Quod. \ˈkwäd\. British slang for prison. Very few games teach you new vocabulary words while entertaining you, but BubbleQuod, a physics-based puzzle-platformer from Ukrainian developer Garbuz Games, manages to do both quite ably.

To free yourself from your self-constructed prison to keep out the dangers of the world, you must roll across fifty stages and seek the bubble-bursting pin. The developers offer two levels of difficulty: "normal," which allows for in-air control, and "hard," which is more realistic.

Physics games are inherently tied to the success of their physics engine, and here BubbleQuod mostly passes. The bubble can be finicky at first, but after a few levels the controls become second nature. The objects with which to interact are varied, and introduced with enough frequency to stave off boredom until the difficulty curve takes over. (Said curve may be a bit unbalanced: difficulty increases quickly around level 20, and the last few levels may cause stress-induced baldness.)

The graphics are beautiful, with backgrounds evoking an inventor's workbook, scribbled with notations and designs. The music loop may get repetitive after a few levels, but a mute button is close at hand.

There are ten languages available, ranging from English and Spanish to Russian and Portuguese, but dialogue is kept to a minimum. It's just as well; this is a game that holds its own in any language.

Play BubbleQuod

You kids these days with your Halos and your Gear Wars and your Half Lifes... you don't appreciate what we had to work with! Back in my day, we didn't have no fancy-schmancy high-end graphics in our shooters! No complex storylines, neither. We didn't even have a jump! You know what we had? We had Doom.

Doom was a simple game. You were stuck on Mars. You had to get unstuck from Mars. And between stuck and unstuck was a buncha monsters that wanted to kill you. So you got a bunch of guns and killed the monsters. None of this ninety-minute cutscene junk. You get to the end of the level, you maybe get a bit of text saying what's next, and you move on.

No mouse controls, neither. [WASD] to move, [Q] and [E] to strafe, [R] to open doors and use switches, number keys to switch weapons, and the space bar to shoot.

What? What was that? Why bother with a game that's 15 years old? Because it popularized the whole first person shooter genre! And at its core, it's one of the greatest of all time: undiluted by extras, a pure shooter at its core. In here, you'll find the foundations for modern FPS games, what inspired Bungie, Epic, and Valve.

To play this online Flash version, you'll need Adobe Flash Player 10. Compiled into Actionscript from the original Doom source. Sorry, the game is not compatible with PowerPC Macs.

So pay some respect to your elders! Don't make me go find the BFG 9000.

Play Doom

Ball Drop One, produced by Finnish developer Ville Helin, is an interesting blend of pachinko and pinball. Drop your ball into the playing field, trying to rack up as many points as possible. If your ball hits a skull ball or stops moving, it explodes and the round ends. Simple enough, right?

Well, no, not really, because this game has a lot going on. The objective is to score points, and scoring points unlocks additional levels for you to play. Also, your high score for each level is saved for you.

You can score points off of a multitude of different balls, ranging from exploding blues to shrinking yellows, give your ball an extra kick by correctly predicting which ball it will hit next, slow the game down temporarily, and give all balls a boost towards your mouse (at a cost, of course). Meanwhile, collect the "S" balls for a temporary slowdown, hit frozen black balls for extra balls, and collect multipliers to double or triple your score!

If this sounds like a lot, it's because it is. Ball Drop One, while fun, cannot find a place to settle down. The core concept is more than adequate for a good time, but the game feels a bit insecure, and tries to compensate by adding bells and whistles. The wide variety of gameplay aspects seem unnecessary; while you might find occasion to spend the 25 points on slow motion, you probably won't find cause to burn 100 on the thrusters. The only bit of gameplay you'll use with any frequency beyond dropping the ball in the first place is clicking other balls in hopes that your ball will strike them next, but the imprecise and luck-based nature of this task will discourage you quickly.

But the game is still a good diversion for a lunch break (and a level editor provides for something to do after lunch, if you are so inclined). Its set-and-go nature lends itself to a pick-up-and-play style, and it doesn't hurt that human nature lends itself to watching things bounce around a lot and going "ooh, did it make it—oh, it almost—OH, it made it, YEAH!"

That may or may not be a direct quote from my play through. Find out for yourself.

Play Ball Drop One

Anyone who follows Jay is Games knows our penchant for high explosives. Well, actually, it's mostly just me. I mean, look at the games I've reviewed so far. Cannons, tanks, demolition, and more cannons. Maybe I should be concerned about this? I mean, John does all the peaceful games: Music Catch, Floating Islands, Now Boarding... Ah well. Old habits die hard. Let's blow stuff up with NinjaKiwi!

