Celebrating a job well-done is usually a good thing to do. Drinking enough to keep you from hearing the company taking off and leaving you on a lone planet, not so good of a thing. Thankfully one of the partiers was able to write up plans for your own rocket and another one can build it, but they need the special ore you were there to mine in the first place. So back into the dark mines with you to collect enough to make it back home in this platformer made for Ludum Dare.

The darkness has overpowered the light in this once beautiful forest. All that is left is one small glow. But with enough courage and strength this little glow will light its world anew. If its light doesn't go out, that is, in this free indie platformer.

Just as you finish building your house and brush back your lovely locks to take it all in, a strong wind blows and carries every last piece of your house away. Kicking you when you're down it also steals all your beautiful hair except for one last strand. Thankfully, you've been gifted teleportation shoes and your quest to take your house back has just begun in this action adventure for Android and iOS!

Also available for Android, in this creepy underwater indie puzzle platformer, you play a lone diver exploring the crumbling hulk of a sunken ship, but you may not be prepared for what you find inside. Despite some kinks, an excellent short, scary gem with an itty-bitty admission fee that delivers big on atmosphere for a satisfying adventure.

When life starts feeling a little bland perhaps it's time to go and look for some color to put the jazz back into your step, while at the same time letting you SEE where you can step in this clever free indie puzzle platformer.

You are the funk! Extrude your squidgy protuberances as a shapeless mass of fungus in untame's new otherworldly indie action platform puzzler. You play an amorphous colony of intelligent regenerating fungus, and maneuver it through a jaw-droppingly exquisite post-apocalyptic environment.

Have you ever met a bear-person questing for color crystals to stabilize the whole of space and time? No? Then the odds are very good that bear-person is you! This indie puzzle platformer is available in your browser, or as a Pay What You Want (including free) indie download!

Down, down, down into the depths of the earth you have fallen. The landing was hard but your bones were able to withstand the impact and put themselves back together again. And seeing that is all you're made of, your only worry now is to find your way back up. You'll have to go deeper in this Metroidvania puzzle platform game to find the special powers that will help you flip, dive, and jump your way back to the top.

Your daughter has been infected. The only possible cure is in the future. So there you will go... RETSNOM is a puzzle-platform game by SOMI that has you reversing the world around you in order to move forward. An engaging story and a unique brand of mirror-based puzzles will reward players who still through the initial steep learning curve.

Dust awakens, completely amnesiac, only to find himself being hailed by a talking sword that claims to have been summoned by him. And the sword's diminutive, sassy guardian who is none too happy about being dragged into Dust's quest for identity. But in Humble Hearts' stunning indie action RPG adventure, Metroidvania gameplay combine with memorable characters and fast-paced combat to deliver a gripping story of love, hate, friendship, and forgiveness.

In this fast-paced arcade indie platformer, also available for iOS and soon for Android, you're falling down a well filled with all manner of strange creatures and treasure. Your only weapon? A pair of gunboots, of course. Downwell marries simple to pick up mechanics with hard to master gameplay for an addictive experience filled with power-ups, upgrades, unlockables, and more. What's at the bottom?

The kingdom of Oukoku lives in the shadow of the dastardly (and spicy) General Tso. The legends foretold of a tiny knight that would one day be the salvation of the land. Are you that knight? Are you that tiny? Well, you'd better be, because you're the only hope we have. Super Chibi Knight is an platform-RPG-adventure hybrid by the PestoForce teamof Nick (age 33) and Bella (age 8). It's joyful hack-and-slash fun, though with a couple odd spikes difficulty-wise.

Life is a struggle. Death is a struggle. And the biggest struggle of all happens within the mind of a man caught In Between. An indie physics puzzler by gentlymad and Head Up Games, In Between is a beautiful, contemplative, and quite challenging work that faces a deep topic in and engaging and entertaining way. If you don't mind a little pixel-precision in the gameplay, you'll be in for quite the emotional journey.

