Dream Chronicles is a sensual delight, an intellectual challenge, and a very engaging twist on adventure, seek-and-find and puzzle games. It's been compared to Myst and Uru, and whilst it's certainly not as demanding as those mainstream titles, I found Dream Chronicles even more enjoyable.

Taking a light-hearted approach to a normally serious and complex genre, Strategy Defense is a casual tactics game along the lines of Ogre Battle or Final Fantasy Tactics. It's your job to defend the king from the incoming enemy. Move your character on the field, attack enemies, raise your stats and buy new weapons with an easy-to-use interface. It's a bare-bones tactics game that is inviting even for non-strategy fans to enjoy.

There's a reason "I love you" and "I hate you" use the same number of letters. In this dark hidden-object adventure based on the classic story, you play Evelina, the daughter of a once-renowned Opera Diva, who one day receives a letter from a stranger. The next thing she knows, she awakens in the crumbling remains of an old Opera House... but she isn't alone. Creepy and incredibly well put together, with a heavy emphasis on story, Phantom of the Opera deserves a spot on every adventure game enthusiast's shelf.

Planet NoNaMe is a Russian Grow clone, and specifically a Grow Ornament clone as it is a bit dated with its Christmas and New Years holiday theme. Still, for anyone who adores the casual simplicity of this type of game, then you may enjoy playing this one, too. To my knowledge, there has been at least one other game inspired by the original Grow, a downloadable game called Sandbox of God...

Hearken back to those adrenaline-happy days with Vector Runner, an arcade action game concerned purely with the sensation of speed. Control a humble blue cube on its journey down a futuristic highway, dodging deadly pyramids of various shapes and sizes. Wherever you need to be, you're going there fast.

Digital Chocolate comes Tower Bloxx Deluxe, a PC downloadable version of its hit Flash game Tower Bloxx. Deluxe features an amped-up, graphically-superior 3D presentation to the original mobile title with more complexity and improved game mechanics. Watch the swinging block and tap the spacebar to drop it. Line the blocks up and watch how high the tower can grow!

Cyberpunk is a simple Flash puzzle game disguised as an arresting and involving hacking simulation. Armed with four programs and some intuition, you'll have to sneak into a remote computer guarded by obscure (and not-so-obscure) passwords, as well as by some nasty puzzles.

Arche is worried about fitting in. Her family has just moved to the little hamlet of Tonkiness to open an item shop, and it turns out her dreams of learning magic may be short lived once she discovers she needs an expensive elemental stone to even practice at her new school. But a simple rumour might lead her on to a much bigger adventure than she ever imagined in this beautiful but difficult action platforming RPG.

The road to magical greatness is difficult, littered with dragons, enchantments, adventure... not to mention test scores, rival students, detentions, and trying to keep your ghostly familiar in check. This incredibly ambitious text adventure from Black Chicken Studios is one part life simulator, one part fantasy RPG, and a whole lot of fun if you have the patience to let yourself become immersed in the tale of the making of the greatest mage of all time... you.

The point-and-click adventure from Springtail Studio is all grown up! Alchemia was first released in 2009 as a free browser game with the promise of an extended version later on. Well, later is now, and the downloadable Alchemia comes with five more playable levels and nine new locations, providing even more photorealistic scenery and lateral-thinking puzzles than before!

Rosangela Blackwell is just like any other young writer struggling to make it big in New York. Except for the ghosts only she can see. And the one she works with. When a string of murders breaks out in New York, Rosa smells a story, but the truth behind them may be more than she can handle. An incredibly polished point-and-click adventure from Wadjet Eye Games, The Blackwell Convergence is highly recommended, with an engrossing story, stunning visuals, and full voice acting.

Intriguing, complex, well-planned, fascinating, and fun, Time Raider is a multifaceted game, part puzzle, part timing, and part reflex, where no one of these parts dominates over the other two. As a result, it has a broad appeal to fans of different types of games, and is one of the most creative entries to be submitted to our recent game design competition #3!

Built in 1970, and deserted some time after that, no one has entered the house since the entire family committed suicide due to reasons unknown. Point-and-click your way through The House to unfold the mystery of what really happened to that fateful fictitious family. Best viewed alone, late at night, in the dark, and with the sound turned up. Not for the faint of heart.

