Roguelike strategy meets Dance Dance Revolution? This gorgeous, addictive indie game proves it can be done, and done amazingly well! When a young woman's heart is stolen by an evil necromancer, she must descend deep into his crypt, moving and slaying unique beasts to the beat. Play with your keyboard, controller... or USB dance mat!
You have exactly one shot at this fantastic atmospheric adventure game, made for the 2014 Indie Game Maker contest. Help Niko, a whiskered boy with glowing yellow eyes, to bring the sun back to a mysteriously broken world. You'll find a few surprises along the way, but don't look up any spoilers!
Sig.NULL is a downloadable expansion to last year's Signal, a Sokoban-esque puzzle game about pushing blocks into place using drones that you control... more or less. The puzzles are hard enough as is, but discovering the bizarre mechanics that make everything run is another major endeavor. Even if you're familiar with how Signal worked, Sig.NULL adds many new features that make this a fresh challenge for all takers.
Here it is, dear JayIsGames community, fan fiction made by the creator for you. As resoundingly requested, Mateusz Skutnik's remarkably immersive artwork, full of atmosphere and imagination, rendered into an escape-the-room game that's accessible to all. Take your time in the strange-yet-beautifully surreal scene; you may be out before you're ready to go but it's no less enjoyable while it lasts.
The Bumpkin Brothers are back! The team's latest release has nothing to do with Tribloos or machines. Well, wait, scratch that, it does have something to do with machines, but that's not the point! Space Farmers is a decidedly retro-feeling cooperative arcade game that takes place on an alien spacecraft. Two simple farmers have been kidnapped by the non-Earthlings, and they're going to use every gadget and pigcube they can get their hands on to get back!
My Little P.I., My Little P.I., aaa-aa-aaa-aaaaaaahhhh... when Rarity's precious gem is stolen and the only suspect is one tiny Pegasus, it's up to Twilight Sparkle to solve the mystery in this gorgeous free Ace Attorney-styled visual novel adventure based on My Little Pony!
Detective work isn't known for its shallow learning curve. Or for being the kind of thing you can do while standing in line at the post office. With Noir Syndrome, however, solving crimes has become quite a bit more casual. This pick up and play adventure game gives you randomly generated murder mysteries to solve, all you have to do is gather the clues and make the arrest! Oh, and pick a few locks, shoot a few baddies, and have a few snacks. Detectives gotta eat too, you know.
Typically when dealing with monsters, you've got to duke it out, but what happens when you literally can't? Created for the Procedural Death Jam and playable in beta, this dungeon-crawling roguelike drops you into deadly procedurally generated environments where you need to use your wits to bait, lure, and sneak by the things waiting to tear you limb from limb.
Cube & Star: An Arbitrary Love is the kind of game you fire up when you know you want to play something but aren't quite sure what you're in the mood for. The delightfully abstract experience from Doppler Interactive puts you in a gray world and says "now go out and do stuff". That "stuff" involves bumping into trees, painting the ground different colors, knocking corners with other shapes, collecting some of the many strange items hidden throughout the environment, and just generally rolling around to see what you can see. Somehow, it's bizarrely entertaining.
Max and Anne are two very different young people, but they've both found themselves at the same college in the same student housing. Your choices will determine their lives, grades, and even their love-life in this funny, light-hearted, and addictive visual novel simulation!
Chuck's Challenge 3D is Chip's Challenge for the 21st century. Created by Niffler, a team of indie developers that happens to include the original creator of Chip's Challenge Chuck Sommerville, the multi-platform sokoban-like game takes the tile-based puzzles from the original release and updates it for modern players. You'll still deal with slippery ice floors, falling platforms, enemies marching back and forth, and a large supply of items to collect before you can open the door. But now you'll do it with full camera control and lots of pretty visuals!
It is the year 1959B. You are Polyblank, spy extraordinaire. In Necrophone Games' first person comedy adventure game, Jazzpunk, you are tasked with a variety of missions from infiltrating the Soviet Consulate to doing something involving a mechanical pig. Each mission will take you into a strange new world with an overabundance of objects to interact with. How are these missions connected? What is the big picture here? Is there one?
A unique massively multiplayer strategy game by Jason Rohrer. Build an elaborate system of in-home defense to protect your valuables and loved ones. Then break into other houses to get the cash you need to upgrade your system!