Boombot is a actiony-puzzly-physicy-bomby game from the makers of Bloons, More Bloons, Even More Bloons, and much more. Your job, as some sort of evil omniscient explosives technician, is to maneuver an itty-bitty robot called Boombot to the exit of each level. Aside from the black bombs under your control, you'll have to manipulate TNT, oil drums, and nitroglycerin Senso-Gel to clear all fifty levels.

You'll find yourself launching your robot buddy around the stage, crashing him into solid walls and bouncy mats in your quest to guide him away from your self-imposed artillery range. (Although wouldn't it be much simpler to just teach the robot how to walk to the exit? Gunpowder doesn't come cheap, you know.)

Analysis: The concept is beautifully simple and well-executed. The game's difficulty ramps up nicely, so that by your first real challenges you've got aiming down pat. For those who prefer a bit more ease, an Unlimited Bombs option is available.

The graphics aren't overly cartoony, but feel distinctly pulled from a kid's cartoon. From the big black globes with lit fuses to the conveniently labeled red boxes alongside the sparkly jars of highly explosive liquids, the simple and distinct visuals contribute to the light-hearted, somewhat silly atmosphere.

You'll find yourself wanting to blast your way through all fifty levels in one sitting. And there's nothing wrong with that. (Although if you work for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots, I might recommend keeping the volume down.)

Play Boombot

Join the Boombot community to create and share your own stages with the Boombot level editor!

Ragdoll Cannon 2 is, rather logically, the sequel to Ragdoll Cannon (as teased by the release of Ragdoll Cannon 1.5). That's some no-nonsense naming, there. What designer Johnny_K might lack in titling, however, he more than compensates for in gameplay.

The core concept is familiar to fans of the prior offerings: using high-powered artillery, fire a hapless stickman across an obstacle-ridden course and strike a small target. It's like a three-ring circus combined with an archery range.

This time around, the "HERE!" block has been replaced by a much clearer bullseye target, and the cannon has been given a visual upgrade; in fact, everything's a bit more shiny. Johnny_K has abandoned his prior blueprint style in favor of three different themes: matchsticks, pastels, and skeletons. Each theme takes hold for twenty levels before yielding to the next, and converging together for the final ten.

For those of you who could never work out that it's pi r squared, not pie are delicious, that's seventy levels available to you in this go-around. You'll start off with simple shots, but things'll quickly ramp up, and you'll find yourself trying to work out complicated trajectories in your head.

Adding to the complications are specialized blocks. Now, there's no term given in-game for these blocks, so I shall coin one: "burn bricks." Ooh, or "murder mortars." OH! No, wait, "stick snapping stones!" I like that; very descriptive.

These stick snapping stones are marked with an X (crossed matchsticks, a skull and bones, or crossed bones). If your stickman touches one of these, the part that connected with the brick gets "burned" and falls off the main stickman. Only live stickman parts can touch the target to advance, so these blocks will be your enemy at times (although, interestingly, a puzzle will occasionally rely upon using these blocks effectively).

"That's all well and good," I hear you saying, "but all this is going over my head! All I know about physics is that Coldplay invented the speed of sound!" Well, you strugglers of the sciences, take heart: the game is somewhat forgiving. The golf-style scoring encourages conservation, but allows as many shots as you need to succeed. A reset button allows you to start each level over without penalty to your score. By the tenth level, you'll have snagged the general idea (or gone crazy trying).

Analysis: If you liked the first game, you'll love this. Well, love's a strong word. Let's not charge into this. How about we go on a few more dates with Ragdoll Cannon 2 and see how it goes, yeah?

Look, the extra levels are more than welcome, but some of them are excruciatingly difficult. A small yet non-zero handful of levels tend to devolve into pixel hunting. If you like pixel hunting, you're set (and also a little strange), but for the rest of us, it's a bit frustrating. These levels are few and far between, thankfully.

And if you loved the original blueprint style like I did... well, the new graphics are disappointing. The graph paper of the original reminded me of my AP Calculus days, doodling in the margins while waiting for the next differential. The new style makes it more in line with your standard casual game's scheme: colorful, but not very distinctive. The new themes aren't bad, but they're just not as good. (Although the mish-mash of visual styles in the last ten levels? Bleh.)

If you can get past the occasional level and the disappointing graphics, you've got a lot of good stuff here. This game will test your mind and your skill. With cannons. And let's face it, that's awesome.

