Temple of Zoom is a great platformer that manages to use the features of the product it promotes (the Panasonic Lumix TZ3 digital camera) as integral elements of the game rather than as tacked-on graphics and splash advertisements. The shutter is the exit to each level, the zoom lens is a rising platform, and the hot lava is... well, I guess the hot lava doesn't come from the camera, does it?
Sound Energy mixes a simple color-matching game of collection/avoidance with a little bit of musical interaction to create a superb multimedia experience. You control a transparent orb that can change color from purple to blue to gray. By clicking the mouse you can switch colors and absorb pieces that match your color. Build up combos to earn a high score and keep the background music shifting as you play!
The Four Color Problem is a simple turn-based game in which the goal is to color in as much space on a map as you can, while a computer opponent tries to do the same. The catch is that no two adjacent areas can be filled with the same color. Can you dominate the majority of the map with your color?
Game-Pure continues to amaze us with the rate at which they can release new games. Bound Bear is a simple action projectile game that combines elements from Breakout and Bloons to create something wholly unique and enjoyable to play.The objective is to reunite baby bear with mama bear, and to do so you'll have to avoid the black bears that can block your path.
From the creator of Hot Air and Skywire comes Dangle, a physics-based action game where you control a spider hanging from a neon pink line of webbing. By swinging back and forth you must work your way down each stage, avoiding enemies and collecting coins along the way.
Detective Grimoire is a point-and-click carnival murder mystery in which you play the title character, a hatless (but not hapless) crime-solver assigned to track down the murderer of Hugh Everton, ineffective caretaker of the carnival funhouse. It contains a higher-than-average level of cheese, but what good cheesy mystery doesn't?
Luke Whittaker's Baseball is easily one of the best online baseball games I've ever played. The gameplay mechanics do a perfect job of capturing what it feels like to be several runs behind in the final innings of a ball game, and have only three outs to fashion a miraculous come-from-behind victory.
A new puzzle game with a distinct ARG smell recently popped on the scene without much known about what it is or who is behind it. Ethan Haas Was Right is a mysterious Flash-based website that presents a series of 5 unique puzzles, some original and some rehashed versions of classic puzzle games. Even if you don't care for alternate reality games in general, there's enough here for a few sessions of casual gameplay.
Bart Bonte's entry into the second Casual Gameplay Design Contest, Chicken Grow, once again showcases the mosaic-like artwork we have come to love from his games. The game centers around one impatient-looking chicken, waiting for you to feed and water it. Doing so requires you to solve two puzzles—one to turn on the water and the other to release chicken feed from a machine.
A throw back to the graphic adventures of days gone by, Phantasy Quest is a welcome and refreshing alternative to the myriad room escape games that plague the Web these days. Using only the items you discover as you make your way around the island, solve the puzzles and the mystery of what lies before you. Can you find the girl and escape?
A soothing sound toy with which to bathe the aural senses, Pianolina is a beautifully designed and gorgeously sounding Flash application created to introduce you to the sounds of the Grotrian piano. Choose between several different compositions and see how the notes react to gravity as they bounce around the display.
Most everyone has probably played an avoidance game before. They are generally based on a very simple gameplay mechanic. Orb Avoidance is a simple game of mouse avoidance with the added bonus of a combo system. It's a little mindless fun to get your gears turning, and it won't take more than 10-15 minutes of your time.
Flashxed manages to breathe a little life into the familiar block-matching puzzle theme with a new mechanic: block dragging. You're presented with a set of bricks with colored orbs sparkling inside. Drag blocks left or right one at a time, and if two or more blocks of the same color touch, they smash and crumble away. It's extraordinarily perplexing at times, but that challenge is what makes it so fun.
A lecturer at The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University in Software Development for Games, Jeff Wofford has been working in the games industry for over 10 years. He has also just released this addictive little Flash puzzle game that plays like a cross between a tangram and a sliding block puzzle.
