November 2014 Archives

Warning: This game contains flashing elements which may trigger photosensitive seizures in people with epilepsy.

A walk in the woods is usually a peaceful time, one spent enjoying nature and enjoying the lovely quiet. Nothing usually goes wrong. I mean look at other games set in the woods, like Year Walk. ...wait. Uh. What about A False Saint, An Honest Rogue? No good either? Hm. Seeing as the only other 'walk in the woods' I can think of is Slender, I guess I have to retract my first statement. Stay out of the woods! Nothing good happens there! And it's no different for the surreal world of I Was on the Throne, by Disco Fish Games, where reality breaks and you find yourself in an alien-like world. It's a shorter surreal puzzle escape game where you explore the small scenes to find a way to the next one. While not as dark and creepy as a few other games I mentioned, it is definitely a world that will leave you in a state of wonder and probably equally disturbed.

It's Detarame Factory! But it's not an escape game... it's a point-and-click adventure with a serious heaping helping of weirdness. In Isamu Carre, you need to make a special dish to appease the king (no, not hossenfeffer), and to do so you need to travel around the tiny, strange kingdom, solving puzzles and gathering ingredients. There are two endings to uncover, so try your best to make the most delicious dish. The cursor will change when you can interact with something, and bars at the edges of the screen will let you move around areas with more than one location. Double click an item in your inventory to view it up close, but items that appear below your inventory are your equipment, and will be used automatically when needed. Expect to crack some seriously sneaky codes, and unfortunately if you only read English, you may feel a little lost not knowing what characters are saying or what feedback you're getting when something fails. Just make sure you search everywhere, revisit some locations and characters, and try looking at things differently!

Play Isamu Carre

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Please be aware that this game alludes to issues of sexual abuse some people may find upsetting. See comment for details.

In Sanada Makoto's free indie horror adventure Forest of Drizzling Rain, translated by Tosiaki, university student Shiori Kanzaki finds herself alone on her birthday after the tragic death of her parents, who cut off ties to the rest of their family long ago. While cleaning out her family home and handling the orders for the funeral, she's shocked to come across a photograph of a man who can only be her grandfather, and as the months pass and the loneliness doesn't go away, she finally decides to try to visit the village written on the back of the photo. As it happens, the village has some strange local legends, and to say some people are a little off is putting it mildly. But Shiori can't shake a feeling that she's been there before, and despite the odd behaviour of troublemaker teenager Sakuma and the odder behaviour of the surly museum manager, Suga, who communicates only in written notes and carries a fake sword, Shiori is determined to find out why her family fled this place and cut all contact years ago. Use the [arrow] keys to move, hold [shift] to run, the [spacebar] to interact, and hit [ESC] to open the menu and save your game at any time. While many items will be used automatically when needed, you may need to open your inventory and manually use some of them for them to be activated. There are five different endings, all of which depend on your actions towards the end of the game, but make sure you save often and in different slots!

Funkyland serves up another dose of tiny yet tasty Alice in Wonderland-themed whimsy with Alice House No. 8: Mock Turtle and Gryphon, where you need to find five objects with a gryphon on them in order to escape. To play, all you need to do is click to look around and interact, though the lack of a changing cursor means you need to search every nook and cranny. This eighth installment isn't likely to keep you wrapped up for very long, presumably because you're late, you're late for a very important date, but a little pinch of puzzles always brightens anyone's day.

Play Alice House No. 8: Mock Turtle and Gryphon

Most everyone needs some time to unwind every day, especially if your day consists of slaving over a keyboard under the ever watchful eye of Dora some nameless evil overlord. So when you're feeling overwhelmed, you might try picking up the very zen like experience of Let There Be Life, from Backward pieS for iOS and Android. Your goal is simple: zone out. Okay, there's a little bit more to it than that, but the game was made with that in mind, and they have achieved it wonderfully by immersing you in nature. You start out with a tree with few branches and no leaves. But trees need leaves to survive, and it's your job to restore the tree back to full health.

Part of me wonders if Nitrome's Submolok is saying, "Don't quite hate your hands and keyboard yet? Ya will soon!" You're going to need some serious coordination to play this freaky action game that stars an alien who appears to be Krang's long lost relative on an underwater quest to find all the parts it needs to repair a satellite to call back home. The catch is that you move by firing thrusters located each corner of your square submersible, each one of which propels it in the opposite direction, so firing the upper right thruster will actually push you in a lower lefter-ly type direction. The key is figuring out how to use them in combinations to get where you want to go, which is easier said than done since our alien hero is naturally buoyant and wants to float upwards. The upper left thruster is tied to the [E] key, lower left to the [X], upper right to [I], and lower right to [M]. (Unfortunately, those are the only key options available, and you can't rebind them.) From the main hub where you'll return to add parts to your satellite, you can hop around to other areas, and in a mild flair, you'll find and unlock upgrades for your submersible as well, so if you can't reach something, you may need to come back later once you've found an upgrade that will help. Typically when you need another upgrade to proceed, the game will pop up with an icon in the upper left.

People like to joke about how some superheroes actually make things worse, but for Failman, star of PPLLAAYY's short and very silly point-and-click puzzle game, anything worth doing is worth doing in a way that makes everyone around him completely miserable. Each small level has a superhero-type problem, such as a bank robbery, and it's your job to figure out what to click, and in what order, to, ehhhh, save the day... sort of. Though on the (very) easy side, Failman's cheeky sense of humour and deliberately absurd style makes us hope we see a bigger adventure in the future.

Play Failman

In PencilKids' short and sweet point-and-click adventure Monkey GO Happy Thanksgiving, it might be cold outside, but our simpering simians know it isn't Turkey Day without, well, a turkey, and so they're out searching the snowy town trying to find one. Click around to interact and navigate, dragging items from your inventory at the top of the screen to try to use them. As usual, keep your eyes peeled for puzzle clues hiding in the scenery. After all, if a missing Thanksgiving feast isn't cause for full on crisis mode, I don't know what is!

Play Monkey GO Happy Thanksgiving

Sugar Blossom Village looks like a little slice of paradise. Well, maybe not your particular corner of it: the farmhouse you've just bought is admittedly a bit of a fixer upper. But the people are friendly and hard-working, content with their lives far away from the bustle of the city, close to their loved ones but friendly to strangers. And yet, there does seem to be something missing: a warmth and a magic that some of the older townfolk, as happy as they are, seem to be yearn for, sad that their children do not feel the protection of nature as they once did. Perhaps it has something to do with Noah Hayseed. Even years after his death, townsfolk still talk of his life and secrets as if he was still around. Maybe you can find out more, but until then, there are crops to plant, fishes to fish, livestock to raise, members of your preferred sex to woo, and (mini) games of LockBall to wager on. That's what life is like at the World's Dawn. World's Dawn is an life/farming simulation by Wayward Prophet quite similar in nature to the Harvest Moon series, with a nice touch of fantasy RPG plotting to keep things interesting. Four seasons of the game, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter are in development, with the first two already released. Play as male or female, and engage in romances with men, women, or both if you wish!