One morning, Spider the Fox woke up to discover that the giant tree in the middle of the floating island in which she and her family live had dropped a seed! A seed that could be used to grow a brand new sky-island! Now Spider's leaving the nest and setting out on a journey to collect the things she'll need to make her very own home in the sky. Run, jump, and plant dozens of vines, explore the world, and help Spider find her way in the wide, whimsical blue yonder!

Lost and alone in the dark woods our heroine must find her way to sanctuary. With the strength to pull herself up onto the muddy cliffs and the will to descend into the dark caverns finding a way out seems to be a feat feasible until she runs into mysterious goo like monsters who are seeking her out to devour her very soul in this free indie horror stealth platformer.

There is a story behind the old mill, where the drunken skeleton awaits. A terrible story that may have been better lost with time. But this young girl is searching for the truth, letting herself be blown by the east winds farther into her past that should have never been entered in this free indie platformer.

As a curious blind kitten in search of your friend, you must travel across town and use your senses and sound to reveal obstacles and make your way around, in this simple but gorgeous little experimental platformer made in just 72 hours.

In Size Five Games's new indie steampunk-meets-cyberpunk stealth/action heist, you have just a hundred days to halt Scotland Yard's all-encompassing surveillance program — the Basilisk! Go on randomly generated missions, amass a fortune, upgrade your capabilities, and more!

In this action-packed indie game, you're just a a schmuck with a gun whose dreams of making it big are derailed by a little thing called the zombie apocalypse. Blast your way through this quirky, gory shooter!

Harmony, aesthetics, surreal mythic wonder and co-operative online gameplay flourish in this original indie multiplayer platformer about restoring the natural balance of the spirit of the world. Currently available in Early Access, work with other players and discover the secrets of an evolving world.

Expect the unexpected and all the weirdness you can handle in Mibibli's Quest. When you're not shooting your way to face off against the evil Crocobili, you're dancing to avoid getting shot or talking with satanic cultist. It's just a day in the life of Mibibli.

Burt is testing out a new drug for a medical study. With a new onset of reality changing symptoms he must cross a landscape covered with spikes and pits to get back to the doctor, who gives him more pills and the cycle continues with a new mind bending twist.

In Elliot Quest, the retro adventure platform game by Ansimuz Games, you can't die. Well, you can, but you always wake up at the last glowing rock thing you passed. Which is kind of weird when you think about it, and you need some answers. It's an enjoyable 8-bit throwback that doesn't pause the action to engage in any handholding. Elliot Quest will probably make you feel lost, but offers enough cool things to find to make it all worth while.

When a wizard needs a job, the temp agency decides their destiny... and apparently yours is to be a security guard. But it's not as cushy as it sounds, and in this chaotic and creative dungeon-crawling action platforming shooter, you'll need to craft your spells from multiple components to unlock powerful (and weird) effects as you try to save the world.

Tess had a bad day yesterday, and she doesn't really want to talk about it. Her friend Milly has a brazen and dangerous dare for her, but is she ready to face the consequences in this eerie and surreal free indie platform shooter?

Antbassador is a physics platform game by Kevin Zuhn and his team that has been declared the winner of the Ludum Dare 30 72 hour "Connected Worlds" game jam. It stars a giant top hat-wearing finger trying desperately to make a good impression on a colony of ants, and often failing. The QWOP-style comedy of political frustrations may not be for everyone, but it has more than it's fair share of hilarious ant-tics.

It's just one level, but this demo for an upcoming platforming adventure about a lone candle trying to rescue its friends who have been snuffed out by ominous shadows still manages to tantalize.

Bottle Rockets is a sci-fi platform game by James Earl Cox III set to the song "Alberto Balsam" by Aphex Twin. A short artistic work about mothers, daughters, and space, it integrates a glitchy aesthetic quite well into the plot and gameplay, and will generally succeed in making those who play it feel all the feels.