Rollercoaster Rush puts you behind the "wheel" of a rollercoaster brake operator. Essentially, it's your job to ensure that passengers have the thrill of their life, while at the same time making sure it's not their last. Just as any seasoned operator will tell you, the first rule in rollercoaster school is to avoid sending your passengers flying off the track to the pavement a hundred feet below.

Pencil Kids' new release in the hybrid puzzle-arcade series is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Players of previous games in the series should be familiar with the premise: a trio of monkeys is sad, and it's up to you to make them "go happy." Use the mouse to click on objects and locations, solve puzzles, shoot stuff etc. Some levels are click-fests in the Hoshi Saga model, others act like mini-escape games, others have a hidden object flavor to them, and still others are action-based. There's quite a bit of variation packed into the game's 16 levels and expansion pack. Let's monkey see what you can monkey do!

Bucketball is a brand-new physics-based game from Arseniy Desrosiers and Florian Himsl. If you've already guessed that the general thrust of the gameplay has something to do with "buckets" and "balls," then congratulations, your amazing brain is way ahead of the curve. It's a simple idea game of skill, but to complete the game is anything but simple.

Rebuild is best described as a survival sim with sprinklings of defense and strategy themes. You won't be put in the thick of battle... instead you'll be managing the town, using your mouse to send survivors to do the dirty work. It's after the Zombipocalypse and you're in control of a small group of survivors trying to stay alive.

Virtual Families is the latest addition to the impressive lineup of simulation games from Last Day of Work, makers of the Virtual Villagers series. Virtual Families takes the basic concepts of Virtual Villagers and brings them home — literally. No longer are you concerned with a village of people trying to survive the ravages of the wild. Now it's just a single family in a single house. While the concept may seem over-simplified when compared to Virtual Villagers, you'll find that it's less about simplifying the game and more about concentrating on the details.

Colgate, the fan-named background pony with a passion for fresh breath, takes center stage in this colourful and surprisingly robust platform adventure from Mark Sprague. Dissatisfied with her Cutie Mark and determined to embrace her true love, dentistry, the little blue unicorn sets out to gather an ingredient for a magical potion in the mouth of a dangerous beast deep in the Everfree Forest. Packed with surprises, secrets, and even extra endings, it's a brony dream come true that even non-fans can enjoy as they dispatch numerous foes and challenges with their magical toothbrush!

Amorphous+ is an overhead arena combat game that casts you in the role of a little bald human character with a ridiculously over-sized sword: the Splat-Master 9000. This weapon is tailor-made for fighting Glooples, which are basically man-sized soft-skinned green blobs of goop.

Red and Giant Panda's master has been kidnapped by ninjas! Are you a bad enough panda to rescue him? So is the challenge of Neutronized's new teamwork platformer. Guide them through twenty levels of puzzles, alternating control between the differently-abled Giant and Red all the while. This is a slow-paced, almost zen, walk through a pixelated garden.

The idea, as always, is simple. Get the red ball (or square) to touch all the flags by drawing physical objects directly onto the screen with your crayon-like cursor. This sequel to Magic Pen features 32 more puzzling levels, all selectable from the moment you start the game, mostly set in various crayon-rendered versions of historical locations. The level designs feel a bit more intricate this time, with more on-screen obstacles and even a few moving contraptions to cope with. There are no major improvements to the formula, but such a childlike, pure idea doesn't need them. This is a heap more Magic Pen for everyone who loved it the first time. Enjoy.

A turn-based aerial dogfighting game may sound bland in writing, but as SteamBirds conclusively proves, it's the whole nine yards of awesome. Working from a top-down perspective, you fight a series of increasingly difficult enemies with your small squadron of planes. Set your course, unleash a fancy ability if necessary, and try to maneuver yourself to a direct line-of-sight to your foe to set your guns blazing. And, you know, don't get shot down yourself.

The kingdom is in peril! Too bad you're too wrapped up in bureaucratic red tape to do anything about it. Reemus and Liam's quest to save the land hits a massive speed-bump when they discover they can't proceed until they're able to produce a whole lot of paperwork and a sample... but fortunately all that can be acquired in a manner both our heroes are very accustomed to. Namely, solving bizarre problems, combating strange beasts, and deciphering strange puzzles! The latest installment in the wildly popular point-and-click adventure series has finally arrived!

