minute battle there are two goals: be the one with the most money at the end, and/or be the last one with operational mining vehicles, or X-TRACT vehicles. These multi-purpose devices are your key to fame and fortune on the moon. In addition to mining the moon's surface for helium-3, they also contain offensive and defensive capabilities. The vehicles can fire either pulse-lasers in a line-of-sight fashion at other X-TRACT vehicles, or can launch guided missiles to take out opposing mining vehicles. They can also put up a shield to protect themselves from attack. And, in a last-ditch effort to save your bacon, they can self-destruct, taking out surrounding vehicles.

You start each round with five X-TRACT vehicles. Gameplay takes place in timed turns. You have the time given for the other three players' turns, plus the time of your own turn (approximately 5 seconds) to decide what to do with two of your five vehicles. You can either move the vehicle, order it to mine a surrounding location, arm one of its weapons, or order it to fire an already-armed weapon. Strategy comes into play when trying to decide whether to defend, go on the offensive, or mine for money. You also need to try and guess what your opponents are up to. Do you need to move your vehicles out of range of a well-planned attack or can you jump in an mine one more square before the time is up?

You can compete in practice battles against computer opponents at three difficulty levels, but the only way to earn money and upgrades for your X-TRACT vehicles is to compete in matches against human opponents. The moon in Helium-3 has been divided into over 10 million gamespaces, each containing an amount of helium-3 to mine. Once the game locates three other available players, you will be transported to one of these gamespaces. Earning money during the game will increase your level, and will slowly unlock upgrades to your X-TRACT vehicles. Upgrades will increase the range of your weapons, movement, and mining operations, and each of your five units can be upgraded independently, allowing you to decide which upgrades you want to perform to each unit. No matter your strategy, the future of our planet is in your hands.

Analysis: To call Helium-3 a true RTS is somewhat of a misnomer. Command decisions are made in real-time, but limiting of unit movement and fire to a number of squares, as well as limiting the number of units to be moved, puts it more in line with classic turn-based strategy games. There is also no resource management in the game, something that has become a staple of the RTS-genre. Of course, this allows the player to focus on the strategy of winning the round.

One of the game mechanics that really adds a new element of strategy to the game is the fact that you have to make a decision whether to mine or prepare for attack with each vehicle. Mining can happen immediately, but if you want to try and take out an opponent's vehicle, you must first prepare the weapon to be fired. You can move your unit into position on the same turn, but you must wait to fire the weapon until the next turn. By then, your quarry may have moved. This isn't as much of a problem with the missile, since it is a ranged weapon. As long as the target is still in range, you can still take it out. But the laser, which has the ability to take out multiple targets that happen to be within its line-of-sight, can only fire along lines of sight (which can be increased with upgrades). If your targets move out of those lines, you need to reposition, re-activate, and try again.

The computer AI is remarkably competent during practice rounds, and you can have quite a bit of fun with that alone. I was only able to compete in a couple of "live" rounds, since most of the time the matching service failed to locate three other players within a reasonable amount of time. I'm not sure how long others wait around for matches, but hopefully more players will move into the neighborhood. One interesting feature of the game is the fact that you can explore the surface of the moon in Helium-3 and zoom in on each gamespace that has been set up. If a battle has been played on that gamespace, you can actually watch a replay of it. Creates a very interesting, persistent environment.

The graphics are nice, if simple. Your units are denoted by color, since the are all based on the same models. Everything moves nice an smoothly. The gamespace is only the size of the game screen, so there is no scrolling to deal with. Sound consists of sound effects during the game, with no music. Time to launch iTunes and find some music suitable for mining and mayhem.

This game is a lot of fun, perfect for short spurts of casual gameplay, and has an impressively researched back-story rooted in real science, including science facts about helium-3, and a timeline that goes from 1959 to 2037. The future posited in this game is, in fact, a very real possibility. Who knows, playing Helium-3 may be training you to be the next millionaire miner of the future?

