They say that no jelly is an island, but jellies that cooperate can explore many mysterious islands. That might not be an accurate quote, but it's certainly applicable in Georganism, a puzzle platformer from Karma Team. The jelly arsenal has been scattered over 22 little islands, and these brave and determined jellies need your help to get it back.

Each level has you assume command of one or more colorful little characters, each with a special ability. Blue can jump, Red can dive, and Green can eat wooden blocks. The talented trio needs to work together to navigate the island chain and recover the missing arsenal. The [arrow] keys control your new jelly friend, [spacebar] switches between characters, and if you get two jellies in close proximity, [Enter] combines them into a super striped jelly that possesses both special talents. [Enter] also splits the jellies apart again, allowing you to fit through tight spaces or combine with a different character.

Push blocks, break ice, and activate switches to find and ring the gong that completes the stage. The best jelly wranglers will pick up the hidden weapon on every island and earn a shiny gold star for their reward. Take a break from all that jumping, diving, and wooden block eating by playing the mini-games that unlock as you progress through the stages. You'll find jelly-infused variations on projectiles, stacking, and pachinko games.

Georganism never gets too terribly challenging in terms of puzzle solving, but the character switching and ability combinations make for a well-made and entertaining diversion of a game, suitable for casual gamers and jelly fans of all ages.

Play Georganism

An insidious menace lurks in the sky, above the cotton candy colored trees and higher than the fluffy clouds. This threat to humanity comes from a most surprising place, a place of candy sprinkles and delicious icing. People of Earth, beware, for the doughnuts are finally coming for us in Fodo!, an arcade action planet defense game from John Evelyn of RobotHouseGames. Fodo!, logically enough, stands for Feed Our Doughnut Overlords exclamation mark, and feed those doughnuts you must if the planet is to survive.

Right-click to pull items like flowers or houses off the planet and feed them to the doughnut invaders as they drop from the sky. Feed a regular attacker its favorite food (a windmill, perhaps?) for more points and its hunger will be sated. Simply roll the cursor over tiny Dinks to pop them, but larger doughnuts require more firepower, so grab that active volcano and fire away. Use [arrows] to rotate the planet in your search for the perfect food and to prevent too much damage to the earth. Let a doughnut hit the ground and it will drill away at the planet, burrowing under the surface in hopes of reaching the delicious coffee candy core within. If the core is breached, your game is over.

You'll earn cash after each successful level to spend on various elements for your planet. Flowers are cheap, but offer only one measly percentage point, so doughnuts with a high percentage of hunger won't be stopped easily by them. Storm clouds and stars act as defensive weapons, stunning the enemy for a short time. More items become available as the game progresses. Your planet can only hold 50 items at once, but I never managed to hit that limit while playing.

Analysis: The soundtrack is great, the tutorial couldn't be clearer, and the control scheme is easy-peasy, but just look at this game for a minute. These graphics are cutey-pie perfection, all pastel and fluffy and sweet like a delectable doughnut should be. The art style is a visual gem polished to a high gloss, and the sense of whimsy here matches the game's quirky concept beautifully. Where Fodo! falters is in the customization aspect. The shop is only open in between levels, and you have no way of knowing which type of enemy is coming next, making it difficult to prepare and forcing you to buy for quantity, not quality. Also, unless you play in full-screen mode, the descriptive text for each item is nearly impossible to read.

Some sort of doughnutapedia would be a welcome addition to the game, as, after the tutorial is over, it becomes difficult to tell one doughnut from another. Overfeeding an Exploder, for example, unleashes a swarm of Dinks, a mistake I've made often. Speaking of those teensy tiny Dinks, they can often be hidden behind larger elements on the planet's surface, making it hard to tell that your coffee candy core is in danger. Fodo! offers more treats than tricks, however. The game is pure fun, and charming to boot. It gets high marks for originality and has a decent replay value, and I know those dapper doughnuts in their fancy bowler hats and monocles don't stand a chance against you. Now get out there and save the planet!

Play Fodo!

We've followed Flo and her friends from the diner to the farm, through the perils of opening your own valet business, and into the fast-paced world of fashion. Now Flo and PlayFirst are entering new territory in the first adventure game from the Dash franchise, Avenue Flo!