Shay and Vella are two very different people. Shay lives aboard a ship where the AI loves him a bit too much. Vella is being forced to sacrifice literally everything for her village. Neither knows the other exists, but two extraordinary stories are about to come together in an unexpected way in this stunning point-and-click indie adventure from Double Fine.
What started as a crazy student project has grown into a crazy indie game. Octodad: Dadliest Catch by Young Horses continues the mad premise first showcased in the 2010 tech demo, adding a storyline and loads of new environments to stumble around in. What should be a series of ordinary tasks end up being wacky hijinks in the world of Octodad. Think of it as QWOP in a 3D world and you've got a good idea for just how mad this game can be.
Games Featured:
- • Dead Cyborg
- • Vindicator: Uprising
- • Env
Game time! Grab some mom-approved snacks (apple wedges? celery? raisins?) and beverages (water? ugh...) and settle in for a good time. We've got cyborgs and evil angels and crazy alien beaming games ready to keep you entertained!
A murder has been committed at a tourist attraction deep in a swamp said to be home to a mysterious creature... but as the snarky detective in this gorgeous point-and-click mystery, you'll learn the truth is stranger than fiction!
A Cheyenne Odyssey is the second in the series of Mission US educational point-and-click adventure game titles focusing on American History, created by Electric Funstuff under the auspices of New York PBS Station Channel 13. The year is 1866. You are Little Fox, a twelve-year old member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe. Over the next ten years, your traditional way of life will see many changes. But as the world changes, so does the Cheyenne. And so must you. Another excellent installment of the Mission US series, if hampered by a few too many talking-head conversations.
Games Featured:
- • Super Mario Eclipse
- • Potluck
- • Mr. Red's Adventure in The Missing Balls
On this, a brand new edition of Weekend Download, Mario goes on a crazy eclipse adventure, a witch named Potluck throws a potluck supper, and Mr. Red is all out of balls.
Chucklefish's hotly anticipated indie sci-fi sandbox sim finally reaches playable beta. Fight, mine, craft, and explore your way, along or with friends, through a boundless procedurally generated universe aboard your own spaceship. When each planet has its own randomly created monsters and environments, you never know what you'll find.
Games Featured:
- • Alter Ego: DreamWalker
- • Time Stone
- • Metrojdvania
Time travel (not really), doppelgangers and scary worm-shadow monsters dominate this edition of Weekend Download. We promise they won't band together and sit beside your bed at night.Don't turn the lights on, just in case.
Welcome to the secret little world of Morphopolis, where tiny forest insects go about their busy lives. In this wonderful and unique hidden-object game, you'll wander into the woods and help maintain a delicate balance by finding items, solving puzzles and thoroughly enjoying the breathtaking, lush environment.
When college student Miranda stumbles across a castle in Belgium after getting lost late one night, the last thing she expected was to find out vampires are real. Now, she's being held prisoner by two of them while they wait for the rest of the family to return in two weeks... but is there more to Adrian and Luca than meets the eye? A short but gorgeous pay-what-you-want visual novel with six endings and a dark side.
When Lilly finds an unusual pair of goggles, they open her eyes to a surreal world of mysterious magic and propels her on a journey that will change everything. In this animated point-and-click adventure from Geeta Games, you get to share in Lilly's fascination and curiosity, and innocently earnest explorations, solving playful puzzles in order to carry on this expedition into the fantastical.
Nicole's just started college, but the recent kidnappings of young women mean she has more to worry about than her grades. The school seems to present opportunities to make a lot of friends (and maybe more!) but who can she trust, and is anyone really what they seem in this engaging visual novel?
So you've become a fish. You have no idea how it happened, but you've found yourself under the sea with a few extra fins and scales than usually. You are now known as Dudefish, and you have to find out who did this to you and how you can get your legs back in a silly and lovable maritime point-and-click adventure.
Games Featured:
- • Eat All the Things
- • Stoat Adventure
- • The Junkie
We're really arting up the place this weekend. Three games, three themes, and countless ways to interpret each of them (well, except maybe our stoat friend). Not for the faint at heart or the lazy of mind, unless you just want to wander around surreal worlds with no idea what's going on.
Games Featured:
- • Donkey-Me
- • Fakteur
- • Monsters in the Basement
The weekends are for escaping reality. Why worry about taxes or homework or that leaky pipe in the kitchen that's causing mold to grow across the floor when you can run away to be a postal delivery person, Indiana Jones, or a bumbling kid in a crazy person's basement?