In Red White Yellow, the objective is to create groups of the same color in quantities of 6 or more by dropping the falling blocks into place. However, like its name suggests, Red White Yellow is also the order in which you must clear groups from play. It's a unique new twist to the new generation of falling block puzzle games popularized by Lumines. The selectable soundtracks make this game really special.
Protect your precious desktop from the invading enemies by placing towers throughout the screen. Choose fast-firing but weak turrets or slow-but-powerful ones to ensure no creeps cross your borders. Desktop TD features charming hand-drawn graphics and freeform gameplay that make it a winner in the tower defense genre. New in version 1.5 are new towers, enemies, challenge modes, and upgrades sounds and visuals!
From Hero Interactive comes a physics-based game Light Sprites. It also happens to be the happiest, most rainbowiest game ever made. Light Sprites is a hit the target game where you toss colored orbs to hit matching targets on the landscape below. The music and visuals are extraordinary and make this simple game so fun you might just crack a smile.
In Rat Maze 2, you are a mouse in a maze and you must collect all the pieces of cheese in the shortest time possible. Use the arrow keys for movement to zip around the maze. Running over a cheese is as good as eating it, so no time is wasted collecting them all. Simple retro fun from the highly talented developers at PixelJam.
Bloxorz is a simple idea for a puzzle game that is beautifully executed. The objective is to tumble a rectangular block through each stage and deposit it into the square hole at the end. Using a series of bridge-opening switches, teleporters, and block-splitting switches, solve the puzzle each stage presents to move on to the next of the game's 33 levels.
Countdown is based on one of the longest running game shows in the world, and this Flash game does a good job of staying true to the original game on TV. The game features two contestants battling it out in a game of letters, numbers, and "the crucial Countdown Conundrum." Each round is played against a giant 30-second clock, while the famous Countdown music plays. If you're a game show fan, don't miss this one.
Ring Pass Not is an original new puzzle game by indie developer, Sandhill Games. The objective: fill the magic circle with tiles by matching adjacent tiles by their color or symbol. Score bonus tools and power-ups by completing special combos of tiles, which will help you advance further in the game with its 30 unique and increasingly more difficult levels.
RGB is another great-looking room escape game by Japanese developer neutral, author of the previously reviewed Sphere. Not only is this game great looking, it plays exceptionally well with several puzzles that will perplex and confound you, though it won't take you long to solve. There are two different ways to escape, can you find them?
Ricochet shooting stars across the sky to light the heavens and unlock levels in this dazzling new action puzzler by Hero Interactive. Starshine is a game of rays and angles in which the objective is to light all of the stars to advance to the next level. You have but a single shooting star in your arsenal to fire from anywhere along the outer edge of the circular field of play. The path your shooting star will take depends on the type of stars it comes in contact with.
As with other tower defense games, you earn cash by obliterating the attackers that creep their way around any one of several maps available to play. With the cash you can purchase additional turrets or upgrade existing ones. But it is the Combos in Onslaught 2 that add a level of depth to this tower defense game not present in other games like it. The combinations are many, and the resulting strategy becomes deep.
Bada Boing is based on a very simple idea: Bounce a ball off a trampoline to hit targets and score points. Using the mouse just click, drag, and release a ball from the unlimited supply to 'throw' it. It's really quite intuitive to play. Included are 4 different game modes incorporating the same addictive gameplay mechanic.
Deadtree Defender is a wonderfully silhouetted and gorgeous Flash game in a castle defense style. Take control of a single archer whom, joined by two automated team-mates, is set to the seemingly impossible task of defending a withered, leafless old tree against an increasingly large opposition.
A missile is launched and it is up to you to solve the mysteries and rituals of The Shrine and save the world. In this amazing and well-produced point-and-click adventure by Aztec, you will encounter lots of items to find, hidden rooms, and various contraptions to activate and control. Cut scene animations reward you at various stages along the way.
Momentum Missile Mayhem plays like a combination of a tower defense game and a physics-based strategy game such as Bowmaster Prelude. Waves of enemies come piling in from the side of the screen. Your weapon works like a slingshot: grab the missile and pull it back, then release to send the projectile flying. There's a lot of strategy and customization built into this game, so be prepared to sink your teeth into a deep and immensely rewarding casual online game.
