The latest from prolific, UK-based Flash developer, Nitrome, Magic Touch is a "mini-game" that allows you to pop balloons by drawing corresponding symbols with your mouse. Why? Because you're a wizard, and your castle is under attack by robots. Obese robots. Si, si, claro...

The game is "mini" in the sense that, unlike most of Nitrome's other clever titles, there isn't a level progression, or any new elemental additions like new enemies or objects. The same seven symbols you'll see in the first two minutes will be remain stable over the next ten, but the speed of descent will shift. The game gets progressively difficult for this reason, but odds are you won't be done in by a sheer deluge of skill-taxing tasks.

The main problem that underlies Magic Touch is the same problem that underlies all games that rely on gestural input: an unreliable analogue to digital conversion. In other words, games like this demand a symbol that can be drawn in an infinite number of ways, yet boils down to a single command. And while the way you drew the symbol might be perfectly fine to your eyes, it might not be to the very specific method the game employs for interpreting your mouse-scratch, and then you die. The designer at Nitrome knew this, and designed the symbols accordingly; they're all exceptionally simple. The more complex ones—the 8 and the half-8—are really forgiving, you can draw them lop-sided with tiny loops and it still counts. Yet one of the simplest symbols in the history of symbols, the circle, will drive you mad with the precision required to pop its balloon. Odds are that when you lose, it'll be because you failed to draw the circle properly for the third time in a row.

Additionally, the game suffers from an easily correctable flaw; sometimes a robot will float down underneath another robot, and that first robot's balloon will be blocked from view by the second robot. So you've got to wait until you can see what that second bot's balloon symbol (or symbols!) are before popping the more imminent threat. Giving lower bots priority in layering would solve this largely petty, but occasionally disastrous issue.

All in all though, this is worth giving a try, even if the magic touch hasn't yet been completely applied. Play Magic Touch.

I have this lamp in my room. It's not an unusual lamp, it's just a typical lamp with a 3-way bulb in it. But on the lampshade (which is terribly over-sized for the lamp itself), I hang all sorts of stuff. The top and bottom of this lamp is littered with clothespins to hold things in place. At the top, there are a couple of key chains that light up, a pass for a free movie at the local theatre, a string of green Mardi Gras beads, and a few colorful candy canes from years ago. At the bottom, there are letters from employers, a bio-hazardous specimen bag from a hospital, a pedometer, and a reminder to pick up a friend from the airport. I don't even remember if I picked him up or not...

So what's the deal with all this stuff on my lamp? Yes, it's all a huge fire hazard waiting to happen, and a lot of random, all in one place. It also reminds me of LINK DUMP FRIDAY!!!

• Guardian Popon - Guard the castle and blast away the advancing boats with your arsenal of brown bears. (They oughta look familiar...)
• Grand Slam - Based on the GSN show, answer four rounds of trivia and puzzles as fast as you can. C'mon, if Ken Jennings could do it...
• Square Divide - Shoot the square to break it into two pieces. Then again. And again. And again. Seeing a pattern here? (Cheers, Kristi!)
• Descent - Tilt the environment to control the descending ball and find the flag to advance to the next level. (Cheers, TheLaw13!)
• Tucogas Room 2 - It's an escape-the-room game, yada yada, you know the drill. (Cheers, John & Ryan!)

And, I suppose Link Dump Fridays could be fire hazards as well.

The Sea of Glomp is an adventure- themed Flash game created by Paul Kramm that draws heavy inspiration from old-style adventure games such as ... Adventure! You play a young fish whose egg has been stolen by a creature that looks like a bat. An underwater bat. You set out on a quest to find the egg, a task that takes you through some of the strangest parts of the sea you could imagine.

This is an old-school figure-it-out-yourself adventure, meaning once you start playing the game, you're on your own. Tutorials won't magically appear telling you how to progress, you just have to experiment and see what happens. This leads to remarkably open-ended gameplay and more than one possible solution to most of the puzzles.

I won't ruin any of the game in this review, as part of the fun of Sea of Glomp is wrapping your head around the mysteries and finding creative solutions to each problem. If you're stuck, try exploring other parts of the sea for clues. And remember that your chomp ability does more than bite, you can also use it to pick things up and carry them around...

Analysis: Sea of Glomp really pulled me in with its imaginitive creations, gorgeous visuals and fun gameplay ideas. Little touches like biting the fish hook and having to swim to a new body when you die bring a smile to your face, and figuring out puzzles is a challenge I was always happy to undertake.

On the down side, navigating the massive sea can be a chore, as you're never quite sure what's an obstacle and what's part of the foreground. The solution? Swim forth and see if you bump into it. As always, Sea of Glomp encourages you to try things out in order to see the results. Unfortunately for gamers who weren't raised on the tough-as-nails adventure games of yore, frustration may set in early on. If you stick with it, though, Sea of Glomp won't fail to reward you.