"The only other sound's the sweep, of easy wind and downy flake. " There's something strange and wonderful about wandering the forest at night during a snowfall. The hiss of the flakes as they accumulate, the crunch of your footsteps as you perambulate, the howl of the wolves that are dogging your every step...On second thought, maybe wandering the woods at night in the midst of a snowstorm isn't a particularly good idea. Especially if the woods are the sacred Celtic area around the tiny town of Dire Grove in Elephant Games' latest addition to the Mystery Case Files adventure hybrid collection, Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove, Sacred Grove. This sequel brings you back to the chilly burg of Dire Grove, which is once again in the throes of an unseasonal deep freeze along with a severe case of "When Animals Attack". This time around you will actually meet some of the inhabitants of Dire Grove as you work to solve the mystery of what is causing the freak snowstorms and the wild animal problems. Does it have something to do with the Druids, the Mistwalkers, or did the locals manage to do something to trigger the whole thing? Point-and-click your way through the gorgeous winter scenery to solve the mystery with the help of a lot of puzzle solving and hidden object finding.

It's baa-aack. Nekra Psaria 2 is the sequel to DrawManEater's Nekra Psaria, and fans of the original will be pleased to note that it looks every bit like the horrifying baby of Dr. Seuss and your nightmares as the first one did. When we last left Johnny-boy, the protagonist of this surreal escape game series, he'd successfully fed his giant talking head of a generator and managed to get his power online for some quality vegetating in front of the TV... only to be suddenly surrounded by vegetation, in the heart of a mysterious forest, with ominous forces on his tail. Now he's woken up in an underground cell, and he'll have to traverse the eerie woods... and caverns... and dubious underground laboratories in order to find his way home. What's a guy gotta do to channel flip in peace, huh? Point-and-click his way through one of the most entertainingly unsettling worlds in escape games, apparently!

It's like pie. Is there ever such thing as too much pie? No, never. Or at least, I intend to find that out... tomorrow. What I do know for sure: there is no such thing as too much fun free online escape games. Or if a limit does exist, it's yet to be reached. Absolutely that is why they keep getting made, why we keep playing, and why Weekday Escape returns once again with four escapes for which to be thankful—Hottategoya's continuing saga of same-looking rooms, FunkyLand's 18th sugar-craving treat-seeking episode, Flash 512's glossy graphics returning in a dungeon, and Maroya's opening of another room in Marshmallow's house...

[Please note that Tales from the Borderlands is an episodic series. Purchasing the game grants you access to all episodes as they become available. Currently only the first episode has been released.]

When I first heard TellTale Games were making an episodic adventure game based on Gearbox Software's beloved hyperviolent and totally cracked-in-the-head shooter series Borderlands, I was mildly concerned. Mainly because Borderlands is described by things like ramping a car that fires buzzsaws off a cliff into a group of bandits and guns that shoot bullets that are also on fire, while TellTale's adventure games are, um. Not. But surprise surprise, Tales from the Borderlands is here with its first installment, Zer0 Sum, and while you won't be running around shooting up the scenery, it's every bit as foul-mouthed, black-humoured, and perversely charismatic as the original games. Plus, Patrick Warburton is in it. What else do you want? If you haven't played Borderlands, Tales will get you up to speed on the basics at the beginning, which are fairly simple.Tales from the Borderlands takes place after the end of Borderlands 2 and follows Rhys and Fiona, not exactly your typical gun-toting heroes, who have very different motives. Rhys has been fighting tooth and nail for a promotion at super company Hyperion that his "nemesis" Vasquez has cheated him out of, while Fiona's out to pull one huge con that could set her, her little sister, and their surrogate father Felix up for life. To say not everything goes according to plan is an understatement, and Fiona and Rhys are going to have to work together to stay alive... even if each one blames the other for the whole mess. This first installment tells the story of how they wound up thrown together, though of course how they get there is mostly up to you. With excellent comedic timing, exciting action sequences, and all the perverse style and flair you expect from a Borderlands title, Tales from the Borderlands' first episode sets things off with a bang. Oh, and be prepared for a, um, special jump scare or two.

[Please note that this game deals with physical and emotional abuse.]

Havana24.net's puzzle platformer Mercurial Story is about a guy whose unpredictable and uncontrollable mood swings impact his life in a very big way. Each level is divided in half horizontally, and up top is the brighter, happier world, while below is the darker, more dangerous world that turns his life upside-down. Literally, since when you're below, everything is inverted! Use the [arrow] keys to move and jump, or [X] to jump, and you can double-jump while you're "happy" in the world above. Below, everything is more dangerous, but you'll still often find yourself needing to delve into it to pass through the level. Where the two "worlds" intersect, your character will bob back and forth between them like a cork, so you don't need to worry about falling and dying, and you can actually use this momentum to reach new heights. (Press [R] if you get stuck!) This can be fiddly to master on some stages, and combined with the optional (prescribed, presumably) pills to collect, which of course doesn't describe everyone's situation but can be one person's method of coping, Mercurial Story won't be for everyone. More concerning is actually the implication that the main character is both physically and emotionally abusive to those around him, and while this is clearly as a result of the character's uncontrollable problem, it still might be upsetting enough to some people that the ending may not ring quite as sweet, though the intent is clearly to show a difficult situation and attempt to give hope to anyone else experiencing it as well.

Play Mercurial Story

Mercurial Story (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch)

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In massive free indie RPG Capella's Promise, created by PlainSoft and translated by vgperson, Velk and his sister Thiana aren't your typical heroes. In fact, they're not very nice people at all. They're slavers, to be precise, and one night Velk wakes up to overhear his sister making an unusual deal... all they have to do is watch over a young girl named Shena for six months in exchange for a large amount of cash. It's a strange request to make of someone who makes their living buying and selling people, but Thiana and Velk see it as easy money. At least until the night soldiers show up demanding Shena, who, having literally spent most of her life underground passed from one "master" to another, has no idea why she's so valuable. Now Thiana's been captured and Velk's on the run with a girl everyone wants to get their hands on, and they soon discover there are more people with bounties on their heads being snatched away in the night. What starts as a quest to rescue Velk's sister winds up being something much more when they stumble across something very rotten in the kingdom of Ilnacia. Clocking in at over twenty hours with sidequests, secrets, crafting, customisation and more, Capella's Promise might be a bit combat-heavy for some, but is one heavyweight freeware title well worth checking out.

Have you ever looked out into the clear night sky, churning and teeming with a myriad of twinkling stars, and wondered if there's life on other planets? Pondered your own infinitesimal smallness against the still backdrop of a cosmos much too vast for any sane person to reasonably comprehend, and wondered about your place in the grand scheme of things? If so, Galaxy Harvest, the realtime strategy game by Lev Simonov and Anna Maskaleva has your answer: Biomass. Yes, biomass. You see little Billy, it just so happens that keeping an advanced civilization humming along doesn't come cheaply and the yawning maws of those huge reactors that power it aren't going to feed themselves. That's where you come in. Biomass makes the perfect fuel source to keep a sophisticated, well-developed civilization thriving. Oceans rich in aquatic life, continents thick with musty pine forests, galloping herds of unsuspecting giraffe roaming innocently across the plain, generations of humans and yes even you, all of them have an important place in keeping a refined civilization ticking over. They're all just waiting to be scooped up and thrown to the reactors as biomass, and they're just the ticket. You can even seed nearby planets with life if you're the kind of civilization to plan ahead and you're willing to play the long (long, loooong) game and stop by again in a few billion years to reap what you've sown.

