We have just finished a massive walkthrough guide for Virtual Villagers 4: The Tree of Life. This guide will provide all you need to help you get the most from your experience with the latest Virtual Villagers game. Be warned: This guide does contain spoilers, so proceed with caution and as a last resort!

Dismantlement: Alarm Clock is here and it's dismantling time again! It's always a joy when a new dismantlement game comes out, and Dismantlement: Alarm Clock is one of those great ways to kill a few minutes. Have fun dismantling that annoying clock! Just try not to blow up.

Have you ever wondered what ponies dream about? It's not hay or salt licks. They dream of racing with shiny dolphins across a purple landscape, leaping to avoid smashing into stars and racking up a high score. That's right, they dream of being a magical robot unicorn! And now, thanks to this weird yet addictive two-button game from Adult Swim, so will you. Neigh, my friend. Neigh like you've never neighed before!

We have just finished a massive walkthrough guide for Virtual Villagers 3: The Secret City. This Hint-through guide will provide gentle nudges in the right direction to help you get the best from your experience with the latest Virtual Villagers game. Be warned: This guide does contain some spoilers, so proceed with caution and as a last resort!

The undead hordes are on the march, but your back yard is standing in the way, covered with fresh, fertilized topsoil. In this cheerfully absurd melding of resource management and tower defense, you must defend your delicious brains with an assortment of warrior plants. Plants vs. Zombies is the strangest, most original game from Popcap yet.

From Amanita Design, creator of the famously brilliant Samorost series, comes Machinarium, a game so well-conceived and implemented it can confidently launch as one of the best point-and-click adventures of all time. Machinarium is nothing short of a playable piece of art. Similar to Samorost in style and gameplay, you play a lone robot thrown out of the city working his way through desolate mechanical slums. Solve puzzles, find and combine items, and encounter loads of creative characters in your quest. Machinarium is one of those rare games you can't praise enough.

Games are fun. Jam is delicious. Why not combine the two? The Game Jolt Weekend Game Jam has both of those words (even though its jam is less strawberry flavored) and contains exactly the same amount of yum. Check out a few of the top games from this 48 hour competition.

It's time to travel back to Isola! Yes, that magical island paradise with the odd wildlife and mysterious ruins is back in Virtual Villagers 4: The Tree of Life, the latest installment in the Virtual Villagers casual sim series by Last Day of Work. The powerhouse of the field, the game by which all other village simulations are measured, is back to delve deeper into the secrets of the island!

Another World, or, as it's known in North America, Out of This World, is a stunning example of storytelling in a video game originally released in 1991 (and re-released with better visuals in 2006) by Eric Chahi. Built as a cinematic platform adventure, you take on the role of Lester Knight Chaykin, a young physicist who is teleported to a barren alien planet while running an experiment using a particle accelerator. You soon make friends with one of the humanoid aliens and together work your way through the subterranean environments trying to escape with your lives!

The Treasure Seekers series are some of the loveliest, most entertaining hybrids out there and Treasure Seekers: Follow the Ghosts seeks to expand and enhance the formula. With a choice of modes (casual and advanced), and such a variety of problem solving, hidden objects, and mini-games, Artogon has created casual gameplay that will satisfy folks on all areas of the spectrum, with fun and challenging puzzles that will appeal to a wide variety of gamers.

Ever have one of those days where everyone thinks you're crazy, and you start to believe them? Waking up in an asylum isn't a good start, and it gets worse when you start to suffer increasingly vivid hallucinations about strange places and monstrous creatures. Is there a reason for it all? Or are you simply as crazy as everyone says? Sanitarium is the cult classic point-and-click horror adventure that shouldn't be missed by any fan of the genre.

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.

NinjaKiwi's Bloons Tower Defense 4 is here at last, stepping over Bloons Tower Defense 3 and adding much more of everything we love! New units, new maps, better upgrades, and more evil bloons to pop!