Life as a little green blob becomes a lot more exciting when you encounter a malevolent force out to take over your whimsy-filled cartoon world. But, by gathering up ark seeds, you build a team of doppelgangers who, in a friendlier twist on lemmings-style mechanics, help you solve your way through this puzzle platform adventure.

Ever feel like you're a little too large for the world around you? You know, like when you're crawling through the air ducts of your home pretending to be a spy. Well, Smudged Cat Games, creator of Gateways, thought that feeling of mild claustrophobia would make a good game. And wouldn't you know it, they're right! Growing Pains is an arcade platform game that's all about getting to the exit as fast as you can. It's sort of like a speedy version of N, only instead of being a small ninja, you're a creature that can't stop getting bigger.

Dive through earth and air in The Sun and Moon, a challenging platformer with an original concept and a beautiful, simplistic aesthetic. Fight conflicting gravities to collect all three Shinies and reach the exit in each level!

Chronology is the latest game to take advantage of the sidescrolling invigoration. It packs a lovely time-twisting mechanism on top of a head-warping set of puzzles that force you to think about the world in terms of the past and the future.

Kero Blaster has arrived! The sidescrolling platform shooter by Studio Pixel looks simple and sweet on the surface, but the difficulty is cranked up high enough to give your reflexes an honest workout. As janitor for the teleporter manufacturer Cat & Frog, your job is to venture out into the dangerous world to fix the company's broken machines. No sweeping or actual repairing involved, just shooting and trying to stay alive!

A fantastic art game with an arresting pixel-based art style, this physics-based platformer follows a rebel searching for their lost love in an alien-infested world. But it's not about the aliens. It's about survival, loneliness, and the sacrifices we make for those we love.

There are only two words you need to see before downloading this game: Studio Pixel. The creator of Cave Story has been hard at work on the upcoming sidescrolling platformer Kero Blaster, but in the meantime, we get a free game! Pink Hour serves as a small taster for next month's big release, stuffing plenty of shooting, pixel-perfect jumps, and painfully high level of difficulty into its cute little package.

The best wizard around may not know much actual magic, but he does have a fabulous double jump. Navigate treacherous landscapes and save the princess in this free, highly polished platformer for Windows and Mac.

In most roguelikes, grinding levels is the answer, but in Hopoo Games' brutally difficult action game, the longer you wait, the harder things get. When your cargo ship crashes on a hostile alien planet, you're left with no choice but to fight your way through the local wildlife and massive monsters, unlocking new characters and items along the way, if you want to survive.

In this fast-paced stunning metroidvania indie action adventure, the fight against a demonic army takes you beneath the waves when your ship is sunk and you find yourself in a mysterious underwater world caught between two opposing forces. Though somewhat hard to pick up and not without its flaws, it's still an engaging, gorgeous combat-centric game fans of the genre should check out.

Blink and you'll miss it, but this painfully short action adventure game by a talented indie studio is still worth checking out. Play as a young girl who wakes up in a surreal nightmare realm and must rely only on a strange voice, and a magical camera that can manipulate reality, to see her through to the end.

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.

Isn't it about time you had a good old fashioned quest? Spud's Quest by Chris Davis is a retro-styled platform adventure that draws inspiration from classic games such as The Legend of Zelda and the Dizzy series. It takes place in a fantasy world complete with items to find that unlock new areas, a sprawling map with non-linear pathways, and plenty of characters to interact with. A metroidvania, if you will, and a frightfully good one at that!

The mad-cap death-defying platforming roguelike action returns to PC in this HD remake of the cult classic by Derek Yu! Descend into an ever-changing labyrinth of tunnels in your search for treasure, with innumerable deadly traps and enemies standing in your way. Featuring new levels, items, and monsters in addition to cosmetic changes like different playable characters, various Damsels, and a whole new look and sound, Spelunky HD is just as addictively fun/frustrating as it was before.