Inventive, compelling and stuffed with creative ideas. Welcome back, nostalgic adventuring! Play Sea of Glomp.

Cheers to Mandypoo and Brendan for sending this one in!

Manuel Fallmann of Mindistortion had to move his site's domain recently due to losing his friend and colleague to cancer, the person the previous domain was registered to.

Previously at Mindistortion.net, the site, his animations and his games can now be found at Mindistortion.tv.

Many of Manuel's previous game design efforts have been featured here at JIG, dating all the way back to 2004 with the release of Bubbles, an excellent and addictive little game of collection and avoidance.

More recently, Manuel delighted us with his creative twist on the platform genre with Mindscape, a game that will certainly turn your world upside-down.

If you have linked to any of Manuel's animations or games before, please make sure you update those links to point to the new site. Manuel thanks you for it. :)

Hikkoshi, or "Lonely House-Moving" as we gaijin might say, is the latest social metaphor driven arcade game from Nigoro, the folks behind every one's favorite slapping game, Rose and Camellia. You play a lonely shmuck who, after watching his girlfriend leave him in a moving truck, suddenly gets the inspiration to act and—for perhaps the first time in his life—goes ahead and gets what he wants.

You control the guy as he runs after his girlfriend's truck, with her casually staring on ahead, the wind blowing through her hair, not noticing that her former lover is performing an act of physical endurance on Olympic par. Control the guy with the [left] and [right] arrow keys and press the [space bar] to jump and to avoid hazards like birds dropping poop bombs, cyclists, gophers, and various junk that tumbles out the back of the moving truck. Get hit and lose some life, grab some food that is occasionally thrown out to get some back. Jumping over things yields a point bonus, jumping onto things (as long as they're alive) yields more of a point bonus. Stay in the running for long enough and you win, simple as that.

Analysis: Lonely House-Moving is more than just a simple run, jump and dodge game, it's a meditation on love and what a person is willing to do for that love. The setting sun that marks your progress through the game implies a subtle sense of loss, like the sun has set on the relationship, while simultaneously all the junk that imperils you gradually lightens the truck. Eventually, it becomes so light that the girlfriend notices, and sees you, so she jumps right out the back of the truck. When you see this happen, you're suddenly jarred out of the conventional arcade-score triumph you might expect from similar games in the genre, and you're inspired with a sudden moment of ownership: you are this man possessed by a sudden exuberance. I jumped right up to catch her in my arms. The feeling is genuine.

(Note: I don't know what happens if you let her hit the ground.)

Lonely House-Moving doesn't appear to be an artistically borne game at first. Instead you'll probably think its a game trying to be artistic while having pretty basic gameplay. Once you beat it, you'll realize that the dodging of material possessions—not the cause but the mode of the girlfriend leaving—is a pretty good metaphor for the state of the relationship at that point. The gophers, birds and cyclists are a bit of a distraction from this, diluting what otherwise would be very pure, thus making it a bit more cartoonish. They could have devised junk from the truck that has similar vector patterns, maybe not identical, but similar, and had more consistency to the overall gameplay/aesthetic slipstream.

Oh, and the "art" is also high quality, lush digital painting style, great color cascades on the sunset; nice production values on the interface and pretty good character design.

Lonely House-Moving is something worth trying and sharing with your significant other. Play Lonely House-Moving.

Cheers to Psychotronic for suggesting the game!

From developer Digital Chocolate comes a web adaptation of the immensely popular mobile phone game, Tower Bloxx. All you need to play is one button — either the mouse or [down] arrow key — and a sharp pair of eyes. A swinging crane holds a section of a tower above a platform. Press the button to drop it, then try and stack the following pieces on top as neatly as you can. Residents are eager to move in and will float to the windows as soon as a block lands. Drop too many pieces and it's game over.

Two game modes in Tower Bloxx — Quick Game and Build City — give something for both the casualest of casual gamers and anyone who wants deeper satisfaction from their games. The Build City mode puts you in charge of constructing an entire metropolis one skyscraper at a time. Piece together towers, then place them on the grid in an effort to increase the town's population. Upgrades and new types of towers add to the strategy, but you still have to have a good eye for dropping blocks while building. Quick Game, on the other hand, lets you hop in and build a tower where your only concern is when to click the mouse button.

A combo system lets you rack up a high score by dropping pieces at the dead center of the block below. Tower Bloxx isn't too strict with its physics, allowing you to build a wavy tower that would never stand in the real world. The more lopsided your building is, however, the more it will sway in the wind as you gain height. A moving tower is a tough target for a swinging crane.

