Captain's Log: Stardate: 52120.13: The Vault Commander wishes to share some of the greatest space games from the JiG archives. As this is well within the parameters of our five year mission, this week in The Vault, we now present a few classic action, strategy, and physics titles. End transmission.

Such a friendly edition of Mobile Monday, this is. Everybody's our friend, especially those who deliver good games to us. We also seem to have a penchant for puzzle games, which are basically brain BFFs.

Play with a human head! Experience terror as a toddler! Accuse your friends of being murderers before they do the same to you! This week's Link Dump has a little something for everyone... especially if you're just a little bit weird.

This week's edition of The Vault is sponsored by... I forget the name. I think it was Opening Science or something like that. Anyways, today we're featuring a selection of Portalesque games. A Portalesque is a puzzle-platformer with a unique mechanic and a sadistic host. There'll be cake after the showcase, I promise!

Did somebody leave the front door open? Because there's a draft in here. Seriously, stand by the wall there. You feel it, don't you? Maybe just lean down a bit. More. Moooore. HA! Tricked you into reading mobile game news!

A fun and frantic indie restaurant sim gets a tasty free update. The bizarre and delightful webtoy that took the internet by storm gets a walkthrough. A zombie who's been struck by lightning wants your money for world domination. All this and more on Link Dump Friday!

What's a pirates favorite kind of onion? Arr, chives! And the pirates in our audience should be quite very happy, since this week's Vault has first-person omniscience, snarky lab guys, and multiplying plumbers pulled straight from the best of the JayIsGames archives!

The Noid hates high quality pizza mobile games. He loves to make your hot pizza ice cold. Read Mobile Monday if you want to avoid the Noid. And you really do want to avoid him.

Beware! An addictive tasty treat lies within this week's Link Dump Friday the likes of which you may never escape from! And with an upcoming update to one of the most beloved platformers on the site, as well as some literary gaming, there's more than enough to take up whatever free time sneaks away!

Get ready to be metagrobolized, lovers of ludo, by this week's collection of confounding complexities in the JayIsGames Vault. Whether you like your puzzles with sides of strategy, adventure, or luck, this selection from the archives is sure to satisfy!

More clones! And not the good kind, either. The kind that science gives us to be members of our band

This week's Link Dump Friday is super friendly! Make friends with a golem, fill your buddies full of arrows, and secretly conspire to pick your pals off one by one as a slavering space beast.

With the recent celebration of JayIsGames' 10th JIG-iversary, it seemed like just the time to go retro with a collection of classic remakes from the mid-aughties. Join us this week in The Vault for an arcade blast from the past!

Feeling a bit edgy today? Does reading Mobile Monday put you on the edge of your seat? Fancy a slice of pie made with the edge of a knife? Noticing a theme yet? Is it pushing you to the edge of your sanity? Or is this constant stream of edgy questions responsible for that?

Everyone here at JIG is thankful and grateful to our wonderful, supportive community for hanging with us and watching us grow over the past 10 years. Your comments, your feedback, and your visits have been our sustenance, our reason to keep doing what we love to do most: bringing you the very best games we can find on this planet we all call home.

Cute and not-so-cuddly woodland creatures possibly in great peril? Check. A toddler's overactive imagination late at night while his parents are asleep? Check. Endless replayability and exploration in the stars? Check, and then some!

Come on in to Crazy Tricky's Vault O' Items, for all the best deals on things to clutter your inventory! And, for just coming in today, you get, absolutely free, three excellent action, adventure, and arcade games from the JayIsGames archives! Why? Because we're cuh-raaazy!

Ghosts return in this edition of Mobile Monday! Real ghosts (well, virtual representations of real ghosts) plus ghost-like games we all thought were gone but have come back to haunt us. The good kind of haunting!

Words are great, and in this week's Link Dump Friday they're also magical! But if words aren't your thing (YOU MONSTER!) we also have steampunk clashing with magic, Terraria's long-awaited return to PC content, a not-so-serious RPG, and more!