You Still Won't Make It is a high difficulty action game from Vetra Games. It's name and form with this platformer, as each time you start a stage you know you probably won't make it to the exit. Even if you do, it won't be without splattering your insides over a precisely-placed spike trap. With level design by Karoshi veteran Jesse Venbrux, You Still Won't Make It is the kind of indie game you're going to hate while you fall in love with it.

Wanna see a crazy experiment in game design? Experiment 12 is a collaborative game created by twelve developers, with each level building on the story set by the previous ones. You wake up in a testing chamber, but it's hard to tell where you'll be headed from there, as each level chapter introduces a new puzzle or platform element for you to tackle.

Dusty is out for revenge. You can tell because it says so right in the title! Dusty Revenge is a wild west-themed action game from PD Design Studio that effortlessly blends a sidescrolling brawler (think Castle Crashers) with a simple platform game, turning the whole genre mix on its head by dumping in a lot of guns and artwork that would make even Shank blush. It can be a bit over the top on occasion with its cheesy story and quick combat tactics, but the overall tone keeps you interested in beating up enemies until your lengthy bunny ears are soaked in blood.

And now we've reached the portion of the program where we delight you with things perfect and beautiful! Toki Tori 2 is a new metroidvania-style puzzle platform game from Two Tribes. It's a long-awaited follow up to the original Toki Tori released on Game Boy Color back in 2001. Featuring improved puzzles, longer levels, more varied gameplay, much better graphics and many, many other additions, the minute you fire up this game you'll realize it was worth the wait!

Cellar Door Games delivers a challenging roguelike mixed with brutal platforming action in this indie game. Take on an ever-changing castle filled with peril and challenges, and when you're inevitably struck down, your children will take up the cause... and your children might be more than a little unique. Featuring upgradeable classes and powers, equipment, runes, and even traits ranging from simple color-blindness to dwarfism, this is one game that offers both a challenge and a unique look at the ideas of heroism and "disability".

Flowerville is a simple, charming sort of platform game where you play as Goffredo the famous gardener. He has the ability to make flowers come to life just by walking in front of them, which normally isn't that handy of a skill. When all of the flowers in Flowerville start dying, though, the queen summons Goffredo immediately. It's time to put on your gardening gloves and get to work.

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.

Behind a closed door in an abandoned apartment building, a freelance spy is trying on a new pair of pants. Little does he know that those pants would lead to a case full of mystery, danger, and electrical rewiring! Gunpoint is a stealth puzzle platformer where you can use your cool spy gadgets to change how electronics are hooked up, tricking your enemies into their doom. There are many ways to clear each building in this clever noir-style adventure, but when it comes time to choose up sides, who will you support?

What would you do if you found out there was more to your world? Like... a LOT more? And then you had to save it? That's what happens to Gomez, a little 2D creature who finds out his world isn't 2D as he always thought, and thanks to a mystical hat unlocks a power that will allow him to see every hidden side of it... something he'll need since he needs to track down fragments of a mystical cube before the world destroys itself! A stunning exploration-based platforming indie adventure that will bring out the wonder in you.

Starseed Pilgrim is a very, very unusual game. Created by droqen, author of Probability 0, it's best described as an abstract puzzle game with some light musical elements and a touch of sandbox-style gameplay. That doesn't do the experience justice, though, as its real value comes from the sense of exploration and wonder you'll get trying to figure out which seeds grow which blocks and what exactly you're trying to accomplish in this bleak world.

While hiding in a closet for a beast that's after him, young Quico tumbles through a mysterious portal into another world where he finds himself befriending a towering, fanged beast named Monster. But though Monster seems gentle and lovable enough to his tiny companion, a dangerous addiction turns him into a mindless, rampaging threat to everything around him, and only Quico can save him... or so he hopes. A painfully beautiful indie platforming adventure with heart.

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.