Virtual Villagers is back, and we're so excited we couldn't wait until the weekend to tell you! With Virtual Villagers 3: The Secret City, the surprisingly addictive real-time simulation game sticks with its proven formula and makes a few minor tweaks to freshen up gameplay. With new secrets to uncover, new technologies, real-time weather effects and a whole new island to explore, Virtual Villagers 3 has all the ingredients that made the first games so compelling, plus more.

Voted Best of 2005 by the visitors of Jayisgames, the gameplay here is similar to the previous games in the series, Grow and Grow RPG. As with the others, the order in which you click the items determines the outcome of the game. Simple and delightful, these games are among the crown jewels of the Web. By Eyezmaze.

It's another great day for the end of the world! Oh, wait, I forgot... that was yesterday! Dead Frontier: Outbreak 2 is a text adventure about trying to survive in an undead world. Having survived the events of the first game, you set out in search of much needed medical supplies. Making the right choices is important if you want to see the end of the day.

It's here! The next chapter in the captivating virtual island village sim is available to download. The follow-up to the monumentally successful Virtual Villagers game keeps the same formula as the original but adds all new puzzles, events, collectibles and more. It's the perfect follow-up to one of the most amazing casual games ever released.

This time we mean it. This is the Only Level Too! The sequel to jmtb02's original hit puzzle/platformer about a determined elephant stuck in an endless procession of seemingly identical levels is back. This time with more shenanigans and at least twice as much velociraptor!

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 latest Grow game from On of Eyezmaze! Need we say more? This is without a doubt On's greatest work-to-date, and in it he embodies an optimistic philosophy. Following the correct order of things will lead to a society where men and women get along happily, the environment is protected and technology is harnessed to discover the secrets of the universe.

What's in a dream? April Ryan, a struggling art student, doesn't think there's much to the strange nightmares she's having. But she's wrong. A classic point-and-click adventure of epic proportions, The Longest Journey is the story of two worlds thrown out of balance. Featuring stellar dialogue, memorable characters, a haunting soundtrack and rich environments, this is a fantastic adventure that shows other titles in the genre how to do it right.

Step one: Push the box, solve the puzzle. Step two: Go into space, push the box, get your stuff. Step three: Build a machine, buy some weapons, pick up some money. STEP FOUR WIN!

Westward IV: All Aboard is a solid addition to the ever increasing Westward pantheon. There's not a lot of change from Westward III, but why mess with a winning formula? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Of course, Westward IV offers new characters, new scenarios, new upgrades, and the same casual gameplay fun of its predecessors.

Take a journey through one introvert's convoluted mind as you work to cooperate with your past selves, recorded in time. As soon as you reset the clock, the level starts anew, except now there's a phantasmal double of yourself scurrying about, re-enacting your first playthrough move for move. Press [space] again, and add another one to the mix, this one also moving according to the steps you laid out. Some levels will place a restriction on the number of ghostly doppelgangers you can conjure, and these are the levels where you'll have to see just how adeptly you can work with...well, yourself.

An experiment in concept, Record Tripping is a short game that you control using your mouse scroll wheel. Play a series of mini-games that take you through Alice in Wonderland with one very pretty presentation. The whole package is a cool little showcase of a neat idea with lovely trappings, well worth the short time it takes to complete.

Dire Grove is a beautiful game that incorporates live action video sequences to tell the chilling tale of an ancient Celtic legend. And although it picks right up where the previous game in the series ends, it is a stand alone game that can be enjoyed without ever playing any previous installment. Dire Grove is perhaps not as long as Return to Ravenhearst, and yet it still manages to buck the current trend of ever-shrinking gameplay time now seen in most adventure/hidden object hybrids. Between the exploration, the hidden object scenes, and the puzzles you are looking at hours of fantastic casual gameplay.

Don't you hate when lightning strikes your marshmallows and bestows sentience on them, so they go off on a gravity-warping, puzzle/platform adventure to save their squishy kin? I lose more tasty treats that way. That Gravity Game is a simple but fun gravity game experience to put a bit of squishy enjoyment in your day.

