From the city lofts and apartments comes the sound of home improvement: hammers pounding, saws buzzing, and paint rollers slopping. Is it a new season for Do-Up-My-Home-TV? No, even better. The crack design team of the now-classic game, Home Sweet Home, has returned. But these designers aren't content with country living rooms any more. Home Sweet Home 2: Kitchens and Baths takes style to new heights by tackling big city high rise apartments, along with some sleek improvements and additional rooms.

Following the same basic principle as the original Home Sweet Home, this game allows you to decorate the kitchens and bathrooms of your dreams-or at least the dreams of your clients, at least. Choose the right items to please the customers, using their poetic hints as a guide. Once your design has been approved, direct the workers to build each item.

As before, the building phase is under a strict time limit. However, some improvements make the process go a little more smoothly. Some effects, like picking up the garbage, are simply more streamlined, while other improvements are a pleasant surprise. For instance, if you choose extra items to go into the design (just so it will look right), an equal amount of extra items will arrive pre-assembled. In other words, you don't necessarily have to spend your precious few days painting that essential picture over the sink.

Once you have a few designer apartments in your portfolio, you can return to your own house, where you can get your fill of faucets and fixtures. Here, you can choose from different rooms to design, including the kitchen, the bathroom, and the living room from Home Sweet Home 2. Different floorplans are available at the click of button. If you manage to unlock enough items, you may be able to design your (nearly) complete dream home.

Home Sweet Home 2 is a delightful expansion for an already entertaining game. Being able to expand into new rooms, in addition to the new puzzles presented by a city full of new clients, is more than the home design gaming fanatic could hope for. Well, I suppose we're still waiting to design the master bedroom... and the closets, the garden, the garage, the attic and... well, there is still room for the series to grow. In the meantime, enjoy putting the polishing touch on that designer kitchen that you've always dreamed about, in Home Sweet Home 2.

Windows:
Download the demo
Order the full version

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

The intro paragraph to this edition of Weekend Download was delayed in an unfortunate airport scheduling conflict. Lacking the teams of writers normally required to complete this task, we have instead substituted the introduction with a single character, printed here: @. We hope you enjoy it.

Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire (Windows, 85MB, free) - Old school adventuring at its old schooliest! A remake of the classic game with updated visuals that go well beyond the original EGA fare. Point and click your way through the fictional land of Shapeir as you help fight magical elementals attacking the city. The gameplay takes an unusual twist with a restricted time frame of 30 (in-game) days. The entire narrative takes place during this time, and many puzzles and quests cannot be solved until a certain day arrives.

Archaist (Mac/Windows, 9.26MB, free) - A remake of David Lubar's 1984 game Pastfinder, Archaist is a vertically scrolling shoot'em up with strategy elements mixed in liberally. Use the [AD] keys to move left and right, the [W] key to jump/speed up, and [space] to fire. As with any old school game, you'll need to put in a little practice before you can get much done.

Solar Wolf (Mac/Win/Linux, ~4MB, free) - An action/arcade game created with the Pygame game development library and based on the game Solar Fox. Fly your ship around the center of the screen collecting cubes and power-ups and avoiding asteroids and enemy fire. Think re-tooled Pac-Man in space and you have a vague idea of what to expect.

Guru Logic Champ remake (Windows, >1MB, free) - A PC remake by Ian Price of one of my favorite puzzle games of all time, Guru Logic Champ. This work-in-progress demo features 80 levels, no music or sound effects, but is still fully playable and fully engrossing. Rotate the grid and fire blocks from the cannon to fill spaces on the screen.

Farm Frenzy 2, the follow-up to last year's Farm Frenzy, takes the smell out of farming with a challenging and addictive resource management/arcade title. Keep your animals fed so they produce basic goods you can refine into more complex (and profitable) products. Then, load everything on a truck and send it to town, using the resulting cash to upgrade your buildings to be faster and more efficient. But uh, watch out for panda bears that drop from the sky. They don't play very nicely with your livestock.

Farm Frenzy 2 sticks to the well-established formula the first title introduced, focusing on both resource management and quick-clicking skills. You begin with a small patch of land and a few chickens. Click the dirt to make grass grow, allowing the chickens to eat and produce eggs. At first you'll do little more than keep them fed and harvest eggs as they appear, but soon you'll be able to convert those eggs into more products, dropping a large variety of gameplay choices in your lap within just a few minutes of play.