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Bedtime for most kids growing up is dreaded. It means stopping gaming or your favorite TV show, and trying to lay still in the dark when you'd rather be up and running around. But in this narrative the young eight year old you're playing as has much more reason to dread going to bed. There is something else in his room, just below him in the unoccupied bunk. Even though he is plagued by nightmares it is clear he'd much rather be sleeping than having to listen to that raspy breathing. It Moves is a free indie horror game based off a wonderful Creepypasta... which you shouldn't read until after you've played so you don't spoil the game! SnowOwl is not new to horror games, giving us Rust and Blood for one, and knows how to do justice to the original piece. The daily (nightly?) nightmares are where you are able to take control and explore the surreal mind of the young boy. There are a few puzzles to solve and mazes to be conquered but in the end this game is all about the story and the creepy atmosphere Snowowl masters.

Did you know Bobby Da Arrow once shot the wings off a fly a mile away? That Bobby can turn his eyes 180 degrees and see his own brain? That Bobby invented ducks?! If you did then you've probably already played Bitnest and FlashChaz's new physics projectile action game, named after the amazing hero himself, Bobby Da Arrow. After each level you get an amazing Bobby Da Arrow fact. Between each of these is a puzzling challenge of wit and speed as you kill off the evil goblin forces and stop them from invading the kingdom. Unlike most projectile games, the enemies don't just stand there and let you use up all your arrows. Your first shot lets you take your leisure to aim with your mouse, but after that the time starts and with each quick spin of the clock, the goblins get to move closer, attack, or even teleport out of the way. You're still able to fire whenever you like as long as you have arrows, but with their movements this could mean the perfect shot has turned into a dud, or that a weaker creature has just moved into the path of your arrow destined for a more efficient target. Now add that to a game with clever little puzzles and you got yourself a doozy of a game... that is, if you needed something more than just the clever little facts you get in between.

In Elephant Games' hidden-object adventure/Jumanji lookalike Surface: Game of Gods, you play Alice Russell, whose friends go missing when they take part in a strange game you yourself were supposed to be a part of. Turns out the game, played every three years, has some very serious rules, and the players are contractually bound to face the threats that pop up when they roll the dice or die, which is something I would have thought we'd all learned to avoid when Quark taught us what a terrible idea that is. With your friends in danger from tabletop gone wrong, you have no choice but to sign the contract presented to you by the man with the infinitely smug and punchable face and play yourself to save them, presumably absolving yourself of ever feeling obligated to drive one of them to the airport or pay for pizza ever again. As you play, you'll follow your friends into the scenes they've trapped themselves in, solving puzzles and hidden-object scenes, as well as helping free the many centuries' worth of souls trapped in the game. Surface: Game of Gods is an appealingly creative and beautifully presented hidden-object adventure perfect for players looking for something cinematic and just the right amount of creepy-cool for an evening's play.

If you're wanting a good time by stealing rubies and stabbing people in the back, and Styx: Master of Shadows is just not family friendly enough for you, then Sneaky Sneaky, by Naiad Entertainment, is the indie stealth game for you. Just look at his darling little face. If it wasn't for his red bandit mask you would have never guessed he just stole a large bag full of rubies from the Sultan. Sadly, as he had just made his escape some rude thugs stopped him short. No class, those thugs. To top it all off, a pesky bird carried away your bag full of all the Sultan's royal jewels. With the help of your partner Squeaky, a lovely rat, it's time to do what you do best... sneak, steal, and strike, namely when the backs are turned. Work your way through the fifteen levels of strategically planning your next move as you work to gather your dropped items and reclaim what wasn't really yours in the first place.

Hipster Whale's free iOS arcade game Crossy Road is the latest addictive game about chickens getting run over by speeding trains, in which you simply tap with proper timing to guide critters across unreasonably dangerous roads and raging rivers, for as long as you can without drowning, going over a waterfall, or, well, y'know... splat. You have to keep moving since the screen is slowly scrolling after you, and jumping into the side of a moving vehicle is as fatal as being run over. It is, essentially, Frogger, though as you play you can unlock a myriad of different characters to play as, from goats and frogs to vampires and celebrities. You need one hundred coins to unlock one at random, and coins at given out by picking them up one at a time during play, opting to watch a short advertisement video when the game offers it, or granted in varying quantities as one of the "free gifts" you get after a certain amount of time has passed. Of course, if you're impatient or you want a specific character, you can just pick one up via an in-app purchase, but all characters can be earned for free with a little patience and a lot of splatting.

Something fishy and kinda freaky is afoot in no1game's Find the Escape-Men Part 126: The Special Property, where you find yourself trapped when your would-be realtor locks you inside an apartment with a suspiciously cheap rent, and in addition to the disgusting smell, there's a lot of unsettling things included here in addition to the utilities. If you want to escape, you'll need to find the ten little green men hidden around the apartment, which is easier said than done given that there's something seriously weird going on here. Click around, look everywhere (and maybe dawdle in a place or two...), and click the question mark on an item in your inventory to view it up close. Despite some futzy clicking, the sheer weirdness here is a big part of the charm... just maybe brace for a jump scare or two.

Play Find the Escape-Men Part 126: The Special Property

In real life, spiders crawled straight out of our nightmares to hide in our showers and closets and pop out on us when we least expect it. In this universe, however, spiders are adorable. How else do you explain Spiderling or Gift Rush 3? Apparently there's something game developers know about spiders that we don't. Whatever the case, Alexander Fedoseev's Natural Selection 2 continues the rebranding of everyone's least favorite arachnid, doing so in a cutesy, fun little ball of a physics game. Use the mouse to shoot strands of webbing to pull yourself around the course, catching and ensaring the helpless flies that meander about the levels. Watch out for bees, one sting will kill you dead. Come to think of it, maybe this isn't so cute after all...

It's no secret that games like to glorify war, often simply by casting you as the hero who rappels down from the helicopter into the war-torn, bombed out town and blasting up the "bad guys" to save the day... which, naturally, makes you feel good. Who doesn't like to play the hero? But 11 Bit Studios are shifting the focus with indie survival sim This War of Mine, where instead of the gun toting hero, you control a group of three civilians in that war-town, bombed and dangerous town, struggling to survive. See, everyone thought the war would be over soon, but it's been several years, and three strangers who have banded together in the crumbling remains of a house they've taken for their base are barely able to get by day to day. Food is scarce, medicine even more so, and the only supplies you have are what you can find or make yourself. With no idea of knowing how far off an end to the fighting may be, how long will you last? And more importantly, what will you be willing to do when it seems like you have no other choice? This War of Mine illustrates an often overlooked and underexamined side of conflict, and despite some issues with repetition and simple mechanics, serves to humanize war rather than laud it.