Play Helium-3.

Do you like physics? Do you have skills? Do you like physics games of skill that involve launching coloured balls into like-coloured vessels and an ensuing smug sense of misplaced superiority? Then good news, new friend, because BucketBall 2, from Komix Games and Gamebalance, is here to meet all of your bouncing, blasting, ARRRGH I WAS SO CLOSE THAT TIME needs! Hurray!

The idea is simple (and similar to the first game in the series, Bucketball). You have balls of various colours, and you have matching buckets on screen. You want to get the ball into the appropriately coloured bucket, by any means necessary. Well... provided those means are clicking on a ball to mark its trajectory, and clicking again to launch it in that direction. Click and hold on a ball, and drag your mouse to pull the ball in the direction of the cursor. Easy, right? Well, except for the magnetic panels. And the teleporters. And the... well, you'll see. Are there rampaging Canadians whose booming "Eh"s reverberate with such force that they impede your projections? You'll have to play to find out. (Hint: There are not, but what a game that would have made, eh?)

The game features premium upgrades and five additional stages that can be purchased through Heyzap. But with fifteen free levels, and another nine that can be unlocked via the appropriate high scores, as it stands BucketBall 2 is the perfect size to fit into that afternoon coffee break.

Analysis: BucketBall 2 is one of those simple games people hang over their friends' shoulders, watching them play and secretly thinking, "I could do better than that." It's the digital equivalent of every puzzle toy every one of us has ever snatched out of a younger sibling's hands and said, "Give me that, you're doing it wrong." Because the trail of thought goes that if it looks simple, it must be easy. (And if someone does better than you, they must be cheating.) BucketBall 2 takes a simple idea, getting something from point A to point B, and shows us how tricky that can be.

Of course, "tricky" here should not be read as "difficult", exactly. While some levels require some timing and reflexes, or feel particularly fiddly, for the most part all that's really required is patience while lining up shots. Implementing challenges, such as medals based on how few shots you used or the time it took you to complete a level, would have been a nice touch and added that all-important stroke to the gamer's ego. "Yes, that's right. I've got gold medals. How many? All of them." As it stands, although it may take you a while to get there, once you're done, you're done.

But even without that aspect, BucketBall 2 is still enjoyable. While the balls themselves feel a little heavy the first few times they're in the air, once you adjust to that aspect, the physics feel more-or-less right for the game. It would have been nice to allow us to earn those upgrades ourselves through our, ahem, mad skills, rather than requiring us to purchase them outright, but I never felt as though I needed them anyway. Sure you can fork over the extra cash for the supremo bouncy upgrade, but it's not necessary to complete the game.

With it's easy to master control scheme and accessible gameplay, BucketBall 2 appeals to a broad range of players, and the new gimmicks that are introduced as you progress through the levels keep the gameplay from feeling stale. If you're looking for lighter fare to fill an hour or two, you'll find something to like about BucketBall 2: Son of BucketBall. Or, wait! How about BucketBall 2: BucketBall Harder?... *sigh* Nobody ever likes my ideas.

Play BucketBall 2.

You can also Play Bucketball 2 at Gamebalance.

"Welcome subject 7." With those chilling words begins a new room escape adventure series by talented Portuguese designer Fausto Fonseca. Welcome to the Light Asylum! At least, welcome to the first two rooms.

You are (apparently) a mental patient in a rather odd facility who would rather be, well, anywhere but there. A disembodied voice will inform you — via text — that you must escape five rooms, starting with this one. Oh, and failure means death. No pressure there. But, the voice goes on to reassure you, this is the easy room. Oh, goody. Of course then you have to worry about the next room.

Navigation through the space is easily accomplished with arrows appearing around the edges of the screen. There is no changing cursor, so you will have to click around some to find the hotspots for close ups. Find objects that will help you solve the logic puzzle that allows you to... well, not escape, but move on to the next room.