The expandable nature of Farm Frenzy 2 brings more products into the mix at a fairly rapid pace. You quickly gain the ability to turn eggs into egg powder (which sell for four times as much), but then the bakery appears and you can turn egg powder into baked goods. Each level has a quota of products or cash you must meet, so the experience is very streamlined and leaves little room for ambiguity. Just keep your animals fed and the bears at bay, focusing on increasing your cash as quickly as possible.

The gameplay mechanic in Farm Frenzy 2 that really grips you is dealing with your products. Just about everything your animals produce can be turned into something else or sold directly, forcing you to decide if you should throw everything on the truck for fast cash or start refining for more money down the road. The quota system does a good job of guiding you without forcing your hand. Buying the right upgrades between levels is part of the strategy, but the rest is simple forethought and a little bit of planning. The best part is that it never gets so complicated (or cerebral) that you feel overwhelmed. Farm Frenzy 2 hits that sweet spot of gaming dead-on.

Analysis: Many sequels in the casual realm don't venture much farther than the original title, often creating a strange situation when veteran players return to the series. While 90% of the content and structure may be the same, the remaining 10% is wholly different, creating just enough incentive to re-visit the old favorite. Farm Frenzy 2 pulls this trick off nicely with new items, buildings and upgrades that make the game feel like it takes a step beyond the first Farm Frenzy. It doesn't re-invent itself, but to be honest, it wasn't necessary.

Visually, Farm Frenzy 2 is cute and maybe even a bit whimsical. The "dancing" buildings that move and shake while they're working remind me of old Looney Tunes cartoons. The difficulty level takes a sharp curve upward after only a few levels of play, forcing you to collect eggs, trap bears, and manage your farm with frantic clicks all around the screen. Provided you spend your upgrade money wisely, this can be significantly alleviated, but first-time players may run into a bit of a wall when things start to get hectic. Investing in a faster bear cage can mean the difference between frustration and gaming bliss.

All in all, Farm Frenzy 2 delivers just enough new content to warrant the "2" in its title. Fans of the original as well as newbies to the series will enjoy its fun presentation, simple play mechanics, and wholly enjoyable premise. This one you won't want to put down until you make it through just ooooone more level.

Windows:
Download the demo
Order the full version

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

Farm Frenzy 2 is available to download from these affiliates:

This week on the official LDF Paragraph of Miscellany, I would like to discuss an advertisement poster I saw in a mall over the weekend. Pictured was a fancy hotel room with every amenity you could want, and just below, this simple phrase was printed: You see a room. I tried typing "enter room" (you know, in my mind), but apparently the door was shut, locked, and the key hidden so well no amount of drawer opening could uncover it. Darn.

• Online Physics Phrenzy - In what is perhaps the most unfortunate use of the "ph" phoneme, Online Physics Phrenzy challenges you to guide the ball-like monkey to the bananas in each stage. Move the bouncey orbs around and click the "play" button to see what happens.
• The Adventures of Tinger - A Bavarian run and jump game. Really, do you want me to say any more than that? Do I need to?!!
• Lars' Adventure - While it may not look like anything special on the surface, Lars' Adventure is a surprisingly fun platformer with a catchy soundtrack. Remember: atomic bombs can burn whole buildings if someone is careless.
• Twist 2 - In an effort to break your brain we now present Twist 2, a high-octane arcade game where your own head is your enemy. Control two dots simultaneously, one with each hand, and try to keep them in their respective zones as the swirl rotates. As if that weren't hard enough, the game periodically changes the rules, swapping control schemes, changing the speed and so on. It's... just... GAAAAHHH!!!!
• There She Is!! Part 4: Paradise - The fourth installment in the continuing story, and this one's just as moving as the rest! If you haven't been following this series of excellent animations, you really, really should catch up. They're some of the cutest and most emotionally poignant animations you'll ever see.

Bucketball is a brand-new physics-based game from Arseniy Desrosiers (Gamebalance) and Florian Himsl (Komix). 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 and you win your very own Shetland pony.

No, seriously, simplicity is the name of the game here (well, actually, it's "Bucketball"), and indeed, the interaction of balls and buckets is the theme. You get 20 levels to test your skills of aim and timing. Each level presents you with a certain number of differently-colored buckets, and the same number of differently-colored balls. Your job is to get the right balls into the right buckets by striking them with invisible vectors of force. The fewer strokes it takes to complete a level, the higher your score. Easy, casual, no fuss, no muss.