We all have moments when we feel the need to escape, that's why the room escape genre is one of the most popular on the internet. That's why, in this week's Vault, we're featuring four clever escape games that contain all we love about escapes, including all the features that make being locked up in a strange room desperate to escape such an enjoyable pastime.

Really, all you need to know about this edition of Mobile Monday is that is contains both bears and beards. There might be some other stuff to look at, but it's totally overshadowed by the sheer awesomeness of those two nearly identical nouns.

There might be monsters and ghosts you won't be able to fight in this week's Link Dump Friday, but there are also heroic mice, mutated kittens, complex emotional AI, and a whole lot of action-packed adventuring to round it out.

This week, The Vault gets medieval, as we present excellent action, interactive fiction, and strategy titles from the JayIsGames archives. Awesome is coming!

Last weekend, our roving reporter, Steve, went to PAX East 2013 in Boston. He returned with over 50 interviews from the developers in The Indie Megabooth, as well as a chat with Extra Credits writer James Portnow.

No tricks in this Mobile Monday. Not a one. Just because it's that April 1st holiday thing doesn't mean we have to participate, right? We're still recovering from the massive influx of news from the two recent game-centric events. We've read all the news and carefully selected the most awesome bits to share with you. Because you're awesome. No tricks!

It's another super-sized edition of Link Dump Friday! Freeware horror hit Ib gets a massive new update with new content, a gripping console hit about family relationships comes to your PC, Double Fine's captivating new adventure that shattered Kickstarter records is revealed, and much more.

Come and check out the action, artistic, and arcade titles in BuildAHumbleIndieRoyaleGalaStarsInABox Bundle XVII. And, by that, we mean, the wonderful games from the JayIsGames archives in this week's Vault!

So many new games! It's like, why can't the future be here now? Or, why can't the games I'm bored with be not here while the exciting games I don't have be here? And why can't a normal day at the office be more like a video game?!

It's a super-sized Link Dump Friday because the news is out of control! We lead off this week with a hugely popular former XBLA exclusive heading for a PC release and the next game from Bastion's developers, but there's plenty of other things to get excited about too! NaNoRenO brings new visual novels, Jonas Kyratzes' latest Lands of Dream has what it needs to succeed, and more!

This week, we join new weekly columnist, Tricky, as we feature some wonderful puzzles, adventure, and action from the JayIsGames archives, in this week's Vault!

Geeky times call for geeky games, and this edition of Mobile Monday shows no shortage of said stylings. We've got a gorgeous point and click puzzle game, a math-driven roguelike, and a so-very-retro puzzle hybrid crossing from iOS to Android. We'd love to quote Maximus from that old gem of a film Gladiator about being entertained, but that'd be a bit expected, wouldn't it?

Horror, merit badges, and... rapping over one of the most beloved JRPGs of all time? Hmmm. Anywhere else, that wouldn't make any sense. But here, throw in a sale of a pack of celebrated indie point-and-click adventures, some crafting, and it's just another Link Dump Friday!

A snicker, a snigger, a giggle and a guffaw... some games are better than others at drawing them out of you, and for these three gems, that's the whole point! Performing a daring and reckless robbery, solve puzzles as a llama, and lead the quest to recover the Golden Walrus in this week's weird Vault!

Time to get some thieving in! And we're not just talking about games that feature thieving. It's also games being given away for free, which is sort of thievery. Not really, but it sounds a little more exciting when you think about it that way.

Normally if you snooze, you lose, but at least one of the games in this week's Link Dump Friday features a hero who sleeps his way to and through adventure! Tack on some zombies, a sequel to a celebrated indie RPG, the next chapter in a story about dreams and memories, and a little spiritual succession to one of the greatest RPGs of all time, and you have a recipe for success!

What's in an upgrade? Is it a clever way to make the player work for their power? Or an even cleverer way to make the player grind through your game? This week on the Vault, we take a look at three games that do upgrades right, from doing backflips on a bike in space, to chickens capable of rendering wolves unconscious with a headbutt.