There are few realtime strategy/tower defense games that achieved the sort of massive success of Ironhide Games' Kingdom Rush games. Kingdom Rush Origins, now available for iOS and Android, is still a Kingdom Rush game, which means a lot of tiny little heroes and monsters duking it out with adorable Adam West Batmen sound effects. You build and upgrade towers of different types at build sites along the pathway, trying to prevent enemies (who drop the loot you use to create your defenses) from reaching the opposite side of the screen. You've got your spells, which can unleash handy destruction but come with a cool down tiner, and your powerful hero unit, who can level up and learn new skills and always respawns after a time. How well you handle a stage you've won determines the number of stars you're awarded, which can be spent on permanent upgrades for tower types and abilities. Some enemies drop gems that can be spent on single-use power-ups, for when you need that extra bit of devastation. All of this should sound familiar to fans, and indeed if you've been with the series from the beginning, you'll feel right at home. But while the gameplay hasn't really shaken things up much, Kingdom Rush Origins is what you've come to love with its muscles oiled and polished until you can see yourself in them.

Yonashi's Gocha Gocha Room escape game is the very definition of cute and cozy, plunking you in a room with whimsical toys and puzzles, including a caterpillar, a chicken, donuts, coffee, a cat, and much, much more. Click around to interact with things when the cursor changes, and if a transparent bar appears when you mouse over the edges of the screen (don't forget the top!), you can click it to navigate to somewhere else. Click the magnifying glass next to an item in your inventory to scope it out up close, or click the item itself to ready it for use. Remember to. Search. Everywhere. You never know where another view or item might be hiding!

Do you ever feel like your dreams at night happen because a little part of you climbs into your alarm clock and flies into space? No? Hmm, maybe that's part of the dream. At any rate, come see what I mean in Bart Bonte's interstellar point-and-click puzzle game Sweet Drmzzz for your iOS or Android device. (Originally created as a much shorter and simpler online game, In Drmzzz.) Tap the screen to interact with your surroundings, and get ready to blast into your game-filled dreams. Or someone else's. Because I've never dreamed about cute, colorful space worms, but maybe that's just me.

Oh! Hey, um, you caught me a little by surprise. I guess I've just been real busy at the moment with... Well, never mind what. All will be explained. When the timing is right. But you don't want me yakking on endlessly about all this sort of stuff. You want some more fun free escape games, and it just so happens that I do have a couple of those...ah, um, yes. Here's one from Yomino Kagura, along the same lines of previous Yomino Kagura escape games, but that's a good thing since it's so enjoyably well put-together. More? What, you really want more already? Okay, fine. Here's also a game by Flash 512; it's the third in a series but you can jump right in mid-swing. It's all good. Or, you can play the other two first. This day, this Weekday Escape? Well it's all about you, babe, so go on ahead and dig in...

Do you love Zelda-like dungeons, with all those wonderful riddles and puzzles? Ever wanted a game just like, that only missing all the monsters and that incredibly annoying, worthless disembodied hand that sends you right back to the beginning? (I'm looking at you, Wallmaster!) Well, now there is a game just like that for your Android and iOS devices. Black Tower Enigma, by Ogre Pixel, contains eleven levels of mind puzzling problems your little green orc must solve in order to reach the top of the tower. He is not doing so because of the current war between humans and orcs. No, he has put all that aside because his wife, beautiful in her own orcish ways, was taken captive; tricked by a beautiful dress gifted by a mysterious giver. Now he will stop at nothing and enter the tower no one else has ever conquered to get her back. Aw, isn't true love so cute?

[Mac user? Try freeware tool RPG Hub]

Need a free indie adventure that's all sorts of sweet and adorable? Cloudhime's short but oh-so-sweet Starbot fits the bill and then some, starring a little robot who's just woken up, though he isn't yet completed. The engineers who made him still have some tweaking to do, and when they shut him down to finish, our little Starbot finds himself in a strange, dark world that happens to be home to plants that will one day grow into stars if they're fed stardust. It is, Starbot is told, the most important job in the universe, so when he finds one little plant off alone by itself, he makes an unlikely friend when he helps it grow. Together they'll have some very strange adventures indeed in both worlds, but the most important thing they'll discover might be a lot simpler than any big journey. Use the [arrow] keys to explore, the [spacebar] to interact, and [ESC] to open the menu and save at any time. Talk to people multiple times, and don't be afraid to dig through the trash.

It's murder most foul and random in Malcolm Brown's The Inquisitor, a procedurally generated murder mystery logic puzzle game made for Procedural Generation Jam 2014 in just nine days. Each time you play, your job is to find out whodunnit, with what, and why by investigating the murder scene, hunting for clues, and interrogating people... eventually you'll be able to accuse someone, but make sure you're right as you only get one chance! Move with [WASD] or the [arrow] keys, interact and confirm with [E] or [Z], and cancel with [Q] or [X]. [I] brings up your inventory, while [J] starts the accusation process, but you'll need at least one weapon to do so. As you explore and talk to people, you'll use the clues you glean from your investigations, such as time of death, to poke holes in alibis or get more information that could help you nail someone else. While you can explore and take as much time as you want, something to consider is that movement within the game takes time, which can help you figure out who's lying as to someone's whereabouts. Going from one room to another is considered to take five minutes, so if someone tells you they were in a particular room at a certain time, figuring it out how long it would take them to get from one place to another can help you catch them in a lie. You can search people for incriminating evidence a maximum of three times before everyone stops cooperating with you. The game won't keep track of the things people say, so if you're having trouble remembering everyone's statements, or even just need a map, you might want to jot things down. I mean, actually physically jot things down, like with a pen and paper. That's right. We're kicking it old school.

Fresh from tracking down the first ancient ruby needed to unlock a magic box in the first installment of Carmel Games' point-and-click adventure series, Dakota Winchester's Adventures Part 2: Cactus City brings our titular hero to the wild West on the hunt for the next gem. Click around the map to travel around town and help out the townsfolk, all of whom seem to have their own (strange) problems. If you want a short and straightforward adventure with a healthy dose of weirdness, Dakota Winchester, stopper of robbers and smusher of scorpions, is here to provide.

Play Dakota Winchester's Adventures Part 2: Cactus City

Turn that frown upside-down, and if you're not frowning, just turn your smile 360 degrees anyway for solidarity, because it's against the law to be unhappy when you're playing an adorable escape game from Detarame Factory. Mikke Escape plops you down in a place full of cuddly animals, cute decor, and a number of curious contraptions. To unlock the door, you actually need to find and click on ten circles, which will highlight briefly in red when you do so and let out what may be an alarming musical tone given the silence of the game, so just brace yourself. Click to interact, and use the arrows that appear on the green bands to the left and right of your view to navigate around the room. Click an item once to ready it for use, or double-click it to view it close up.