Craving your long forgotten days with your nose in your arithmetic book? Well, crave no further as Harrison Mansolf has created a delightfully weird action adventure game to take you back. Play as a lonely janitor who uses his quick-slinging math skills to get to the bottom of the disastrous happenings of his workplace building. It'll help you love math all over again!
A remade version of the classic Sierra adventure game, Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded has Replay Games teaming up with original creator Al Lowe to bring Larry Laffer swinging into the 21st century. A bit dated (though that's kind of the point), but a hilariously immature experience.
Full Bore is a puzzle platform adventure from Whole Hog Games that turns you loose in a world of corrupt boar bosses and a mysterious conspiracy brewing beneath the surface. After a successful crowd funding campaign in late 2012, Full Bore has emerged as a gorgeous metroidvania-style game that's heavy on puzzle solving with just a touch of boar-flavored humor.
Games Featured:
- • Braindead
- • Hexcells
- • Mystery Channel
Indie game creators are apparently trying to make us go mad. Evidence pointing to this can be found in a number of horror/surreal games rolling onto the internet on a weekly basis, twisting our reality so we're never really sure what we're playing. Was this thing fun, or did I just dream it?
Games Featured:
- • La Torre de Nozar
- • Symbol
- • Block Dude X
We've really flipped our lids this week. One game to make you go insane, one to make you do math, and one you might have played instead of doing math. If you play them in the right order, maybe you'll go Super Saiyan?
Games Featured:
- • elarel
- • Jerry Clouds
- • Amulets and Armor
Nothing like a little nostalgia to start the weekend! Be warned, though. This nostalgia comes with a price. That price is your sanity. Because the games are difficult. But that's good. Go play.
Ironclad Tactics is a turn-based strategy game created by Zachtronics, the studio behind The Codex of Alchemical Engineering and SpaceChem. Set in an alternate-history post-U.S. Civil War era, the game pits you against the Confederates as you march your way across the country, one town and one battle at a time. There's a twist, however: steampunk technology is a thing, meaning your infantry units will have to take on ironclad contraptions and well-equipped automatons in addition to gunslingers and musket wielders. It makes for a really entertaining setting, but you'll feel bad for those squishy human soldiers.
I think we should have some bonding time. Chemical bonding, that is. In the clever chemical puzzler Sokobond, you're given a handful of atoms and the task of them joining them all by pushing and chaining them together. Like Sokoban puzzles you might be familiar with, you don't have much space to do it all in, so you've got to use the splitters, bonders, and rotators provided. Even if you don't give a hoot for chemistry, Sokobond is still a very accessible puzzle with easy-to-learn rules and an enjoyably element-ary design.
If two apples and five pears cost 37 cents and five apples and three pears cost 45 cents, how come math problems are so boring? A Game of Numbers is a puzzle game that challenges the stereotype of boring math problems, by giving you a maze of numbers and operations to solve. Even if you're not a numbers buff, there's still a lot of fun to be had finding the right path to the exit, while keeping your numbers in check.
Games Featured:
- • Sinister Names
- • Dreamcake Rescue
- • Death from a 1000ft Fall
Got your ears turned on? Sound Blaster plugged in? Hearing aid charged and ready to go? This edition of Weekend Download is mostly about sound. Songs and music, perhaps, or a machine voice that spits back insults as you type at it. Either way, crank up the volume and get ready to go!
Currently playable in Alpha, this indie stealth game has you searching for fragments needed to rebuild your portal back home after you accidentally end up in another world. Sound simple? Not quite. With dapper armed robots hunting you across the countryside and surrounding islands for sport, you're outgunned and outnumbered, and all you have is what you can scavenge. It's not looking good for you...
Games Featured:
- • Zzzz-Zzzz-Zzzz
- • Dungeon Butler
- • Schutll Noise
It's easy to tell what's on our mind this weekend: sleep, abstract experiences, and butler. The former because sleep is good. The middle one because rhubarb pie. The latter because Mr. Belvedere was a fantastic television show.
Gone Home is an unconventional story exploration adventure game created by The Fullbright Company. It's a game that's void of traditional puzzles, flashy cutscenes, and hidden rooms filled with guns and ammo. Somehow, though, it manages to capture your curiosity from the beginning and never, ever let go. Anyone who enjoys a good mystery or the feeling of uncovering a story piece by piece should check out Gone Home right away. Everyone else should read the rest of this article, then go play the game!