Blobular is a free online clone of the PSP physics game Loco Roco. Tilt the game world left and right to guide the gooey blob around each stage, collecting fruit along the way. It's a fantastic way to experience the quirky style and gameplay of the PSP game without spending a single cent.
We have gone and done it again! After rounding up support from Adobe, Arcade Town, and Nitrome, we are pleased to announce our 3rd Flash Game Design Competition at Jayisgames.com, and you are invited to participate! Up for grabs is over $3000 in cash and prizes, including Adobe CS3 Professional licenses! We look forward to seeing more creative and original entries as we have seen with our past competitions. Update: Entries are all in!!!
Overhead Consistence is another mouse maze game, but please bear with me... this one's good, even if you don't normally go for manual dexterity games. If you don't believe me, go check out Overhead Persistence, reviewed here in March. Has JohnB ever steered you wrong? This one is well worth the effort.
The latest tower defense game from David Scott, creator of the unbelievably addictive Flash Element TD and Flash Circle TD, has just been released and this one follows a more abstract design for its creeps (called "vectoids"). Vector TD combines vector-styled graphics (remember the original Asteroids?) with the tried-and-true gameplay of David's other successful games to deliver one of the most polished TD games yet.
Nanny Mania follows a formula similar to downloadable games such Cake Mania where you play a working woman going through the daily grind in order to make a living. The Mayor of Suburbia and his wife are too busy to cook and clean up after their growing family, so it's your job to straighten furniture, do the laundry, and perform all the little tasks that need to be done during the day. It's an extraordinarily well-made game that beats the competitors by leaps and bounds.
Shuffle is a combination of curling, marbles and billiards played with two rows of colored balls. You take control of the red team and must knock the yellows off the screen before the computer does the same to you. Grab a marble and drag the mouse to choose your throwing angle and power, then let it fly and watch the yellow marbles tumble off the screen.
Just when you thought you had seen the last of the Submachines for a while, Mateusz Skutnik comes around full circle and delivers another installment in one of the best point-and-click room escape game series on the Web. Submachine: Future Loop Foundation features music from a band of the same name (Future Loop Foundation) and it sets the mood very nicely for another enjoyable adventure.
Gravity: beneficial force of nature or oppressor of humankind? In the world of Amberial, it is both. In this unique platform game, you play the part of a bouncing ball, free to move about your world wherever you wish... horizontally. Unfortunately, you are not endowed with the ability to jump, so you must rely (primarily) on gravity and inertia to navigate vertically.
The Gotmail team of Japan has just released their latest point-and-click adventure, and I am pleased to report this one has an English version available. The Shochu Bar takes place in a familiar setting for anyone who has played the other gotmail games, but the story here is a different one. This is the story of a woman who was considering leaving her boyfriend for good.
Lucky Coins is the latest release from Donut Games and it is a quick and chaotic game reminiscent of pinball or pachinko. The goal is simple: rack up as many points as possible by collecting stars, horseshoes, clovers and sevens, as well as hitting bumpers and moving platforms.
Crazy Mammoths is a racing title where your only action is to jump over other players and try to stay at the front of the line. Physics play a huge part in the game, as the slope you're on tilts as you slide, forcing you to tope with changing gravity and direction. Do your best to stay in the front!
Loose the Moose is the latest point-and-click, escape-the-room game from Bart Bonte. As with most other games like it, the premise is a simple one: you're in a room, you need to get out. You will have to be observant and think logically to solve puzzles that lead you to your escape.
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.
Friend Chase is a simple arcade style game in which you run around a courtyard using only the mouse for movement and left button to jump. Your goal is always to collect friends by touching other people of the same color, though how many and in what combination differs from level to level.The gameplay is simple and delightful, and it managed to suck me in for quite a while.
ElectroCity is fun little Flash game intended "to spark an interest and lay an unbiased foundation for later learning" about the issues involved in power generation, cost, and environmental impact. It is obviously a very simplistic look at those issues, intended to give a broad overview and invite further research on the part of the player. It's also not a bad little town sim game to boot.