Lo.Nyan, Lo.Nyan, wherefore art thou, Lo.Nyan? We've been hankering for one of your escape games, so thank goodness you're here with Lo.Nyan's Room Escape 13. As usual, you're locked in a room somewhere, but also as usual, it's just a bit too stylish and cozy looking for you to want to realistically escape from. A hanging basket chair, a cup of your favourite beverage, a bright and airy view, and all the books you could want? Colour me hermited! Still, if you want to play, you have to try to find a way out, so it's time to ferret out all the puzzles and the items needed to solve them. Just click around to move and interact, using the directional arrows that appear and your changing cursor for guidance. To use an item, click it once so it highlights green, then click where you'd like to try to use it. Want to get a closer look at something? Click the object in your inventory, then the "about item" button, which will allow you to manipulate it up close and personal. Oh, and if you hate having to take screenshots of clues or write them down, don't worry... you can pick up a camera you can use to take photos of important things to carry with you!

[Mac user? Try freeware tool RPG Hub]

Fluffydud's short freeware indie adventure game The Stoneville Mystery stars little Johnny who wakes one dark and stormy night to find his dad has gone missing. Even though he's been told to stay at home no matter what, Johnny decides to venture out into the storm and bring his father home. Use the [WASD] keys to move, the [spacebar] to interact, and [ESC] to open the menu and save your game whenever you want. Which, you know, you might need to do since little boys and dangerous adventures don't always mix. Don't be fooled by the mild creepy elements, however... The Stoneville Mystery is a cozy little adventure game that's perfect for spending a relaxing half hour or so with, especially if you love fairytales.

Made in just one week, Igor Rashkuev's dark and frozen adventure game Hypothermia is eerie and lonely as you find yourself stranded on a snow-and-stormswept island with no memory and dwindling supplies. Move with [WASD] and interact with [E] when you get close enough to an item. Food restores health, pills restore sanity but cost you health, and in a pinch alcohol warms you up but costs both health and sanity, with each item bound to the [1], [2], and [3] keys respectively. Sadly, the game lacks a pause or even a restart function, though it's definitely on the (very) short side in a way that makes it feel more like a demo or proof-of-concept, and it's also easy despite some clunky controls and an over-reliance on "here, navigate this narrow beam in first person view, but you can't look down!" Still, excellent atmosphere and visual style, along with well executed mild horror elements make this a solid, if brief, surreal experience we hope makes good on its "to be continued" ending.

Play Hypothermia

Zombie games are thick on the ground these days, shambling along in a great big horde through this cultural obsession like some sort of... undead monster-type creature. Some of them can get a little samey, but if it means getting more entries in the Decision series then we're more than willing to sift through the chaff. Flyanvil's latest entry, Decision 3, offers a visceral and deep experience. Use the mouse to aim and the [arrows] or [WASD] keys to move (AZERTY keyboards are also supported) as you blast and dash your way through each zombie infested area, collecting survivors and loot as you go. This is the gold standard here people, the kind of survival shooter that other survival shooters aspire to be.

Eipix Entertainment takes the reins for Dark Parables: The Little Mermaid and the Purple Tide, the latest installment in Blue Tea Games' popular hidden-object adventure series, where you find yourself in Greece attempting to find the source of and stop a strange phenomenon flooding villages and killing off all the sea life. Turns out all of this is tied to the mysterious temple that's risen out of the sea, and a war fought long ago between two kingdoms, one of which had the brilliant idea to summon the Sea Goddess who promptly sank and cursed the kingdom to end the fighting in what might be the most epic fit of "I'll give you something to cry over" ever. Now the king, transformed into a hideous creature and sort of bitter about non-monstrous "Landwalkers" like yourself, is trying to use her power once more against the whole world, and it's up to you to stop him. You'll travel across one seriously big map, do battle with a persistent (and giant) poisonous eel, solve perplexing puzzles and fragmented hidden-object scenes, and fight the urge to make more fish based puns than anyone has any right to.

It's a brand new day. Mom is off to her job at the store. Dad is spending the day working in the garden. The neighbors are having their conversations and arguments, some friendly, some not. Also, the moon is falling from the sky. Until it does, though, there's an entire world to watch. And watching is something you're good at. Mike Salyh presents Moonkid, a haunting monochromatic piece of interactive art. Use the [arrow] keys to move around the neighborhood, pressing the down [arrow] to interact with objects and talk with people. Moonkid is set on a timer from 9:00 to 6:30 PM, and the characters within each have their narratives for you to follow as their paths meet, diverge and cross again, The Last Express style. Some are sad, some are bittersweet, and some are even darkly humorous in their own way. Altogether though, they are certainly affecting.

Some games are an ordeal to play, and Scott Cawthon's indie horror action/puzzle/why-would-you-make-something-like-this hybrid Five Nights at Freddy's definitely fits the bill. It was a runaway success, themed around a very unfortunate security guard struggling to keep some very creepy and very deadly animatronics at bay over the course of five nights using dwindling power, light switches, and a pair of doors... and, one would hope, a massive paycheck and benefits to compensate. It's a simple game, but its emphasis on a staggering amount of relentless jump scares earned it a devoted and probably mildly unhinged following, and while the developer was actively soliciting feedback for a beefier sequel, the sudden release of Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (Android version available, iOS on the way) mere months after the original still comes as a surprise. With more animatronics, substantially harder difficulty, and new gameplay mechanics, you'll need quick reflexes and nerves of steel to survive... but how much of a sequel is it really?

Martin Kool's 0h h1 (hosted here with generous permission) is a simple little logic puzzle, also available free for iOS and Android, that's really just simply delightful. Click a square once to fill it in with red, twice to make it blue. The goal is to fill in the board in each round with the proper number and placement of red and blue squares, following the rules that govern correct placement. You can't have three of the same colours in a row either horizontally or vertically, a full row must have as many red squares as it does blue, and no two rows can be exactly the same. Tap the eye icon to get a hint, and the arrow to undo as many moves as you want, while the X will return you to the main menu. You can play levels 4x4, 6x6, 8x8, or 10x10, allowing you to get your fix at varying levels of difficulty.

Exot Working's darkly humorous MURDER is a simple game of reflexes, cunning, and, you guessed it, murder most foul. In it, you play a slimy rogue out to nab the crown for himself, which apparently can be done simply by offing the current king. Choose the right moment to hit the [spacebar] to give His Royal Majesty a good old fashioned daggering, and the crown is yours! But the game is just beginning. After you've assumed the crown, you'll need to press the [spacebar] at the proper time to catch those other knaves out to do you in and toss them into the dungeon, and when the red bar at the top of the screen runs out, well... that's life when you're a murderous, untrusting old monarch, I suppose. How many bodies can you amass in your dungeon? And do they all deserve it?