Mobile games, assemble! Form of... other kind of mobile game! From HD updates to cross-platform shifts, there's no end to the migration mobile games can make. But, really, whatever. As long as we get the goods!

A houseful of genetically enhanced kittens. A dimensional-warping, child-stealing monstrosity. A tribe of Vikings to be lead to victory. And Wilson, who's still stuck thanks to that darn demon, and now we know why. Packed with the weird and wonderful, it's another Link Dump Friday!

Welcome! Ladle you some games from our extensive archives? How about a lovely 2005 from the Boxeau province? Or a vintage 2004 with an eloquent bouquet from Boxine? Try the 2010 box from Boxage because, well, just look at those legs!

Chewed -up gum and knobby knees are the dominant mental images one may experience while reading this edition of Mobile Monday. That, and the incessant repetition of Torgo's four second theme song running over and over again, never stopping, just looping. Forever.

One heck of a messed up family, voice command in SPAAAAAAAAAACE, masks and mayhem on your TV, and much more on this week's Link Dump Friday... including the beginning of a brand new chapter in the celebrated adventure series from Jonas Kyratzes.

What's better than games? Creating and sharing levels of your favourites to delight your friends... or confound them! A level editor is often one of the most overlooked and underappreciated addition to any game, and here are three of our favourites that let you muck around in the developer's sand box.

Here's a trend we wouldn't mind seeing proliferate: games releasing alongside reference guides. Sure, you see the word "reference" and automatically think "boring" and sure, it's not a good idea for every game to do this, but in the case of Year Walk, a game based on Swedish folklore, a companion release that features more detailed mythological information is an amazing idea. Now we're almost more exciting about the companion than the game itself!

There's good news, bad news, and one seriously impressive milestone in this week's Link Dump Friday. How can you go wrong with implacable horror, brawling ponies, sarcastic questing, and three sincerely awesome Kickstarter campaigns?

Randomly searching around on the internet isn't always a good idea since you can find some horrifying things, but randomly searching through our archives is ALWAYS a good idea since you can find some awesome things!... some of which are also horrifying! Here are three games from our archives chosen at random with little in common beyond simple greatness.

Tantalizing secrets are before you! What do you do? A: Take the secrets. B: Tantalize the secrets back. C: See if the secrets secrete anything. D: Some of the above. Make your choice by closing your eyes and imagining with all your might!

February is here, when a young gamer's fancy turns to thoughts of... still more games. What, you thought it was gonna be somethin' about smoochin'? Gross! Why swap spit when you can get ready to play more Kingdom Rush, turn on all the lights in preparation for Slenderman, and more!

What's rad? Puzzles! Also British inventor enthusiasts and beleaguered dogs. And snarky, sadistic anagrams. And blobby heroes who can grow and shrink at a command. All those things are great, which is why this week's Vault focuses on puzzles with twists.

You know you're in for a good week when a Magicka is announced for a mobile system! Maybe the new game will shed some more light on that whole Vlad-vampire mystery? Like, seriously, who would ever think he's a vampire? Ever?

There're horrifying things in this week's Link Dump Friday! But if that's not your thing, there's also more surreal pigeon romance for everybirdie, dwarven legacies, addictive co-op building, and much, much more... to say nothing of the results of the voting for our Best of 2012!

Each year our "Best of" the year awards keep getting bigger and better with more votes cast as our audience grows in size along with our appetite for better gameplay experiences, and 2012 was an excellent year for excellent games! Just take a look at all the creative wonders that have earned the title of "Best of 2012" and see for yourself!

Jumping and sword-swinging are small-time mechanics. Warping the lay of the land or the very reality around you? Now we're talking! Here are three very different games that let you control the world around you in some seriously cool and unexpected ways.

Do you ever stare at your iPhone or Android phone and just ask it what the heck it thinks it's doing? Sitting there, sucking power out of the battery, awaiting your commands like some sort of obedient machine. And then, when you're playing a game and suddenly fail, why it made you do that? Because you totally had the skills to pull that jump off, it was your phone's fault you missed it. Your phone's fault...