Play Ragdoll Cannon 2

There's something satisfying about destroying things. Knowing that someone spent time and energy building something up, only to have you rush in and smash it to bits? Deeply, deeply satisfying. But unless we specialize in demolition, warfare, or catty schoolhouse comments, this desire to destroy goes unfulfilled. So for us normal people, there's physics-based destroyer games like DUI.

DUI, an action puzzler from Chinese developing team S.I.T.T., asks you to guide a sprite to safety by rolling it back and forth with the arrow keys and destroying blocks with the mouse.

To advance to the next level, you must rest the sprite on a colored block and destroy any moving blocks on-screen, as well as fulfilling the removed block quota in the corner of the screen. Usually completing these goals go hand in hand, but keep them in mind.

To add difficulty to the mix, the sprite cannot come to a halt below the red line across the screen. If it does, the level restarts. You can get away with having a portion of it above the line or running the ball below the line-- in fact, some puzzles hinge on doing this.

There are thirty-six levels in all, plus a well-rounded level editor to create your own tricky puzzles. (Share them in the comments under Spoiler tags!)

Analysis: If you're feeling inklings of deja vu, you might be right. DUI bears a passing resemblance to a game we reviewed last week, Totem Destroyer.

The games are similar; both ask you to guide down an object by destroying blocks. But DUI's addition of control over the sprite changes the equation, adding an extra level of puzzlingness.

The levels are well-planned, and there's a solution for each and every one of them, although achieving it might be difficult. Some puzzles rely heavily on removing certain blocks, while some require a good sense of timing. They vary just enough to avoid being repetitive, but are just doable enough to avoid impossibility.

If it sounds intimidating... well, it is, a little. You'll need to think things out and plan ahead. But once you get going, you won't want to stop.

Play DUI

Bubbles are neat things. Stop and think about them for a second. You get some soap, some water, and you can make little floating orbs. I remember many a day in my youth where we'd whip up a batch, make some bubble wands, and start firing artillery at each other. Thanks to the makers of Bubble Tanks 2, we all can revisit a more innocent, vaguely dysfunctional time.

From Hero Interactive (Starshine, Light Sprites, Storm Winds) comes Bubble Tanks 2, the long-awaited followup to the original Bubble Tanks. Using the [WASD] keys to move your tank and the mouse to aim, destroy enemy tanks and collect bubbles to upgrade your ship. Guide your evolution along either the fighter, heavy, or balanced paths and take on massive enemies.

Fire up Normal Mode to jump from bubble to bubble, taking down enemies, or launch Arena Mode to test your skills against a horde of your choice. The Bubble-o-Pedia lets you view your conquests and learn the names of your vanquished foes.

The weapons at your disposal have increased drastically since last time. While old favorites like the small red bullet and the big shot are still around, new weapons like the spread shot, the sniper shot, and mines add to the variety. A new secondary weapon system offers abilities like a mega cannon, teleportation, a shield, and more, all activated with the space bar.

To keep pace with your new abilities, your enemies have been overhauled. The tanks are bigger and the weapons crazier, ranging from swarms of smaller ships to a goo that slows your ship drastically. Part of the fun is recognizing and responding to the new foes ahead of you.

As a bubble tank, you trade in bubbles. They are experience, currency, and life points wrapped all into one. Destroy enemy tanks to earn bubbles. Collect enough bubbles to earn an upgrade. If an enemy bullet hits you, you lose some bubbles. Your ship can downgrade if you lose too many, and if you lose all of them, you'll be ejected to the nearest safe bubble. This isn't necessarily game over; during testing, I lost an early struggle and was tossed out to safety, where about a dozen non-firing enemies awaited me, including a "life carrier" that gave me fifty bubbles. It's a nice little touch.

Indeed, there are many nice little touches improved upon from the original. The developers read over comments posted to the first game and improved mechanics in this update. Your cannon is now on automatic fire; no more frantic clicking all over the screen. A meter shows how many bubbles remain to the next upgrade, but stays out of the way in the heat of battle. When the last enemy dies, all bubbles are magnetically attracted to your ship, and for those obsessed with total victory, a map system aids navigation around the massive arena.

Analysis: I am not ashamed to admit that I burned a full night playing the first Bubble Tanks. I am slightly ashamed to admit that, in the process, I may or may not have bobbled my calc homework. I blame the ensuing B on the Hero Interactive team. Fortunately, they had the good sense to release this over summer break, preserving my academic integrity. Good show!