The mouse controls everything. When you bring the pointer near a ball, a little arrow appears. Hold the mouse button to build up power, and release to fire the ball in the direction of the arrow. This control method feels comfortable and undemanding, which matches the general vibe of the game. There's no timer or official target score for any of the levels, so you're free to play with the physics and take as many shots as you want. You can even strike another ball while the previous one is still in motion. If you'd rather go for the minimum number of shots and max out your score, you can restart a level at any time with no penalty.

Analysis: Bucketball drew me in right away. Desrosiers' lively musical score has a threatening undertone to it that belies the bright, clean graphics. That tension makes more and more sense as the level design gets meaner and meaner, but the lack of forced goals keeps the edge off for a while. It takes quite a bit of precision to succeed after the first few levels, but it feels great whenever you make a shot. The balls have a solid sense of weight but almost no elasticity (I'm guessing they're supposed to be wooden croquet balls or bocce balls), so you can't really rebound them off anything. You just have to hit them at the perfect angle with the perfect strength, and that means every shot is an honest test of skill.

Nevertheless, the level design eventually gets quite tricky. A ball flung straight up at maximum charge will reach about halfway up the screen before falling back to earth; but if you need to hit a target higher than that, you'll have to be clever. A bucket will spit a ball out at high speed if it happens to be the wrong color, and although that feature first appears to be a punishment, it eventually may prove useful. Not that I'm giving you a hint or anything. Try not to allow the wrong ball to fall into a bucket pointed directly skyward, because that means the ball gets rejected straight up, and it usually falls right back into the same bucket, only to be spat out again. This cycle usually only repeats itself two or three times before the ball lands to one side, but it's still annoying.

Another problem becomes apparent when you have several balls lying close to each other. Because you can't select a specific ball directly, it can be hard to get the little arrow connected to the right ball and pointing in the right direction all at the same time. It sometimes comes down to a difference of mere pixels, which is a little too much precision for my taste.

Finally, I have to offer a warning. 20 levels doesn't sound like a lot of work, but when the difficulty curve is shaped like an open field with a giant skyscraper at one end, you may experience some frustration. Allow me to illustrate:

You know how you felt when you were a little kid, and you went miniature golfing for the first time, and you didn't care about boring grown-up things like "keeping score" and "staying out of the decorative waterfall"? Miniature golf was fun, right? The whole place was packed full of cool moving machine parts, you got to whack one hard object with another hard object, and every time you randomly managed to get the ball in the hole after about 8 wild swings, everybody clapped and made cute little patronizing "Yay" sounds. Except you were a kid, so you didn't realize that the indiscriminate emotional rewards were damaging your internal motivation, and you just lapped up the praise like a hog with a face full of buttermilk. Life was good. Golf was your new best friend.

And then came The Hill.

There was always a hole featuring a pyramid—or sometimes a cone—with the goal set at the very pinnacle. If you didn't hit the ball absolutely straight, it would curve pathetically off to the side; if you hit it straight but not hard enough, it would only reach halfway up the hill, and then come rolling pathetically all the way back to your pathetic feet while your sister laughed at you. If you hit it too hard, you would skip right over the hole at light speed and bonk your sister in the elbow, which she totally deserved. But no matter what you did, no matter how many strokes you took, you would never be able to actually get the ball in the hole, and all of a sudden you did care about your score, and this stupid hole was ruining it, and your sister was still laughing, and you were going to spend the rest of your life here, with a million strangers staring at you, thinking "Gosh, what a stupid kid. He plays golf so stupid and he has stupid braces. I'm sure glad my kid was born with ten thousand perfect teeth and he gets a hole-in-one every time, especially on The Hill, which is the easiest hole on the whole course, unless you just happen to be the THE STUPIDEST, UGLIEST CHILD IN THE ENTIRE WORLD." And then you stopped trying to get the ball in the hole and instead just flailed blindly at it with your club until it flew into the next-door merry-go-round and knocked the head off a plastic flamingo.