Sym-a-Pix is a unique take on picture-logic puzzles. Like most of the Conceptis Light line, this edition features a selection of easier puzzles in three different sizes, to give you a good grasp of the concepts for solving these puzzles. If you're looking for a different logic puzzle challenge, give Sym-a-Pix Light a spin. You never know what will turn up!

In 1993, a new star appeared on the NES horizon. A big man with big dreams, big muscles, a big mustache and no shirt, Abobo had nowhere to go but up. Recently however, he was lured back to spotlight by a team of developers, including ThePoxBox, Pesto Force, JackSmack, and the guys at I-Mockery, hoping to make the ultimate love letter to the Nintendo Entertainment System. The result it Abobo's Big Adventure, a retro arcade action-adventure game years in the making. It's a bold, brassy, over-the-top labor of love that pushes 8-bit nostalgia to its very limit.

Picma takes picross to dizzying new heights, and satisfies the never-ending craving familiar to picross addicts. The game lends itself well to the casual gameplay experience, being something you can do on a coffee break or when you have a few free minutes to solve a puzzle or two. Head to the site and solve one or two puzzles, or settle in for a marathon and solve until your eyes bleed, it is up to you. But definitely play Picma and enjoy the experience!

It's survival of the fittest as seen through a microscope. Genetically engineer the perfect virus in your lab to combat those created by your predecessors. Discover new elements and splice genes in an increasingly hostile environment. Just... remember to wash up before you shake someone's hand.

Tower Core is another shining star from John Feltham, the author of the previous "Core" series of games. It continues the story line established in Soul Core without a hitch, and even provides a recap accessible from the main menu. An alien being has decided to attack Earth while it was vulnerable. We can't let this happen. Unfortunately, the planet's defense systems are powered by a special Power Core Deluxe which someone forgot to charge before leaving.

From Nitrome, creator of Final Ninja, Test Subject Arena, and a few dozen other grand browser games, comes Mega Mash, a game that is sort of seven games but is really just one game (does that make it eight games?). The gist of it is all of these games are interwoven due to the buggy nature of the cartridge they're on. Instead of playing one or the other, you hop between them, using abilities from one to clear a path to progress in the other. Unusual? Yeah. But it works better than you might think!

Panda's back and going deeper in time than ever before in this quirky sequel! After a dastardly pirate strands Panda in the past, he must find help from an unlikely source to gain access to some of history's... um... lesser known events in order to get his way back home. And if that involves using your point-and-click skills to rescue a super villain's cat, brew some terrifying rotgut, or battle futuristic cyborgs... so be it!

The Eternal Maze continues where the first game left off with a beautiful blend of puzzles, adventure, object finding and Myst-like environments. You play Faye, a mortal woman whose fairy husband has been kidnapped and daughter imprisoned by Lilith, the Queen of Fairies. By solving a series of puzzles you can reach Fidget and awaken Lyra, but the Queen is always one step ahead!

Warbears is a unique and original Flash point-and-click game that is played a little differently than anything I've seen so far. The gameplay is similar to Rob Allen's Hapland games, and yet there is an additional layer of complexity to it that sets it apart. It's a cute game with a great sense of humor and a lot of fun to play. Created by Gionatan Iasio of Italy.

In this conclusion to the Stamp Rally Escape trilogy, the puzzles flow nicely from one to the next and the animals' special talents for jumping and punching are on display front and center several times around the room. All in all a nice, satisfying conclusion to the series, leaving the room escaper happy and content, at least until Cogito Ergo Sum's next epic trilogy.

As evidenced by a flood of Flash-based titles in the last year or so, tower defense games are all the rage. Now, iWin is throwing its hat in the ring with Garden Defense, a full-blown downloadable tower defense game where you save your garden using gnomes, flamingos, cupid statues and a host of plants to fight off waves of attacking bugs. It's eat or be eaten in this easy to learn but surprisingly challenging strategy game!

When we last left the Tipping Point series, it wasn't clear if we were wandering through a surreal dream or being teleported around by satellites and villains with 1980's technology and bad intentions. Tipping Point: Chapter 4 takes over just where we left off, entering another unknown tropical destination with our strange, homemade device in hand.

You know what's cool? Beatboxing. You know what's cooler? When you get to conduct a squad of digital human beatboxers right in your browser. So Far So Good serves up a simple but slick and stylish webtoy where musical creativity is just a drag and drop away. Warning; may make you irresistibly cooler by association.