Melodisle, a puzzle platformer by Andrew Gleeson, is a pixelated game of music and melodies, using your character's singing to affect the world around him. A unique experimental work and though the puzzles can get a little esoteric, it's has a lot of creativity for its short length.

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.

Rexzilla is a retro-styled platform game created by Orz Laboratory. Starring a kid in a dinosaur costume and featuring space travel, evil aliens, strange environments, and gumballs, it captures a bit of childlike wonder as you jump and stomp your way across 50 levels of action.

If you've ever seen some of M. C. Escher's paintings, you probably know what "impossible" looks like. If you play through Alexander Bruce's Antichamber, you'll know what "impossible" feels like... and also how to beat it! Set in a convoluted world where you can never be too sure which way is up, Antichamber challenges you to cast aside your usual video game logic and face a plethora of mind-bending puzzles that will have you rethinking what "impossible" means.

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.

What's inside the Cave, DoubleFine's latest platforming puzzle adventure? For seven very unusual and very different heroes, that answer is quite personal indeed. But no matter which three you set off to solve the mysteries of the depths with, you can be sure you'll encounter hilarity, challenging puzzles, memorable characters, stunning visuals, and more than a few secrets of the bizarre and personal sort.

With a name like F.O.L.D. - Fantastic Olfactory Latrine Discoverer, you know something interesting has to be going on. This puzzle platform game by Cosine relies on just two mechanics to fuel its levels: picking up blocks, and folding the screen. By combining those in some seriously head-splitting ways, you get to figure out how to get from one side of the screen to the other, all in the name of making it to a single pristine bathroom fixture!

They say it's all in how you look at things... and they might be right! Perspective, by the fine students of Digipen, is a unique game that combines two-dimensional platforming with three-dimensional worlds to explore. As you switch back and forth between the two modes, you'll see that there's more to this well-crafted challenge than first meets the eye.

Potatoman is looking for something. What that is he isn't entirely sure, but he'll know it when he finds it. But one thing is certain: every living thing he encounters seems to have an opinion. Also, they're trying to kill him. Potatoman Seeks the Troof is a short "potatosophical" action adventure game from the retro masters at Pixeljam. Trot and hop your way across several landscapes as you take in the wisdom from the animals, avoiding things like bouncing/growing cacti, flying bird eggs, and a host of more creative obstacles. If you're lucky, you might even learn something along the way!

It's been a few years, but the Knytt series has finally returned! Knytt Underground pulls in design elements from several of Nifflas' other games, including Within a Deep Forest, NightSky, and Saira, and creates a beautifully atmospheric game of exploration. There's a big world to run, climb and bounce through, packed with secrets that can only be found by mastering some unique character switching moves.

Street Fighter X Mega Man is exactly the game you'd expect it to be: Street Fighter mixed with Mega Man. A free release created by Seow Zong Hui with support from Capcom, this love letter to both franchises stays true to the source material while shuffling things around enough to make it something new. Expect a nice and challenging experience, complete with a new chiptune soundtrack and plenty of inside references for fans of each series.

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.

Scribblenauts Unlimited is a new and improved release in the Scribblenauts line from 5th Cell Media. Giving you the power to create objects at will, you embark on a quest to bring happiness to the world, helping people in need by granting them objects from your magic notebook. That's all fine and good and such, but the fact of the matter is you can create just about anything you want, so while that pedestrian is in dire need of a glass of water, wouldn't it be so much more fun to give her a gigantic angry flying shark instead?

Have you ever stopped to think about the little cubes of sugar you put in your tea? Like, maybe they don't really appreciate being dropped into scalding hot liquid? Sugar Cube: Bittersweet Factory is a creative puzzle platform game from TurtleCream that tells the story of one little sugar cube that wasn't too keen on the idea of being put into baked goods. Eyeing a method of escaping the factory, he hops from the conveyor belt and begins his escape, one stage at a time.