Remember that feeling? That's what Bucketball is like. Haaaaarrd. It might be the very last level that breaks you, or the pain might come as early as level 7, which resembles The Hill a little too closely for comfort. But I'm not really complaining. Any game that can dredge up childlike emotions so deftly is doing something right, even if it's playing a little bit dirty. Play Bucketball.

Aether, the latest from Armor Games, a collaboration between Edmund McMillen (Gish, Triachnid, Coil) and Tyler Glaiel (Magnetism, Paths), is a gloriously imaginative puzzle game where you swing through the stars to reach the planets.

You start on Earth, with the visit of a creature that takes you on a strange odyssey. Using the [ASWD] keys for direction, you click on the left mouse button to launch the tongue of the creature up into the clouds. Swing from cloud to cloud to go higher up until you reach space, then swing from star to star to launch yourself toward one of four other planets and solve a puzzle for each one. Once you're above the clouds and you have enough speed, you can also just hurtle through space without being attached to any stars. There are different colored navigation indicators pointing you towards each planet that look like butterflies.

Two-key combinations can also help you gain momentum, for instance pressing up and left at the same time can help you can gain enough swing to go completely around in a circle.

Each planet's puzzle has a different type of solution. When you successfully solve each one you see a flash of light. After you complete all four puzzles, head back to blue earth to complete the game.

Analysis: Surely influenced by The Little Prince, the game seems to take place within the imagination of a child. On each planet you encounter creatures with some kind of complaint or anxiety, each trouble is symbolically released through creative puzzles.

A few things about the game were a bit wonky. On some of the planets, solving the puzzle didn't solve the creatures' problems, which was confusing. The somewhat clumsy physics of the tongue while swinging makes it difficult at times to build momentum. Combined with the gravity of a planet or moon, this makes it awkward to leave a planet, so starting off is the hardest part to get used to. It was also difficult to tell where the planets were as you were approaching because the navigation indicator would disappear.

But those are small quibbles in an otherwise amazing game. The designers have made a truly compelling experience with excellent atmosphere. It's a fantastic artistic endeavor with delightful physics-based game play and creative puzzles. You can also just spend some time flying through space or the clouds, the music and movement are so relaxing. Play Aether!

You know those movies where the guy goes to Europe, meets the girl, and they fall in love? I had a similar experience this summer, except replace the girl with a magazine.

In an airport in Venice, I happened to stumble across a magazine loaded with picross puzzles and other sorts of logic puzzles. I had never seen some of the puzzles before, and quickly fell in love with these new variants on one of my favorite pastimes. Upon arriving back at home, I searched the Web and found all these logical delights and more can be found at Conceptis Puzzles.

Previously featured in a Link Dump Friday, Conceptis offers a variety of logical challenges to all who come. Just click on the My Conceptis link at the top of any page to get started. Eleven different puzzles await the intrepid solver, including familiar puzzles like Sudoku, Picross (here called "Pic-a-Pix"), Kakuro, Slitherlink, and even dot-to-dot puzzles. Some puzzles that might be new to solvers include:

• Link-a-Pix: My favorite variant (pictured above), pictures are solved by drawing lines to connect matching numbers. The numbers you join represent the number of spaces in the connecting line.
• Fill-a-Pix: Another picture puzzle, in which you black out squares like you would if you were playing Minesweeper.
• Hitori: Black out the numbers so that no number appears more than once in a row or column. Also, darkened squares can't touch each other, and the undarkened squares must form one undivided shape.
• Battleships: A puzzle similar to Picross, where you must determine the location of the fleet using the digits along the borders.
• Hashi: Connect the numbered islands so that each island has the corresponding number of bridges on it. You can place up to two bridges on each island, and all of the islands will be connected in one network.
• Maze-a-Pix: Find your way through the maze, then fill in your path to reveal a picture.

All of the puzzles come with difficulty ratings, ranging from very easy to very hard. Some puzzles also throw in a splash of color for variety and a change of difficulty.

There are just a few snags to this system. First, registration is required with the website to view new puzzles. Luckily, the registration is painless, and you'll be puzzling away after a few quick fields. All puzzles are printable, however, not all are playable online. For those that are playable online, you can save your completed and started puzzles to resume later.