I don't know about you, but I like to kick off my weekends with creepy cosplay, Metroidvania adventure, and science. Luckily, this week's Link Dump Friday has all three! From a commercial re-imagining and overhaul of the 2011 indie game of the year to a musical celebration of deadly technology, this week has something for everyone.

What's in a shooter? A bullet by any other game is just the same... right? Wrong! This week on the Vault, we look at three games that turn the genre you think you know upside down, from multiplayer madness set in a blink-and-you're-dead fantasy world, to hilariously entertaining zombie destructive physics environments, and even a visual novel/horizontal shooter hybrid that will keep you involved for hours and hours...

The deadline looms for casting your votes for the best games of 2012! Vote once each day, every day, to choose your favourite games in every category, and then make sure to cast one single vote per day for the game you feel is the single best game of 2012, period. But act fast, since the voting closes January 23rd!

Who doesn't like a good animal hybrid? Especially that of the impossible type! One day in the distant past, mankind looked at centaurs with a sort of mystified awe. And today we gaze upon the Goaticorn and wonder "Can I get one of those IRL pls?"

This week on Link Dump Friday, we set sail for IndieGoGo where we discover two very intriguing projects... one a sequel to a 2008 indie RPG, and another a fur-filled horror puzzle adventure set in deep space. As a bonus, an absurdly addictive iOS hit comes to your PC, the Dustforce devs cook up something new, and Slender Man is right behind you.

What freaks you out? Blood and guts? Mystery? Ambiguity? This week's Vault looks at three games that have sparked some of the best debate about what makes something unsettling, and highlights how very different that can be from person to person.

Quick! Think of your favorite mobile game! Now think about it ported to another system! Now pretend the impossible happened and something like Portal was ported to a graphing calculator. How funny would that— oh it totally happened, didn't it? Good for you, science!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... wait, wait no. It's totally just the best of times, because it's time for the Best of 2012! Tell you what, if Charles Dickens had had all the awesome games that came out this past year, his work would have been a darned sight cheerier. After all, how can you not be excited when you have games about uncoordinated unicorns, random fire hazards in space, stories as currency, ponies with a passion for dental hygeine, and kitties that force you to confront the harsh inevitability of death?

We always try to feature only games we think you'll love, but sometimes a game surprises even us by how much you want to love it and pet it and call it George. Here are three games that were unexpected hits, varying from naked tricycling to simply sweet interactive art.

It's backwards day on Mobile Monday! Instead of telling you about portable gaming's goings on, we're going to analyze historical examples of decidedly non-portable games. Did you know that Stonehenge is actually a massive in-progress game of tic-tac-toe? Or that the pyramids are the only remaining pieces of a game of chess? Your move, gargantuan space aliens.

Coming up in 2013. A game with a hat the Doctor would approve of, and monstrous time-traveling mayhem... that the Doctor probably would NOT approve of, but he's not here right now, is he? Also: Hotline Miami gets evidence as to why it could never have been a text adventure, and an effortlessly addictive free casual roguelike gets an update.

Beep! The year is now 2013, so by now you have all been assimilated into robots. But don't be sad! Anticipating this, we've written this week's Vault as a series of robot-themed games to gently lower you into your new life as a cold, unfeeling mechanical monster. Hooray!

Well, so much for 2012. Did you join the gym like you promised yourself you'd do? Finish that novel you were working on? Paint the house? Be nicer to strangers? Stop watching Jersey Shore reruns? If so, you're going to have to get creative for your new-new year's resolutions. Modest suggestion: play more good games?

2012 is wrapping up, but don't put it away in the attic just yet! Big Fish Games is celebrating with their Customer Favorites Awards sale, over 60 games chosen by customer votes to satisfy your taste for great games... on a budget! From now until January 3rd, enter code WINNER at checkout for any one (or more!) of these great games to get it for $4.99USD (excluding Collector's Editions.)

Giveaways? You bet! Aim for a chance at one of ten free copies of the latest indie adventure from beloved developer Nifflas... provided the latest trailer for Slender: The Arrival doesn't have you hiding under your desk.