Analysis: Such a simple game, but Tower Bloxx managed to hook me from the first time the screen rumbled when I dropped a block. The combination of the Quick and Build modes creates a near-perfect atmosphere to keep just about any gamer coming back for more. And the game is so immediately gratifying you'll want a few more rounds before you call it a day.

A little something for just about any kind of player, Tower Bloxx is one of those rare games that hook you right from the start. Play Tower Bloxx.

Cheers to Shaun and Adamus for suggesting the game!

Nifflas fans (and anyone who enjoys a really good indie game) rejoice! The creator of Knytt and Within a Deep Forest has unveiled his highly-anticipated Knytt Stories (Windows XP, 33MB, freeware) several days earlier than planned! For anyone unfamiliar with Nifflas' signature style, prepare yourself to be dazzled. The main focus is atmosphere, environment and exploration, not complex gameplay and a barrage of media. With Knytt Stories you'll spend most of your time wandering around sparsely populated worlds looking for a few rare items, enjoying the beautiful visuals and ambient music the whole time. It's a unique experience in gaming and will pull you in from the moment you start playing.

Knytt Stories follows a slightly different formula than the previous game. For starters, the main character has over half a dozen new abilities that include a double-jump, the ability to make a decoy, and an umbrella that lets him float safely to the ground. Abilities now come from power-ups that are scattered throughout the game.

Rather than crafting one huge game, Knytt Stories is a collection of shorter adventures, each set in a different world. A level editor is included that allows anyone to create their own stages, and the community has already started to work on add-on levels. Be sure to grab both level packs from Nifflas' website when you download the game.

Knytt Stories is loaded with atmosphere and adventure, and with fans creating their own levels the fun never has to end.

Note: Make sure that you get the official expansion "A Strange Dream" too, since it contains four original levels with over 55 minutes composed by Nifflas himself.

Thanks to Hapk_percar, Nifflas, Chironex and Psychotronic for sending this one in!

Windows:
Download Knytt Stories

Mac OS X:
Not available. Use Boot Camp or Parallels.

Just a quick reminder that there is still plenty of time to come up with an idea and to get your game design underway for Casual Gameplay Design Competition #4. The theme is ball physics and up for grabs are cash and prizes worth over $6000. The deadline is October 1st. Please see the competition announcement page for full details on entering.

Highlights of questions that have come up during the past week include:

• Are there any file size restrictions for competition entries? - No. However, you should be aware that games that require excessive load times may be marked down in the usability category.
• Would a game requiring a webcam be allowed? - Yes. But again, you can expect some loss of points scored for accessibility as well as usability.
• My country does not allow PayPal withdrawals. Is there a way to send money by other means? - If your game entry is one of the prize winners, then we will make every effort available to be sure you receive your prize money. For Audience prize donations that cannot be sent via PayPal, however, there is a $25-$30 fee for wire transfers, depending on the country it is going to.

Note: Comments are disabled for this entry. Please continue to use the main competition announcement page for posting questions and comments. Cheers!

Beethoven's Hair is a psychological vignette of a game designed by Alex Mayhew. The piece is, according to the author, "part of a cross media project based on the true story of a lock of hair that was cut from Beethoven's head and the story of how it passed down through history."

The game starts out mildly interactive, which might make you think "oh, another one of those 'New Media', self-smug clap-traps." But once you unlock the keyhole you'll discover a thoughtful and intriguing take on the escape-the-room genre that infuses the usual search dynamic with free-form exploration and historical fiction.

At the start, you unlock Beethoven's tomb, your "spirit", or as they say in America, "mouse cursor", is projected in the form of a Butterfly, and must hover over a 'scape of sheet music in order to resolve issues in the composer's restless soul. The interaction is extremely simple; just move the cursor around to control your avatar and press up and down to fly higher or lower. Follow the notes and clues and figure out the rest.

The journey takes you through Beethoven's life, his music to a lesser degree, and down through the history of Germany in his passing. The end result is an interactive trip, the kind of experience you can only find on the Web. Its not highly re-playable, and its not highly fun (though kinda fun). What it is, however, is compelling, it goes beyond fun. Take the trip. Play Beethoven's Hair.

I have a confession to make. My name is Jessica, and I'm a point-and-click addict.

Curse you, Pierre Gauthier! You have fed my pixel-hunting, puzzle-solving, key-finding need and I am hopelessly hooked. And what's more, you've made it playable in both French and English, bringing forth my latent guilt about neglecting my college francais. Why, Pierre? Why?

Ok, enough absurdity (for now). MuseLock is a good-looking, highly enjoyable little point-and-click room escape game with creative, interesting puzzles that only occasionally venture into the illogical. As I mentioned before, Pierre has provided both French and English versions; this offers a nice opportunity for players to practice another language, and the English adaptation is surprisingly good (avoids becoming "Frenglish," so to speak).

