No one is perfect. Especially you. So when you've committed a horrible act against a higher being, you can do nothing but ask her forgiveness. She is not easily swayed by your words, so it'll take some persistence and platforming skills to prove yourself worthy. You have to Persist.

In Jussi Simpanen's Ludum Dare entry for the theme "Minimalism", you'll have to swim, jump and run your way through increasingly challenging levels to prove the sincerity of your remorse. Control your sprite with either [arrow] keys or [WASD] from the gloomy beginning to mysterious end. For a game made in 48 hours, the story has more depth than you would expect. It's also a game that sparked some interesting dialogue and interpretations amidst our own staff, with some believing the reason you find yourself searching for forgiveness could be perceived as something some players may find unsettling (or unforgiveable) while others believed your crime a more mundane one. Will you succeed in garnering forgiveness? Or is this all a lesson in futility?

Play Persist

It's a fish! It's a submarine! No, it's Aqua Boy! Okay, so maybe Duncan Fenn's action adventure title has nothing to do with superheroes, but that doesn't stop the titular protagonist from trying to save the day. This metroidvania-style game puts you in the shoes of a boy traveling underwater with his monkey when the devious primate sabotages the submersible for his own ends. Now it's up to you to retrieve your scattered gear and stop the simian's evil plans!

Inspired by Bit Blot's 2007 title, Aquaria, Fenn has created a pared down aquatic exploration experience. Control the movements of your orange-suited fellow with [WASD] and his pea shooter with either the mouse or [arrow] keys. While most of the creatures you'll encounter are enemies, there are a few allies around who help point you towards upgrades, lost equipment and even secret passages. But don't worry too much about needing their aid, Aqua Boy is on the easy side for games of this genre, and you can plow through from beginning to end with few deaths. Now whether "few" is 5 or 134 is something you'll have to find out.

Play Aqua Boy

Straight from Nitreal Games comes a spring-rific take on the building time management genre in Gardens Inc.: From Rakes to Riches. Play as a young college graduate intent on helping her grandparents keep their villa from the clutches of the local evil entrepreneur. (How they've come to owe him $1,000,000, you're never quite sure.) As Jill, you've got a hearty green thumb and an eye for detail, which is just what the town needs. Water logged pathways, overgrown weeds, burglars and ravens! Nothing can stop you from fighting back, not to mentioned how great it is to just spruce up your grandparent's abode with the extra money you earn. Can you do it? Can you save them from being evicted and living out the rest of their lives in a cardboard box?!

Gardens Inc. has the same mechanics as similar games, like the Roads of Rome series. Direct Jill and the other workers by clicking on tasks, which will be completed in the order they were assigned. Keep in mind accessibility, such as islands which have a limit to how many boats can dock there. Hovering over a task will show you the list of resources needed to complete it, though if you're in a hurry, simply clicking the task anyway will display a discreet message letting you know what resource you're missing. As variety in the gameplay, between levels you're offered a little extra treat of rebuilding your grandparents' villa practically one brick at a time. Just more incentive to not just go for the gold, but the secret 'better than developer's record' prize! (Hint: it's more coins.)

Analysis: Nitreal Games has done a fantastic job creating an experience that will delight fans of the time management/simulation genre. The graphics are colorful and pleasing, just as you would expect from a gardening game. The addition of being able to renovate the villa is not only a satisfying sidequest of sorts, but is also great incentive to go back and earn a gold time for all the levels... just in case your natural compulsiveness didn't already have you doing this. Not to mention that along with the usual list of tasks to complete, there is also a puzzle goal which, if you can decipher, will earn you extra coins. This makes the selection of plants all the more exciting!

As great of a first showing as Gardens Inc.: From Rakes to Riches is for Nitreal Games, it is still a first showing, so there are a few issues. The hotspots for some of the items can be hard to determine(ahem, flock of seagulls... err, ravens) or get on the first try, as is the case with tasks that are not stationary. And the storyline, while not terrible, is boring and uninspired. These are, honestly, rather minor quibbles and certainly not something to hold you back from playing a game that can offer a whole afternoon's distraction. Maybe it's time you played in some dirt... without actually getting dirty or having that annoying sun in your eyes!