It might be a game to promote Comedy Central's new show, but the point-and-click adventure from ClickShake is a barrel of paranormal, devil-infused fun. Welcome to New York City, the traditional landing port for foreigners eager to build their own American dream. It is Mark's job, as an employee at the Department of Integration, to help these newcomers out with jobs and make sure they do not get deported because of some technicality. Such as losing their immigration papers or eating gray matter at the Brain Depository.

We've just finished a complete walkthrough (with images) for Dream Chronicles 2: The Eternal Maze!! Be warned: contains major spoilers, so proceed only as a last resort.

When your spaceship crash-lands onto an unknown desert planet, you regain consciousness to find yourself one of the only survivors. Red Herring Games presents an incredibly polished point-and-click adventure game that has to be seen to be believed.

The wait is over! The release of the latest Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst is finally here. Big Fish Games Studios takes the hidden object genre to unprecedented new heights with an absolutely gorgeous, hidden object / adventure hybrid that is sure to please a very wide range of casual game players. This is one game you don't want to miss!

In My Tribe, you play as sort of a guardian angel for a tribe of island-dwellers, telling them what to do, dragging them from place to place, and occasionally sprinkling them with a (hopefully) beneficial potion. Harvest food, wood, and stone to build with. Your tribe continues to work even when your computer is off. It's remarkably similar to Virtual Villagers but better in a number of ways.

Virtual Villagers is a downloadable real-time simulation game for Windows developed by Last Day of Work, the creators of Fish Tycoon and a number of other casual sim games. Take charge of a village of crash survivors and help them carve out a living on a jungle island. Teach them to farm, help them research scientific advancements and expand their population. It's a remarkably addictive game that's easy to play but impossible to stay away from!

Alan Probe: Amateur Surgeon is a cartoonish and casually offensive entry into the simon-says-surgery genre made famous(ish) by Atlus' Trauma Center. Your job is to follow the exact requirements of each surgery as quickly and as accurately as possible. The game is blessed with the finest production values a second-tier television network can buy, with bright, detailed environments and an ever-present sense of self-conscious irony. The violence is so over-the-top that it's not really gross, but there's still plenty of comically intense moments to go around.

We've just finished a complete walkthrough (with images) for Dream Chronicles 3: The Chosen Child!! Be warned: contains major spoilers, so proceed only as a last resort. Be sure to read our review of Dream Chronicles 3.

Where oh where has my kitty cat gone? Only robot can find out, and it's up to you to help him get there by guiding him past hazards and to power ups, keys, and ultimately kitty-cat-havin'-glory in this retro-themed, pixel platform adventure.

Grow RPG takes the classic formula that made the original so compelling to play, and adds additional RPG-like elements, such as enemy combat, a shop to buy health and weapons, and even a dungeon with hidden treasure. Voted Best of 2005 by the visitors of Jayisgames.

Grow Tower follows the standard formula that On created with the first Grow game over 5 years ago. Play by clicking on the icons, one-by-one, with the objective being to reach "level max" for each of the items. Order matters, and depending on the order you click, the items will combine and react with each other to reveal a wide array of fascinating outcomes.

All room escape games have secrets. Some room escapes, however, keep their cards especially close to their chests, relinquishing their grasp bit by bit; these are sometimes the most frustrating, and often the most intriguing. Sagrario's Room is such a game, and a superb one at that.

A strange and even unsettling little experimental game about every day in the life of a faceless, unnamed man, Every Day the Same Dream somehow manages to be oddly affecting despite its grim and dark presentation. Is there anything at all that can break him out of his cycle? It won't take you long to play, but it may stay with you well after you've shut down the browser.

Another Friday, another Link Dump Friday, and another tasty assortment of games for your esteemed perusal! Have you ever wondered what a raccoon, a ballet dancer, a block-headed dude, and a red mage have in common? Well, nothing, obviously. But they're here in this week's installment of puzzles, point-and-clicks, and RPGs!

Escape from the Tatami Room is not the toughest escape out there, but one that hangs together nicely with a mix of use of found objects, construction, and pure logic. Amusing casual gameplay that doesn't take a lot of time but leaves you feeling very satisfied, even if you don't really get to eat that excellent spread that is the final reward. Feeling peckish? Then get moving!