The hand drawn animations and old-school Jazz music soundtrack of Miestas and Menulis set the tone for an experience that is just this side of cool. The simplicity in controls leaves you wishing for something more polished until you realize the environments more than make up for it. Both games create a surreal world interactive art adventure to point-and-click through.
The hand drawn animations and old-school Jazz music soundtrack of Miestas and Menulis set the tone for an experience that is just this side of cool. The simplicity in controls leaves you wishing for something more polished until you realize the environments more than make up for it. Both games create a surreal world interactive art adventure to point-and-click through.
Juggler is a neat little diversion that I would categorize as a gravity-based game of mouse dexterity. The goal is simple: You control one paddle (ala breakout) while multiple balls bounce in sequence. You must maintain the balls in the air like a crazy one armed juggler.
Juggler is a neat little diversion that I would categorize as a gravity-based game of mouse dexterity. The goal is simple: You control one paddle (ala breakout) while multiple balls bounce in sequence. You must maintain the balls in the air like a crazy one armed juggler.
A new release from Sean Gleeson is this original, online solitaire, 10-handed poker game of chance. Incorporating a uniquely animated, 10-armed gold statue called the Dashabooja, this new and unusual take on poker can even serve as an introduction to poker hands for those unfamiliar with the game.
A new release from Sean Gleeson is this original, online solitaire, 10-handed poker game of chance. Incorporating a uniquely animated, 10-armed gold statue called the Dashabooja, this new and unusual take on poker can even serve as an introduction to poker hands for those unfamiliar with the game.
Designed for our recent "grow" themed competition, Rob Allen of Foon.co.uk sent word today that he has finally finished his entry, and we have been scrambling ever since receiving his note to come up with a prize to award him for the latest entry ever. Eye Defence is an action puzzle game with elements of both Grow and Hapland rolled into one.
Designed for our recent "grow" themed competition, Rob Allen of Foon.co.uk sent word today that he has finally finished his entry, and we have been scrambling ever since receiving his note to come up with a prize to award him for the latest entry ever. Eye Defence is an action puzzle game with elements of both Grow and Hapland rolled into one.
The latest offering from the folks down at NinjaKiwi. The objective is to protect yourself from a 30-round onslaught of enemies. Your chief weapons are flasks of potions that you lob at your enemies. You can control the potency of the weapon and the type of damage inflicted by altering the composition of your potion flask.
Far off in a dreamy land, tiny spots of light coax a little sleepwalking boy to follow his lost kitty. Never mind the fact that the little spots of light were what frightened the kitty away in the first place... Reunion, a gentle platform game by Mike Bithell, is a delightful journey full of good intentions and imaginary figments.
Dr. Steel has enlisted the talents of Starkraven Madd to take the task of growing his robot army and transform it into a stimulating puzzle game for the masses! It's a simple matter of placing the fuses in the proper slots to provide energy to the mysterious robot growth chamber.
Well, it's happened again. You've gone and gotten yourself stranded in the middle of enemy territory, surrounded by mines, turrets, and electrified Tesla gates. As usual, your only hope is to get to that little flag, even though all it ever seems to do is take you to another enemy-filled battlefield. Hmmm... Your steering mechanism also seems to be stuck, so you'll have to let the terrain dictate your path.
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.
Mindscape is a side-scrolling platformer with a... twist, in that the entire level rotates as you play. There are three "worlds" with four levels each, which steadily progress from the creepily joyous Candy Meadows to the joyously creepy Center of Your Mind. It's a brilliantly conceived and executed platformer of the highest level.
Adventure games are tough to get right: they generally rely on the craftiness of their puzzles and the strength of their story, and balance is key. Hard puzzles are fine, as long as they involve some sort of logic. I don't appreciate the kind of adventure game that has you put masking tape over a mouse hole so it picks up the hair off the mouse, allowing you to use the hair and some glue to make a fake mustache to sneak into the library. What kind of sense does that make?! Who sneaks into a library? It's a public building!