Games Featured:
- • Growing
- • Scary Gardener Tales 3D
- • Densha
Crack open your weekend with three games that should give everyone something to "weekend" about. If that doesn't work, you can stay up all night trying to figure out why we used weekend as a verb. Or writing us angry letters!
When we say 'Love Hotel', we don't mean some tawdry motel off the highway. We mean luxurious themed suites, haute cuisine and state of the art hot tubs. Well, eventually, anyway. Love Hotel is a mischievous, fun-loving management simulation in which you strive to get the coveted six stars by constantly improving your services and catering to your passionate customers' needs.
Here is everything you'd expect from a Tesshi-e escape-the-room game although it departs from the usual in two ways: the puzzles are more challenging and it's available only as a paid download. High quality graphics lend depth and detail to Mr. M's beautifully decorated high rise flat, where you must solve a numerous cleverly abstruse puzzles to earn the key—and bonus happy coin—all for your love of escaping.
Bizarre, unnerving, and always more than a little confusing, this indie adventure sends you on a quest to retrieve artifacts for a goddess to save the world... peeing on everything along the way. Though decidedly low-res and over-the-top surreal in its dedication to parodying almost everything about gaming, it's also surprising, funny, and even... fun?
What do you get when you mix Hieronymus Bosch, a minimalistic setting and a curious teenager? Madness, that's what! CAVE! CAVE! DEUS VIDET. is a bizarre trip down the rabbit hole, during which you can expect everything from the seven deadly sins to learning about medieval history to slowly losing your mind. And it's all weirdly awesome.
Outer Wilds is a space exploration game currently under development by Alex Beachum. It's a wide-eyed stroll through your own sense of curiosity, handing you a ship and a solar system to explore led only by your inquiring mind. Maybe you'll mount an expedition to that strange looking watery planet you just passed? Maybe you'll land on an uninhabited chunk of rock and discover ruins beneath the surface? Or what's inside that comet, you wonder? Whatever you do, there's plenty to capture your imagination in this game, and you'll play it for hours just to see what you can uncover next.
Outer Wilds is a space exploration game currently under development by Alex Beachum. It's a wide-eyed stroll through your own sense of curiosity, handing you a ship and a solar system to explore led only by your inquiring mind. Maybe you'll mount an expedition to that strange looking watery planet you just passed? Maybe you'll land on an uninhabited chunk of rock and discover ruins beneath the surface? Or what's inside that comet, you wonder? Whatever you do, there's plenty to capture your imagination in this game, and you'll play it for hours just to see what you can uncover next.
Wyv and Keep: The Temple of the Lost Idol is finally here! After almost three years in the oven, A Jolly Corpse has released its fully-baked (and delicious) puzzle platform game to the masses. It's got excitement. It's got adventure. It's got treasure. It's got multiplayer co-op. And it's got enough challenge to keep you scratching your head for a very long time.
It was just supposed to be a simple dinner date with your friend Felicia. How did things go so horribly, horribly wrong? In this free, morbidly hilarious visual novel, all you're trying to do is have a night out with your best friend (and maybe more?) but it feels like the universe is against you. All you can do is try, try again... and experience the clever twists and mechanics this little gem has to offer.
The realm needs a hero skilled in the works of dream magic to stop Lord Nightmare! Too bad all they have is you, and you just crawled out of the bushes after a night of hard partying. Kingdom of Loathing creators Asymmetric Productions deliver a fun and dangerously addictive hybrid of word puzzle and RPG adventure in this indie hit.
Mr Rescue! Help! A bunch of people are trapped in a burning building and only you can save them! Now that you're inside, it's time to be a hero. Mr. Rescue is a simple but amazingly charming action game from Tangram Games. You control the well-protected Mr. Rescue himself as you spray water on fires and climb through a burning building to save the innocent people inside. The best part? You rescue them by throwing them out the window!
Developed in just one month, a2 is a remarkable achievement of a visual novel that packs a serious punch in its narrative. Sona's just going through the motions trying to run the orchestra her deceased estranged father left her, and Hao has just arrived from China to help conduct and doesn't speak a lick of English. But between these two very different people lies some unexpected common ground, and the end result is a story with real heart, honesty, and humour.