Play MURDER

Greetings, Space Cadets! Are you ready to protect and glork whatever darn small hunk of rock we at the academy send you out to protect? Are you ready to blast invaders of all shapes and sizes? Are you ready to collect enough crackers to pay off your tuition? Are you ready to have amusing conversations with your talking backpack following your inevitable demise at the hands of Braindeevils, Groinx, Blurstebeasts, and that stupid invincible magic robot? Well, then Glorkian Warrior: The Trials of Glork, also available for iOS, is the game for you! A James Kochalka/Pixeljam joint production, Glorkian Warrior gives you just the right mix of retro-shooter arcade action, platform stomping, and Saturday Morning Cartoon, now for your home Magnaglork computer screen terminal! Move with [A] and [D] or the left and right [arrow] keys, and jump with [X], [Z], [W], or the up [arrow]. Your backpack will automatically fire your standard weapon as you dodge enemy attacks, trying to keep your heart meter about zero. Watch out for slightly larger enemies in each wave: blasting them will drop new weapons and power-ups. Blasted creatures may also drop Space Crackers, which you will need to collect to unlock new features in the game. Also, watch out for the Slurkers traisping underfoot. They can't hurt you by touching, but their flames can cause quite the hot foot. It's best to give 'em the old hop-and-bop treatment when you can. Also, watch out for Zoe and Chloe, two battle-suited lady aliens, who will grant you Bonus Crackers for completing missions. Earn 20,000 crackers total and, well, we'll all be very impressed at your tenacity.

If you haven't played To the Moon, the hit indie adventure game from Freebird Games, well, I just don't know what to say other than that you're missing out on one of the best stories you'll ever experience. The sequel is still a ways off, but A Bird Story may help make the wait a little shorter... a very little bit considering it's only about an hour long and billed as an "interactive narrative adventure", but when it comes to Freebird Games, every little bit is a treasure, and this is no different. Acting as a lead in to the upcoming sequel, A Bird Story tells its tale entirely without any words at all, and yet still manages to be funny and moving with ease as you follow the slightly surreal story of a lonely little boy who has more daydreams than friends. Most of your time is spent watching events unfold, but the game will prompt you whenever you have control to move around, which can be done with either the mouse or the [arrow] keys. When possible, subtle sparkles around objects will let you know you can interact with them.

If the protagonist of the Fancy Pants series were any cooler he'd be a Popsicle. He's so laid back he doesn't even wear a shirt! Just jumps, slides, and stomps his way through a silky smooth platform universe evoking the quirky cartoon adventure games of yesteryear. Brad Borne's latest installment, Fancy Pants Adventures: World 1 Remix, continues this laid back tradition, giving the whole first entry a big tongue-in-cheek redo that's as fun to play as it is difficult to say. Use the [arrow] keys to run, duck and roll, and the [s] key to jump, stomping on spiders and mice and booting them off screen. Fans of the first entry will find the terrain familiar, but Mr. Borne's tossed more than a few surprises into the Fancy stew that will keep you invested. The addition of time trials and a plethora of extras and unlockables just seals the deal. Fancy's back and fancier than ever!

Right, I know you came by to play more escape games, of which Wednesdays have become rather well known here at JIG, and I'm not going to argue with that—there's nothing I love more than a smattering of thinky puzzles and creative clue solving to bridge the week. I also happen to think more places should take on the escape-the-room genre for reals: supermarkets (want that can of beans? then best decipher the bar code first), airports (a genuine step up from the current maze of TSA screenings and bumped flights), and schools (each day, a new series of "puzzles" to solve before that classroom door is unlocked), just to name a few. Then, perhaps, the idea will catch on? Instead of campaigning, debates and elections, politicians will show their mental prowess by escaping a series of issues-themed rooms: first candidate to earn the door key shall be deemed the winner. Wars? Pfft. Escape games. It could work. Until that day, though, try this week's selections: life's a bowl of cherries in FunkyLand's newest fruit kitchen, Amakuchi Game debuts on Weekday Escape with a mariner's dream room, and Sneedle entertains with eerily supernatural occurrences...

You know what? Ghosts get a bad rap. Everyone always assumes they are just there to scare the daylights out of you. Well ghost have other things on their agenda than just coaxing a scream out of you. In fact, some of them just want to get on with their day. Your piercing shrieks are annoying to them, you selfish jerk. Why don't you think about them? Well, thankfully ghosts are a lot more considerate than us selfish living humans, but now we can extend our help to them and ease them into eternal darkness away from our off key shrieks. In this physics based game, Colorful Ghosts, by Ozdy (who brought us Vampire Physics) your goal is to avoid any humans at all cost and push, roll, and fling the ghosts off the screen so they can enjoy their peaceful afterlife and you can feel good for doing such an charitable service.

The title of Rock Lou's ambitious RPG The Awakening is pretty apt, since the game begins with our amnesiac hero jolting awake in alone in a strange forest with one heckuva headache. What are the odds he's got a big destiny, do you think? With a character customization so deep you can choose your level of squint (though bizarrely not your gender) and battle system that adds some twists to the turn-based formula, The Awakening is a huge and ambitious RPG that is sadly still unpredictably buggy, so a full review will have to wait, though it's clear a massive amount of love and talent has gone into its creation.

Play The Awakening

**11/13/2014: New version, NO ADS**

Maulidan's Fishtopia Tycoon is just so many neat things combined into one. It's a tycoon game! It's an upgrade game! It's an avoidance minigame! It's also a breakfast cereal, a new brand of smart phone, a hip cult religion, and we understand there's a book deal in the works. Alright maybe not, but what it is is a whole lot of fun! You plays as a protagonist with a potentially unhealthy fascination with fish who's not only the sole proprietor of Fish World, a gigantic fish-themed aquatic amusement park, he's also the sole fisherman responsible for going out fishing each day to keep the place supplied with fish. Tourists show up each day to admire the aquarium exhibits, and there are merchant stalls there just in case they'd like to take home a lovely memento of their visit in the form of, say, a live Brown Trout or Tilapia or something. Like ya do. While we're relieved this hasn't caught on yet with the major cartoon-themed amusement parks ("Live mouse and duck in a bag for your small child, sir?"), it's a great model for pet and grocery stores. Catch, breed and sell diverse species of fish and grow your very own tourist attraction!

Button, button, who's got the button? Well, if you ever want to escape from Tototo Room's Button Escape 26, it better be you! To find a way out, you first need to find and click on the eleven gray buttons hidden throughout the room, turning them into more cheerful smiley ones. There's no changing cursor, but this is a bite-sized escape anyway, provided you can figure out what one of the few items you'll actually pick up is supposed to be! If you like them short, sweet, and just a little weird, Button Escape 26 is the perfect pick-me-up.

Play Button Escape 26

From the beginning of time man has been obsessed with collecting small objects and using them to fight to gain more of them. In not so ancient times marbles were the cat's pajamas, then the dope pogs, to, uh what ever those kids think are "hip" today. Pokemon? ....Bayblades? ...er... My Little Ponies? The point is we as a people enjoy gathering up things, and then risking them all to fight someone else in order to gain more. That's the name of the game in Coin Crypt, a indie rogue-like roleplaying game brought to us by Dumb and Fat Games. (I promise that's their name, I'm not being mean.) Finding a mysterious island you set out to explore, whereupon you find peculiar coins and discover you're a Lootmaster and can bring out the power of the coins. Apparently being a Lootmatster isn't that rare as the island is full of others using the coins and they want yours. Collect, battle, and risk it all to unlock new heroes, please the coin Gods, and become the master of the island.