Surprisingly enough, the player wakes up in a room with no recollection of how he/she got there and an odd collection of objects as clues. Happily, pixel-hunting is mainly avoided (I have to admit, though, that I made good use of the tab key) and, at least for the first part of the game, necessary actions are straightforward enough for the player to make some progress without too much random clicking and item-combining. A word to the wise, however: you can (and probably will) die with one misstep, so use some caution.

Analysis: I liked this one a lot. I especially enjoyed the game's use of light (you'll see what I mean), and I appreciated how easy it was to navigate around the room. I really only have a few gripes: a save feature would have been really nice, as you can not only die but pass a "point of no return" when the game is unfinishable, and one crucial action in the game seemed to me to be a bit arbitrary. Besides theses minor issues, however, MuseLock is an excellent example of the genre.

A true pleasure for any point-and-click aficionado, this one will have you puzzling for quite a while: Play MuseLock.

MuseLock walkthrough now available!

In case you weren't aware, I'm an old-school gamer. Really old school, as in I was playing casual games before many of you that grew up with video games were even born. Marbles and dominoes were among my favorite games to play, as were most card games and board games. And like the marbles and dominoes I grew up with, there is no form of entertainment I prefer over casual gameplay. That's why my eyes grew large as agates when I recently stumbled upon this little gem of a game, from Playfirst.

Mythic Marbles is an action puzzle game of skill that is very simple to pick-up and play. It offers an engaging and rewarding experience to anyone that can appreciate the simple and subtle strategy of a good game of marbles. And even if you've never played marbles before, you're in for a treat. :)

In marbles, the objective is to knock all of your opponent's marbles off the playing field by shooting your own marbles at them, and while keeping your marbles in play. Mythic Marbles shares this same basic premise with a few additions that make the gameplay an even richer, more rewarding experience.

You are given 8 marbles to start each level with, and each level is represented by a unique arrangement of of marbles and 'wall' obstructions. Just click on a marble to select it, aim with the mouse cursor, and click to shoot. It's just that simple.

Once you get comfortable with the mechanics, you may want to begin refining your shots to maximize your scoring potential. A power meter on the left of the display allows you to choose the power behind each shot. You can click-drag to select a precise setting; or, while aiming, click and hold the mouse button down until the desired power is displayed, then release to shoot.

After you complete each level, you are awarded a score. The number of points you earn is based on your accuracy, the number of marbles you have remaining, and the maximum combo achieved. A "combo" is the number of marbles removed with a single shot. All things considered, combos are supremely important to achieving a good score.

To add some spice to the mix, you will have to navigate through teleports and around black holes as you progress through the game's 100 levels that, more or less, increase in difficulty as you go. Fortunately, there are also a variety of power-ups that can make your task easier: one that prevents your marbles from falling off the board; one that makes all the obstructing walls disappear; one that shows the trajectory your marble will take; one that will turn your marbles into fireballs, and one that charges them with electricity thus repelling and scattering all others from it. Taking full advantage of the power-ups can increase your maximum combo substantially, as well as getting those hard-to-reach marbles. But you'll have to hurry, power-ups are time limited and begin to count down immediately once you knock them off the board.

At the conclusion of each set of 10 levels, you will enter a turn-based challenge against another marble master, with each trying to knock the other's marbles out of play as in a real game of marbles. There are no power-ups available to you in these challenges, however, so you will have to plan your shots carefully and keep a cool head if you are to succeed.

Analysis: The game has a nicely polished presentation and feel to it, with responsive and intuitive controls, and very nice ball physics(!) And as a fan of the game of marbles, I enjoyed this game a lot. It held my interest from the minute I picked it up, and it was compelling enough to keep me playing until I had beat the grand master at the end. Achievement medals add a reason to go back and play through again, as does arcade mode with which you can select any of the game's 100 levels to best your previous score.

The game may seem rather easy to some since extra lives are easy to come by and most of the levels are easy to complete. However, if all you're getting is a couple of thousand points for each, then you have a lot of room for improvement in your strategy. Some levels I was able to score 60 or 70 thousand by concentrating on maximizing my combo.

On the other hand, the existence of power-ups in the game makes getting a good score somewhat dependent on luck, but that's a smallish complaint overall considering the casual nature of the game.

All things considered, Mythic Marbles is an enjoyable implementation of the classic casual game of marbles with the addition of power-ups that only a video game can provide. The result is an engaging game that can be picked up easily with enough depth to keep you coming back to it again and again.