Bubble Tanks 2 proved to be just as addictive. On three separate occasions, I attempted to set up a screenshot of a standard battle for the picture in this review, only to get caught up in the battling and forget everything. It's almost impossible to resist this game once you get rolling.

In comparison with its predecessor, BT2 runs significantly smoother. Even with massive amounts of enemies on my screen, there was little to no slowdown. This was actually a bit tricky at first: the fast-running game combined with the rapid increase in difficulty as you branch out made early levels rather difficult. If you're not an experienced bullet dodger, you might want to spiral around the starting circle for a while, where the enemies are easier. The map will help you here, allowing you to set a path on the fly.

The variety of weapons and tanks is a pleasure. Experiment a bit in early games and figure out what style works for you. I personally settled into a blend of the fighter-balanced upgrades, but there's something to be said for massive firepower.

My one complaint is the lack of a save system. I understand that a lot of the game is the buildup of your tank and exploration from the center point, but it would still be nice to have the option of continuous conquest over several segments.

But that's it. That's the only complaint I have. This game is just sheer fun. There's enough to do here to keep you busy for a long while, and you'll love every minute of it.

Play Bubble Tanks 2

Play the entire Bubble Tanks series...

• Bubble Tanks
• Bubble Tanks 2
• Bubble Tanks 3


• Bubble Tanks Tower Defense
• Bubble Tanks Tower Defense 1.5


• Bubble Tanks Arenas

Any avid Jay is Games reader will have, at one point or another, paid a visit to game hosting site Kongregate. The site features hundreds of developers, and has a veritable smorgasbord of games. But until now, the folks behind Kongregate had not created a game of their own. Finally, after months of development and a lengthy private beta, the site has thrown its proverbial hat into the ring with Kongai.

Kongai, a multiplayer collectible card game (CCG), blends the lineup of a beat-'em-up fighter with the tactics of a turn-based campaign. This combination makes for a game that will please genre fans and newcomers alike.

You and your three or five character army take on the enemy head-to-head. Turns are divided into two phases. First is the maneuver phase, where players determine what range to fight at, followed by the combat phase, where players select an attack, switch fighters, or rest for a turn. The last team alive wins.

Beneath the basics lies a wealth of strategy. Some attacks work only at close range, while others can only strike from afar. Some characters are resistant to certain types of attacks, while others are especially vulnerable. Knowing when to switch fighters to play off your opponent's weaknesses is essential, but if your enemy predicts a change, they can block you and cause massive damage. Stir into the mix stat-changing buffs and debuffs, and sprinkle in a wide variety of general and class-specific items, and you've got a dense game.

Of course, what would a collectible card game be without collectible cards? You can build your deck through two different methods. Winning online matches gives a chance of earning a new card, while new cards are offered in weekly challenges throughout the user-created games on Kongregate.

Analysis: I'm no stranger to CCGs, although I will admit that my past experience is limited to Yu-Gi-Oh! and the Pokémon trading card game.

One of the most important aspects of any CCG is balance. What fun is a game where one card can destroy everything in its path with no trouble? The game becomes less of a battle and more of an episode of Dragon Ball Z.

Fortunately, Kongai is well balanced, with nary a Blue Eyes White Dragon, Mewtwo, or Goku in sight. David Sirlin is the man behind the game's design and balancing. With enough forethought and planning, any character can defeat any other character.

And forethought and planning are essential qualities in Kongai. Staying one step ahead of your opponent and predicting their moves is critical to surviving. Is he going to switch ranges so he can use his most powerful attack? Cancel their maneuver out and stay where you are. Is she going to change out her fighter for a dark magician? Intercept her and deal massive damage.

Getting inside your opponent's mind is the most valuable skill you can have. Knowing what your enemy is thinking is the key to defeating them. If you've ever had an interest in becoming a psychic, this game will provide adequate testing grounds.

A quickmatch feature places you in a 3- or 5-card battle against a random opponent, and a ranked match system allows you to prove your deck is better than everyone else's. Host a private game against a friend, or practice against the Kong-Bot AI. The only current downside is the connection speed; servers are overwhelmed with players, and you might be occasionally disconnected. But don't let that stop you.

This game is deep. Deeper than most games featured here. Months of planning and consideration have been put into crafting every detail, and it shows in the rich complexities and sheer amount of tactics at hand. But despite the magnitude, even a casual gamer will fall in love with this gem.