Pid is a unique and heavily atmospheric platform game from Might and Delight, a team of developers who obviously know some secrets about portable stone-based gravity control the rest of us aren't privy to. Set in a hazy otherworld and starring a lost little kid, you'll learn to control small cones of gravity as you work your way through bizarre landscapes. Sometimes Pid feels like A Boy and His Blob, sometimes a stealth game, and sometimes even Portal. But really, Pid is Pid, and it stands strongly enough on its own to be something unique.

Whenever it gets close to Halloween, most of us are ready for a good scare. Zombies tunneling from below the soil, mummies leaping out from behind tombstones. Slenderman staring at us from off in the distance. Lionsoft, creator of the previously featured Sprint - King of the Jungle, knows the feeling well, not to mention a handful of retro games that fit the scary setting just as snugly. And so comes 8-bit Halloween, an arcade platform game that borrows from some of the most popular sidescrolling games of old to create a challenging, holiday appropriate release to get you in the mood.

Inspired by a retro game? Check! Precision platforming tactics? Check! Melt-your-eyes gorgeous visuals? That's a check! It looks like we have another heavy-hitting indie game on our hands! Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams began life as a spiritual sequel to the original Commodore 64 platform game The Great Giana Sisters. What emerged from that Kickstarter project is something cleverly old school, supremely challenging, and more gorgeous than still images could possibly convey. You're going to have a great time yelling at the screen because you died at the same place for the 18th time in a row!

It's adventure time and ape time! Adventure Apes and the Mayan Mystery is a retro-inspired platform adventure from ScaryPotato that shares a few genre points with games like La-Mulana, Cave Story, and many other metroidvania games. As you quest about through the jungle, opening up new areas to explore as you find new tools and power-ups, you'll need to keep an eye out for coins, keys, treasure chests, and relics, all while dispatching common enemies and squaring off against more formidable boss foes. It's all action and adventure, and it's all good fun, from beginning to end!

Probability 0 is a procedurally-generated arcade platform game created by Droqen that's all about working your way down. Most games make it pretty easy to move in that direction, as we tend to think of up as the win direction (just ask any tall person) and down as, well, not-win. With this moody little game, though, you'll have to fight your way to the bottom of the screen, squeezing through blocks, punching holes in the terrain, dealing with evil enemies, and upgrading your abilities at every opportunity you get.

Of Light & Shadow is a puzzle platform hybrid from 12 Angry Devs that focuses on two characters, each with different abilities as well as environmental weaknesses. It takes place in a crumbling world of chaos, with giant frogs, chomping machine monsters, flying platforms and bubbling pools of lava all waiting to take a piece of you with them to oblivion. But, since you're such a talented player, you can survive the surreal stages and work your way to safety at the end!

Of Light & Shadow is a puzzle platform hybrid from 12 Angry Devs that focuses on two characters, each with different abilities as well as environmental weaknesses. It takes place in a crumbling world of chaos, with giant frogs, chomping machine monsters, flying platforms and bubbling pools of lava all waiting to take a piece of you with them to oblivion. But, since you're such a talented player, you can survive the surreal stages and work your way to safety at the end!

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.

Your life was just a simple one. But this morning, you've found this sparking mechanical creature in your front yard. Is it friendly? Is it hostile? Or, perhaps scariest of all... are you teaching it what to do? A Ludum Dare 24 entry by Paul Greasley, Soul Jar is adventure platformer that tasks you with directing the evolution of a robot companion, for good or for bad. Visually stunning, with a killer premise, Soul Jar is hampered by clunky controls, but demonstrates the creativity the Ludum Dare format can inspire.

Three different people, three different worlds, and one very strange common thread. Tyler Glaiel, now part of Eyebrow Interactive, brings us one drop-dead gorgeous dark puzzle platformer in the form of this upgrade to his 2009 classic browser game full of ingenious levels and stunning design. Manipulate light to change your surroundings, using shadows to wipe away obstacles, and, ultimately, find your way back home.