Once upon a time there was a crocodile. He was a very hungry crocodile. He was also a very greedy crocodile. He wanted to eat as much as he could, but he also wanted to collect as much treasure as he could. In the end, he decided to split the difference and eat as much treasure as he could. There probably isn't a moral to this fable, but suffice to say, the crocodile is waiting for you to join him. He's hungry, he's greedy, and his name is Chompy. Chompy is a puzzle platform game by Wolve about a rambunctious reptile that loves running, jumping, and coins, and not necessarily in that order.

In Elephant Games' hidden-object adventure Grim Tales: Color of Fright, you're on your way to your annual family reunion, trying not to let the dramatic, threatening note that sounds like it was penned by an enthusiastic World of Darkness LARPer get to you. When you arrive at your family's castle, however, you find your family missing and some seriously freaky mojo going on. See, turns out the family's adopted little brother Thomas has some serious baggage and some potentially unhealthy attachments to his adoptive sister Luisa, who he believes "abandoned" him when she fell in love and had a family with someone else. While this might make for a slightly awkward family reunion, add to that Thomas has discovered he has the ability to make his art come to life, even to create whole worlds inside his drawings, and thanks to some epic sense of entitlement, he's using it to take revenge on the family he feels has ignored him. You'll need to use your own unique sixth sense to track him down while solving puzzles and hidden-object scenes and looking for items, but also a unique paint-by-the-magical-symbols kit you probably won't find in your typical craft store that can help you create things that will come to life and aid you.

The final installment of season one of The Game Kitchen's popular point-and-click horror adventure series has finally been made available to everyone, and The Last Door Chapter 4 races towards its unthinkable conclusion. In Chapter One a letter from a childhood friend brought you to their seemingly abandoned estate, and Chapter Two sent you back to a place you barely remembered to search for answers you might wish you never learned, while Chapter Three continued down a dark path into the woods. Now, it seems as if our hero Devitt has finally caught up with someone who can give him answers, but at what cost? To play, just click to interact, and the changing cursor will represent the action you can try to take. Click the magnifying glass to use it to examine items you're carrying, or just click the item itself to ready it for use. You can also try to combine things you're carrying by first clicking on one item, and then another... they'll automatically merge if they're supposed to. Once you've already been through a door or other area transition, the next time you want to go through it, just double-click it and you can immediately skip to the next area instead of needing to wait for Devitt to walk there. Just make sure you have played the first three chapters before you play this, or nothing will make any sense!

Eyes in the back of your head? Pfft. Amateurs. Wandering Eyes' little green protagonist can make a whole new set of eyeballs pop up anywhere he pleases in the world, meaning he can have eyes just about wherever he likes. What do you say to THAT, huh? If you say, "Well gee, that sounds like a neat idea for a puzzle game," then Anton Antsiferov and Darya Gavrilova agreed. Now this ocular alien must find his way home, and, in that curious way of puzzle games, only his eyeball generation skills can save him! Control the alien with the [arrow] keys or [WASD], and click on anything that's not nailed down to possess it with your eponymous wandering eyes... wandering feet included free of charge. Walk crates on top of buttons instead of pushing them there, load cannons with ambulatory cannonballs, hitch rides on top of safes, and make your way to the sweet freedom of the teleporter! And beneath its cheery exterior, Wandering Eyes has enough wacky gimmicks and simple-but-sweet levels to please puzzlers of all ages.

The end of the world comes not with a bang, but with a hex-based strategy board game in Space Games' Zombie Tactics, where it turns out the local prison has been conducting illegal experiments on its population in pursuit of eternal life. Do you want zombies? Because that's how you get zombies. The game is turn-based, and each of your characters can move around the map and attack enemies or support one another. Actions, including movement, take stamina, which regenerates slowly each turn, or more significantly if you choose to have a character "rest" instead of act. Killing zombies nets you not only experience, granting you skill points for each character and their abilities when you level up, but cash that can be spent on buying new items or upgrading the ones you have. Items can be equipped by any character and can bestow bonuses like increased evasion or health, or even passive abilities. After a while, you'll have the option to send party members off to scavenge... they won't take part in the next battle, but they'll return after it with coins or items. Initially the only party members you'll have are the Hunter, the Lumberjack, and the Nurse, but more will come to join your group. Of course, the same is true for the zombie forces, so you can expect to fight stronger, more varied foes as the game goes on.

Just what is it about matching tiles that inspires game designers to develop combat games? Whether it's anything from the hugely successful Puzzle Quest series to unique (and must-play!) innovators like Overhaul to anything in between, people just can't stop looking at identical tiles without deciding that something needs to go. As you might imagine for a genre with so many games, only the unique and the innovators need apply. Frantic tile-matching and combat collide for the ultimate elimination tournament in Gildedguy's Slush Tile Rush! Our heroes have saved the world, but now? They just want to get home. Too bad standing in their way is a long line of bruising baddies and even meaner bosses, who apparently aren't that intimidated by your heroic deeds. Tiles for your party members appear to the left and right of your opponent, and it's up to you to click on a matched pair from each side to take out the tiles — and your opponents! They'll be filling the boards up with attacks of their own and if the boards fill completely, you've just lost the match!

Firebeast's latest title, Zombo Buster Rising, is a zombie game with a difference. First of all, it's cute as a button. No nasty gore at work here, just cutesy PG sprays of ketchup. But don't let that fool you, this game can get rough when it needs to. Unlike the original Zombo Buster with its fussing with elevators, this game is a straight up defensive shooter with a strong upgrades system and odds just shy of overwhelming. Aim and fire your little upgradeable pea shooter with the mouse, and use the [1], [2], and [3] keys to deploy other weapons like bombs and time stoppers. It all adds up to a survival experience that's at the peak of what browser games can offer. It's also pretty funny to boot.

Word up! And down! Also, left, right, through, over, under and in all manner of combinations. It's Onomastica 2, a platforming puzzle/whimsical interactive art piece by mif2000. Like the original Onomastica (a title that incidentally refers to "the branch of lexicology that studies the forms and origins of proper names") you control a little everydude awash in a world where words don't just mean things: they are things. TREES stand tall, CLOUDS float, TROLLS block your path, and OLD rocks crumble beneath you. Naturally, completing the journey will require quite a bit of word play, but players who are good at minding their words will certainly be up to the task.

What's the deal with Wednesdays? I mean, they come in, the middle of the week, and there they sit. Hump day, Wednesday. You heard about that before? You know the jokes. I think Wednesday is a little too proud, though: "Hey, look at me. I'm two whole days closer to Friday than Monday. Yippee!" Meanwhile, Friday's just sitting back at the end of the week, feeling pretty dang good about itself as well. And you know what? I bet every day wishes it was Friday. Well, it's not a lie if you believe it. What I like, though? I like any day I can eat soup and play some free online escape games. And so I'm telling you, that's what I like about today. Here we go with another one of FunkyLand's Alice series, and it's truly wonderlandastic if I do say so myself. Next, you got your standard Yomino Kagura fare just to keep things moving and, finally, a little tea with newcomer, Ponpoko to wind things down. Speaking of soup, did I ever tell you about the time...