Play Kongai

Cannons have a unique place in human history. Throughout the ages, they have served as an offensive weapon to knock down fortifications, an accentuation in pieces of classical music, and a rudimentary yet entertaining transport for clowns. Continuing in this rich tradition, let's launch stickmen at bricks to dignified tunes!

Ragdoll Cannon, the latest effort from Johnny_K (Poiser, Domino-P), places you in command of semi-automatic artillery ripped straight out of the center ring. Use your mouse to choose the right angle and just enough force to hit the "HERE!" pad.

Through your stick-slinging adventures, you'll encounter obstacles that stand in your way. Sometimes you'll have to spend a stickman to clear an object out of your way, or set up a chain reaction. You can have up to five stickmen on your screen at once, and each shot earns one point. The game's golf-style scoring values low scores, so only masters of mortars will rack up a perfect score of 21 points over 20 levels.

Analysis: Ragdoll Cannon is a charming projectile game created in JohnnyK's signature blueprint style familiar to fans of his other work. The game itself feels polished, with the physics consistent and reasonable. The music seems like a nice touch at first, but can subtly grab your nerve endings and drag them along a cheese grater; thankfully, it can be disabled, but the button rather strangely fires a stickman when pressed. It seems like something that should've been caught before production, but it won't impact your score, thanks to the "reset level" button (which, incidentally, you will make heavy usage of if you're shooting for a perfect score).

The usage of stickmen as cannon fodder leads to some interesting problems and equally interesting solutions; whilst on one level, it may spin the wrong way and block the path to victory, another level may hinge upon impaling it along a platform and sliding it to victory. Adding to potential frustration is the occasional pixelhunt to find just the right range of values that will work. But once you get going in this Howitzer hoedown, you'll have trouble extinguishing your fuse.

Play Ragdoll Cannon

Neon has a certain glitz to it. Whether it's glittering in the lights of Las Vegas, shining in the sign of a convenience store, or just brightening up the periodic table, neon always adds a little extra to everything it touches. It was only a matter of time, then, before someone mixed the brilliance of neon with the brilliance of puzzles.

Ozzie Mercado (SoapAintNice), creator of blueprint brainpuzzler Open Doors, strikes again with a tri-colored conundrum of an action puzzler, created for Armor Games.

In Neon Layers, you must guide a ball from its starting platform to the glowing exit by cueing and cutting power to three sets of "neon layers." The red set is activated by the 1 key, the green by 2, and the blue by 3. Only one set of layers can be turned on at any given time, however, and it's up to your ingenuity and timing to manipulate momentum and bounce the ball to the goal.

To complicate your quest further, gravity switches are scattered about the levels. These switches reverse gravity when the ball passes over them—but only when power to their color set is on. As the levels go on, new obstacles will try their best to foil you, and only the most skilled will complete all 25 levels.

Analysis: If there's one word that describes Neon Layers (beyond "neon" or "layers"), it's solid. The physics are well-programmed, the levels are well-planned, and the music is well... good. The puzzles are difficult at times, but not impossibly so, and there's enough variety to keep you going through all the levels.

The only major quibble is the keyboard control system; while mouse control is available, the rapid pace of some puzzles makes it infeasible. It takes a bit of time to cement the button assignments in your head, but once you do, you won't look back.

Play Neon Layers

Ah, the rural life. Nothing but vast expanses of farmland, the occasional sounds of the barnyard animals, and life-shortening, back-breaking manual labor. But Funny Farm, by Igor Naverniouk, is distinctly different than the farmer lifestyle. This word association game starts on the farm, but quickly branches out into greener pastures. What at first looks to be no more than a simple inventory of a cultivator's possessions quickly expands far beyond Green Acres—unlike this review, which has remained firmly planted in farming gags. (I'll stop now.)

The concept of using words to find more words in a chain is hardly original, but the implementation is what makes this game so incredibly addicting. The spider web-style of displaying words gives a flowing sort of feeling as you progress through the chains. As you extend outwards, new sections of the map are opened, giving a definite sign of progress.

The most useful feature, however, is the merging system. In order to encourage cooperation between players, you can merge another player's correct answers into your own puzzle by copying their game URL. If you can get a group of people all working on the puzzle together, hints, answers, and URLs will be flying around faster than one can follow.

Ultimately, the game is won by solving the meta-puzzle, which has clues in the four corners of the map, but you won't consider the game truly won until you've hunted down every last word. If you can do that, then you certainly should be put out to stud.

Play Funny Farm