Windows:
Download the demo
Get the full version

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

A man with a simple life in Jakarta as an architectural photographer, Adam finds himself assigned to take some shots inside an old apartment building... of thirteen floors. Stranger yet is the familiarity he has with many of the pictures left hanging in the rooms. Ooh, a link to his mysterious past and the death of his parents? Or just a happy coincidence (though we already know from the title that it's probably less-than-happy)? Thus sets the stage for Tempa Labs' point-and-click adventure, Traumata.

Click your way through the story using all three interactions available to you, highlighting to activate them or use the keyboard shortcuts of [A], [S] and [E]. A friendly changing cursor and simple inventory system allow you to focus on and become immersed in Adam's story. A mixture of light horror and light puzzling, Traumata will have you on your toes as you uncover the details of the protagonist's childhood.

Note: Beginning with Floor 4, be sure to save your game often. It is possible to die and get a game over state, forcing you to restart or continue from a save.

Play Traumata

Having been a few years since their previous title, Polymer Rabbit comes back with a kick in the teeth by cranking up the difficulty of their shooter series in Frantic 3. Bigger enemies, bigger bullets... looks like they followed the 'bigger is better' philosophy. And you'll be glad they did as you wind your way through the top-down scrolling stages flying around with all the grace you can muster through your mouse (or [WASD] for those more keyboard-ly inclined) and increasing the devastation of your auto-firing arsenal with a flick of your left-click/[spacebar]

Get your bulkheads handed to you again and again while working your way through all five areas of three stages apiece. What's that? Not enough for you? Well, completing a stage unharmed unlocks a bonus stage where you can collect even more money to throw at endless upgrades and accessories for your ship. It's time to take a stand against these foreign spacecraft and whatever they have against you, because it's no fun when it's just the enemy with the overly large bullets. Fire away, my fantastic fighters! Fire away frantically!

Play Frantic 3

Taking a step sideways from their previous title, Char Studio brings a delightfully simple, and yet challenging, puzzle game about connecting electric charges. In Electric Joint, you're tasked to click all the charges on the screen into one big loop. But it can never be as simple as that. Adjacent charges must be opposite, and (in the famous words of Ghostbusters' Egon) "don't cross the streams". With these restrictions and other hazards like moving particles and electric barriers, you're sure to be scratching your head before you complete all 25 levels. So if you're looking for a challenge over your next coffee/tea/chocolate milk break, why not play around with some electricity?

Play Electric Joint

It's cloudy with a chance of victory in the new realtime strategy game, Cloud Wars, by Staal Media. You're a cutesy little cloud who, over time, accumulates cumulus matter to grow into a more dominating form. Click and drag from a cloud unit you possess to another one to send half of your fluffy, puffy units to bring a torrential downpour upon your dastardly enemies 'pink' and 'yellow'. Should you chance upon a star, send a single unit zipping over to it to earn upgrade points which you can spend on enhancing the speed, capacity or creation rate of a cloud of your choosing. But keep in mind, if your enemy takes over your little nimbus, they'll keep that upgrade for themselves.

At 15 levels, Cloud Wars is a nice 'rainy day' game for strategy fans, while the simple layout and three difficulty settings leave it accessible for people who aren't as familiar with this Risk-like genre. With the cutesy, colorful graphics and emoting cloud faces, it's easy to fall into the illusion that you're just playing with bubbles and cotton balls rather than sending microscopic water molecule soldiers into battle. To arms my dipolar friends!

Play Cloud Wars

With constant talks of companies copying games from other companies, it's nice to see one actually ask permission first. Such is the case with NIAsoft and their authorized remake of Christian Steinruecken's The Alchemy Game, originally released back in the late 90s and still available to download and play. Now Alchemy Classic comes along, updating the Doodle God-like gameplay without tooling with the original too much. There is one major difference, though: you can combine more than two elements at a time! This added aspect of difficulty combined with a slick interface and the low-low price of free makes Alchemy Classic a must download for Android users.