Rooms 1 and 2 are the first in a planned series of five rooms. As with other serialized mini-games (the Being One series comes to mind) you will learn more about what, precisely, is going on as you move deeper into the Asylum. And each room will get progressively harder as you go. Of course.

Analysis: Taken together, rooms 1 and 2 of The Light Asylum show a very promising start to what looks to be an entertaining, mind-stretching series. Although there is the obligatory searching for items, the core of escaping each room is a classic logic puzzle. Breaking the story down into little bite-sized chunks makes for fantastic casual gameplay, although if you really enjoy escaping the rooms you might get a little impatient waiting for the next one to appear.

Visually the Light Asylum is a treat. Stark white-on-white decor with only minimal splashes of color highlight the feeling of being institutionalized. Room 1 is a classic of bare, minimal design, most of the color being supplied by a smiley face picture that manages to be simultaneously cheerful and creepy. Despite the almost empty space there's a lot of things to find, so you'd better get busy. Room 2 has more clutter and a little more color and it is also a bit harder than the first room. The music in each room sounds a little... familiar, so fortunately there are two handy mute buttons; one for music, the other for incidental sounds. All that is missing is a save button, although one is not really needed. Experienced gamers should be out of the first room pretty quickly. The second room will take a little longer, but still pretty quick. One thing you won't find, however, is a changing cursor, so there will be some pixel hunting involved to locate the hot spots needed. Other than that, though, there's very little to complain about.

The Light Asylum Rooms 1 and 2 are a nice start, so here's hoping that the next three continue the trend of harder, trickier puzzles as we wind our way through this strange facility. According to the designer the next room should be available by Christmas, so there's something to look forward to (you know, besides presents and all).

Okay, room escape devotees. Time to fire up the little gray cells and get started. Put your thinking caps on, hunker down, and get ready to escape the Light Asylum (at least the first two rooms)!

Play The Light Asylum Room 1!

Play The Light Asylum Room 2!

A common puzzle in room escape games is taking apart or piecing together objects you find. Locate the flashlight, use the bulb from the lamp, take the batteries out of the alarm clock and you're ready to shine. But what do you do when you're not even in a room? What if a radio just sits in front of you? Do you play it? Fiddle with the dials? Do you smash it against the wall in frustration? Or, like any good point-and-click adventurer, do you Dismantle the Radio?

Created by gam.ebb.jp, Dismantlement: Radio is a game about... well, dismantling a radio. Not much more to it than that. Well, there's trying to figure out what order to remove things. And trying to figure out how to unlock certain components so that you can reach the ones underneath. And then there's the... but that would be telling.

As the game tells you in the beginning, you can only use a screwdriver. Luckily you appear to have one on hand. Just click on a screw to begin, then click on any screws that you can find to remove them. It's the finding them part that can get a little tricky. Click on an area for a close-up or to open panels and such. Directional arrows appear to help turn knobs, and a button in the corner of the screen lets you flip between the front and back of the radio.

Analysis: If you like the puzzles of escape the room games, but are annoyed by all the "finding objects to help me accomplish something" that goes along with them, then here's the game for you! Your mission is to reduce the radio to its component parts. Gam.ebb.jp has stripped everything else away and just left this tasty little puzzle, perfect casual gameplay for a five-minute break.

Dismantlement: Radio isn't without a few frustrating moments, as there are screws that you can see but cannot reach in close-up, until you eventually realize that you won't be able to reach them until something else is accomplished. Included in the basic disassembly are some tricky little logic puzzles that don't often appear when tearing down a radio in real life — not that I've ever torn apart a radio. A toaster, yes. A blow-dryer, certainly. Once even a VCR... but that's another story.

So if you're looking for a fun five to ten minute break from the everyday and you are someone who likes to tear things apart to see how they work, sit back, relax, and Dismantle the Radio. Just try not to get electrocuted. Or blown up.

Play Dismantlement: Radio!