Happy Holidays from the Vault! As it swings open this Christmas day, we take a look at four different wintry and seasonal games that range from Christmas-heavy to Santa-lite for anyone to enjoy, regardless of what you are or aren't celebrating!

Hey! You did it! You survived the fabled Mayan-predicted apocalypse! How was it? Pretty ordinary, eh? Yeah, us too. Oh well. As long as we're still here, might as well keep playing games until the next apocalypse skates by.

Sell your soul, take a pig on an adventure, get lost with Knytt, or just make a pixel portrait in this week's Link Dump Friday! With some free DLC and some intriguing new Kickstarter projects, we've got you covered... unless the world has already ended and we don't exist anymore. In which case, you get NOTHING.

What's better than seeing something chilly while you're all warm and safe? This week's Vault features two games with frosty themes, from a platforming adventure to a classic maze arcade game, and one that will make you feel all warm and toasty inside as you bring colour and seasonal cheer back to a bleak world.

It's always fun when developers play nice with different mobile platforms, isn't it? This week, we've got several well-known games crossing over from one app store to another, spreading joy and cheer and other such happy words to all!

Who needs the end of the world when you can stave off the apocalypse with more news and games on Link Dump Friday? This week; a crash course in basic game law, an HD version of one of the most popular point-and-click adventure games, Slenderman strikes a pose in a series of screenshots for the new upcoming commercial game, and more.

Sometimes you just want a li'l smash and a li'l crash! This week we've got you covered for whatever you need to get your blood pumping and ready to make you tackle Robocop or the Hulk and come out on top! Zombies, werewolves, gladiators... awwwww yeah!

A pocket-sized family, one of the world's most ambitious RPGs stuffed into a smaller package, and a remade Final Fantasy game worming its way into the mobile market. It's all kind of amazing until you realize we're living in the super-futuristic year of 2012!

This week's Link Dump Friday is so full of things they're busting out all over the place! From spooky orphanages to a marshmallow swamp, from creeping horror in England to making friends in Ponyville, and one sweet deal for any fan of indie games to boot. Awwwww yeah.

Does the thought of a strategy game put you to sleep? It shouldn't! As this week's Vault proves, you can provide complexity and challenge without being put through a year-long training course! Here are three games that will have you thinking out your plan of attack, each with their own style and genre.

So much cute! Bunnies and adorable adventurers! Pyramids that somehow look cute even though they're made of sun-baked sandstone! And news of a new Kairosoft release! Could life get any better? Oh, my chocolate pizza delivery has arrived!

The season is getting colder, stores are packed full of twinkling lights and mistletoe, and a young gamer's mind turns to thoughts of... mass murder and infanticide. Of course. But don't worry! Even if you're not into the icky-sticky, this week's Link Dump Friday delivers genre bending (and blending!), games with friends, and much more... including one gamer's heartfelt personal experiences with life and death that may make you cry.

What's in an RPG? As games continue to evolve and change concepts, that's changed significantly. Some of them might merely incorporate "RPG elements", while others rely on providing a story-lite, but in depth combat-oriented adventure, and still more offer up classic JRPG style with a twist. Here are three games who all serve up RPG gameplay, of sorts, in vastly different styles and ways.

This week's edition of Mobile Monday is like a soap opera! What we mean is Mobile Monday's long lost identical twin recently came to town and tried to seduce Mobile Monday's husband. What happened? You'll have to wait for the next episode! Gasp and shock and awe!

A message from somewhere out of this world, a dungeon you can blast and smash your way through with up to three more buddies, the epic conclusion to a massive open-world RPG indie trilogy... hope you're not too burnt out from Thanksgiving/Black Friday/saving children from burning orphanages for this week's Link Dump!

Thinking compelling, memorable stories can't be found in browser games is a mistake, and on this week's Vault we look at three games that take very different approaches to delivering their narrative. From a near-wordless space platforming adventure, to a shooter taking place inside an AI, and a point-and-click adventure about a girl who deals in unusual currency.