Windows:
Download the demo
Order the full version

Mac OS X:
Download the demo
Order the full version

Mythic Marbles is available to download from these affiliates:

Gemsweeper is a casual game that combines elements of picross ("picture crossword") and minesweeper, created by Lobstersoft. Your goal is to uncover hidden treasure by breaking rocks to help Topex reconstruct the temples of El Dorado. Stones are arranged in grids with sets of numbers above and to the left that serve as clues as to which tiles contain gems and which are cursed. Bash cursed tiles with a hammer, then grab gems from the rest of the grid to complete each puzzle and re-build the temple, one brick at a time!

Picross puzzles are one part Minesweeper and one part crossword puzzle with a dash of sudoku-style flavor thrown in for good measure. The numbers outside of the grid are your clues to which tiles should be filled in and which should be blank (in the case of Gemsweeper, filled tiles contain treasure, while blank ones are cursed and should be smashed). For example, if a column shows "3 2" at the top, there will be three filled squares in a row followed by at least one space and then two filled squares afterwards. The challenge is to find out which tiles are filled and how many spaces are between the groups. Confused? Don't worry, Gemsweeper has a thorough tutorial system to ease you into the game. It's quite simple when you see it in action.

You have two tools to use to complete puzzles: a hand icon and a hammer. Use the hand to grab treasure from tiles that should be filled and swing the hammer to smash cursed tiles with a satisfying crunch. If you try and grab treasure from a tile that's cursed, you'll lose a chunk of precious time. And if you break a tile that holds a gem, Professor McGuffog appears to patch the gem together with glue. You only have a few pots of glue available, so keep your cursor cool and think logically. Unlike most picross games, Gemsweeper requires you to fill in tiles as well as eliminate cursed ones.

Gemsweeper's levels are divided into temples, each with twelve puzzles to complete. The difficulty level remains extremely low for the first several temples, so picross masters may get bored early on. Fortunately action-oriented bonus stages are available between temples that let you complete a constantly regenerating picross grid. These are also available as a separate arcade mode from the main menu, which is a nice touch.

Analysis: Picross is one of my favorite pen-and-paper puzzle games, so naturally any computerized form will tickle me addicted. Gemsweeper doesn't add anything new to the picross game scene, but that simplicity works wonders for it. Instead of crowding the interface with unnecessary options or crummy mini-games, Gemsweeper streamlines the picross experience to make it easy for anyone to play. Believe it or not, I've seen games that ruin picross with a clunky interface and bad design. Gemsweeper is not one of those games!

One great feature of Gemsweeper is how you can mark rows and columns of tiles with a quick sweep of the mouse without hitting neighboring squares. The game recognizes when you drag the mouse and confines the click to your current row or column, preventing adjacent tiles from being touched. When you're trying to knock out a whole area of tiles with a quick swipe, you'll want to give the designers a hug for including this feature.

The story behind Gemsweeper isn't much to speak of, neither are the sound effects and overall visual package. Most of the dialogue is horribly cheesy, but it adds a kind of B-movie charm, enough to make you crack a grin between intense puzzle rounds.

If you're a picross nut like me, Gemsweeper will (eventually) give you an excellent challenge in a pleasing, easy-to-use package. There are over 225 puzzles with the larger ones spanning 30 or more squares. Plenty to keep you busy for quite some time. Newbies to the picross scene will find a gentle introduction to the fascinating genre of puzzles, all wrapped up in a fun casual package.

Windows:
Download the demo
Order the full version

Mac OS X:
Not available. Use Boot Camp or Parallels.

Gemsweeper is available to download from these affiliates:

From Kyle Gabler, one of the brains behind the Experimental Gameplay Project, comes an equally experimental massively multiplayer online word association "game", Human Brain Cloud. To play, all you have to do is read the word (or words) on top, then type in the first thing that pops in your head. Don't censor yourself, just think, then type. Human Brain Cloud collects associations made by players around the world and dumps them into an interactive database. It's a fascinating experiment that just so happens to be an addictive "game" to boot.

As you type words in the box, Human Brain Cloud maps out your associations on the right, displaying each phrase with the number of other people that formed the same connections. The leaderboard, accessible from the top of the screen, displays a handful of stats such as the most words submitted, users who are most "in tune" with the rest of the players, and the strongest connections so far. Click "view the cloud" to see a goo-based display of a word with its associated entries. Click one of the blobs to explore a new word to see what connections the rest of the world made.

To date, over 3 million associations have been submitted, connecting over 300,000 unique words and phrases by over 200,000 people. That's a lot of random human thinking. While it's far from fool-proof scientific, Human Brain Cloud is an interesting experiment that could yield some thought-provoking results. Plus, it's really fun to play around with. Play Human Brain Cloud.

You might also like to keep tabs on Kyle's latest efforts, as he has recently launched a brave new indie game studio based in San Francisco named 2D Boy.