You wake up on a desert island with no recollection of what happened, nothing but a few shoddy tools to your name, and you're thinking what we'd probably all be thinking in a situation like that: TREASURE! It's going to take a whole lot of fortitude to make it, but with a bit of ingenuity and plenty of raw natural resources just laying around you'll be throwing together everything but coconut radios before you know it.
Shoot first, ask questions later. Actually, skip the questions and just shoot some more. Created by Puppy Games, Ultratron is a giant neon dose of bullet-filled arcade action, taking a simple Robotron-esque shooter and dressing it up to the nines with slick, stylized graphics, plenty of upgrades and a blasting techno soundtrack.
Treasure of the Abandoned City is an action adventure game from Alec Stamos with artwork by Todd Luke. It continues the Tales of the Renegade Sector episodes with a loot hunt through space, sending you on a quest to find Laserbeard's treasure hidden somewhere on the dusty dry planet of Seltan. Fortunately, you get to punch and shoot a bunch of bad guys along the way!
Fester's brother has gone missing shortly after discovering gold, and Fester is determined to find him in this retro point-and-click adventure game. Your journey takes you through a small town in the wild West filled with quirky characters and humorous descriptions. Enjoy a Western-inspired soundtrack and great old-school graphics as you search for your missing brother.
A girl, a guy, and an after-school get together that could turn into something more. Sounds familiar, right? Wrong! Made in just two days, this short and silly but also surprisingly earnest little visual novel dating sim is weird in all the best possible ways.
Barbarium, created by Hypnohustler, is a retro action platformer set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. With your sword and lasergun combo (really, the best combo there is) you set off to rescue babes, drink beer and restore a little order to this crazy world.
Got your box of tissues handy? Good, because you might need them after you finish The Plan. Explore a dark forest, avoid and escape obstacles, and see what lies beyond. It's a unique and introspective experimental game by Krillbite Studio that toys with the ideas of the meaning of life, purpose, and destiny all through the experiences of one little fly. That's pretty deep for a bug with a lifespan under a month.
Legend of Dungeon is a hybrid game from RobotLovesKitty that takes a roguelike and fuses it with a sidescrolling beat-em-up. While that may sound like mixing peanuts, cayenne peppers and bubblegum, the end result manages to take the best from both genres and leave you happily content adventuring through your dangerous but loot filled dungeon world. Just don't get too angry when you realize death in this game is permanent.
Run, Commander Video, Run! Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien is the next chapter in the BIT.TRIP series by Gaijin Games. You've got to jump, slide, kick, and glide your way to all of the gold bars while avoiding getting bonked by a ton of enemies. Sporting a wonderfully wacky atmosphere and fantastically catchy soundtrack, Runner2 is definitely a game you'll want to make a dash for.
Madeleine has been the valette to Prince Oscar for years, ever since they were both children. She's been his guardian and his guide, but also his confidant, and as he approaches adulthood she hopes to help him find a bride in the princess of a neighbouring kingdom... at least, right up until they become embroiled in a dangerous mess of political intrigue and secrets that threaten their lives and their hearts in this gorgeous, fascinating indie visual novel from Hanako Games.
Destiny works in unexpected ways, and Heileen, a young girl in the 17th century who has always longed for adventure, is about to find her life and her future turned upside down when her uncle takes her on a voyage to the new world. In this big indie visual novel series from veteran developer Winter Wolves, the choices you make will shape not only Heileen's life, with romance and peril on the horizon from all directions, but Heileen herself as well.
Broom attack! Also, you might be trapped in a dream. Or some other sort of subconscious realm. It's tough to tell, but judging from the strange sights and the cryptic "as legend has foretold" messages from sages and statues, there's definitely something odd going on here. Anodyne from Sean Hogan and Jonathan Kittaka is an adventure through a melancholy world that plays out like a classic 16-bit RPG. It borrows some of the best micro-concepts from games like The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Yume Nikki, and even Earthbound, creating a world that's as innocent as it is moving and as dangerous as it is surreal.
Surprise! Just a few weeks after Knytt Underground made its appearance, Nifflas has released a brand new game! The Great Work is a platform adventure deeply inspired by the Knytt series that follows the metroidvania outline of interconnected passageways strewn with items that grant new abilities and access to new areas. Featuring an alchemy-infused story, The Great Work was made to help promote Bautafilm's latest film that follows the story of Christer Böke, a man who took a year off from his job to become a full-time alchemist.