Developed by Dark Realm Studios, Pandemic 2 is the sequel to the morbidly fun original Pandemic, a game in which your goal is to eradicate the human race with the perfect disease. While the original game didn't go on to become hugely popular, Pandemic II is more an improvement upon its predecessor than a sequel, with an improved interface and more features.

Prepare to embark on a perception-stretching, linearity-quashing adventure of amorphous proportions. Every level contains a pristine red door, only usable for exiting purposes after one or more red keys have been collected. Sounds straightforward enough, but it's funny just how much this game will twist your perceptions of both straight AND forward. All levels are composed of a number of squares, shiftable in a manner akin to a sliding tile puzzle. Each square contains a finite fraction of the overall level itself, and the key to victory lies in prudent transfigurations of the landscape.

We've just finished a complete walkthrough for Braid! Be warned: This guide contains spoilers so use it as a last resort.

On of Eyezmaze has just released an updated 'remake' of his original Grow game, Grow (ver. 3), the game that inspired so many sequels and clones. It's one of the most unique and amazing Flash games ever produced, due mostly to its intricate animations and myriad combinations of possible outcomes. Now with 2 endings!

On the list of things that are more useful in video games than they are in the real world, grappling hooks are certainly near the top. Acquiring a grappling hook in the real world is positively thrilling, until you start thinking of ways you can actually (and legally) use it. Fortunately, the aptly-titled Grappling Hook isn't grounded in reality. The puzzle platformer from SpeedRunGames is filled with 22 levels of quick-thinking grappling goodness that is sure to keep you zooming around for hours.

It's Dismantling time yet again! Gam.ebb.jp is back with another dismantlement, and this time it's personal! Well, this time it's a mouse, at any rate. Fun, logical, and it appeals to that little part in all of us that revels in just breaking something down to its basic components. What are you waiting for, start dismantling!

Think you finally kicked your Plants vs. Zombies habit? You are so wrong. Just released on the iTunes App Store: PopCap's crazy-awesome casual defense game Plants vs. Zombies. It's got all the cherry bombing, squash pounding, sunflower sprouting, zombie dispatching wildness of the original PC/Mac download, now in the palms of your hands.

Choice of the Dragon is a choose your own adventure browser game where you live the life of a dragon, moving from decision to decision and being as docile or cruel as you want. It emphasizes character and story interaction, not puzzles, allowing you to grow into the game's world like few modern titles allow you to do.

Factory Balls is back and coming to a browser near you, with more wicked ways to waste time attempting to paint small white balls to factory spec while a throbbing beat plays in the background. Everything Bart produces is tons of fun and Factory Balls 3 is no exception. With its cutesy visuals and kicking soundtrack, Factory Balls 3 is one of the best time wasters around.

Observe this failure of an elephant. It is tiny. It is blue. It has forgotten every level of this new platform game by jmtb02 but the first. An animal known for its memory can't remember anything about the game it's starring in but a single configuration of blocks and spikes. This is it. This is the only level. What a failure of an elephant.

Roll, roll, roll your Jolls all around the screen! Catchin' babies, jumpin' gaps, life is but a dream!... what do you mean, that's not how it goes? Clearly, you've never played this physics puzzle about that very thing! From the creator of Civiballs comes a game about babies, fans, and making yourself bigger or smaller, as the situation demands. Don't worry, it'll all make sense when you play it. Trust us.

In Gateway 2 you again guide a robot, through a dream-like setting, in order to solve numerous and varied mini-puzzles for a seemingly unknown purpose (though a purpose there is, as you soon discover). Using well-placed musical cues and subtle environmental sound the author has created a virtual world that draws you in from the moment you launch the game. The setting and aesthetics are so enticing and mysterious, it doesn't matter at first that you don't know what your ultimate goal is (or indeed if you have one).

ClickPLAY has returned! NinjaDoodle's crazy mouse-based game of discovery, geometric shapes, and rampant clicking is back for more with ClickPLAY 2! One part puzzle, one part action, and three parts experimentation, ClickPLAY is all about messing with your environment to see what you can accomplish. And, next to eating chocolate cake while riding a roller coaster through a pool of bacon, it's one of the best ways to spend 15 minutes of your afternoon!