Hello. You've reached Friday. I'm not around to take your call at the moment, so please leave your message after the beep and I'll call you back.

While you're waiting, here's a sports sim. I scoured the latest in motor racing, soccer, and baseball sims but none of them could come close to the realism in this interpretation of the healthy pursuit of Acrobatic Mud Wrestling.

You know how it is when you wander on to a construction site and find yourself suspended on a girder several hundred feet above the ground? No? Then try Construction Maze.

Ever wondered what it would feel like to conquer the world? Well, now you have a chance to play as Genghis Khan and do just that.

Do you Facebook? If so, you might want to join the JIG Facebook Group. There's even a JIG Casual Gamplay widget to add to your profile. Personally, I don't think that this Social Networking thing will ever really catch on.

Control small green fellow. Progress as far as possible. Avoid countless giant red balls. Simple. You play now (thanks, Psychotronic).

Here is a cute, simple game, but it's pretty brutal if you die. If this is how hard it is to get a piece of cheese, imagine buying a full meal. Try Adventures of Alex.

Do you like Kitty Cats? I Like Kitty Cats.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Last year, Alan Becker created two clever Flash animations about an invisible animator battling his stick figure creation. Both Animator vs. Animation clips were big hits, and now with the help of Charles Yeh, the episodes have taken the interactive leap to become a full-blown fighting game: The Animator vs. Animation Game.

You can play as either the animator or animation (after unlocking the latter), each trying his best to eliminate the other player. Your arsenal is composed of common drawing tools found in the Flash development environment. Each tool has a slightly different effect depending on which character you play. For example, the line tool allows the animator to fire "arrows", but if the animation grabs it it becomes a staff.

As the animator you control the cursor and have two objectives: torture the stick character, and preserve the timeline at the top of the screen. Your arsenal is weak compared to the animation's weapons, but they're flexible and give you a wide range of freedom. As the animation, your goal is to attack the cursor and, secondarily, the timeline. The stickman's moves are much more destructive than the animator's, though your target is much more difficult to hit.

Analysis: The Animator vs. Animation episodes expressed what we feel like happens every day: the computer fights back. It was hilarious to watch the struggle between animator and animation as each used everyday tools to turn the desktop environment into a battlefield. Now that the war is interactive, it's even more entertaining. The Animator vs. Animation Game follows the episodes closely in terms of style, attacks, and overall design. It's a perfect game adaptation of the animations.

On the down side, there's a lot to learn before you can really get into The Animator vs. Animation Game. Moves are often intricate and require precise clicks and motions to get just right. In the heat of battle, it isn't always possible to pull off these fantastic stunts, forcing you to rely on simple but reliable attacks most of the time. Playing as the animation can be overwhelming at first, as this character uses a dozen keys for movement and attack. With a little practice, however, it becomes second nature.

The Animator vs. Animation Game preserves the grin-inducing fun of the episodes and makes it completely interactive. It's any desktop warrior's dream come true! Play The Animator vs. Animation Game.

Now here is a game that makes you say "ZOMG LASERS!" — the mark of a great shmup. Zeta Flow, from Matthew Dirks, who has graced our previous competitions with Jelly Fusion and Colour Connect is quite a shmup indeed. In Zeta Flow, you control an innocent little turret gun ship as you fight off giant mechanical enemies.

Each level pits you against one evil ship, getting progressively bigger and badder from level to level. Moving is simple, just move the mouse. Shooting is simpler: hold down the mouse button. Aiming can be done automatically or manually (for "experts only").

Enemies are constructed of different parts (i.e., building blocks and weapons) attached to a core. In order to beat a level, you must destroy the core. You can think of it like the top bubble in Bust A Move: If you destroy the core, all of the other parts below it will fall off and you will beat the level. As in Bust A Move, you can also lop off lower parts of a chain. Likewise, you can cut off segments by destroying the part that connects to the core. While the core can shoot only a few bullets, other weapons will aim to thwart your advance, such as turret guns, homing missiles, lasers, and force fields.

Also included in the game are optional keyboard controls, which can be mapped as desired. In fact the entire game can be navigated with just a keyboard. Good news for all you guys who don't own mice. But wait, theres more...behind door number three...IT'S A NEW CAR!! (and by that I mean level editor!) The best part about the level editor is that it lets you see the way the parts of the ships are connected.

Analysis: This is a fun game. Looks great (clean, minimalistic), sounds great (the shooting noise is very satisfying), and most importantly, plays great. While the game is a bit short and a bit easy at first glance, both of these problems are addressed by the inclusion of the level editor. You can also play levels designed by other players in the level gallery, which provides a possibly infinite supply of levels as long as there remains interest in the game. Also, the two different aiming schemes provide two different difficulty levels, thus increasing the replay value of the game as well.