Finally, the last snag is the kicker: Despite having eleven types of puzzles to tackle, only 4-8 of each are online at any given time. These puzzles are then swapped out for new ones weekly. Some die-hard picross fans are probably screaming at me right now, but I assure you it's not as bad as it sounds. Particularly if you're the sort of person who's on a busy schedule and can't afford to lose hours a day to relentlessly solving puzzles, the limitations on this website are actually a plus. You can still get your fill of logic puzzles for the week, and get out for a walk in the park. This "logic diet" gives you enough to satisfy your needs with a friendly website designed with the casual puzzler in mind.

So grab your pencil, and get ready to Explore the world of Conceptis Puzzles!

Ah, the shifting of the seasons. The barest hint of flaming color edging the leaves, the occasional breath of cool air... Autumn has almost arrived. How the months fly by! In the blink of an eye we'll be drinking apple cider and carving pumpkins, another moment and the world will be covered in ice and snow. A bit unsettling, isn't it?

In this world of change, however, there is one constant. Come rain, come sun, come snow, there will be rooms to escape from. When the glaciers melt and California falls into the sea, there will still be screwdrivers and scraps of paper to collect. And in billions of years, when the sun finally blooms into a red giant and consumes the Earth, we will be here, faithfully, delivering Weekday Escape to you every Wednesday.

....Well, ok, maybe not then. Definitely up until the week before, though. After that we'll be updating from Mars.

• Room Bath - You must find your way out of what is undoubtedly the oddest bathroom I've ever come across; codes and secret panels grace the toilet, gems are scattered across the floor and weird golden masks watch over the sink and bathtub. The puzzles are intriguing, moderately difficult and inherently logical; with its refreshingly rational challenges, Room Bath is a wonderful source of escape game fun.
• The other game we featured this week has been removed due to quality concerns.

Note: Comments are disabled for this entry, but you will find a place for comments on each game's review page. You may use the rating widget below to rate this week's selection of Weekday Escapes.

Continuing the legacy of the popular Bloons series, Bloons Tower Defense 3 has finally been released after months of anticipation from all the hardcore Bloons fans out there. Picking up where Bloons TD 2 left off, the new game features even more tracks (eight in all!), new monkeys (towers) and upgraded gameplay mechanics. It's basically the sequel that fans wanted back when they got Bloons TD 2 instead (which was more of a "patch" to the original that a full-fledged sequel). This time around, NinjaKiwi really answered the call and developed a strong and distinct successor to the Bloons Tower Defense series.

In Bloons TD 3, the monkeys are back to defend an onslaught of multi-colored balloons careening down the track, with a few new b'loons added to the arsenal. Fans of the former will remember that in the Bloons TD series, it only takes one hit to pop a bloon, but as levels progress you'll be met with bloons inside bloons. In Bloons TD 3, things only get worse, with some bloons containing nearly a dozen inside of each other. The new "porcelain bloons" need to be cracked open with repeated hits, and the uber MOAB (tongue-in-cheek for the US military's "Mother of All Bombs") takes the form of a zeppelin that must be pounded with everything you've got just to reveal even more bloons inside.

But not to worry, because you've got plenty of new tricks up your sleeve this time around. Your first new monkey tower is the Spike-o-pult, which throws a large spiked ball onto the track, popping any bloon it touches. It can be upgraded in a few different ways, the most impressive of which allows it to launch three balls at once. The new Monkey Beacon is a support tower that "buffs" nearby towers with increased range and speed, and also unlocks a "top secret" weapon that essentially nukes every bloon on the track (MOAB's exluded). You've also got a new one-time placement weapon, similar to the spikes that pop up to 10 bloons and the glue that slows down up to 20; a Pineapple! It's a timed bomb that can be placed anywhere on the field (even off-track) and explodes after three seconds, encompassing a respectable radius.

Also in Bloons TD 3 are a slew of new tower upgrades. Basic Dart Monkeys can now be upgraded with razor darts, which pop three bloons instead of two. The kooky Boomerang monkey can be transformed into a glaive thrower, able to pop eight bloons per arc! Ice Balls can pop a few bloons on freeze at their highest level and Cannons can be upgraded to launch missiles that frag apart on impact. Even the previously-weak Tack Shooter can be upgraded to an effective blade thrower. All in all, lots of new upgrades across the board, even with the old towers from the original. (The Super Monkey's new "plasma vision" mows down bloons like you wouldn't believe.) Lastly, you now have the ability to change the targeting mode on each individual tower to "first" or "last." It's a really useful mechanic to further the depth of your strategy, allowing you to maximize damage with piercing towers that can pop a line of bloons in a row.

