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

Mr Rescue! Help! A bunch of people are trapped in a burning building and only you can save them! Now that you're inside, it's time to be a hero. Mr. Rescue is a simple but amazingly charming action game from Tangram Games. You control the well-protected Mr. Rescue himself as you spray water on fires and climb through a burning building to save the innocent people inside. The best part? You rescue them by throwing them out the window!

Press the [S] key to jump and [D] to fire water (joystick support is also included). You have a short supply of the liquid stuff, so you have to wait for it to recharge between blasts. Your suit slowly heats up the longer you stay in the fire as well as the more you come in contact with flames. Stay cool, both figuratively and literally, or you won't end up being much of a hero at all. The [A] key allows you to pick up (and throw!) people, but be careful not to toss them into a burning blaze. Head to a window, blast it open with water, then send them to freedom!

There are three levels in Mr. Rescue, each of varying heights and degrees of complexity. You can make as many runs as you like through these buildings, each time attempting to better your rescue rate and score. It's a simple set-up that doesn't need anymore than it already provides. A great little game that'll make you feel like a hero! And P.S.: do yourself a favor and grab the soundtrack by Simon Larsen.

Windows:
Get the free full version

Mac OS X:
Get the free full version
(Note: Requires the free LÖVE Framework.)

Linux:
Get the free full version
(Note: Requires the free LÖVE Framework.)

Grand Banda from Pastel Games, Karol Konwerski and Marek Lachowicz is a point-and-click adventure game about funky grannies with an amazing soundtrack by Tomasz TJFK Kuczma. If you need to know much more than "funky grannies having an adventure" to play this game, I'm not sure we can be friends, but I'll tell you anyway. Our two be-laced heroines are having a fine old time in their seaside house listening to music right up until their light bulb bursts and they're forced to find other means of entertainment. Baffling, mayhem causing entertainment. Just click to navigate, zoom in, or use items whenever your cursor changes to indicate an interactive zone. Don't be afraid to try everything, because you'll probably need to.

The main problem with Grand Banda is its baffling leaps of logic. Given how little instruction you're given (none), the first portion of the game makes little to no sense as there's no real reason to assume the player would make the connections required to continue the game. The second portion of the game gives you a better idea of what you're supposed to be doing and why, with puzzles that make a weird sort of sense within the game's cartoony world. Even given the rocky start, however, Grand Banda is still worth checking out. The soundtrack is fantastically weird and funny, and combined with the game's unique style and madcap premise, makes for a delightfully wacky experience. One can only hope future installments give a little more direction in some of their wilder leaps of logic, but we also definitely hope we haven't seen the last of these two troublemakers.

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You know what your average, boring ol' tug-of-war game needs? A table instead of a rope. At least that's what Otto Ojala (of Wrestle Jump fame) thinks, and he's managed to turn the idea into Tug the Table, a simple yet wonderful little one-button fighting game where you play as a little blue person trying to pull an orange person across a line.

The idea is similar to Wrestle Jump: press the [up] key to jump up repeatedly and pull the table — and your opponent — across the line. The first player to win five matches wins the game. Each match has challenges that change the players' sizes and centers of gravity or alter the table and room. When that gets too easy for you, you can toggle "Hard AI" mode in the settings to introduce a smarter AI and more obstacles, or find a friend to play as Orange in the two-player mode. Tug the Table isn't deep or complicated, but it's a nice way to spend a few minutes. Really, it's worth playing just so you can do a weird, jumpy victory dance among the confetti after you win a game.

Play Tug the Table

This week I took a human head, a confused and frightened baby, some pilgrims, a Victorian lady, and... some... little magical... cloaked dude... and taped them all together! In totally unrelated news, if the police contact you, we were watching So You Think You Can Dance together last night.