Avenue Flo features everyone's favorite waitress as she tries to help her fellow business owners salvage what could be the biggest wedding Diner Town has ever seen. Tony and Vicky are finally getting married! Maybe. Quinn of Wedding Dash fame is at her wit's end. The rings are missing, the cake has gone bad and all of the butterflies have flown away. Flo quickly springs into action and hits the streets of Diner Town in search of answers.

First on Flo's handy to-do list? Track down all 99 escaped butterflies. Luckily, the neighborhoods you'll need to explore are covered with the colorful little scamps. Unluckily, that's the easy part. That list is getting longer by the second, and in order to get this wedding back on track, Flo will need to stay sharp and put her detective skills to the test.

Simply point-and-click to send Flo in the right direction or to interact with some familiar faces. The controls and the gameplay couldn't be more intuitive, and the smooth interface ensures that you won't waste time figuring out what to do next. If you get stuck, check the map or that helpful list for assistance.

While there is a small hidden object element to the game, the majority of play is given over to puzzles, which are quite well done. The plot is geared towards the most general of casual gameplay fans, but, in a surprising and welcome choice, PlayFirst wisely stays away from the expected staples of the casual genre, such as match-3. Logic squares, spatial reasoning and pattern recognition are the order of the day here.

Analysis: Avenue Flo is a refreshing entry in the adventure game genre. The humorous and quirky aesthetics established in the myriad of Dash sequels and spin-offs serve the franchise well. The graphics are bright and crisp, although the sound effects aren't quite as good as the art. Flo is, as always, as cute as a button in her well-worn apron and sneakers, and it's a pleasure to see her away from the world of time management. In addition, she actually speaks (and sings) here for the first time, and the voice acting is above average. Experienced gamers may find that there's too much hand-holding and not enough free play, but the overall quality of the game is substantial enough that the linear plot and direction can be overlooked.

This being said, when the game hits a wrong note, it's very disappointing. A rhythm puzzle has Flo teaching an aerobics class, which normally would be opportunity for extreme cuteness or at least a good laugh. Unfortunately, the execution of said puzzle is sub-par, especially in comparison with the rest of what the game has to offer. First of all, and this may just be my personal bias, I dislike playing these kind of puzzles with the mouse. I find keyboard controls much more precise. Issue the Second: For an aerobics class, one would expect Flo to take it on down to funkytown, musically speaking. Nope. There's music playing, but the songs don't match up to the puzzle cues. This means there's no audio guidance. For a rhythm game. Which is just lazy, especially when the game has a jaunty original theme song.

This, though, is only a slight flaw in an otherwise polished game. One of Flo's chores is to finish the beading on the wedding dress. You're given the pattern and are able to see the order the beads will appear in. To complete the design, the beads must be sewn in one continuous line, so you need to plan several steps ahead to succeed. While the mechanics of the puzzle are simple, the presentation and difficulty involved are not, and the game manages to stand out among the plethora of adventure and hidden object games currently available. Avenue Flo is a welcome addition to the DinerTown series!

Windows:
Download the demo
Get the full version

Mac OS X:
Download the demo
Get the full version

Never mind those adorable little tykes dressed like puppies or pumpkins. Forget cartoon ghosts or happily grinning scarecrows. If you like your horror visceral and bloody, we've got the game for you. Point-and-click adventure game Asylum 626, the follow-up to Hotel 626, is now accepting patients.

We begin with a warning: This game is not for the faint of heart or those under 18. Or my grandmother. Even this review, therefore, may also not be suitable for some. Asylum 626 has a plot yanked straight from an R-rated horror movie, complete with the requisite blood, screaming and slashing inherent to the current scary movie style. Even better (or worse, depending on your point of view), the game uses video clips and fabulously realistic sound effects to create a haunting atmosphere.

You awake to find yourself in some sort of operating room, strapped to a gurney with creepy doctors lurking over you. One picks up a handsaw and slowly starts towards you. Then the horror truly begins, as repressed memories start flooding back and the true nature of the asylum comes to light.

At the start-up screen, you're asked to allow the game access to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. This is not mandatory and will not impede your ability to enjoy the game. However, if you do choose to provide your account information, some innovative features are activated and the experience takes on a more personal feel. While third-party access is a controversial subject here on JIG, I have to admit that Asylum 626 uses these connections to their full advantage. The Facebook information is especially well-used.