Analysis: Aside from the new units, Bloons TD 3 features eight new tracks, the second half of which are available by earning at least a bronze medal (easy mode) in tracks one through four. They're designed with a lot more diversity than the previous game. Some tracks even feature bloons coming in from multiple paths at once, requiring more strategy. There's also a "free play" mode available after you complete each level, so you can continue playing indefinitely. This allows you to earn more cash and unlock more towers than you might be able to in a normal game, although eventually, you'll either be overwhelmed by bloons or have so much money that you can just nuke the whole path each wave (depending on how well you began the level). A downside to the game is that the graphics haven't improved much; they're still cartoony as ever and the lackluster animation doesn't lend itself well to a TD game. Unit placement is annoying at times as well; there's no "snap-to" grid system used, so sometimes you'll have to find just a few available pixels to place towers on in tight groups. Regardless, the third installment of this trilogy succeeds in improving on its predecessors, culminating in a unique tower defense game that fans of the genre should really enjoy. Play Bloons Tower Defense 3.

Being a robot is supposed to be cool. You're supposed to get lasers and x-ray vision and rocket boosters in your feet and mega-strength that lets you crush tanks with your pinky finger which isn't a pinky finger at all but is instead a gargantuan column of shining steel—no, something cooler—awesomenium that only looks like a pinky because the rest of you is so unspeakably massive that you generate your own gravitational pull.

But no, not you. You had to wind up as a janitor ...in a slime factory no less.

In Globule, yet another unique puzzle game courtesy Rowland Rose, maker of Scorching Earth and Music Bounce, you are that robot, and though you have no lasers, you do have the ability to collect slime and have it trail behind you like one giant, sticky, tail. It won't make Johnny Bolts from high school jealous at your ten year reunion, but it is a pretty useful ice-breaker at parties.

Unfortunately there's been an accident in the slime factory and now it's up to you to clean up the mess. In each level you must collect all of the puddles of goo and direct them down one of the available suction vents to make it all go away. To do so, you'll have to push boxes out of the way and mind the arrows which allow you to travel in one direction only. Most importantly, you have to remember that you can travel along the slime trail as much as you want, but you can only move the whole thing by either end; not through the middle.

Analysis: Plainly put, Globule is fun. This should come as no surprise considering Rowland's out-of-the-box puzzlers mentioned a little earlier.

In this case, Globule may initially feel very familiar given its more than obvious roots in Sokoban-esque box pushing gameplay. The genius twist here is mashing that time-tested formula with that of the classic snake game where you run around the board gobbling up little dots, each one increasing the length of your snake.

Running into your tail will not kill you in Globule, but it can stop you dead in your tracks. Thus, while the first handful of levels will lull you into a false sense of security, you quickly come to understand the challenge of the game is not just pushing blocks around in the right order, but also managing your ever growing slime trail in such a way that you don't cut yourself off from necessary paths.

To this extent, one of the things that impressed me the most is how Globule pits you against yourself. You can trick yourself into thinking you're stuck when you really aren't, just as you can convince yourself that you can proceed ahead only to find later on that you were blocked off a long time ago. The end result is that you'll wind up laughing at yourself more often than not as you restart the level because you should have known better.

On the upside, when you do finally make it through a particularly nasty level, watching your slime trail that takes up three quarters of the screen get sucked down the drain can be very satisfying.

The visuals aren't much to write home about, and I'm sure there are going to be some of you who will be grateful that you can turn the music off. But neither the sights nor the sounds are the focal point; that would be the fifty levels of slime collecting goodness, as well as the level editor just in case fifty levels isn't enough.

So if you get excited when you see an oddly shaped room filled with crates; if you, like me, still occasionally dust off your old Adventures of Lolo cartridge; or you just like a nice mental workout from time to time, Globule shouldn't disappoint. Play Globule!

There is something about Sid Woo's Bounceroid 2000 that makes it so completely JIG-like. Elegantly simple in design, modern, stylish and enjoyable.

The goal is easy to understand. Use the semi circle paddle on the bottom to bounce the balls into the side walls. Try to score as many points as you can by getting the balls to hit the middle of the wall. You must get the green balls on the green side and the blue ones on the blue side. Gray balls can go towards either wall. If any of these balls miss the paddle, or you don't match the color of the ball with the wall, you lose a life.