In the year 20XX, Dr. Wily has been defeated by Mega Man (again). He escaped capture and life returned to normal, his eight robot masters returning to storage until the day their circuits may be modified to aid society. As it turns out, that day is today! Dr. Wily wasted no time attacking once again, unleashing a super virus that has disrupted Mega Man's systems and turned computers across the globe into enemies of humanity. With no other options at his disposal, Dr. Light releases the eight robot masters, hoping their virus-free circuits can defeat Wily once and for all. So begins Mega Man: Day in the Limelight 2 by Fusion Team, a retro platforming action adventure that's sure to bring a twinkle to the eye of any child of the 8-bit generation.

I Wanna Be The Guy was a small indie platform game released way back in 2007, and if you're wondering what took it so long to get a sequel, you obviously never played the original. A quick refresher: you could be killed by falling apples. You could be killed by apples that fall upwards. If you avoided the apples, a cloud could drop out of the background... and kill you. And that would be how you got past one screen. The sequel ups the insanity and makes you wonder if you really do want to be the guy.

Back in 2005, Takumi Naramura released a retro-styled exploration game called La-Mulana. Starring an archaeologist professor named Lemeza, it introduced modern players to an aesthetic not seen since the days of the MSX home computer, bringing with it all the convoluted puzzles, items, and high level of difficulty retro gamers love. Fast forward to 2012 for the worldwide release of a graphically enhanced update to La-Mulana that carefully reworks the look and feel of the old game to spruce it up for a new audience. Nigoro has done a fantastic job with the new La-Mulana, and the translation to the slightly-less-retro modern version is almost flawless!

Created in 72 hours for a recent game jam, Disillusion by True Valhalla is a short, somewhat abstract platform adventure that focuses heavily on atmosphere and exploration. You begin with a sword and a vague goal in the back of your mind: go to the end of the world and find the Holy Artifact. If you don't, your people won't survive. Sounds like motivation to us! You quickly head out into the hazy world, ready to tread down branching non-linear paths, defeat enemies both small and gargantuan, and pull off some tricky jumps with the greatest of ease.

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.

On the surface, it's easy to put Thomas Was Alone in the puzzle platform genre, citing games like The Lost Vikings when you discuss the gameplay mechanics and mentioning VVVVVV as another possible source of lo-fi indie inspiration. But after you've spent some time with the game, you suddenly realize it's much more than just a platformer. Thomas Was Alone is an interactive, character-driven puzzle experience with a beautiful audio visual presentation and gameplay controls/physics that were no doubt fine-tuned with fastidious precision.

Deep within the spaceship, a lowly garbage worker tosses clumps of trash into the incinerator. Outside, asteroids begin pelting the hull, eventually causing the ship to crash on an uncharted planet filled with strange creatures. And now you, lone survivor, must explore and fight your way through an intricate maze-like world as you gather power-ups, fight bosses, and collect every little green square you see. In Wade McGillis's downloadable and mobile game Astronot, you get a good strong dose of pure retro metroidvania-style platform adventuring, and you'll love every minute of stranded torture it brings you.

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.

While chunky pixel goats are nothing new to the indie gaming scene (see Llamasoft's iOS release GoatUp), MagicalTimeBean has done something special with Escape Goat, a retro-inspired puzzle platform game that recently made the leap from Xbox Live Indie Games to Windows-based PCs. And you're going to be glad it did, as Escape Goat is an exceptionally entertaining game that strikes a perfect balance between challenge and frustration, reflexes and puzzle solving, and, well, goats and sheep.

Red Riding Hood was once a normal girl baking sweets, skipping through enchanted forests, wanting to visit her grandma without any ulterior motives. Little did she know that she was about to be thrust into a nightmare when her poor Granny was taken by some rude wolf. Now it's up to you, as Red, to brave 96 levels of puzzles to save Granny and show that wolf it's never good to mess with a girl who can master gravity.