As the game proceeds, more interactive features become available. You have the option to include your e-mail address, phone number, web camera and microphone in the mix. Again, though, the only mandatory entry is your date of birth due to graphic violence. Even then, entering a month and year while omitting a date seems to work just fine.

Halloween approaches, and a glut of horror games will be upon us shortly. If you want something really scary, check yourself in to Asylum 626.

Update: Doritos has taken both this and Hotel 626 offline and they are no longer available to play, unfortunately. Previously tagged as: advergame, browser, flash, free, game, halloween, horror, macwinlinux, pointandclick, rating-r

These days all of the cool kids want to fly to the right. They're buying fancy upgrades and using their slingshots and catapults to launch themselves, gathering treasure and defeating enemies as they sail rightward, mocking the rest of us as they go. Do not fear! Developer Arcadebra has said "No! We shall no longer fly to the right. We shall fly as gravity intends us to, and the flying direction shall be UP! Straight up. Into the sky." To illustrate the seriousness of their convictions, they have released Higher!, a flying game that defies those who would force us to the right. Well, it's more of a floating game. But you do float straight up.

The incredibly simple goal of Higher! is to get, well, higher. An unassuming little house sits on the ground patiently, surrounded by a picket fence, next to some picturesque trees. Suddenly a balloon floats by and gets caught on the roof, pulling the house skyward, freeing it of its mundane existence. This pleases the house greatly, and when another passing balloon gets caught on the roof, an adventure is born.

Sail into the wild blue yonder with the help of these friendly balloons. Mouse over a balloon and it will happily join your journey, elevating your tiny dwelling to greater heights. Use either the [WASD] or [arrow] keys to steer the house through the ether, avoiding the evil bombs that can burst your brave little balloons and send your home plummeting towards terra firma, along with your hopes and dreams. Click and drag those nasty bombs into each other, making them explode, and you're rewarded with coins. Mouse over these metaphorical pennies from heaven to collect them, and we've come full-circle, control scheme-wise.

Your coinage can be used to purchase upgrades for your tiny cottage and its lofty quest. Press [P] or [space] to pause the game and access the menu system where the upgrades can be found. Increase the number of explosions it takes to pop your balloons or increase the money you get from bombs, among others. Unlock various achievements by reaching certain heights or detonating enough bombs, and win even more money. Each balloon you collect fills the Surprise Meter. When this bar of whimsy is filled, you get a surprise. Surprise!

Analysis: We'll address this point right away, because I know what you're thinking, but Higher! is in no way related to any feature film you may have seen recently. An "inspired by" acknowledgment might have been nice, but that could open up an enormous can of copyright lawyers disguised as worms. Let's never speak of that again.

Unlike those fancy newfangled fly-by-night (to-the-right) games, Higher! is refreshingly simple, from the blue and white palette to the soothing music to the gameplay itself. It only gets complex when you need to use both the keyboard and the mouse to navigate, but if you're quick enough with the mouse, you can let your house sail along happily without a lot of keyboard use.

In similar games, you generally get one attempt to fly or sail or slide as far as you can, and access to upgrades is restricted to the end of the level only. Higher! lets you pause the game at any time and open the upgrades menu. Your purchase is immediately applied, without having to literally restart from ground zero. Get it? Because the house is actually on the ground at the beginning? So that's ground zero, see, and then... oh nevermind. Anyway, your progress is automatically saved through some sort of Intrawebs wizardry, so there's no need to fret about what happens to your very brave house and its balloon friends while you're away.

With respectful apologies to those who detest both alliteration and terrible puns, Higher! is smooth soothing sailing all the way.

Play Higher!

Owls are the arrogant scholars of the animal world. They mock humans with their little glasses and mortarboards; always flying around thinking they're smarter than us. We cannot let this continue!

Show those smug little owls what's what by playing Qbox, a word game from Qwizzly. Qbox is a neat little variation of a Jumble or a cryptogram, in which you try to decipher famous quotes from one of three historical eras. These quotes are laid out in a grid, and the letters have been scrambled within their respective columns only. Swap letters in the same column and when the correct word is formed it will lock into place.