News and Previews

There's Something Incredible Going On Here... If you love building things, then you've probably played around with The Incredible Machine, and for good reason. It's one of the most engaging, creative bits of puzzle-solving around. Well, you can never have enough of a good thing, and that's real good news since the team behind the original Incredible Machine is bringing it back for the modern gamer with Contraption Maker, a game where you make stuff happen by building stuff that gets stuff done! The game will be out for PC and Mac, and players will get more than 100 new items to build complicated Rube Goldberg machines with, so stay tuned and start drawing up your blueprints!

Sleep Tight Krillbite Studio has achieved success with their Kickstarter for their upcoming horror game Among the Sleep, a game where you play as a toddler who wakes alone in the middle of the night and finds his house the center of unsettling events. How much of what you experience is real and what is the overactive mind of a child? You don't have to wait to try it out, though, because there's now a free Alpha demo for Among the Sleep available for PC, Mac, and Linux! Go ahead, try it. This is shaping up to be one of the most eerie, deliciously surreal and otherworldly adventures in a long time, and we can't wait for the finished product.

For the Thick-Skinned and Black of Humour Remember Alone in the Park? Part text adventure, part point-and-click, and part double-yu tee eff, the game followed you on a quest for map fragments in a massive park filled with people you might politely call unique on quests you could politely call "weird as heck". Well, get ready, because it's almost time to head back out again. On June 15th, Alone in the Park hits for iPad, PC, Mac, and Linux bringing an updated and swank-ified version of the original game. If you like snarky humour and off-the-wall adventures, this is definitely the game for you if you don't mind a bit of blue language and some mean-spiritedness. Now if we can just get Alone in the Parp to happen...

Download? Or Browser? One videogame is fine. But many all mushed together in one deliberately chaotic gem? That's where the action is! Previously only available as a download, Farbs's crazy action-packed game is now available for free right in your browser. Can you survive Rom Check Fail, when the game is always one step, and one title, ahead of you?

Beautiful AND Challenging SpryFox has already proven their talent with games like Leap Day, and they're not slowing down yet! Billed as a roguelike puzzle adventure game, Road Not Taken is a stunning looking game set in a chilly wintry forest that will tell a tale of life and loss. It looks and sounds a little melancholy, but also absolutely gorgeous. Keep your eyes open for more details, and get ready to play this one later this year!

Kickstarter/IndieGoGo Projects

Old School is the New-New School Edge Entertainment's upcoming classic-styled RPG Dormant Sky won't cost you a penny when it's released, but with funding from generous donators they can finally complete their ambitious project and improve its original concept. Following two young men who are feared by the very kingdom they protect for the power they weild, it promises to deliver a SNES-era styled RPG with a compelling story and tactical combat. Sound good? Then head on over to find out more!

Not Covered By Your Insurance So you've gone and unleashed the seven deadly sins on your stately Victorian manor, which is going to make having those lovely demure tea services a bit more challenging. Now what? Well, if you're the heroine in High Class Kitsch's puzzle adventure Pandora: Purge of Pride, you set out to harness the very powers you unlocked to try to get them all under control before they consume you. Planned for PC and Mac, it looks like a clever twist on the first-person puzzle genre, and its unique premise and powers should provide ample reason to check it out.

Murder With Friends Facebook games tend to get a bum rap for being, well, essentially human hampster wheels by and large with little actual gameplay or originality. BlankMediaGames wants to change all that with Town of Salem, a multiplayer game of stealth, strategy and role playing where you and friends take up residence within the titular town. The catch? Each person is assigned a role, and you're all either working against or with one another... but you don't know who you can trust. Serial killers work by night to kill without getting caught, while sheriffs interrogate people to find out the truth... and those are just two of 29 possible roles. By day, the town meets to vote on who should be put to trial, and it's up to the accused to defend themselves and everyone else to find out the truth before it's too late. Morbid? Sure, but exactly the sort of weird and sneaky little title that could make for some seriously fun playtime.