Go deeper into the rabbit hole and uncover darker secrets in this sequel to the original Alice is Dead. You wake up to find yourself the newest resident of Wonderland Jail, and while your newest cellmate isn't very talkative, the strange little man in the cell next door has entirely too much to say. Point-and-click your way to escape, if not all the answers you seek, in this high-quality game of fairy-tale gone wrong. Just make sure you play the original first!

Hotel 626 is an amazingly innovative, beautifully-produced nightmare of a game. After "checking in" (giving the website your name, email and creating a password), you are immediately whisked away into the opening movie: your awakening, in the middle of the night, in your room at this hellish hotel.

Take charge of natures number one predator and sort out all those people who dare enter the sea. Or sail on it. Or fly over it, for that matter... If Miami Shark from Mausland teaches us anything, it's that sharks are AWESOME. Providing you are the shark. And you can drag stealth bombers down. From the sky.

Enter into the experience of visualizing visualizing (whoa, meta!) in the CGDC7 award-winning interactive fiction title Dual Transform by Andrew Plotkin. Take on the role of a virtual engineer, of sorts, feeling the pressure of really making this project something to remember... something that really feels real.

Eden Hunt has received a mysterious letter informing her of prize money to be had for finding the elusive Akua. Unable to resist an adventure, she immediately heads out the door. Helping Eden on her quest is all about solving puzzles ranging from riddles to sliding puzzles, logic puzzles, and dozens upon dozens more.

The first in the series of Grow games to be created by On of Eyezmaze from Japan. Such attention to detail went into every aspect of the game, from its animation and sound, to its graphics and gameplay. Grow is a very simple game to play, and a delight to watch the magic within it unfold.

An unnamed cubicle slave grinds his way through another day at work, his biggest worry being whether or not someone left the coffee pot dry. That is until the scream comes. Now you have to help him get home to his wife before zombies get her or you in this choose your own adventure style game.

All of mankind vanishes from the universe in an instant... except for one person. Saira, a photographer, has spent years alone, trying to figure out what happened that day. Now, she's very close to discovering what happened, and finally tracking down who might be the only other person left alive. Nifflas's newest puzzle-platformer is a beautiful journey of exploration and discovery, where the few gameplay hiccups are only minor bumps in a long road.

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!

Do you hate blocks? Sure you do. Look at them, sitting up there... judging you... laughing at you... not knocked down for points and fun... who do they think they are?! Well, in this snappy physics puzzle game you can give them their comeuppance! Blosics is back with a sequel, and it's bigger and better than ever.

Grow ver.2 is completely different than what Grow ver.3 turned out to be, and yet the basic premise is the same as it is for all of the Grow games: Just click on the various items, one-by-one, and try to make them all reach their maximum level. Hint: order matters.

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.

Created by gam.ebb.jp, Dismantlement is a puzzle game like you might find in an escape the room game. If you're looking for a fun five to ten minute break from the everyday and you are someone who likes to tear things apart to see how they work, then sit back, relax, and Dismantle the Radio.

All Jonah wants is to be happy. He's courageous, loyal to friends, and kind even to strangers. Unfortunately, Jonah is one of "the malformed", rejected by society because of his hunched back. He lives at a fair with the other outcasts. Then one day the wind blows him a handbill advertising a celebration in glittering Loondon. Could this be the answer to Jonah's dreams? You'll need your point and click skills to find out.

Mou haru desu ka? Yes, the Japanese are asking "Is it spring yet?" too. A sure sign of spring is the release of a new PonPon House escape game from Orange Biscuit. And now PonPon House 3 is here! The Komorebi house is awash in pastels and cute details, and the relaxing music and birdsong of the soundtrack will bring spring to you, even if the weather where you are isn't cooperating (just yet). Haru desu~~~~~!