Quick, the patient needs a heart transplant, and a doctor! Too bad all they have is you in this hysterical, gory, and very challenging simulation where you control each finger of your hand individually as you attempt to perform life-saving surgery... without dropping a bonesaw into his chest cavity!
KRUNCH from LeGrudge & Rugged is going to make you growl in frustration. The good kind of frustration. The kind that VVVVVV, Super Meat Boy, and the Kairoshi series bestows upon you. The kind that, even after dying in the same short level two or three dozen times, you still come back for more, hoping to slip through that tiny gap between a sawblade and a crushing pillar of death just so you can fly forward and die again. And you'll continue to play until you've clawed your way through over 100 levels of painful, challenging, gorgeous arcade fun.
Kentucky Route Zero: Act I is a curious mash-up of an old school adventure game and a cinematic text adventure. Created by Cardboard Computer (which includes A House in California developer Jake Elliott), the game is packed with phenomenal visual and sound design, setting an atmosphere that's one of the most intriguing in recent indie gaming history. it's a bit like Twin Peaks meets a moody old school adventure game (on a dark night in the middle of Kentucky).
Hey there, adventure gamer! Remember the good old days when your favorite genre was funnier than a car full of clowns crashing into a kazoo factory? Ok, while it doesn't take much to top that colorful feat, you've got to admit you miss the days of The Secret of Monkey Island at least a little bit. Here to soothe those old wounds is KING Art with its release of The Book of Unwritten Tales: The Critter Chronicles, a prequel to The Book of Unwritten Tales that goes all-out for some fantastic laughs, never sacrificing a solid puzzle in the process.
Available in action-RPG or classic turn-based flavour, this moody roguelike from Aaron Steed and music maestro Nathan Gallardo is deliberately mysterious. Descend into a dungeon searching for an amulet with your undead minion, figuring everything from the backstory to the deeper gameplay mechanics as you go. Oh, and tearing off the faces of your enemies and wearing them for bonuses and enchantments. Hooray!
Want a simple game with simple graphics that will twist your head in a dozen different directions? Try Vertigo, a tough puzzle platformer from Ketone Games that utilizes just about every gravity and screen-altering element you can think of to bend your brain out of shape. You're limited to walking and jumping in this minimalist game, and your only goal is to make it to the exclamation mark exit. And how do you get there, seeing as it's glued to the ceiling far higher than you could ever hope to jump? Easy, you just mess with physics and screen scrolling!
A Man's Quest is an HTML5 action platformer by The Drunk Devs that hearkens to yesteryear, both in terms of its retro graphics and the bouncy spirit of childhood. Help Ty show up his rival Kevin by swiping his place as Chosen One and being the first to make it to the top of Ominous Power. A compressed burst of fun, if one with somewhat loose jump physics.
A Man's Quest is an HTML5 action platformer by The Drunk Devs that hearkens to yesteryear, both in terms of its retro graphics and the bouncy spirit of childhood. Help Ty show up his rival Kevin by swiping his place as Chosen One and being the first to make it to the top of Ominous Power. A compressed burst of fun, if one with somewhat loose jump physics.
Baby it's cold outside, but with your Little Inferno fireplace, you can stay warm and entertained forever... as long as you don't run out of things to burn. The Tomorrow Corporation brings a unique, quirky, and gorgeously addictive indie game that's part physics puzzle, and part adventure, all without leaving your hearth. Who really needs the world outdoors anyway? What could it possibly have to offer... ?
Gateways, an exploration-based platform game from Smudget Cat Games, can be quickly summarized by saying it's like Portal, but in 2D. That's leaving a lot out of the equation, though, as Gateways goes to great lengths to provide a different kind of experience, one more akin to a metroidvania-type game than that other portal-making adventure. You'll realize that as soon as you start to explore the chunky pixel laboratory, smashing the glass domes over monkey's heads and wondering how on Earth you're supposed to climb over the next ledge.
ScrumbleShip is an in-progress sandbox-style game of ship construction and combat simulation, all accomplished using a massive list of building materials and a surprisingly smart heat simulation model. Built around simple block placements, you have complete freedom of movement in this game, allowing you to jet yourself in any direction so you can construct the most accurate (or most hilariously inaccurate) piece of space-faring machinery you've ever seen. Want a tiny escape pod all your own? Done. How about a massive star base? Orbital station? Or maybe even a Death Sta— er, moon?!