The latest of the point-and-click puzzle adventures to pop onto the Flash game scene is a short little story about a girl who has lost her head... literally. With gameplay very similar to that of Samarost, this game is charming and very enjoyable, the only downside is that it is over way too soon.

In the mood for more beach-themed Virtual Villagers-style simulation gaming? Escape from Paradise 2: A Kingdom's Quest is now available, and it delivers exactly what its predecessor did and quite a bit more. Instead of straightforward village management, Escape from Paradise 2 blends in mini-games to break up the action, and combined with a little hidden object finding and character stat upgrading, you have a game that will quickly sink its hooks in you.

Hey look, it's Dream Chronicles 3: The Chosen Child! The latest installment in the Dream Chronicles series has arrived, and its as breathtakingly brilliant everyone would expect. A little bit of hidden object finding, a little bit of puzzle solving, but a whole lot of adventuring can be found in this superb sequel, along with some of the most gorgeous scenery you've seen since looking out your own window (assuming you live in a fantasy world with fairies, fountains, and vibrant gardens). It's an excellent follow-up to the previous Dream Chronicles games and a fantastic game in its own right.

Ah, human drama. The trials and tribulations of star-crossed lovers, the agonizing decisions made on the battlefield, the ...supreme annoyance of having some rotten kid try to steal your favorite toy? And so unfolds the very entertaining yet surprisingly complex scenario of baby vs. baby in this unique one-room themed piece of interactive fiction.

And now here they are! The most daredevil group of daffy drivers ever to whirl their wheels, ready to compete for fame and fortune in the championship of Renegade Racing! A side-scrolling stunt racing game by Paul Gene Thompson, Renegade Racing is one wacky road rally you won't soon forget. It's a little derivative of the Cyclomaniacs series, but still a heck of a lot of fun.

Battalion: Arena is a grand way to get the morally questionable thrill of outwitting a fellow human being with miniature tons of steel and explosives at your command. The multiplayer chapter of the Battalion series may not stray far from its Advance Wars roots, but then, Advance Wars is a great game.

In what is probably the shortest installment of the Grow series to date, the minigame Grow Nano vol.2 from Eyezmaze is still full of charm. The mechanics are the same as other installments, simply click the items and hope you found the right order. This time around there are just three things to choose from: a cape, a headband, and a stick. Experiment to find the right order and see what happens!

Baby it's cold outside, but with your Little Inferno fireplace, you can stay warm and entertained forever... as long as you don't run out of things to burn. The Tomorrow Corporation brings a unique, quirky, and gorgeously addictive indie game that's part physics puzzle, and part adventure, all without leaving your hearth. Who really needs the world outdoors anyway? What could it possibly have to offer... ?

The Stone of Anamara is a creepy point-and-click adventure game, created by Gabriel Rodriguez, that spans multiple chapters. In this first chapter, you uncover the story behind the asylum doctor, Alexander Graves, and the mysterious illness of one of his patients.

Conceptis' latest Conceptis Light puzzle suite, Hitori Light, certainly is a mind-bender. In it, you're presented with a square grid of seemingly random digits ranging from 1 to the grid's size, many repeating throughout. Your job is to shade or circle every square in the grid according to three important rules. Each puzzle is fairly entertaining and has its own unique solution, and it's easy to start formulating strategies based on specific patterns of numbers that turn up often. Looking for a mind-bending distraction for a few minutes of your time? Then come shade and circle some squares. I know I am.

Our true loves over at The Podge have given one heck of a gift to us: Dibbles 4: A Christmas Crisis. When a Christmas version of an established series is released, it often turns out to be a level-pack except there with more bells on the soundtrack and sprites modified to include floppy red hats. But with new levels, new commands, and new animated ways to kill off your squad of helpers, Dibbles 4 is slightly-sadistic holiday fun for the whole family.

Hotel is a 10-episode interactive narrative from Han Hoogerbrugge about a scientist named Dr. Doglin who drugs his patients to perform tests on their response to freak accident injuries. The rather disturbing piece was just recently finished in its entirety and worth a look if you're the mature, adventurous type.