Also, advanced players may develop a certain strategy based on their individual playing style. For instance, if you are a good shooter, you may want to pick off all of the weapons and then have an easy battle. On the other hand, if you are good at dodging, you might try to take out the core early on while avoiding all the bullets and lasers. Better yet, you can combine both styles. A quick glance at the level editor will enable you to find out which parts of the enemy are crucial, so you can take them out first (however this will send you back to the start of the game, so on second thought, maybe don't do that).

Maybe the worst part of the game is having to sit through the advertisements after some of the levels. But that's a minor complaint considering the game is free to play. So go play it and support Matthew Dirks so that he can create even more fantastic games like this. Watch out for the lasers! Play Zeta Flow.

Jay - As many of you have indicated in the comments, yes, this game is heavily influenced by Warning Forever, a downloadable game for Windows we reviewed here last year. Matthew is looking for some constructive criticism for his efforts here with Zeta Flow, in creating a similar game with Flash. Cheers!

One of my first ever "favorite" games was a little isometric action puzzler called D/Generation, where you led a little delivery guy through successive floors in a building by stepping on switches, opening doors, and collecting weapons. Does anyone else remember this? My friend and I had such fun playing this game that years later I tracked down a copy on ebay and gave it to him as a birthday gift. Yes, I am that cheap.

Timebot by David Durham is in a similar vein to that old chestnut, but with one noteworthy exception: his interpretation of the "replay" competition theme. Using the arrow keys you must guide a robot throughout several levels. The key mechanic is to roll onto switches that open doors or materialize platforms, but the doors and platforms block your progress again once you move off of the switch. What's a player to do?

In this case hit [spacebar] to jump back in time to the start of the level, allowing your "current" robot to wait patiently while your "past" robot once again heads over to the switch to open up the door and let you through.

Have I blown your mind? There's more: you must accomplish this before you run out of energy, while simultaneously collecting little gold gears for extra points. Had enough? Good, because that's about it. The game itself is fairly straightforward, but the levels obviously get more and more difficult as you progress. You're allowed only a certain number of "time jumps" each level but usually end up using them all, sometimes overlapping your robotic instances so much that your brain threatens to explode from the combined effort of temporal distortion.

Analysis: The replay mechanic in Timebot turns what would otherwise be a simple platform puzzle game on its head and creates something truly outstanding. Not only do you have to know which buttons to press in the right sequence, but you have to mentally track your past movements over several iterations of your robot, replaying in your mind how each one will move and when it will land on each switch. It caused a real brain meltdown for me around level 8, where I had to hit the comments for some help.

The graphics are nice and remind me of a more refined update to the graphics in the aforementioned D/Generation. I think the lack of music is always a good choice in games like these since you could wind up spending so long on a particular level. Unless the music or background sound effects are truly superb, it's better just to do without them lest you drive your audience mad.

My only quibble with the game is very minor. You gather the gears for points, but I'd rather see the gears be put to another use. I personally have never been driven to gather anything purely for points or achievement, though I know that those gamers exist. Perhaps they could bump your energy up to give you more time (and for particularly evil level design, some could actually cost more time to fetch than they give you)?

The game as it stands doesn't really need much refinement, but it would be great to see it further developed with more obstacles, more levels, and eventually maybe a level editor? That's a lot to ask, I know. For now I'll just enjoy what David's given us. Play Timebot!

Jay - David's creative interpretation of the replay theme here applied to a puzzle game fits like a glove. He focuses on a few core concepts and keeps it relatively simple; the end result is a game that is lot of fun to play. Timebot feels like a complete game, polished in many respects and yet there are a few rough spots, too.

Some people experienced difficulty grasping the concept of time travel (myself included), and I believe the choice to describe it as such represents a fundamental flaw in the design. After all, the player isn't doing any time travel, but rather establishing a program for subsequent bots to follow as the player continues along the same time continuum. This burdens the player with a paradigm shift, necessary to experience before the game can be played as it was intended.

And for a game that is entirely keyboard controlled, forcing a mouse-click between levels causes unnecessary additional effort. Also, the lack of a save mechanism to store progress reduces the likelihood that the player will come back to finish if the game is not solved in one sitting. I would have liked to see a keyboard hotkey (spacebar perhaps?) to advance to the next level, and a level select screen with perhaps levels unlocked as the player advances.

All things considered, Timebot is one of 4 entries I had chosen as personal favorites in this competition, and it is a game design with enormous potential. I'd love to see David develop it further with all the polish of a game afforded ample development time. It is an exceptional idea executed almost perfectly, and it is indeed a pleasure to have it included among the other entries. Well done, David!