Press X to Hide Under Bed and Cry! Playing with friends is fun. Terrorizing them is better. Available for funding on IndieGoGo, Damned is a cheery little game where four players are trapped inside a hotel... and one gets to play as the malevolent entity haunting it. While survivors are searching the building for the keys they need to escape, they're also trying to avoid the notice of the monster, who can not only influence their surroundings to try to frighten them, but also physically manifest itself to chase players down and kill them. Each play will be randomised, and sounds like the perfect option for a group of freaky friends who don't might a little good-natured slaughtering.

Miscellaneous

FREEBIRD! The Free Bundle is back again, with five fantastic free indie games for you to download. From an episodic adventure game based on a well-loved classic, to an undead tower-defense game, there's something for everyone and all of it proves the community of indie developers who consistently put out high-quality freeware games are just as talented from the big names... but maybe just a bit more generous, too.

Uncanny Valley With the way games continue to develop and impress, I always find myself thinking, "This is it. Where do visuals possibly have to go from here?" Apparently, short of forcing actual people to come to your house with movie sets and act out gameplay on your command, the answer is Ira, a free download from Nvidia that showcases just how realistic their new technology is. He may only consist of a head right now, but experimenting with Ira's facial expressions and marvelling at the way the light reacts to his skin should give you a real appreciation for how far games have come. You know, unless you're one of those kids born after the year 2000 and all of this is just something you expect.

Do you know an upcoming indie project or some community gaming related news you think deserves some attention? Send me an e-mail with LINK DUMP FRIDAY in the subject line at dora AT casualgameplay DOT com with the info, and we'll judge it with the all-seeing glare of our own self-importance for inclusion in a future Link Dump Friday article!

A lot of kids who grew up with RC cars turned into today's gamers. That's a dangerous blanket statement to make, but you can't argue there isn't some overlap. After all, isn't driving a radio controlled car around the living room kind of like a video game? And didn't playing with RC cars and video games make your parents mad? Looking to bring those two worlds together, Paladin Studios, the team behind Momonga Pinball Adventures, has released Nikko RC Racer, a wild and untamed arcade racing game that's about as close to driving the real thing as you can get.

Nikko RC Racer features around ten cars, two of which are included in the free download, the rest must be purchases or unlocked via promo code, along with ten tracks to drive through. The basic goal of the game is to race through the environments hitting each checkpoint as quickly as you can. Just like in real life, though, you'll probably want to drive around and explore the landscapes, which you can totally do. The tracks are remarkably open and stocked with neat things to see. Some of them even arm you with different power-ups you can use to find shortcuts.

Nikko RC Racer comes across as a very simple arcade racing game. Too simple, in some respects, as the main drawback is a lack of any binding elements that give your high score challenges a sense of overall purpose. Beating your own best times is fine, as is driving these responsive, unique RC cars, but sometimes you want to feel like you're working towards a greater goal, even if that's just a cheesy ending screen with "you won" written across it.

If you've got a soft spot for RC cars or are looking for a nice and casual arcade racing game, you can't go wrong with Nikko RC Racer.

It's a glorious day for snail lovers (all five of you). The time has come to send a snail into space! Our dear friend Bob had long been nursing dreams of buzzing around in a rocket and you can make his wishes come true in Snail Bob Space, the latest instalment in the point-and-click puzzle series by Hunter Hamster. You will follow Bob through his astronaut training, flight and adventures on an alien planet across twenty five levels.

Use your mouse to press buttons, pull levers and platforms and control your snail buddy. Whatever the dangers, Bob doggedly marches on, so you'll have to keep him out of harm's way and safely guide him to the exit. Luckily, you can click on him to make him retreat into his house and stop moving, which works like a curious pause button. On the other hand, if you are forced to drum your fingers and sigh as he slooowly slides along, you can speed him up (this won't affect the enemies). Every level contains three stars, half-hidden in the background or behind tiny puzzles of their own, and they unlock funny space-themed pictures.