Hexage, creator of Evac and Everlands, pits your human military prowess against endless alien swarm in this mobile tower defense game, Radiant Defense. Defense of your spiral reactor (which looks oddly like a stove burner) is the number one priority since it keeps out those pesky invaders from, you know, destroying all humans. Radiant Defense definitely keeps elements that you would always expect from the tower defense genre, but you remove the predetermined path and get the ability to create the path they will follow to their doom (hopefully). Lasers will fly, aliens will die, and the entire time your fingers will be nimbly working to hold off a rather comically bad invasion story unfold.

It's official. D_of_I has gone off the deep end. His cat has gotten bored shooting his bow and poling himself about and wants to travel across the ocean, so he enlists the help of a dolphin to provide the locomotion, while he hangs on for the ride of his life in this excellent one-button game!

Knights of Pen & Paper is an RPG. But it's an RPG that's about a bunch of adventurer people sitting down to play a pen and paper RPG. So... when you play the game, you're actually playing a game about a game, even though both games are basically the same game. Inception, anyone? While these folks sit and enjoy their Dungeons & Dragons-type adventure, you get to take care of everything else, from fighting battles to accepting quests, upgrading skills and hunting down better equipment. And if that isn't interesting enough, you can buy the players a snack, maybe while eating a similar snack of your own?

Built like an adventure game from the ground up, Robin's Quest: A Legend Born is a cure for the common hidden object game. The gorgeous release from Gogii Games puts you in the now-feminine shoes of Robin Hood as she escapes prison and starts doing what the legend is famous for: taking money from the rich Prince John and giving it back to the people!

Switchball is a 3D action/puzzle title in which your goal is to guide a rolling ball to the end of each stage, solving puzzles and crossing treacherous pathways all the way. The game places a heavy emphasis on realistic physics using the AGEIA engine and looks absolutely gorgeous to boot. It's an extraordinarily well-made title that balances action and puzzle solving for a thoroughly engaging experience.

Eschewing the classic pixel art we are used to seeing in favor of a more spacey, out of this world appearance, Nitrome delivers yet another original and engaging platformer unlike any you may have played before. The objective in Space Hopper is simple enough: to find and collect all of the stars scattered about each level.

The Jackson Pollock emulator is a simple flash toy that simulates the drip style of painting popularized by Jackson Pollock. The entire browser window is a blank white canvas and your mouse becomes the paintbrush. Move the cursor over the surface to pour paint, changing colors with the left mouse button. Linger over one area for some time to leave large blotches or shake the mouse back and forth for light streams of paint. You may not create a masterpiece, but it's an engaging way to let your creativity flow.

From Digital Seed Entertainment comes Tactics Arena Online (TAO), a turn based strategy game the likes of Final Fantasy. By commanding an army of characters on a battlefield, your goal is to decimate your opponents team in a battle of weapons and abilities.

My Little Pony, My Little Pony, what will today's adventure be? Well, in Friendship is Magic: The Story of the Blanks, a retro-NES experience by Donitz, it seems that Applebloom is going with Twilight Sparkle to deliver a package to the magician that lives deep in the woods. But the woods are dark and scary, and you'll never know what you will find... Flowers? Friendship? Magic? Love? Diamonds? Candy? Who knows? You'll need a beautiful heart, faithful and strong, to make it to the end, but a little bit of magic should make it all complete.

October 21, 1888. A scientific excavation discovers a perfectly spherical chamber fifty feet into the solid rock of the Wyoming mountains, filled with mysterious devices. Who made them? Are they safe? In any case, it's time to explore. Worldgate is a new point-and-click adventure game by William Buchanan, developer of the Free Will Cycle series. Improved navigation of his CHARM engine, and a cool sense of sci-fi atmosphere, make it another fine release from a developer on the rise.

A very creepy, very scary Flash adventure game from Ben Leffler of Australia. Exmortis begins with you waking up in the woods with a lump on your head and unable to recall how you got there. All you recall are the dreams. Regaining focus, you see a house up ahead and decide that shelter there is better than freezing to death in the woods. Think of the house at the end of Blair Witch and you'll be right at home.