YAWWN! It's a brand new day, time to go out exploring! Level Up! is an RPG-like platformer by Nifty Hat all about exploring the world and discovering your past. In an odd world where the Squarians and Roundians are in a constant and bitter battle, your goal is to collect gems and exchange them for tools to help you restore your memory.

Adam Atomic's "minimalist" action/arcade side-scrolling game about a man fleeing the destruction of his city is both remarkably well presented, and fiendishly addictive. Vault over the obstacles in your path as you try to stay alive and get the high score. Those giant robots rampaging in the background? They're not there to play patty-cake, so we'd keep moving, if we were you.

For room escape fans, Jan Albartus, the grand-daddy of all room escape games, has added an all-new level to his continuing series, Mystery of Time and Space (MOTAS). For the uninitiated, MOTAS is the original, the blueprint from which so many (too many?) others have tried to follow. What sets MOTAS apart from most, however, is that its puzzles are generally original, rooted in logic and not in exasperating pixel-hunts.

At first glance, Spectro Destroyer could be one of any number of platform shooters. Run and gun through the levels, taking out alien scum and robotic sentries trying to halt your progress. Then you realize there's more to this than shooting everything in sight. It's more like line-of-sight. In fact, Spectro Destroyer is just the opposite of the "shoot first, ask questions later" side-scrollers like Metal Slug and Abuse. Instead, it's an amalgam of a platform shooter and a physics puzzle. And that, my friends, is a lot of fun.

When you think of what this medium is capable of it's easy to grab for lofty terms like "emergence" or even "organic beauty", but have nothing solid to hold onto. The Powder Game is a rare beacon of hope for those who dream of deep interactivity. It is a fondue of loose goals and free play; creation and destruction wrapped in a tumbling embrace. Oh yeah, this game is that good and will keep you engaged for hours.

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.

Despite the similarities to the other Farm Frenzy games (or, perhaps, because of it), Farm Frenzy 3: Ice Age is still a rollicking good time. With tons of trophies to win and lots of levels to conquer, you're still looking at hours and hours (and hours of casual gameplay and replay value that is fun for a wide range of ages. So enjoy the cute animals, and look out for an appearance from a very special guest star.

Think construction work is boring? Maybe you aren't using enough guided missiles. Unleash the awesome power of the yellow hard hat as you use everything from explosions to wrecking balls to airplanes to destroy buildings and make your cash quota in Nitrome's explosive (literally) take on the physics demolition game.

Minecraft is a sandbox game that lets you make your own world out of colorful building blocks. Construct a fortress, and then plant tulips on the parapets. Dig a vast network of subterranean tunnels, drop a colony of people down the rabbit hole, and watch them wander. Or, if you're in a particularly metacognitive mood, make a sandbox. Uncage your imagination, and let it take you where it will.

Bart Bonte knows that at the end of the day, sometimes the simplest rewards are the sweetest. Me and the Key is a series of mini-games that all have the same end — getting the titular key. That's right. There's no zombies, no spaceships, no power-ups. Just you and a slowly evolving set of puzzles designed to test your common sense, and your ability to think outside the box.

From Ben Leffler of Australia comes this dark and foreboding tale of the macabre that will surely send chills down your spine. One part Flash point-and-click adventure and one part interactive narrative, Exmortis 2 is the sequel to the 2004 game of the same name. It continues the story one year after the events of the first tale came to fruition.

Windosill is the story of a toy car, a little blue box with wheels and a smokestack, who one day dares to journey outside of its confining storage shelf. You, armed with the power to touch, carry, poke, prod, and experiment, will lead the toy through a cool blue dream presented in stages, a series of shadow-boxes full of curious characters and structures, each with its own puzzle to be solved.

Taberinos shows the brilliance of stripping down a type of game to its very basics. Simple, elegant gameplay that changes every time you start it up. Yes, that is a recipe for serious time suckage. So get shooting! Just, you know, don't let the boss catch you.

Here's a game that needs no introduction around here, the next game in the amazing and wonderful Grow series from Eyezmaze has just released today. Grow Nano Vol. 3 has the same familiar gameplay, graphics, animation and soundtrack as the others, and it is sure to put a smile on your face.