Solve a level quickly and you'll be rewarded with a time bonus. Flashing tiles also represent bonus points, and in the later levels, columns will be locked until you unscramble a word elsewhere in the grid. Click on the smarty-pants owl for a hint if you're stuck.

QBox is quite satisfying as a coffee break game. The difficulty ramps up nicely in later levels and your progress is automatically saved, so you don't need to indulge in a word puzzle marathon if you don't want to. In a pleasant intellectual feature, after completing a level, click on the author of the quote, and you're taken to the Wikipedia article on said author. It's a perfect game for a lazy Sunday morning, and even that smarmy little owl can't spoil your fun.

Play Qbox

Gravitee 2 is space golf! In space! Somehow your ball ended up out in the farthest regions of the galaxy and you have no choice but to play through. This new physics/sports game from FunkyPear lets you sling your ball out into the cosmos, whipping around planets and barreling through hoops.

Your mouse controls everything. Just click on the ball and drag to shoot, adjusting for angle and power. Depending on the level's goal, you'll need to send the ball through a series of hoops in the correct order or make a shot through a single gate while trying to beat par. Other levels may have you collecting little green balls, conveniently called pick-ups. Then there's the aptly titled Points stage, which is a hodgepodge of hoops, pick-ups, and planets, with the goal being to accumulate as many points as possible.

Twist! The game uses Newtonian physics, meaning that the planets that you thought were merely decoration actually have a gravity field that pulls your poor ball all willy-nilly through the universe. Well, not really willy-nilly. Physics is a science, after all, so all of that curving and swooping is precise and reasonable.

Gravitational pull can either help or hinder you, depending on where you need the ball to end up. Instead of sand traps and water hazards, space is littered with suns that will destroy your ball if you get too close and wormholes for warping from one side of the screen to the other. A neat little feature is the preview line, which shows the anticipated path of the ball. With every achievement you unlock, the line gets longer, making shots easier to plan even as the levels get more difficult.

Analysis: Much like Warpshot, Gravitee 2 makes good use of arcs and wormholes and angles and gravity and many other scientific terms. If you miss a planet's gravitational pull, the ball goes whizzing out into space, never to return. (Don't worry. You get to try again with another ball.) Get the shot just right and the ball curves neatly around the planet and gently through the hoop. For levels with multiple planets, precise angle and power can set off a series of swooping figure eights, slinging your ball around and over and around again.

The basic physics of the game makes it a pleasure to play, but the varying levels of difficulty and challenging requirements refine it into an addicting little space gem. Also, the graphics are bright and shiny like candy. However, gravity is tricky and devious, requiring a steady hand and nerves of steel to conquer. The mouse controls may be a bit too imprecise by nature, making you want to bend your virtual golf club over your knee. And just wait till you unlock Platinum Mode, where you don't even get to see the preview line.

With 90 achievements, 4 different medals to earn per level, rewards to unlock, and a well-crafted level editor, you'll want to put your space pants on, grab your space mouse, fire up your space computer, and spend some serious time playing space golf.

Play Gravitee 2

Girls around the world have looked up to Nancy Drew for generations. Her intellect and courage are timeless, and she's been depicted in novels, comic books, movies and TV shows. It would be a mistake to dismiss her as belonging to the realm of tween girls, because without her, we might never have met Buffy Summers, Dana Scully, or Veronica Mars, just to name a few.

Her Interactive has been cranking out Nancy Drew games since 1996, and Ransom of the Seven Ships is their 20th point-and-click adventure. We've featured Lights, Camera, Curses! from their Nancy Drew Dossier series, but their hallmark is, and continues to be, the complex large file mysteries.

A bit of background may be in order for those who may be unfamiliar with this girl detective. Nancy Drew has been solving cases and nabbing criminals in book form since 1930. She started out as a plucky blonde running errands for her father, lawyer Carson Drew, in her blue roadster. During her exploration of River Heights, she'd usually stumble upon a band of smugglers or counterfeiters and save the day with her quick thinking and seemingly inexhaustible personal talents. She could scuba dive, tap dance (in Morse Code!), ride horses and sail boats, just for starters.

Along the way, Nancy's tresses changed from blonde to titian, she aged from 16 to 18, went to college, fell in and out of love with Ned Nickerson, focused less on her social life and fashion, and developed into a modern young woman. Still as plucky as ever, today's books feature a Nancy that drives a hybrid, owns a cell phone, and solves cases at music festivals and on reality show sets.