The first in a creepy new point-and-click series set in a Wonderland a few degrees off from the one you may recall. A gruesome sight greets you when you open your eyes in this fractured fairytale... but just who are you, anyway? To find out, first you'll have to find your way out and dig a little deeper into the mystery. Provided you're prepared for what you may discover on the other side of the looking glass.

aniwey's Candy Box may seem simple, but this unexpectedly delightful webtoy packs way more surprises than you'd ever think. All you seem to have is a simple counter of candies that slowly accumulates with each second, and the option to gobble them all up, or throw them on the ground. But give it some time, and Candy Box! may just be one of the weirdest, most wonderful webtoys you've ever encountered.

ChatChat is an online multiplayer game by Terry Cavanagh, creator of VVVVVV. It's a highly intricate simulation involving deep-level behavioral algorithms and calculus-based — wait, no it isn't! It's about being a kitty! The wildest dream of every internet human has come true in this simple little game, giving you full permission to nap, purr, meow, and catch mice to your furry heart's content.

In Learn to Fly, you play as a penguin who looked himself up on Kiwipedia and took the whole "flightless bird" comment as a mortal insult. So he decides that he's going to learn to fly, presumably so he can visit whoever wrote that and give them a stern talking to. Fly high, long, and far to gain money and upgrade your penguin with gliders and rockets. And when you're done, try playing again to see if you can do it faster.

What rotten luck to have your ship crash land on a zombie-ridden planet that you now need to fight across to escape. With a more vocal protagonist than you had before, shoot and calculate your way through this Metroidvania style physics shooter where zombies are just as plentiful as your headshot count. With sixteen levels to survive through and plenty of side missions to keep you occupied, your time with the undead hordes will be engrossing and quite challenging. Polish off the old boomstick and get ready to bust some heads if you hope to survive.

Vested Interest's mouse-driven puzzle game starts out simple but quickly gets... weird. Your job is to align squares and figure out patterns before completing them, but the deeper into the game you go, the more you'll realise this game is far more clever than it seems at first blush... meow!

Exit Path is a non-stop, single-and-multiplayer feast for the senses. You'll be running and jumping the field, trying to make your way through a number of screens, each with its own set of challenges, tempted with freedom in a dystopian future, and dodging vicious death machines at every turn. John Cooney has proven himself more than capable of making a wide variety of games, but some of his best work seems to lie in creating fast-paced, action-packed games, and he certainly hasn't missed the mark with this one.

Do you ever think about death? Not just about dying, but about everything connected to it... the emotions, the concepts, the way people from all over the world look at it in vastly different ways? The End from Preloaded and Channel 4 is a bizarre puzzle platforming adventure through a series of realms that ask questions designed to make you think about life and what comes after.

Drawing inspiration from popular "castle defense" games like BowMaster Prelude, Elona Shooter adds a serious helping of Asian-influenced, tactical RPG mechanics. You not only get to defend your castle from swarms of oncoming monsters with a satisfying array of weapons and skills, you won't have to go at it alone; an entire tactical RPG-styled party of helpers comes to your aid, eventually.

If you've played the original, or the even better update to that one, then you probably will be thrilled to know that Tony has just released a third game in this fantastic series that takes the concept of negative space and turns it upside-down. Shift 3 extends the familiar jump and run, puzzle-platformer formula by adding a few surprises.

Despite its simplicity, Choc-mint is an escape game done right. There is no text to confound the non-native speaker, the puzzles flow neatly from one to the other, and there is the blessed relief of a changing cursor to indicate hot-spots that can be clicked. A little logic, a little intuition, and an experienced gamer could be out in 10 minutes or less, refreshed and ready to face the day. All you escape game designers out there take notes, will you? Slow down, take a few minutes and enjoy the escape from the every day.

Well it finally happened. After years of cheating, fighting and swirlying, you've been expelled, and your parents aren't happy. The only thing standing between you and juvenile detention is St. Frost's School for Slackers, Troublemakers and Idiots. The students are a mixed bag of violent sadists and amiable dunces, the teachers aren't much better, and the last new student had a nervous breakdown after two months. But hey, you ruled one school before didn't you? How different can this one be? It's all about doing the right things for the right people... So is the premise of Wasted Youth, the new open world adventure-RPG from GPStudios.

We hold a truth to be self-evident that all squishy bouncy blob thingies are born with certain inalienable rights, including those of life, liberty and the pursuit of hat-iness. The hero of Pursuit of Hat, a puzzle platformer from Anton Rogov, is willing to risk all manner of life and limb for his head-covering... mainly limb though, since his are detachable. Literally tearing ones self apart over a head-covering may seem a little extreme. In all fairness... it's a pretty sweet hat.