You start the game with just four elements: air, fire, water and earth. Simply touch and drag them around the screen, placing them on top of each other to attempt a combination. If they mix, a new element will appear, automatically stashing itself in your inventory for later mixing. Once you have enough elements you'll have to use the column sorting tabs to choose the element group you're looking for, then drag them around to find the right combinations (and, yes, sometimes the right order as well). Your progress out of the 462 elements to discover is listed at the top as well as the number of hint points you have. Hint points allow you to buy valuable information on the make up of an unlocked element: either the group a particular component comes from or (at a higher cost) what the element actually is.

What NIAsoft has done with Steinruecken's game is wonderful. They didn't just take the game outright and publish it, they polished its look, gave it an intuitive smartphone interface, and added extra content. While Alchemy Classic plays well and is entertaining, it's unfortunate that many of the elements are locked and only available through outright purchase with either 'real' money or an in-game currency. If you're not willing to go through that to unlock everything, this game can still give you hours of free entertainment, and it will certainly have you feeling like a god with a chemistry degree. Just don't be surprised if you find yourself dusting off your old high school chem notes.

Alchemy Classic

(Android)

Alchemy Classic HD

(Android)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on a Droid Razr. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.

Bouncy! Bouncy! Hippity hop! There's a fair amount of words to indicate a bunny moving around, and the protagonist of BuniBon, developed by Ludosity's Regnslöja, does them all! In this simple idea arcade game, you'll steer the little fuzz ball through 72 single-screen levels bouncing around hazards to collect the blue orbs. What will you find when you've beat all the bosses and completed all the levels?!

Move our nameless hero by tapping either the left or right side of your device to direct him toward that side. The duration of your tap indicates the distance of his hop. What you can't control is his vertical height (except when there's a springboard). When/if you find a level too frustrating, the level map allows you different paths through them, offering you several choices so that you're not just banging your head against the wall over a single level (instead, it's over multiple levels!). Get yourself to a square with the boss symbol and face an enemy requiring multiple hits to the head to defeat. Kill all the bosses to face the end boss in the purple, electricity region. And, of course, a little something special awaits those daring enough to beat all the levels and not just blaze through to the bosses.

Regnslöja has created something special in his simple, mobile action game. The high difficulty is balanced by the short levels, and the open options for the order you play the levels in make it even easier to handle the difficulty. Plus, with the introduction of new elements to avoid in each region to keep the levels interesting, there's little to complain about BuniBon. Help me, BuniBon Bunobi. You're my only hope!

BuniBon

(Android)

BuniBon Demo

(Android)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on a Droid Razr. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.

Just when you thought secret societies were a thing of the past (literally, ha!), World-Loom brings them back to you in full force in their hidden-object adventure hybrid, Dark Heritage: Guardians of Hope. With some unique visuals and a good puzzle-to-hidden-object-scene ratio, Dark Heritage will have you feeling like Tom Hanks as you chase down a mysterious killer. You know, if Tom Hanks were a woman.

Professor Child has contacted you about helping him put together a special medallion. He thinks he's found the Philosopher's Stone and needs your wits to assist him in his search. Unfortunately, when you get to his office, he's nowhere to be found. What's happened to him? You travel to the United Kingdom to get to the small, desolate Cannon Rock Island to seek him out. It's prophesies and magical spirits for you as you get to the truth of the island's past.

Dark Heritage's controls work as most hidden-object hybrids do: click to interact with an area, a changing cursor will indicate what kind of interaction is available and sparkles appear (in both difficulties) to showcase a hidden-object scene. All objects needed will be listed at the bottom. Items in red require extra actions to reveal them, those actions indicated by a changing cursor over the scene. For many of the puzzles in the game, you have to find missing parts, which are found in other locations. While you can often interact with the puzzle beforehand, the exact instructions for the puzzle will not appear until all the missing items have been put back.

Analysis: World-Loom has made an interesting experience with their unique mix of graphics. While most of the game is drawn in the way of many similar titles, Dark Heritage also includes live action cut scenes as well as a few mixed scenes that are reminiscent of Return to Zork. But behind the graphics there still lies a solid game with 3-4 hours of play in the standard edition.

What is uniquely offered in graphics seems to have taken away from the story. There's little mystery in what's going on and the main villain leaves a distinctly nondescript taste in your mouth making it seem more like you're traveling puzzle to puzzle instead of fighting him in the end. Despite this, the puzzles are varied enough to keep you entertained as you make your way through the game.