The Her Interactive games portray Nancy as resourceful and intelligent as she ever was. She's in great demand all over the world as a teenage sleuth, having closed cases in France, Italy, Canada and Ireland, as well as across the United States. Her circle of friends includes cousins Bess Marvin and George Fayne (a girl, despite the masculine name).

In Ransom of the Seven Ships, Nancy, George and Bess have won a free vacation at a tropical resort on Dread Isle, a small island east of the Bahamas. Nancy arrives a day after her friends and is shocked to find that Bess has been kidnapped, the resort owners are nowhere to be found, and she and George are cut off from communication to the outside world. A ransom note demands that, in order to save Bess, Nancy must find the treasure of El Toro, a Spanish captain whose fleet of seven galleons went down near the island almost 300 years ago.

Dread Isle is much too large to explore on foot, so one of Nancy's first tasks is to fix the resort's golf cart. Of course, before playing mechanic, she needs to find the key to open the shed where the cart's battery is kept. After replacing the battery, she puts her math skills to good use by determining how to fill each of the battery's cells with an equal amount of water. This mix of logic and object collecting is the backbone of the game's increasingly complex and intelligent puzzles.

Analysis: Ransom of the Seven Ships is a puzzler's dream come true. Cryptograms, slider puzzles, matchstick manipulation, a Blokus variant, and the hardest game of underwater Sudoku you'll ever encounter are just a few of the many challenges you and Nancy must overcome. Even better? Every single one of these obstacles is seamlessly integrated into the intricate plot. With each solution you're one step closer to outwitting both the kidnappers and El Toro.

The mouse interface is incredibly intuitive, and gameplay is a piece of cake. The cursor changes from an arrow to a magnifying glass to a hand, depending on the options within the scene, and will glow red when you mouse over an object that can be examined more closely. An optional in-game tutorial will have you up and running in no time.

Dread Isle is a tropical paradise, and the graphics and soundtrack reflect the Caribbean influence perfectly. Steel drums abound, native birds sing in the trees, and even Nancy's footsteps in the sand sound authentic. The voice acting is fabulous, although there's no option to skip the sometimes longwinded discussions. And can we just talk about the exquisite graphics for a minute? The colors pop, the sea sparkles, and each location is lovingly rendered with a careful eye for texture and detail.

Unfortunately, the game's weakest point is the animation. The static first person scenes are absolutely perfect, but when you need to control Nancy from the third person perspective, the quality takes a step down. Speaking of that third person perspective, driving the golf cart, exploring in a sailboat and rock climbing are a treat the first few times, but grow tiresome fairly early on. Some sort of warp feature would be greatly appreciated.

A staple of this series is the incorporation of historical facts and educational puzzles. Players will need to decipher a code using maritime signal flags, identify different types of bats, and learn how to plot longitude and latitude. Every single bit of information needed is in the game itself, so there's no need to consult external sources.

For an educational title aimed at young adults, this is a surprisingly difficult game. Make no mistake about it, these puzzles are hard. Thankfully, you can choose to play as a Junior or Senior Detective. The Junior level is highly recommended if you're unfamiliar with the series. Junior Detectives get the "task list" feature, a helpful tool when determining what to do next, and the overall difficulty level is lowered as well.

With hours and hours of casual gameplay, a solid plot, tons of educational content, gorgeous graphics, and a bevy of challenging puzzles, Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships is no mere child's game.

Windows:
Large file, no demo available
Get the full version

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

Note: Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Seas is a large-file adventure game and, as such, no demo is available.

Once upon a time it was a dark and stormy night, and there was this guy pondering away in his study. He had just broken up with his girlfriend or something and was getting all lamenty when this bird flies in and starts taunting him. The guy goes crazy, because the bird is quothing the same thing over and over again. So the moral of the story is to not answer the knock at your chamber door or else a pigeon will drive you insane.

That's how the story goes, right? Maybe. Well, the point is, you are now prepared for Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy, the latest hidden object game from Mumbo Jumbo, creator of the Samantha Swift series. Even if you've never heard of Poe (meaning you spent your life living at the bottom of the sea), all you need to know for the game is he wrote scary stuff and he's dead. Now his ghost can't rest until his death is avenged, so you have 24 hours to solve the mystery or his soul will be dragged down to the underworld. Sure, the real Edgar Allen Poe died under suspicious circumstances, but we won't get all speculative and take the game for more than a piece of fiction, will we?