Described as a "spaceship simulation roguelike-like" by its developers, Subset Games, you won't be doing a whole lot of boldly going where no one has gone before in FTL: Faster Than Light. In fact, most of your time will be spent directing crew members and putting out engine room fires. But scifi strategy fans will love every minute of it, even with the hardcore difficulty.
Super Hexagon, the latest release from VVVVVV creator Terry Cavanagh, is the kind of game that makes you hate games. It will make you feel like an inept player who couldn't play an arcade game even if you were in Russia (where arcade game plays you, we hear). You might even get mad at Terry, who crafted this fast, stylish game seemingly just to show you how often you can fail. But after you lose ten times in as many seconds, you'll suddenly realize that Super Hexagon has you by the collar, has already taken your lunch money, and if you want it back, you're going to have to keep playing. Strangely enough, that's a challenge you'll be thrilled to undertake!
Flight to Freedom is the second in the series of Mission US educational point-and-click adventure game titles focusing on American History, created by Electric Funstuff under the auspices of New York PBS Station Channel 13. The year is 1848. The tenuous balance that had been struck concerning the issue of slavery wavers in the face of a nation expanding by conquest and treaty. Living in these tumultuous times is Lucy, a 14 year old slave of Kentucky's King Plantation. Lucy must balance her wishes for freedom with the risk of recapture, but an incident on the farm will force the issue sooner than she'd ever thought. What can a slave do? An intelligent and thought-provoking game that should appeal to both its student audience, and anyone with a passing interest in history.
Originally developed by Kepuli Games for the 7 Day FPS Challenge, then polished up to win 2nd in the Assembly GameDev Competition, Force: Leashed is a first-person gravity-based physics puzzle game. It combines the structure of the Quake engine with the mechanics of Auditorium and the overall design sense of Portal (if GLaDOS never spoke and handed out gravity guns). And despite the title, Jar Jar doesn't show up once. That's gotta be worth half a point right there.
In order to play all of the latest surreal puzzle game from prolific purveyor of awesome, Eyezmaze, you'll need to donate at least a dollar, but you can still play the first portion for free. Discover the strange and strangely adorable secrets of a mysterious black box by clicking on it and trying to figure out what you need to do and when in order to proceed. It's weird, it's cute, and like all of Eyzemaze's games, definitely one of a kind.
Michael Molinari uses basketball and surreal, dreamlike imagery to explore love and family in this stunning indie title. Go one on one against nightmare creatures in your quest to find your sister, or solve platform puzzles in strange dimensions. It's a swanky, gorgeous, strange journey that overcomes somewhat clunky controls to deliver a beautiful and unique experience you don't have to love sports to enjoy.
As the new girl transferring for her final year of school, you've got a lot on your plate, especially if you want to get into a top-tier university. But in Roxanne Chen's gorgeous, funny, and charming visual novel simulation, you've also got the potential to make friends that will last you forever... and maybe even find love, too. Packed with colour, energy, and tons of replay value, this is well worth checking out. You've only got one year... make it count!
What could be worse than some cretin named Big (who also happens to be your brother) stealing the pair of mystical underpants left by your departed grandfather? Nothing, as far as the folks at Black Pants Studio are concerned. With the team's first release, the sandbox-oriented action and physics game Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers, we get to see just what happens when you give a guy a raygun, a grapple-device, and unlimited rockets, then turn him loose in a sun-parched ruined desert world to find his pants-thieving brother. To put if briefly: a whole lotta rocks will get sliced, tossed, juggled, and destroyed.
Winter Wolves serves up a huge visual novel adventure RPG with deep tactical combat. As a slave to the Amazon empire, you're sent out with your princess, Loren, in search of a missing queen. In short order, you discover Loren's problems are only a tiny symptom of a greater evil plaguing the world... but will she be able to overcome her own shallow world view and limited life experience to become the hero everyone needs her to be? And does she even want to?
It starts with a letter from an old friend inviting you to dinner. How can something so simple, so innocent, throw you into a dark world of murder, mystery, and the supernatural? Set in London in 1603, this enormous Lovecraftian interactive fiction adventure will challenge and immerse you in a world that feels real and dangerous. Available as a free download or as an enhanced edition for Kindle devices and Nook tablets, this 12 to 15 hour adventure is a challenge, but one well worth undertaking.