Logic puzzle fans of Minesweeper and the recently reviewed Slither Link will enjoy this latest logic puzzle design from Wouter Visser, author of PLANned. The rules of Count Out are simple to understand: derive the locations of all the golden squares on the board from the numbers given.
Too often do we come across Flash games (especially shooters) that are either too brief or too repetitive. Luminara is a brilliant example of how to avoid those problems. It's simple enough: you are a dot and you fire bullets. And like any good game, the premise always stays exactly this simple. What gets more complex are the subsequent waves of enemies that come at you.
Game-Pure has just released a sequel to its fantastic Flash-based interpretation of the classic card game of Speed. SpeedCluster 2 upgrades the audio-visual presentation while maintaining the same engaging game play that made the original so compelling and fun.
NOBuzzle Tree is a beautiful logic puzzle game that is based on a simple concept; but its simplicity may be deceiving. The 'grow' theme implementation in this game, apart from the obvious sprouting tree blossoms, actually has a similarity to an Eyezmaze Grow game: Each puzzle has a correct sequence that will make the tree blossom in full. Can you find it?
Slither Link by Luke Harrison will tickle the fancies of you logic puzzle fans out there. While Luke gets the credit for making this polished Flash version of Slitherlink, the actual puzzle was invented by the Japanese publishing company Nikoli. Nikoli is also known for popularizing Sudoku, and publishes a number of other similar logic puzzles.
Sunday Lawn, a game from the creator of Castle Smasher, Donut Games, puts you in control of Charlie whose job is to cut the grass around his house. Unfortunately there are dogs, hedgehogs, and various other obstacles standing in the way of monocotyledonous perfection.
Enter the Rental House and note the viridian green walls. This Japanese-made adventure offers a quality game play experience packed with puzzles that will force you to think logically. It is a straight forward game of its genre with only a couple of minor pixel hunts involved. Easy enough to complete on ones own, and yet challenging to give you about an hour's worth of fun.
For a quick and addictive action game splurge, check out the recently released Angry Faic. Similar to Kill the Pacman, presented here way back a few years ago, Angry Faic is an arcade action game of skill that has you perpetually falling from the sky, constantly trying to land on tiny passing emoticons of a matching color.
Benjamin Colwell of Indie Flash Arcade has just released this remarkably attractive arcade Flash game that blends the casual gameplay of classic video games with a stylish (and stunning!) presentation. The result is POD: Planetary Orbital Defense, a 15-level shoot-em-up bonanza that culminates in a boss fight against an alien invasion.
OK, here's the scene: you're stranded with a handful of your best friends on some strange platforms suspended above an endless black abyss. You're understandably a little bit scared, all of you. You won't wander off onto a new platform unless you have at least one friend to go with you, and inevitably one of you chickens out and stays behind in relative safety—after all, they've seen some of the platforms drop away into nothing!
A crowd pleaser from one of our Friday link dumps, Spikey's Bounce Around is an arcade action game of skill in which you are given 10 tries per level to release all the butterflies while accumulating points. Butterflies are sealed in jars that must be broken to release their contents. A jar will break if it reaches the ground, thereby setting the trapped butterfly free.
Welcome to Tonypa's school of game design. Start with a very simple gameplay idea; it doesn't have to be original, but the idea has to be simple enough for anyone to understand immediately. Include a few attractive graphics in a minimalist style of your own design. Add a pleasing and relaxing soundtrack. Toss everything in a box and flip it upside down. Voilà. Brand new game all your own.
Acrobots are little 3-legged acrobatic robots that hop and jump around and react to each other. Together they form an unsual webtoy that includes impressive physics as well as some very fluid animation. Very nicely done by the same Vector Park folks that brought us Levers, and Feed the Head.
Colour Connect is a game created by Matthew Dirks and submitted to our first game competition. It was initially comprised of only a single, randomly generated level, and it showed a lot of potential. Responding to the feedback he received from the first version, Matthew recently reworked the design into a full-featured, multi-level game that is both fun and addictive.