With the help of a supernatural pocket watch you can travel into Poe's stories and explore them for objects that have been, well, hidden. Some of these items will go into your tool bag to be used later, whether you need wood planks to light a fire, or a sponge to clean a dusty window. You'll also need to solve some puzzles, play mini-games, and talk with the fictional characters scattered about.

Analysis: Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy offers up a solid and enjoyable ghost story based on actual history. Some knowledge of Poe's works makes the game especially fun. Find ravens in the scene and your hint counter goes up. Click around randomly and the ravens are scared away by an angry one-eyed black cat. The storyline becomes clearer if you know why there's a skeleton behind that brick wall or the reason that Captain Kidd makes an appearance. However, if you're unfamiliar with Poe, it won't hinder your enjoyment of the game one bit.

Want a great-looking hidden object game? Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy is one of the best candidates out there. Ripples on the water with fish swimming below? Check. Wind rustling the trees? Check. The pseudo-realistic style of visuals sits between a hand-drawn comic and a meticulously detailed still life, and you won't mind drinking in all of the visual nuances throughout the game.

Midnight Mysteries stumbles a bit with clue descriptions and click detection, the plague of most hidden object games. When you're tasked to find a bottle and there are several candidates in the scene, you need a bit of luck to find the right one on the first try. Some of the mini-games could also use clearer instructions.

Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy stamps its way into the hidden object scene and holds its ground with well-integrated story and gameplay, great artwork, and logical hiding places for items. It's perfect for casual audiences who aren't looking for a lot of challenge but want a good gaming experience nonetheless.

Windows:
Download the demo
Get the full version

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

We here at Jay is Games would like to point out that we are not responsible for the ridiculous amount of rabbit-based puns in this review. You see, Bunni: how we first met is exceptionally and insidiously cute, which we believe to be the mysterious cause behind this leporide-intensive wordplay. The game's sheer charm has overwhelmed our staff, leaving them unable to type so much as a paragraph without yelling out "Bunni cute happy making!" or something similar. We hareby (D'oh!) apologize for the inconvenience, and warn you to proceed at your own risk.

From Andre Spierings and Daniel Cook, the masterminds behind Fishing Girl, comes Bunni: how we first met, an insanely adorable game that is most easily categorized as resource management. Reminiscent of Animal Crossing or Wandering Willows, Bunni combines role-playing, simulation and a non-linear format, resulting in a distinctly underused genre of gameplay.

Our hero is a cute little bunny with a cute little bunny crown, a newcomer to an island chain that recently experienced an "incident." As a result, its inhabitants and natural vegetation have been damaged, and like any good hero, you need to restore the land to its former glory. Along the way, find the girl, fall in love and marry her. Of course everybunny knows that the best way to a girl's heart is to gather rocks and wood so you can buy her things she likes, so get to it!

The best way to navigate the island is to speak to other characters, which will usually have helpful exclamation points over their head. After receiving some hints and guidance, harvest resources by gathering workers to employ at your mills and mines. On the first island, only other bunnies are available to work for you. As you open other islands, foxes, pandas and monsters may be able to help you for the right price. Visit the store to buy and plant trees and flowers to keep everyone hoppy.

The interface is delightfully intuitive, and smooth and shiny besides, just like 24-carrot gold. Point and Click is the order of the day. Click on objects to pick them up. Click and drag on an object in your inventory to place it where you like. Click on trees to harvest their precious and delicious fruit. Click on other characters to talk to them. Click or hold down the left button to make your bunny hop towards the cursor. In fact, let's all take a bunny hop break. I'll be right here singing the song for you. Bunny hop like you mean it, people!

Analysis: Analysis completed. Cuteness has been confirmed. Graphics determined to be endearing. The presence of bright colors and pleasing sound effects has been detected. Reaction of individual game players is unknown, but predicted results may include giggling, gleefulness, or a symptom known only as Squee.