Edmund McMillen and Niclais Inc's The Binding of Isaac is a weird game to talk about in mixed company. Released in 2011, it's a top-down indie action roguelike packed with literally hundreds of hours of play, secrets, unlockables, and more across its randomly generated dungeons, but it's also (and here's the kicker) about a boy (Isaac) whose religious mother hears the voice of God telling her to kill him, and so Isaac flees into the depths of a labyrinthine basement to escape her, all while battling monstrous deformed entities with his tears, wading through poop, using pills, and finding special items like The Belt, which makes you run faster for fear of a beating. If that made you pull back, even a little, it definitely isn't the game for you, but that hasn't stopped others from embracing it. It's gross, gory to the extreme, and players loved it for its brand of dark humour, piles of secrets and replay value on top of a brutal difficulty, and now it's time to go back to the basement once more with The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. It's not a sequel or an expansion. As the title implies, it's a complete overhaul of the original game (and the Wrath of Lamb expansion) that more than doubles all the content with tons of new enemies, items, surprises and more, on top of a graphical revamp and a new soundtrack.

In Carmel Games' point-and-click adventure Vortex Point 5: Monster Movie, the other members of Kevin's supernatural investigation agency are out of town, leaving him alone on Halloween night. With nothing better to do, he decides to hit up the local cinema, which is airing a very special old monster movie. To play, just click around to interact when the cursor glows red, and click items in your inventory at the bottom of the screen to highlight them for use. There's something strange about this movie, and Kevin will need your help to get to the bottom of it, but hey, it's Vortex Point. "Strange" is practically their middle name.

Play Vortex Point 5: Monster Movie

Elio Landa's puzzle game Sum Tracks is simple, beautiful, mellow, and all about math, which would normally make me scrunch up my face like someone just brought up politics at a party, but here it's surprisingly... fun? I know, I know... I'm scared and confused too. We'll hold hands. See, the goal here is to take the starting sums you're presented with, which are numbers in black boxes, and drag them across the rows of numbers until their value reaches zero. A black number can move across any adjacent number with a lower value, but numbers you've passed over vanish, so they can't be used more than once, and you have to zero out your total exactly... so if you had a sum of five, for instance, you couldn't move onto a six or higher. Since you're usually working with multiple sums and the game eventually introduces special coloured numbers that can be passed over several times, the game is trickier than it seems and requires a bit of planning besides. Thanks to the "undo last" button in the lower left corner, however, it never gets stressful.

Every play a video game for too long, then all night you have game related dreams? Yeah, we've all been there, but what if it wasn't a dream. What if the baddies really were out for revenge on your helpless sleeping body? Wouldn't you want someone to give you a hand? Help out the monstrous gamer of Bad Seed's Sleep Attack TD by destroying the enemies before they destroy you. Unlike something like Desktop Tower Defense where you make your own path with towers, Sleep Attack has set paths and predetermined spots for towers. There is a twist, however. Each playing field is laid out in concentric circles which can be rotated to change the paths the creeps take.

In Stefanie Hartung's point-and-click escape horror game Scare Dare - The House, you go merrily barreling past the limits of good judgement and straight into Well-What-Did-You-Expectsville when you decide to enter a house that's been abandoned for years after its owners (and several other people who tried to explore it) mysteriously vanished. Shockingly, the door slams shut and locks behind you, and now if you ever want to find a way out, you'll need to find out what happened to the previous owners, as well as a way to thwart whatever force is keeping you prisoner. To play, just click when the cursor changes to show you can interact, and click an item in your inventory to use it. Keep your eyes peeled for clues, but don't be surprised if the jump scares come looking for you...

This game received a rating of R for reference to child molestation, frequent swearing and racial slurs, and depictions of violence and dead bodies. Please avoid this game if you are sensitive to any of these topics.

A nighttime, sparsely lit cityscape. Rain pattering the asphalt roads. A dead, bloodied body. A mystery to solve. This is a set of tropes that many good noir titles have, so it should be no surprise that they're all included in Rival Games' mystery adventure indie title, The Detail - Episode 1: Where the Dead Lie. You control the destiny of this this dark point-and-click game as you follow both Detective Moore and former police informant, Joe Miller, as they discover who's behind the murder of a Ukrainian mobster. It won't be an easy task with higher ups breathing down your neck and trigger-happy gunslingers around every corner. But you know that you can do it... you have to do it. No one else will save this city from the evil spiral of drug dealing and human trafficking in which it is finding itself.

Just how cute is Adventure Islands' Heart Star? So cute, it gives kittens serious self-esteem issues. So cute, just looking at the title screen gives you your daily recommended amount of sugar. So cute, it automatically removes your ability to enunciate "L's" and "R's," thereby making this puzzle game a tale of two widdle fwiends from diffwent wowds who need youh hewp to... hold on, let me look away for a second. Ahem. These two interuniversal buddies need your help in order to reach the one place where they can be together... Or more accurately, they need your help to help each other! They each live in their own, pink-and-blue color-coded universe, with its own obstacles and hazards, but while neither can see nor feel objects from each other's world, they can still touch... each other. D'awww. Run and jump with the [arrow] keys, and when one character can't go any further, swap over with the [spacebar] to give your partner a helping hand! You can carry them across spikes, push buttons to open their path, or just offer up your head as a platform so that the two of you can get to where you need to go. Originally developed for Ludum Dare 30, designer Jussi Simpanen has taken his original concept and expanded it into a full, ludicrously charming puzzle platformer, with a plethora of tight puzzles to compliment its cupcake-sweet looks.

Need a little creepy surrealism in your day? Silver Stitch Games, maker of the beloved "Colour My" series, has your back. Samantha Wins is a story driven interactive art game. Made in a month, this shorter game features some mind bending areas as you play as a nameless, faceless, very confused individual trying to figure out who they are and what is happening. You search for answers while wandering around what appears to be a discombobulated house with about five to six rooms. With such a small space, you'll be surprised how many answers you can find, but each simple answer births another question and when you think you've got things figured out, Samantha Wins sheds a little more light to make you realize you're still in the dark.

A new collection of levels for Pipkin Games' Crazy Digger 2? That's balderdash! Or Boulder Dash, rather, since that's what this arcade puzzle game essentially is. But as they say, if you build a level editor, players will come... and essentially build an expansion pack for you if you let them. And let's be glad they have, because the Crazy Digger 2 Level Pack is sure to satiate all the red-circle-chomping, gem-dropping, saw-blade spinning cravings we've all been having. Or maybe that was just me.

If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I'd like to do... Time is precious, time is money, and in ninjadoodle's latest addition to the ClickPLAY series, time is once again how you keep score. Yes, ClickPLAY Time 5 is here to test your brainpower, reflexes, and problem solving abilities. As with all of the other ClickPLAY games, the object is to find the play triangle and, well, click it. Finding the little bugger can involve puzzle solving, wordplay, and amazingly cute little point-and-click scenes. Some stages are pretty easy, some less so, but it all combines to yet another wonderful little time waster with its bouncy soundtrack and cutesy visuals, a perfect little snack at any time of day. Don't waste time, clickPLAY!

Play ClickPLAY Time 5