Our favorite green-skinned favor trader is back and he's learning a very potent lesson from the last time he performed A Small Favor. Performing political assassinations can be bad for one's health. Still, once a favor trader, always a favor trader. Use your point-and-click skills to scrub your ID badge and keep the government goons at bay.

Have you got picture logic puzzling needs? Well, Beardshaker Games has come along to help you satisfy them with their title, NoNoSparks Genesis. Solve picross (also called nonograms) puzzles to help create new elements in a world, giving a Doodle God-esque feel to it. Sprinkled with a bit of innuendo and amusement, this game will have you puzzle solving with a smile.

This platform puzzle game from Edmund McMillen brings to the platformer table multi-dimensional planes. Press the [A] key to switch planes and alter what is visible on the screen. Sometimes you can see the other planes while you are occupying the current one, but you can't see what overlaps between planes. This creates an interesting dynamic that involves a lot of guessing with your jumps, especially when movable blocks make their appearance.

Fiends is best described as an innovative puzzle game masquerading as a roguelike RPG, and worst described as an unentertaining game, though you'll find that "unentertaining" doesn't enter into the equation. As the growing circle of friends makes their way from outer space to a castle to an abandoned marketplace, they'll encounter new fiends with different counterattack ranges, set up in all sorts of arrangements to create all sorts of puzzles, leaving you thinking constantly.

The Dark Cut series consists of two surgery games where you use the mouse to make incisions, stitch, scrub, saw, whatever is required to save the patient in each case scenario. These are not games for the faint of heart, both in terms of graphics and gameplay, and are therefore recommended for mature audiences only.

A short and sweet old-fashioned adventure game from Videlectrix, the faux video game company of the animated Homestar Runner universe. For the Homestar un-hip, "Dangeresque" is the hard-boiled detective alter-ego of Strong Bad, who is the lead narrator and practical jokester at homestarrunner.com. Strong Bad/Dangeresque must solve a murder case from the confines of his office, because the chief thinks the case was solved months ago.

The Great War of Prefectures plays like a cross between Risk and an RTS, with Japan's prefectures (analogous to other countries' states or provinces) serving as the territories you fight over. Despites some interface flaws, this game has that elusive quality that will bring you back for more even after you thought you'd had enough.

The Lost Vikings? Old news. This is Hans Hans the Biking Viking, who, along with his friends Freya and Thor, must escape from the nefarious but incompetent Loki's lair. Use Thor's strength, Freya's magic, and Hans's... well... jumping bicycle to outwit an 11-level dungeon full of tricks and traps.

Adult Swim's Death Vegas, a superb technical fighting game from Spiritonin Media, serves up a rare mixture of thrills and substance. From the take-no-prisoners opening metal theme song, to the impressive character animation, to the pop-in close-ups of every brutal impact, Death Vegas will continually show you it means business. It won't rival Guilty Gear or Soul Caliber for complexity, but there's enough depth here to satisfy anyone looking for a good juicy brawl.

Tesshi-e gives us a sequel to The Happy Escape with Happy Escape 2, yet another challenge to find as many happy coins (and, thus, happiness) within a classic locked room escape. There is only one escape scenario in this little charmer that features the standard gorgeous Tesshi-e visuals and a jazzy little tune to help pass the time while solving a nice selection of logical puzzles.

Just a quick update to say that we have been moving a lot of our bandwidth-heavy content (images, hosted games) during the past few days to a content delivery network to help the site load faster. We were hoping this would be completely transparent to you, the visitor, and that we wouldn't have to bother you with a note like this.

Avalanche is a fast-paced climbing game in which your goal is to scale the mountain of falling blocks, without being flattened or falling into the river rising from below. The flood of cascading blocks starts slowly, with only a few blocks to start. Before you know it, you'll be madly scrambling to avoid being turned into a marshmallow pancake.

Grow Tribute is, exactly as the name implies, a tribute to the Grow series of games. For those familiar with Grow games, this one will feel like putting on an old favorite shoe or shirt again. The gameplay is exactly the same and the animations are rewarding, though without some of the charm that On of Eyezmaze is famous for.

Japanese Mahjong is a completely different game from the tile-matching Mahjong Solitaire. A cross between Gin Rummy and the fictional Dragon Poker, this is one game that will definitely take a while to learn, and even longer to master.