Dark Heritage: Guardians of Hope has a lot going for it, and while it's not perfect, it shows that World-Loom is another promising casual game developer. Try it out and see if you can uncover the mysteries of the Chosen One, Cannon Rock Island and the Philosopher's Stone that every character you meet seems to go on about!

A Collector's Edition is also available. It contains a bonus chapter, art gallery, strategy guide, 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
Also available: Collector's Edition

Mac OS X:
Download the demo
Get the full version
Also available: Collector's Edition

Oh look, it's a cute bunny doll! Aww, isn't it fuzzy? Wait, what the... who would do that to a stuffed animal?!! Come on, folks. It's Detarou. Did you really expect anything different? That's right, they've sprinkled some more of their bizarre escape game magic in their latest title, Zakari. Can you blame them, though? It's like we can't get enough of the craziness. I mean you, not we... I, uh, only played it because I had to. (That was believable, right?)

You'll have a changing cursor to help you identify hotspots and an inventory to interact with, as is usual in Detarou games. And of course there's the all helpful save feature, which will assist you as you discover all three endings (assuming you remember to use it). While their humor isn't for everyone, those who do play it are promised some code deciphering, ninja kicking and Panda revenge!

Play Zakari

Hey all you roguelike fans! Oh, and those of you who are also interested but maybe just haven't taken the leap yet, you should listen too because Seramy Games' Dungeon Ascendance could be what turns your interest into love. Available for your lovely Android device, it's a roguelike that offers its levels in easy to digest chunks that allow you to choose a different class before each one. Because there's nothing like getting down to the 20th level and regretting your choice of a mage. (Why is my HP still so low!?) But don't let the structure scare away you veterans; the challenge of the game packs quite a punch.

You are a hero. Your goal is at it always has been: head into the deadly dungeon and defeat the evil master of monsters so they'll stop bothering the local townspeople. (Don't you remember the days when you could play in your front yard in peace?) By choosing your battles carefully and handling your hit points and magic points with a frugal eye, there'll be no problem in leveling up enough to take down the Dungeon Master.

The controls are fairly simple and all the information you could want is quite literally at your fingertips. Move your character around by tapping an empty square. Tapping a square with an item on it will automatically pick up that item (which may result in it also being used, depending on the item). Monsters work the same way, but you must first be standing in an adjacent square before tapping it will cause you to perform a melee attack. Abilities and potions, once in your inventory, are used by tapping them. Not sure what's what? Pressing and holding over an icon will create a pop-up window with more in depth information. It certainly helps out when you're not sure what the dripping red skull on the spider's stats mean.

Analysis: While unlocking characters and making your way through the increasingly difficult dungeons is enough to keep at the game, where it's most compelling is in the long, long list of achievements. Found that dungeon too easy? Well how about doing it without using your Heal ability? It's the strategy of it all that helps keep this from being a generic roguelike. Pick a class, pick a dungeon, now complete it with the limited supplies you're given. Plus, when you eat some food to heal yourself, any creatures who've taken damage will also take the opportunity to heal themselves a bit. (What? Monsters with some sense of self-preservation?!)

What the game lacks is sound effects and music. Sure, you can set it to vibrate every time you tap something, but without the aural stimulation, it can be hard to really immerse yourself in the game. At least the chunky visuals help to make up for it by keeping a retro feel that so many of us fans of the genre are familiar with (check out the Credits to see where some of the neat tile art came from).

Sure, it's possible to sit and kill several hours on this game in one sitting, the structure of playing one level at a time with one class at a time makes it a great choice for those who need something they can pick up and drop easily. Is it a good game for your fifteen minute coffee breaks? Yes. Is it a good game for the twelve hour road trip to attend a wedding you don't really want to? Yes, definitely. And with the ability to transfer your progress from the free demo to the full version, there's no disadvantage to trying it out first.

Note: Since this review was written, Dungeon Ascendance has been updated to include sound and music as well as upscaled graphics for tablet devices!

Dungeon Ascendance (free)

(Android)

Dungeon Ascendance

(Android)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on a Droid Razr. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.