The physics aspect of the game is enhanced by the addition of a gravity button, so Bob can now stick to the ceiling as well as the floor – twice the fun! The difficulty is just right, meaning that it's easy to see what you're supposed to do, but putting thought into action takes some skill. Timing can be crucial and planning ahead pays off. Level design is imaginative, delightfully diverse and has a cute sense of humour. Add to this some cartoonish music and pretty graphics (who knew a snail could look cuddly?) and you've got yourself a perfectly entertaining lunch break puzzle game worth playing more than once.

Play Snail Bob Space

There's a bit of a discrepancy that comes up when you try to describe Connor Ullmann's Obsolescence. On one hand, it's a bullet hell shooter where you've got to dodge thousands of projectiles while firing lasers to dismantle a giant boss bit by bit. On the other hand, since you're fighting a series of kaleidoscopic bosses spewing delicate white bombs in synchronized patterns, the entire thing looks almost pretty, as though you're fighting a giant space doily. A deadly space doily, mind you, but a doily nonetheless.

At the center of each doil— er, level, you'll find the heart of the boss to be destroyed in a glowing red. All of the white bits that fly around it are shields, guns, and lasers that can be destroyed, but not without a little bit of hassle. Use the [arrow] keys or [WASD] to move your tiny ship around the outer ring of the field (the ring will rotate to keep you centered at the bottom). Your ship is always firing a laser beam, so all you have to worry about is staying alive long enough to burrow your way to the center. If your ship takes three hits, you lose a life, but thankfully your progress remains intact. Lose all three lives, and the doily monster wins. Note that there are some patterns to how your enemies' parts move; can you exploit this to take down the decade of deadly doily destroyers?

Play Obsolescence

One night, Luke decided to go out and visit the love of his life. However, an unfortunate note on the door informs him he's now alone in this world. To console himself, Luke wants nothing more than to stare at the stars. With all the buildings in the way, though, how can he? That's where you come into play. Luke at the Stars is a simple but charming puzzle game that's all about moving buildings out of the way so you can get a good view of the sky.

Each level in Luke at the Stars features a few building, each with different styles of floors. Tap one of the floors, then tap a floor on the adjacent building to swap them. Match at least two floor types and they disappear, lowering the building's height. The goal is to keep the rooftops from touching the sky.

There's no time limit in Luke at the Stars, nor is there much of an incentive to make complex move or clever swaps. There's a basic counter that shows you how long it took you to complete the level, but that's really it. The gameplay stays simple but gains challenge later on at just the right pace. The artwork and music really help set the mood, turning this lovely little diversion into a beautiful mobile puzzle game experience.

Ever since the unearthing of The Great Gatsby NES game, 8-bit-lovers worldwide having been searching for the next lost retro work. Watergate: The Video Game, could very well be that. Now some may claim that this point-and-click adventure game, an apparent sequel to the seminal Shadowgate, was actually created only recently by famed Funny Or Die comedian Samuel Kim, which explains why the game's investigation into the conspiracies of President Richard M. Nixon quickly take more than a few hilariously surreal turns.

Watergate plays a lot like the classic MacVentures the game is a clear riff on. A map of available exits and a list of commands is available at the bottom of the screen, and your current inventory appears to the side of the main display window. Players make progress by clicking the desired command then the desired object, collecting evidence, visiting different locations, and being confounded at every time. Sometimes the constant command clicking is a little annoying, but it was annoying when you tried to play Uninvited on the NES, and, if anything, Watergate commits to the joke with all its pixelated heart.

A wry combination of video game parody, pop culture riffing, political satire, feverish adventure-game logic, raunchy one-liners, and bits of stunning historical accuracy made all the more comedic by how rarity, Watergate tries to be a lot of things, and it generally succeeds. It leans much closer to Dick than All The President's Men, as you might expect. As source material combinations go, 1970s investigative journalism and the Nintendo back-catalogue isn't exactly chocolate and peanut butter, but kicking around Nixon is almost as much a comedic trope as a pie-to-the-face, and more jokes work than don't. For a concept that might have proven its point with a photoshopped game cartridge, Watergate is an impressive piece of comedic, and players with an interest in, and a minimal amount of respect for, American history should definitely check it out.

Play Watergate