There is always room for one more puzzle platformer. Especially when the protagonist is a smiley, and even more when the game takes a well-known format and gives it a little twist. In Kolobok by Trinbox, the twist is that... wait for it... there is absolutely no jumping whatsoever. Gravity can be so cruel. Once you figure out that there's no point in pressing what you think the jump key should be, the rest is easy.

Use the [arrow] keys or [A] and [D] to move left or right, and down [arrow] or [S] to eat a magic mushroom. No, not that kind of magic mushroom, you hippie. These give you special powers. For example, you can only stay underwater for three seconds in your normal state, but if you eat a frosty mushroom, you can freeze water and then waltz across it. There are a number of obstacles, from spikes to spiders – some can be eliminated, while others have to be avoided. With twenty quick levels and just enough of a challenge, Kolobok won't take up a lot of your time. Having said that, sometimes it's quite difficult to beat the time limit and get all three stars, so the achievement addicts among you might stick with the game a bit longer. In any case, Kolobok is good fun and a proof that a little innovation goes a long way.

Play Kolobok

When you look for a good room escape game, what do you look for? Logical puzzles, to be sure. Interesting scenery is also nice. A decent control structure makes everything better as well. But do you also look for a ninja protecting himself with bubble wrap? A strange line of leaping dancers? Some dude with a green face peering at you through a hole in the wall? Small blue men doing...something to a vase? Anyone familiar with the preceding will recognize those particular tropes, Yep, Detarou is back in town with yet another bizarro fantasy-land madhouse in Hitonchi.

Detarou's escapes are always filled with an equal mixture of logic and madness, and Hitonchi is no exception. The amusing and bizarre elements of the game, however, would be nothing without the logical underpinnings of the puzzles. As usual, Detarou hands us a fantastic mix of visual clues that, only when combined in the right ways, will help us point and click our way out of yet another madhouse filled with stunningly strange sights. One of the more interesting characters appears to be some sort of shout-out to the escape men from No. 1 games, but in a...well, let's just say a more adult version, shall we? Hitonchi delivers yet another fantastic Detarou three ending escape along with visuals that will definitely linger longer than the game. Not for young kids or those easily offended, Hitonchi is still a fantastic addition to the genre and a great mid-week break.

Play Hitonchi

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CastleMine from Mugshot Games combines tower defense with a little bit of old fashioned digging. Instead of mapping out mazes for creeps to crawl through or building balloon things on green green grass, you get to dig underground one block at a time. Uncover extra gold deposits, additional resources, or even nests of enemies as you attempt to defend your castle from the threat from below.

CastleMine very neatly divides gameplay into two general phases: digging and maintenance. Your first task is to tap a shovel icon to dig through a block of soil. You can only dig sideways or down, not up, so when those shovel icons appear, choose with care, as you're creating the very path your foes can use to attack you. If you dig out blocks of gold or crystal you'll add to your resources pool. If you dig out a relic you'll gain some additional XP. If you hit a skull, enemies become more difficult but you'll be one step closer to a perfect score in that stage.

When you're not digging you'll be placing towers in the dirt or upgrading them once they've gained enough experience. There are nine defense towers ranging from fire balls to lightning, stingers and shock towers. You also have a few support towers that increase adjacent tower abilities, adding another layer of strategy that becomes very important later in the game.

The lure of delicious resources is tough to resist in CastleMine, but you can't just go digging all crazy like if you want to keep your castle safe. That slight tension between gathering gold and keeping defenses strong will keep you glued to this game for a very long time. Later levels get difficult without much notice, and you have to experiment with upgrades vs. new towers, just like most defense games of this nature. But with 150 levels and an entire array of tech trees to fill out, there's no shortage of strategy in this delightfully unique tower defense game!

Play CastleMine (browser demo)

The year is 1978. A child has found a game they've never heard of before. It fits into the Video Computer System's cartridge slot just fine, though, and the paper found attached to the game spins an interesting tale of demons and castles. The child is not ready for what they are about to face, for in this game, losing a life means losing a bit of mind. Once that mind is week enough, it will become a perfect conduit for... things on the other side of the screen. And they been waiting. Misadventure is an action-adventure horror game by Mike Houser, done in the retro style of a pseudo-4-bit Atari game gone horribly wrong. Move the little blip with [WASD] or [arrow] keys. You pick up object automatically by walking into them, though you can drop them with [X] or the [spacebar]. Though the manual at the start of the game will give you some general guidance, for the most part, though, you will be on your own.

Whether it's the Godzilla NES Creepypasta, Ben Drowned, or even The Story of the Blanks, it's interesting to see how authors have, as of late, used the retro-gaming medium to create a unique brand of fourth-wall breaking horror. One supposes the premise works so well since it combines the kind of skewed nostalgia and innocence that makes old toys and amusement parks so creepy, with the the technical confrontation of a glitched screen: those things always end up looking like a portal into madness, so it's a natural fit that they should ending up being one.

But where Misadventure excels in its creepy cosmic horror atmosphere and slow-building sense of dread, it could afford to be a bit more explicit in its gameplay mechanics. They can be sussed out well enough after a couple of deaths, but by that point, some players might be too freaked out to want to try again (or, at least, frustrated). That being said, Misadventure uses its pixelated blotches of red to create a world that's, in many ways, more viscerally frightening than many horror games with top of the line graphics. Those in the mood for a scare should turn out the lights, turn up the sound, and steel themselves into pressing start.

Play Misadventure

Thanks to Dan for sending this one in!

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