Not enough cute in your day? Never fear, Chibi Knight is here! An action/adventure title with RPG elements, the game has you sending your itty-bitty hero out to save the land from some big, bad beasties, and maybe uncover a secret or two along the way. How cute is this short little gem? Just give the title screen a gander, and a listen. Melted yet?

Hoshi Saga is a simple game of discovery. One part point-and-click and one part puzzle game, the objective in each of the game's 36 stages is to find the star. How you go about doing that is different for every stage. The task is up to you to figure out how. Just right to get those brain cells jumping with inspiration and excitement on a Monday.

When trying to finish a game, no avenue of advice is taboo.

In Mystery Jigsaw you will be faced with four bite sized mysteries. In each mystery you will have to piece together (literally) the scenes of the crimes, search for clues, and finally match up the evidence to the suspects. Do well, and there might be a paperback series in the future. Fail, and, well, you'll have to go through adolescence like the rest of us.

Casual sim/strategy fans (and anyone who enjoyed Virtual Villagers or My Tribe) take note: Westward III: Gold Rush has arrived! Following last spring's release of Westward II: Heroes of the Frontier, the third installment in the series continues the new 3D visual style and basic premise introduced in the second game. Take control of three new heroes as you collect resources, construct farms, saloons, granaries and more to keep your settlers happy and healthy.

Totem Tribe manages to pull together some of the best elements from a number of popular casual games and create something twice as engaging without upping the complexity. Gone are resource managing, complex building/unit requirements, and villagers who act while you're away, but in are over 20 islands to explore, friendly and not-so-friendly characters to encounter, mini-quests to earn spells, and unlockable artifacts that grant your tribe special abilities.

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.

It is almost impossible to describe the joy created by wandering in the strange, surreal universe that Enu (Hanamushi) has created in Flower Insect. The synthesis of art, animation, game, and experience is nearly flawless, and will leave the casual gamer breathless as they wander deeper and deeper into the morass. Stunning beyond all belief, this is not necessarily a game to play all in one go. Rather, the Hanamushi game is something to consume in small bites, lest you find yourself deep in the abyss that is the imagination of an extremely talented individual.

It's a blast from the past in this remake of and tribute to the original M.U.L.E., one of the great pioneers of multiplayer gaming. Stake your claim on an alien world with three friends and make the best of your time and resources to come out on top at the end of the game. Just remember to keep an eye out for the wampus.

Think you know whodunnit? Think you can prove it? Use strategy and logic to figure out who's the killer and who's innocent in this simple but clever combination of classics Clue and Minesweeper. While not as robust an offering as you might hope for, it's simple and easy to pick up, and will happily eat away at any spare time you happen to have.

Sure, he may look like a footlocker and have unsettling pink bags under his eyes, but if your dog or cat or other pet should ever fall down a mine shaft leading to a subterranean geothermic engineering project of dubious provenance, Amil is your go-to fellow. Created by Robert Stone, Amil is a gravity-switching platformer with retro stylings and just a scintilla of RPG flavor.

There's a cabin in the woods you should stay away from. A quiet little place where time almost seems to stand still. But if you do ignore the warnings and pay a visit, in that dark place, you might want to do a favour for the cabin's lonely occupant. If you don't, you may find yourself staying a long, long time. A point-and-click adventure of paranormal investigation.

Welcome to Dismantlement: Tea Canister, another great point and click where you can have once again have fun reducing something to its basic components. Mind you, there's usually not much to dismantle when it comes to a tea canister. Still, it's nice to tear things apart, so go for it. Take a break from the everyday and start dismantling! Just try not to blow up so much, okay?

How well do your hands work together? In The Forest Temple, you're either your own best friend or worst enemy as you simultaneously control two characters throughout fast-paced levels of puzzle-y, platform-y goodness.

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.

Gateway is an impressive and delightful 3D puzzle game from Anders Gustafsson, awarded Honorable Mention and the coveted Audience Award in our first game design competition. The game has a very simple premise: guide a robot through a series of rooms; but you will have to solve a mini-puzzle within each room to advance.