The wait is over. The next installment in the Submachine series is finally here. Submachine 4: The Lab again submerges you inside a vessel that you must escape from. The author promises that this fourth chapter takes us to the heart of the submachine, the place where all the questions will finally be answered. So grab your mouse and your favorite comfy chair, and prepare to embark on a journey you won't soon forget.
I think many people who frequent this site would agree: Tonypa is one of our favorite casual game designers. Grow Word, his submission to Casual Gameplay's second competition exhibits many of the characteristics that we have come to love about Tonypa's games: it's elegant, understated, and easy to learn but hard to master.
The popularity and success of Ninja Kiwi's recent Bloons game compelled the developer to put its next project on hold while they create another 50 levels to appease fans eager to pop More Bloons. But these levels promise to be even more difficult than the first batch.
A match-3 action puzzle game with zoo animals and a memorable soundtrack. While the moody animals are a nice touch, it is the Quest mode which makes this game enticingly addictive. As the zookeeper, you are set to 10 different tasks by your angry little boss. With clever variations, an emotional lot of animals and an uppity, cigar-smoking boss, Kiteretsu's Zookeeper will keep you busy and entertained.
If you haven't played Feed the Head lately, there are new features to explore! It represents a piece of interactive entertainment of a type we don't often see anymore. There is perhaps no goal, no win condition. It's just plain fun to play. An enjoyable little webtoy for you to discover on your own terms. Spend a couple minutes or an hour. Lose yourself. Feed your head. Escape.
In Rapture Capture, take control of a ship with a tug wire attached by waving the mouse back and forth. The tug wire is your only defense against incoming enemies and munitions, use it as a whip to take out anything that comes at you. The tip of the tug wire is especially powerful, as you can even capture enemies with it and whip them around as a weapon. It's fantastic!
On from Eyezmaze just released a brand new game he made to celebrate the birth of a friend's baby, Galves Adventure. In this charming little point-and-click, adventure puzzle game, help baby Galves make it through to where the sleeping boss lion lay. Click on various items in the right sequence and at the appropriate times to advance the little baby up to the top, at which point a boss battle will commence.
Similar to the classic game Rack-O, Tower Blaster puts you in a race against the Viking hordes in a randomly-assorted tower of numbered blocks to must arrange them in order from lowest at the top to highest at the bottom. Finish your tower before your opponent finishes theirs, else the mighty Viking Axe destroys your own tower and the game is over.
Frog and Vine is a unique collection of puzzles entered in our second Flash game design competition by Matt Slaybaugh, creator of Escape to Obion. Frog and Vine is one of the more varied entries and features four types of puzzles that can be completed in any order. And if the name didn't give it away, each one involves frogs and/or vines!
The setting of O-RI-GA-MI is made entirely of pieces of folded paper, making it probably the only handcrafted ETR in existence. From the furniture to the code panel to the unconventional fauna, almost everything that you see has been created out of a piece of paper and photographed in position. When you play, don't rush through it like you might some other games; this one is meant to be savored.
Dot Action 2 is a cute little platformer with a personality. For those seeking some old-school gameplay, OffGao of Japan may have just what you're looking for. At first glance these games may appear as nothing special, but as was the case with many early video games, it's all about the gameplay.
Cannon Bods is a slick little action game where you must shoot falling pirates before they hit the water. The controls are easy and intuitive, and a nice touch is that as you hold down the mouse button for more power the trajectory line changes its shape to match your cannon's increased power, giving you an accurate look at exactly where your "ammo" will go.
Stone Cold Curling is another well-polished game by Preloaded, the makers of CDX and Shootin' Stars. It's a simple Flash version of curling where your goal is to slide stones to the end of a field and come as close to the center of the target as you can.
Enter the Vision Museum. You have been invited by your favorite celebrity to visit the VIP-only trophy room of famous performers at a local museum. You enter and, like most room escape games, you can't get out. Using your point-and-click finger and puzzle-solving prowess, collect items to solve puzzles in this gorgeous graphic adventure.
Aqui Griffin delivered a visually stunning entry to our recent game design competition that is as easy to pick-up and play as it is to look at. enQbate is a simple puzzle game in which the objective is to highlight all cells in play by mousing over them with the cursor and then clicking.