Bunnies are wascally little creatures who don't always behave in ways you might expect, so it might not be a surprise that there are drawbacks to the game. You can't save your progress without creating a free account, which might be a dealbreaker for some. The main quest does not take long, but if you have a healthy sense of exploration you'll find plenty to do, including completing all the achievements and opening up all the available islands. In order to do that, you'll have to collect quite a few red gems, which are in short supply. There are plans in the works to let you buy gems with real money, but for now, you're mostly stuck shaking trees.

If the classic film Night of the Lepus had starred the kind of rabbits from Bunni instead of the terrifying kind, there would no longer be any bunny-based nightmares for a certain game reviewer. I'm just saying. I'm also just saying that if I were a large dimwitted southern man I might ask "Tell me about the rabbits, George," and if you didn't want to, you could retort "I don't carrot all for that question" and then I would remark that bunnies aren't as cute as everybody supposes and then...

Let go, Jay! Where are you taking me? I have to spread the bunny puns! They have hoppy legs and twitchy little noses! Actually, resting comfortably does sound like a pretty good idea...

Play Bunni: how we first met

Previously mentioned back in April when it was first released, we postponed a full review of Scarygirl until some of its initial bugs and control issues were sorted. Now, for the review..."

Some games serve as simple occasional diversions from your everyday routine. Some keep you coming back for more, whether it's due to replayability, quirky humor or pleasing graphics. Once in a great while the very best of games manage to completely draw you into their world, a world so complete and exquisitely developed that you want to spend hours there, exploring and dissecting and ruminating.

Scarygirl, a collaboration between Nathan Jurevicius and Touch My Pixel, is one of these rare and elusive games. Flawed yet compelling, this Technicolor platform/adventure game is bursting with whimsy and wonder.

Scarygirl (perhaps a pirate, maybe a zombie, eternally adorable) has a bone for one arm and a hooked tentacle for the other. She wears a party hat with the Jolly Roger on it. She lives in a treehouse. She enjoys collecting jewels and fish. After a particularly troubling dream, she decides to seek guidance from her two mentors. One is a bunny and one is an octopus, of course.

She quickly consults with her advisors, and like any traditional heroine, she is charged with a quest. To discover the meaning behind her dream, she must travel through forests, swamps, cities and sewers, searching for clues and information along the way. And so we begin.

Scarygirl's world is as complex as it is frustrating and as beautiful as it is dangerous. The majority of the game can be boiled down to a traditional platformer in terms of mechanics. You know the drill. Use [arrows] to move, jump with [up], spin attack with [space]. Explore the level, kill the enemies, collect fish to increase your health and gems to increase your score. Activate a checkpoint to save your progress. You're doing great!

Except that, many times throughout the game, none of the above actually applies. The control scheme frequently changes along with the goal of the level. Fortunately there's plenty of in-game help that clearly explains your present objective and defines the active controls. Unfortunately, just when you're used to running, jumping and spinning, you're suddenly riding your rocket bike and bunny-hopping over rock formations. Fortunately, there are plenty of checkpoints along your journey. Unfortunately, the checkpoints are abruptly and quickly phased out, and you'll need to repeat entire levels again and again.

Completion fanatics will relish this chance, striving to collect every fish, treasure, or elusive old-school console game strewn throughout the levels. Offering hours and hours of gameplay, Scarygirl manages to balance its flaws with sheer ambition and a rock solid sense of place.

Analysis: At first glance, Scarygirl comes at you blazing on all cylinders like a triumph in Flash game production values. From the very start of the introductory cinematic sequence, the player is offered a glimpse at what appears to be one of the most fantastic Flash games to ever appear on the Web. And yet once you dig a little deeper, the game seems to suffer from a severe case of "everything but the kitchen sink-itis." Swimming? Check. Boss battle? Check. Bike ride? Check. Trading? Collecting? A Mastermind-esque puzzle? Check, check and check.

The problem here is that its mostly traditional platforming basics aren't fully developed. Scarygirl plays like a compressed console game, never fully exploring the possibilities of each component, a conceit that is ultimately unsatisfying. Perhaps the most infuriating element is a lack of consistency. In the underwater level, you need to keep an eye on your oxygen level, periodically finding an air pocket to replenish it. Later, when you explore the sewers, swimming through flooded tunnels, no oxygen is necessary.