There are two modes of play. Beginner mode is a 25 level challenge that slowly introduces you to the mechanics and bonus features. Advanced mode is free play in which all features are unlocked at the start, and you can just go for a high score.

The beginner level introduces each new feature one at a time. Early on you can left-click the mouse to add power to the paddle, helping to bounce balls higher. If you bounce a ball multiple times on the paddle before hitting the wall, it multiplies your score up to 5x, and you can use the spacebar to slow the balls down. On later levels you gain access to the Beam by pressing [X], which pushes the ball up, and the Magnet by pressing [C]. These power-ups can only be used for a short time, and can be recharged if you catch a corresponding bonus ball. There's also a heart bonus ball to gain a new life, and a polka-dotted ball which releases a batch of red balls like confetti. Hit as many of these as you can for extra points, they don't count against you if they fall. A helpful counter on the top shows how many balls are left to fall on each level.

Analysis: At first glance this game might seem a bit too simple. Your first task is to merely hit a ball into one of the side walls—what's so interesting about that? But once you get further on in the levels and you begin to utilize more features, or begin doing multiple bounces, the subtle complexities will hook you. The game is very clever and the ball physics are very nicely implemented. Although the paddle only moves left right along the bottom, it has a nice feel when you are trying to put some curve on the ball. I liked that there was an option to turn off the sounds, although I liked both the music and the sound effects. The minimalist sounds worked really well with the graphic design elements.

Bouncing balls against paddles have come a long way, and gone through all sorts of fancy incarnations. This game is back to the basics and has an original take that makes it unique. Play Bounceroid 2000!

Cheers to Tonypa and Andreas for suggesting this one! =)

Survive as long as you can in Rapid Wars, the new addictive arcade shooter by Jussi Kari of ooPixel. Several of their games have been featured here in the past including Gride, which received 3rd place and the Viral Award in our 5th Casual Gameplay Design Competition (CGDC5).

Movement is key in this shooter game, both from your colorful enemies and your ship. Move the ship with either the [arrow] keys or [AWSD]. The shooting is automatic and constant. All you do is aim with the mouse, so you are free to focus on position rather than pounding away to shoot.

Borrowing the two-fisted Robotron mechanic, and with a nod to Geometry Wars, Jussi creates engaging dynamics in the enemies (which I will forever just refer to as the "lucky charms rainbow of pain" - LCROP). Each colorful bad guy has its own unique personality. One drifts aimlessly, one hones in on you and hunts you down, one seems ambivalent towards you and then suddenly pounces! On occasion, the destruction of brightly colored evil produces much needed amoeba-looking power ups. Try to chase down each precious egg before it fades away. They're cumulative so you can utilize several types at once, increasing bullet frequency, power, flow, or if you're lucky get a small reprieve with a bubble of health. When things get really frantic, you will really need the health power up. I'd say keep an eye on your health indicator, but you won't have time to look at it.

Besides survival and racking up the highest score possible, there are a series of hidden achievements you can see if you mouse over the row of stars on the bottom of the screen. These include 10x combos, reaching 50,000 points, beat the boss, and one that could be called the "the bull ride": last 10 seconds with 50 enemies. But if those are too hard to achieve, you could certainly just enjoy the more casual version, trying to surviving as long as possible.

Analysis: Gameplay is frenetic, addictive and fun. The performance was really smooth. Even when the screen was filled with enemies I didn't experience any lag (except in my reaction times). When an enemy destructs, the board warps like a rippling pond, which is a nice effect. The constant explosions of pixels flying everywhere is a sight to behold; tiny details like the bullets bouncing off the walls didn't go unnoticed. You can see each new LCROP pixilating itself into existence, watching for this really comes in handy so that you aren't sitting on top of a spawning spot.

It does get hard to see what's going on when the arena is full. Your small, pale white ship and mouse target can get lost visually in all the action, especially in the lower corners where display info was. Sometimes I couldn't figure out where I was on the screen. Another complaint has more to do with me — frantic clicking leads to accidentally hitting the [Q] key which just ended the game abruptly without any prompt to save or restart — arghh. So I would like them to give you the option not to quit, or better, just don't use the Q.

It's nice to see the work of the game makers grow over time here on JIG. I think this is ooPixel's best game to date, and look forward to see what they do next. Play Rapid Wars.