Build-a-lot has a new competitor in town: Divo Games' Be Rich, a strategy-oriented casual tycoon game of real estate planning, building and investing. The game's title gives away your ultimate goal of raking in cash by constructing and upgrading houses in various cities to increase your profits and up your credibility. It takes a more real estate-centric approach to building than the Build-a-lot series does, although the similarities between the games are hard to ignore.

With just over a year in the making, Azada: Ancient Magic, the sequel to the enormously successful adventure/hidden object hybrid Azada, has finally arrived! Fusing a large variety of unique puzzles with an undeniably intriguing atmosphere, Azada: Ancient Magic puts you in the shoes of a puzzle solver helping the young Titus disarm a magical menace. As you sift through the library of classic literature you'll help legendary characters such as Rapunzel, King Arthur, Dracula and more escape from stories gone awry. Expect some great puzzles and a lot of interesting minigames to come your way in this spectacular sequel.

You are a fish dropped into a fish tank. Your job is to eat any fish that are smaller than you, which makes you grow. As you grow, you can therefore eat larger fish. Become king of this tiny sea world food chain.

The sequel to 2010's text adventure RPG Choice of Romance has arrived, and picks up right where the original left off. Will you be able to hold onto your new power in the court, or have you just painted a very large target on your back... and who can you trust to watch out for a dagger pointed at you when everyone has their own agenda?

M.I.L.O. stands for Mildly Intelligent Living Organism, the robotic main character of this puzzling game. You play as M.I.L.O., who wanders through the sixteen levels of this game pushing buttons, carrying items, and avoiding the deathtraps set for him. Keep a sharp eye on what the notes you find say, because there's more to this game than fits in a single browser window.

More than a time management game, Farm Craft 2 combines pieces of gameplay from simulation genres into an extremely captivating (and satisfying) game. Grow and harvest crops, raise livestock, pick fruit from trees, hire workers, it's all there, and it's all great!

Fire Nuclear Crocodile Killer (FiNCK for short) is a puzzle platformer, but don't let the title fool you. In fact, out of the four rather unrelated things it suggests, I only encountered one during the whole game. As a Nifflas game, FiNCK must live up to a certain standard of cool relaxation instead of firey, manic arcade action. However, it differs from the author's previous offerings in that it forgoes atmospheric exploration in favor of a puzzle-driven, often hair-pullingly-frustrating experience.

Jasper's Journeys is a downloadable platform game that plays much like an old-school side-scroller where exploration is essential, power-ups are few, speed is often encouraged, and secret areas are plentiful. In many ways it's similar to Brad Borne's The Fancy Pants Adventure games (or even Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros, or Jazz Jackrabbit), though with a decidedly different atmosphere and feel.

Goldburger To Go is a short flash game where you must position various components in a Rube Goldberg-type device in order to assemble a tasty (but unhealthy) snack on a skateboard at the end.

Winter Wolves serves up a huge visual novel adventure RPG with deep tactical combat. As a slave to the Amazon empire, you're sent out with your princess, Loren, in search of a missing queen. In short order, you discover Loren's problems are only a tiny symptom of a greater evil plaguing the world... but will she be able to overcome her own shallow world view and limited life experience to become the hero everyone needs her to be? And does she even want to?

BIT.TRIP RUNNER is the latest in a series of loosely-related retro-styled arcade games from Gaijin. You take on the role of CommanderVideo, a blocky little guy who can run, slide, and kick like nobody's business. Work your way through over 50 stages, using rhythm-based platforming as you nail every jump, grab every pile of gold, and avoid every obstacle in your path. Because you're just that awesome.

Lacking any sort of plot, Four Second Fury launches the player into a series of 20 randomly selected, four-second mini-games ranging from simple dodging games to "Simon says" type games. It doesn't try to be anything more than that: just a simple, quick Flash game when you have a few minutes to kill. And don't expect it to last longer than that.

Each time Ferry Halim of Orisinal.com releases a new game, I think I've seen the most beautiful and elegant combination of music and artwork in casual gaming history. With the latest release of The Crossing, Ferry has outdone himself once again. Control a platform to help leaping deer cross a stream. Go for the highest score possible while eyeing the gorgeous scenery and listening to a soothing piano tune.