Recluse is a short, cute, and creative metroidvania-style platform adventure game from chambers that tied for eighth place in the most recent Ludum Dare compo. Centered around the "tiny world" theme, you play a snail who has never left its shell and is now ready to emerge into the world. While much of the gameplay is standard platform fare, there is a unique mechanic that makes Recluse worth experiencing: screen shoving!
Short but striking, Cyanide Tea's second free indie visual novel tells the story of two people who have seemingly little else in common beyond the elevator they both take to work each day. David is a former police office who can't let go of his past, and Elena is a bright young girl who just happens to share the elevator with him daily. Will David be able to open up to her? And should he?
Lexcavator is a wonderfully chirpy word-based puzzle game by Adam Parrish that combines elements of Dig Dug with spelling games like Bookworm. Your goal is to bash away at the letter tiles by spelling out words, clearing the way so the protagonist can hop further down the level. It requires a lot of careful thinking to prevent capturing yourself in a corner, so enter only if your vocabulary and tactical skills are up for a challenge!
Time to get your Sokoban-like on with Tom 7's puzzle game, Escape. The built-in tutorial levels start you off with a good challenge, but it's the thousands of user-made levels (and a great sorting system for them) that will heap on the entertainment and have you playing for hours. Try your hand at creating a level of your own to share with the public to see if they can succeed to escape.
Based a decade-plus old arcade game called XKobo by Akira Higuchi, KoboDeluxe is an updated and enhanced version of the original arcade shooter, porting the concept and gameplay over to modern platforms while introducing better animations, high resolution visuals, additional control options, a difficulty selector, and more. Whether you want a nostalgic arcade fix or are looking for a sturdy action challenge, KoboDeluxe will absolutely satisfy your craving.
Life for Lily, like any other visual novel heroine, is fairly typical. She feels like she's adrift after college and is only working at her uncle's restaurant for the money. But is there more to the eclectic staff than anyone might suspect? A free game made in just a month by Cyanide Tea, packed with romance, restaurant hi-jinks, and more than a few surprises you may not see coming.
When a deadly parasite infestation begins sweeping through a massive tree, crippling it and gradually killing off its inhabitants, heroes are found in the most unlikely of places. Five tiny friends band together to save one last seed and find the source of the monstrous parasites in this surreal point-and-click adventure from Amanita Design that is by turns stunning, otherworldly, engrossing, and even a little frightening.
Games Featured:
- • Yeti Hunter
- • On the Shoulders of Ancestors
- • Hubris
Conspiracy theory time! The order the following games are listed in along with the general theme of their content will, when viewed as a string of text on a single page from afar, show an outline of an Egyptian hieroglyph hidden in the chamber below the Sphinx. At least, that's what we're telling people... Shh!
What happens when you give Mario a portal gun? A mish-mash of two extraordinarily recognizable games — Super Mario Bros. and Portal — with a whole lot of extras. Mari0 puts you in control of our favorite pixellated plumber as he goes on his famous adventure from the mid-1980s, only this time, he's got the power of portals on his side!
Games Featured:
- • Zatikon
- • DoomRL
- • Sugar Cube: Bittersweet Factory
It's blasts from the past(s) time! We dug up several games previously featured on Weekend Download to see how they've fared over the last few years. Some of them have vanished (oops), some of them have stayed the same, and some of them have grown into bigger, better projects! Take a look at some of the neater upgrades some of our classic games have gone through.
Games Featured:
- • Para Para Paranoid
- • Cherry's Quest for Coffee
- • Me and My Shadow
I see you there, shadow. Following my every move. Writing a Weekend Download introduction as I do the same. Having cookies for breakfast just like I did. I've got my eye on you. And you've got your eye on me!
The Lost Vikings is a great game; one of the best puzzle platformers ever. But haven't you ever wished that it had more... zombies? Well good thing for you Gentleman Squid has come along and developed just that. In Three Dead Zed, you play as a zombie who has three forms, each with its own abilities. Your job is to jump, climb and attack your way to the end of the level to rescue some defenseless beings.
After thousands of years, the Mugunghwa, sent into space to establish the first interstellar colony, has been found floating dead. You're sent after it to discover what happened to its crew with the help of two very different AIs, but the truth is vastly more complicated than you might think, and nowhere near black and white. In Christine Love's debut commercial visual novel release, take part in a captivating, clever, and emotional story that deals with love, politics, forgiveness... and hate.
Recent Comments