Zombie in My Pocket is the quintessential casual game: quick to play, easy to learn, solitaire and free. But it differs from the usual Jay is Games fare in one crucial respect: the platform on which it plays is not Windows or Mac or even Linux, but rather your kitchen table.

ZiMP is one of a growing number of "print and play" board games available on the Web. It costs nothing, but after printing out the four-page ZimP PDF you'll need to spend two minutes of quality time with a pair of scissors before you are ready to play. Though printing the game onto cardstock is preferable, regular-weight paper works fine too. (My copy is on some flimsy all-purpose printer paper, and although shuffling the cards and titles is a chore, the game has held up for 20 plays at least.)

Play begins with single title, depicting the Foyer of a creepy old mansion. On each turn you first move a pawn through one of your current room's available exits, then draw a new tile (such as "Dining Room" or "Kitchen") and place it such that the doorways line up. In this way you slowly reveal the layout of the manor as you search for a profane Totem hidden somewhere within. Later you can head out the back door of the house, wander the yard in search of the secret Graveyard, bury the Totem and win.

All this would be a cakewalk were it not for the Zombies. Upon entering a room you must draw a card, which may grant you an item (a machete, say, or a board with nails), increase or decrease your health (which begins at 6), or surprise you with a horde of zombies. If zombies reduce your health to 0, or if you don't reach the Graveyard by midnight, you have failed in your quest (assuming your quest isn't to personally alleviate undead hunger).

Zombie in My Pocket is short—a full game only takes 5 minutes—but surprisingly addictive; the urge to play again (and again, and again) is almost insurmountable. It's also rather easy, and you're likely to win three times out of every four. To address this, the game's designer, Jeramiah Lee, suggests two house rules: capping your health at 6 (i.e., nothing can give you a health of 7 or higher), and only gaining two health when cowering. Played this way, the game provides a considerable challenge.

ZimP has received great buzz in the board game community, and a game company intends to release a multiplayer version early next year. Until then, the free version is a fun way to hack and slash your way through a coffee break. Download and Play Zombie in My Pocket.

We have just finished a massive walkthrough guide for
Azada 2: Ancient Magic. This guide will help you through any of the books should you get stuck while playing. Be warned: This guide does contain spoilers, so proceed with caution and use only as a last resort!

• Download Azada 2: Ancient Magic here.
• Read our review of Azada 2: Ancient Magic here.
• Azada 2: Ancient Magic Walkthrough Guide is here.

Azada 2: Ancient Magic Walkthrough Guide

There you are, standing on the precipice. Your pixelated toes hang over the edge. Taking a deep breath you move forward — and fall, cursing the heavens and hoping that the louder you say "But I pressed jump!" will make a difference. Such is the fate of all characters at some point — they fall. Some games take the idea of making that perfect jump and dare you to try hard at every turn in order to make every single jump count, and every miss hurt.

Karoshi Factory (Windows, 8MB, free) - The Karoshi series has captured the minds of sadistic-minded frustrated gamers everywhere, with the objective being not to finish the game in good health, but to kill the protagonist in every single level. Karoshi Factory continues in this vein. For a different experience, check out the much shorter and more artsy Pazzon.

Jumper 3 (Windows, 8.5MB, free) - Another installment in a classic game series has also been recently released, with a new Jumper game making its debut not long ago. In this game, you are given five different characters with which to traverse the dangerous terrain. Switch between the variations based on their individual skills. While the levels are easier than the previous games, hats are included along with time trials and coin collecting to beef up replay time.

Happy Runner (Windows, 2MB, free) - It seems the effect of I Wanna Be The Guy's incredible difficulty is still being felt with games appearing every so often to challenge and frustrate with willing glee. This also incorporates a genre I love - the One Switch Game. In this painfully difficult platformer, one single button controls not only running and jumping, but also running while jumping.

Syobon Action (Windows, 3MB, free) - In this jolly Mario-styled game, you play the role of a delightfully happy cat in a delightfully happy land. Unfortunately, it is the "I Wanna Be..." in difficulty and absurdity. More linear in story, the humour comes not from dying often, but in various ways, such as huge chunks of the ground disappearing below you. "Learning by making mistakes" now has a poster child. Note: Page is in Japanese. Click the second link from the top to download.