Hey there. How would you like a mobile game based on Game of Thrones? Well, you might just get it! Or you might not, it all depends on how far off the rumor mill is turning. As long as there's a mini-game centered around dropping dung on Joffrey, we'll consider it a success.

Skulls in jars, world-shattering basketball, sullen robotic heroes... yep, it must be Friday! There are tasty things afoot this week, from hotdogs to hostile alien environments. What more could you possibly want? I mean, aside from robot hounds with bees in their mouths, and when they bark they shoot bees at intruders. Otherwise, we've got you covered.

Innovation? It doesn't have to be as elaborate as you think! The three games starring in this week's Vault prove all you need is a talented developer to get every drop of cleverness and entertainment out of simple, familiar gameplay concepts and make something as engrossing and entertaining as a fancier title.

Beginning your weekly journey to continued financial/scholastic success, might we suggest you take a peek at what games are currently brewing for your future enjoyment? Or perhaps have already been brewed for your present enjoyment? They've got nothing to do with actual brewing, just space and wooden blocks and stuff, which is better.

Love, Hate, puzzles and more make up this week's Link Dump Friday! It also features a very talented little girl, robots with weaponry and a taste for your blood, and a fan-made HD remake of a classic adventure game's intro sequence that's truly... out of this world!

The outlook isn't good on the JayIsGames Arcade Megaplex Startkicker campaign. So far, we've only received $7.50 in pledges, and I think that may have been by accident. Oh well, at least there's all the wonderful games in the archives to console me. Today in the Vault, we have a bit of cryptically challenging wordplay, a demonically delicious piece of platforming, and some super sliding Sokoban ripe for the solving.

Hello, and welcome to Monday! How was your weekend? The usual? Yeah, we know that feel, bro/sis. How about a little mobile news to take your mind off the fact that it isn't the weekend anymore? Escape games? Running games? Yes? Yes!

Kickstarter has done wonder for games, but what about consoles? Well, there's at least one that looks to be a budding success! Ouya developments, a new teaser trailer for the sequel to Amnesia: The Dark descent, and more on your one and only Link Dump Friday.

Like your games to be super scary? Or just a little spooky? Whatever your tastes, this week's supersized edition of the Vault has something for you as we feature some of our favourite Halloween-y games from years past, from puzzles to point-and-clicks!

Slippery slopes and gyroscopes! Diary pages and dinosaurs on rages! More of our collectively beloved games from various platforms are making their way to the mobile scene, and we're as pleased as unlimited data plans (remember those?) to have them aboard!

There's a lot happening in this week's Link Dump Friday, from a new adorable (but disturbing) project from the mind of Team Meat, to robotic babes, to making interactive fiction easier and more accessible to make and play. And don't blink. Whatever you do, don't blink.

Now that our most recent Casual Gameplay Design Competition has come to a close, maybe you're wondering which of the other games from past competitions you should delve into next. There are a lot of wonderful creations that began their life as CGDC entries, and here are three selections to bring out your imaginative, exploratory talents with three very different methods of gameplay.

Here's something to mull over as your workweek begins: Don't Look Back, a free mobile release from Terry Cavanagh, does exactly what its name forbids by being a port of a 2009 browser game. Granny Smith is both a granny and a member of the Smith family, whereas Star Command actually lets you command stars—wait, it's a starship commanding game? Oh. Well. Then. Nevermind!

Space pirates and visual novels... multiplayer arcade revival of a much-loved mining classic... dungeon-delving ducks with magical ladders... there's a lot of weirdness to be found in this week's Link Dump Friday, but we wouldn't have it any other way!

Halloween is galloping towards us, so it's time to enjoy some deliciously creepy gaming treats, ranging from "eh" to "OH NOES" on the scale of fear. A macabre toy story, an up close and visceral medical simulation, and a horrifyingly tense game of cat-and-mouse will be just the ticket to get you ready for the season. Pleasant dreams.

Courtroom news? How dare we include something as boring as legal stuff! Don't worry, though, because it's happy law news, not sleep-inducing law jargon. And it'll make you happy, too!