In the same vein, some levels drip green goo from the ceiling. You'll need to avoid the droplets, but the puddle underneath is safe to stand on. In a later level, however, what seems to be a puddle of the same goo does, in fact, harm you.

This same inconsistency applies to almost everything around you, slowly and cleverly becoming an integral and appealing part of the game. You don't know which fantastical creatures are the enemies until you try to walk past them. Does this bird want to take away my health fish? No, but this other bird does! Can I jump on that lady's hat? Of course I can! How about this pipe-smoking gentleman? Absolutely not!

The game's biggest flaw turns into its most compelling feature, a parlor trick that is rare indeed. The unpredictability factor serves to infuse Scarygirl and the world around her with a sense of exploration and adventure, a sense that the player is truly part of this journey, resulting in the desire to investigate every pathway available. And we haven't even discussed the art yet.

Oh, the art. The whimsical, stylized, gorgeous art. If Shag and Mary Blair had a slightly gothic and surreal love child, that child would be Scarygirl. The design never falters — each character is as lovingly drawn as the next. The game is dreamlike and capricious, beginning with the fantastically beautiful work of genius that is the opening movie.

In the end, the good outweighs the bad. Players can put up with loose controls, slipping and sliding their way through levels, when the brilliance of the rest of the game is so appealing. Every element combines to lift Scarygirl above the competition, serving to create one of the most exasperating yet fulfilling Flash games available today.

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Do you ever get tired of physics games? Has designing absurdly complex machines become mundane? Do you just wish that someone would do all that work for you? Today, dear readers, is your lucky day! Go Home Ball is here! (Applause!)

Go Home Ball is a shiny new addition to a special new subgenre of games that I shall call "physicslite." Or "litephysics." Which sounds better? Scratch that. We'll call it "physics fill-in-the-blank." That rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?

So there's this Ball. Ball wants to Go Home. It's your job to get Ball home. Ball lives in a hollow tree stump in a forest. Yes he does. Thankfully, said forest is filled with ramps, bridges, floating platforms, mine carts and more. These items are thoughtfully configured into those Goldberg-esque contraptions that you're just too tired to build anymore. Well, mostly configured. Some parts are missing, and that's where it starts to get interesting.

Each level is missing different objects: sticks, springs and swinging baskets, to name a few. Using the [arrow keys] and the [mouse], you can place the missing pieces in the appropriate spots, rotating or activating them when needed, easily creating a safe little path that Ball can use to Go Home. Game over! Yay for Ball! The End!

Incorrect! It's as if the forest itself is working against you here! Each item that you place has a life span of two seconds, and you can't place a second item while the first item is in play. Only precise timing on your part will keep poor Ball from falling into the void and you from losing 10 points. On top of that, there's a level timer to beat. And on top of that? Ball needs to collect all of the stars scattered around the screen before happily rolling Home.

Later levels become more intricate. You'll need to switch between items, using your hand to give Ball a little push and then quickly pressing [down] to switch to a spring for Ball to bounce on. A touchpad is not recommended for this one, especially as the difficulty increases.

Analysis: Go Home Ball is difficult, to say the least. Go Home Ball might very well suck the will to live right out of your brain, to say the most. The game is unforgiving in terms of timing (I'm looking in your direction, Level 8!) and combined with the short life span of your placed objects, your clicking skills will be pushed to the limit.

Ball isn't very helpful, either. You would think he would be, since he's the one who wants to Go Home and all. The gameplay is a bit stiff, you see. Ball simply refuses to bounce or roll like a normal ball would do. When you use your hand to push Ball, Ball shall stop exactly where he wants to. Ball will not roll back when he hits an obstacle like those lesser balls do. Amateurs.

And yet....

There's a certain inventiveness here. In most physics games, you'll set up your pathway or build your machine and then click "Start," watching your creation unfold in front of you without your direct interaction. Go Home Ball is delightfully and literally hands on in contrast, making you want to try a level just one more time, and then maybe once after that and then again besides until you haven't gone to work in three days.

The crisp bright graphics are pleasing, and the overall presentation is polished and slick. Dexterous players with quick reflexes will find Go Home Ball challenging yet enjoyable. However, I guarantee that at some point during your game you'll be unable to keep from yelling out (and you all knew this was coming, right? Right?) "Why you don't you just go home? That's your home! Are you too good for your home?"

Play Go Home Ball