Just released from Dofi blog, creator of the World of Sand games: Adventure of Cat, a sequel of sorts to Cat with Bow Golf. In Adventure of Cat your goal is to guide a hapless gray kitten to the end of the stage. Your only mode of transportation is an extendible stick that you can use to push against the ground, propelling the cat forward.

Everything you see in the game, including clouds and the "goal" signs, is solid and can be used to push yourself forward. You have precise control over your angle, but the physics are wobbly enough to add a little unpredictability to the mix.

Adventure of Cat consists of only one stage and will take you just a few minutes to complete. Just like some of Dofi's other recent releases, it's a simply-made and compelling game idea to help you get through the day. Play Adventure of Cat.

Cheers to videogamefreak for sending this one in!

One of the features of many of the games in the recent Casual Game Design Competition #3 (and particularly the winning entry) is that compulsion to have "just one more try" when the game ends. And one of the games that has certainly always had that effect on me is Dolphin Olympics, by Alan Rawkins, reviewed here just over a year ago. Every time the clock runs down, there's that nagging urge to try and score that little bit more, or jump that little bit higher.

Well a few weeks ago, Alan released Dolphin Olympics 2, a sequel with some great new features. Firstly, other sea creatures will now interact with you. In fact, you can earn more points by getting other fish to follow your lead and jump out of the water. Magic rings both above and below the water give you a quick speed boost and can help you reach the dizzy heights of outer-space (complete with 1950's sci-fi-movie-style music). There are some new tricks and secrets to discover as you try to swim, leap and tail-slide yourself onto the high score board.

Analysis: I was a big fan of the original Dolphin Olympics and the sequel does not disappoint. Although the mechanic and aim of the game are pretty much the same, this has a slightly different look to it, with significantly more detail added to the sea bed and background. Once again, the challenge is in chaining together strings of successive tricks to boost your multiplier and amass some massive scores. And the trick to that is ensuring that your re-entry to the water is perfect every time.

Whilst this is a great way to spend your five minute coffee break, this game will reward replay with new moves and ever higher places to explore. I'll leave you to discover most of the secrets that are hidden in this game, but if you run the game at different times of day or night, you will be pleasantly surprised (change your system clock and re-load the page if you don't believe me). Play Dolphin Olympics 2.

Cheers to Alan, Tala, and Jack for sending this one in!

Pillage The Village is the spiritual successor and prequel to Defend Your Castle, one of THE original web-game classics from back when there were only so many good web-games on the whole Internet. One might say it's the Super Mario Bros. of Flash games, but it was certainly the Super Mario Bros. of then-burgeoning XGen Studios, one of the first companies to dive into the Flash scene with gusto and not a look back. Now, years later, XGen is back with Pillage The Village, a smashmortion of click-tastic mayhem.

In contrast with its predecessor, the game indicates how far browser-based games have come over the course of this decade. The graphics of Defend Your Castle were simplistic, single-shade color fields populated by stick figures, while Pillage the Village offers lushly illustrated backgrounds and stylized character designs. The funny thing is, you're more reticent to, you know, commit genocide against a race of human-like characters than you are against generic stick-men, but you get over it once you start collecting cash from their corpses. This leads into a deeper macro-game of upgrading your magic and abilities as you face greater numbers and challenges. You even get to choose between a hilarious moral dichotomy, the "good" path involves spells like euthanasia (killing them softly) and bending time, while evil is more directly aggressive, involving anvils and power gauntlets. Little details, like the windmills and the sheep, the roll of the thrown hut, the scaling of the globe sprite between saving, the fact that there is a good save system (rare for a browser-based game), or the voice-acting in the intro add up to a holistically charming experience.

Despite its polish and solid gameplay, the game does suffer from some control issues; however, since this review was first published, XGen Studios has informed us that many of the issues that made the game frustrating to play upon its released have now been addressed...

Update: XGen Studios responds:

"Thanks for writing that review so quick, really great reading :)"

"We don't intend to just let the game lay as we have released it, we're diligently working to correct all issues. There's a change log of fixes posted in the forums as well." -Robyn, XGen Studios

XGen founder Skye Boyes provides the writing and design of the game and delivers a certain zany panache in his descriptions of why euthanizing people is moral. The variation in the spells and villagers only ripens the further along you get, keeping you pegged for the long haul. This may not be the Super Mario Bros. 3 to Defend Your Castle's franchise original, but its definitely better than Mario 2. Play Pillage the Village.

Continuing the Haluz saga, a Samorost-like surreal point-and-click adventure from a year ago, Tomas sends word from Slovakia that he has just released a sequel, Haluz 2.

The bird that flies away with the newspaper in the first chapter is back and gets caught up in the electricity to your house causing the lights to go out. And it's your job to make things right again. Travel through stunning scenery and solve puzzles in this charming and delightful new graphical