At first glance, the latest offering from Taro Ito's GameDesign appears to be just another Tetris clone, but closer inspection reveals gameplay dependent upon color rather than shape. In Porolith Flash, the objective is to stack and group shapes of the same color together to remove them from play.
Chick Chick Boom is a combat-style game that pits two teams of chicks against each other in a small divided field. Draw your attack and defense moves on an egg at the bottom of the screen and try to best your opponent. Chick Chick Boom also holds the priviledge of being one of two Flash games to be sponsored by Nintendo.
Dofi has just released a demo version of a new title for us to play with: Cat with Bow Golf. The name may sound strange, but that's only because the game is strange. You control a cat with a bow and arrows attached to a rope. By pulling back with the mouse, fire the arrows to pull the cat across the screen and try to hit the target on the other side.
Something Amiss is an online adventure game created by Tucker Bowen to promote his book of the same name. It has a distinctly classic Lucas Arts adventure game flair with surprisingly good visuals and plenty of mystery surrounding the main character, Alice.
From developer Nitrome is a new physics-based action game, Skywire. You control a small chairlift that runs a crazy path through the sky. Three passengers are on board who would appreciate if you got them to the goal unharmed. A variety of obstacles stand in your way, from birds dropping bombs, deranged-looking pandas, and whales that leap from the sea. Each hit you take knocks a passenger from the car. Lose all three and you have to start over again.
There is something inherently gratifying about smashing or destroying something, even watching a building be demolished is good fun. So it should be no surprise that we see the concept come up a lot in games. Stephen over at Ninja Kiwi claims that his latest Flash game, "is based on the very simple fact that popping balloons is fun". And you know what? He's right! In Bloons you get to pop a lot of balloons!
You sit yourself down in front of an odd looking, dusty old monitor that displays what appears to be a radar screen with a few colored markers and controls along the outer edge. There are no instructions to be found anywhere, just the thrill of discovery by pointing and clicking with the mouse. You can do no harm to it; nothing is going to break or send you whirling into space without a helmet. So leave caution to the wind and boldly go into Orbit.
A new game from Donut Games, creator of Castle Smasher, has just rolled onto the web: Chicken & Egg. All of the cute chickens have been trapped in their eggs by the Easter Bunny. It's your job to match like-colored shells together by sliding the eggs across the grid. When the pairs come together, they hatch, revealing a set of rather bewildered chicks!
The old "navigate through a maze" concept enjoys a small rebirth in the form of Overhead Persistence, a gorgeous Flash game by Acrid Rose. Guide the cursor through each level avoiding the walls and any other obstacles you come across. Normally a game like this wouldn't be anything special, but Overhead Persistence provides a stunning audio and visual package along with a level editor and other extras to make a worthwhile experience.
From John Hattan comes BaffleBees, a quick, fun puzzle game for those on a coffee break. Be the best by ordering your bees around the hive until your entire honeycomb is filled with honey. The game has extremely simple graphics and almost zero sound. That said, it is fun and casual play. There are a multitude of other games on the site that are worth a look as well.
Tau'Ri Bedrock by Luca Deltodesco is an unusual and original platformer. In Bedrock you play a... slime? blob? that has been tasked to roll a boulder through levels upon levels of verdant terrain in order to return it to its parent rock. It's a lot like a simplified version of Loco Roco melded with the indie title Gish.
Get the Glass is a 3D board game produced as a part of a new Got Milk advertising campaign in the US. The object of the game is to get the Adachi family around the board and into Fort Fridge so that they can...erm...Get the Glass. It's an absolutely beautiful game with gorgeous scenery and surprisingly smooth animation.
Bubble Tanks is a hypnotic and relaxing shooter if ever there was one. Man your bubble ship on an excursion through a vast bubble field seeking out hostiles to assimilate. The more bubbles you collect, the larger your ship and the greater your weapon become. But as you grow so do the enemies that you will find around you. It addictive and relaxing, a dangerous combination.
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