Fast food, vampires, and fatally bad poetry round out this week's edition of the Vault, where we peer into some of the older gems of the last decade. Featuring arcade action, challenging simulations of business management, and one of the most fiendish interactive fiction puzzles ever, it's a meaty feast of nostalgia.

Hey there, logic puzzle fans who own an Android phone. If words like picross, Link-a-Pix, and hashi get your cortex humming, we've got a few presents for you!

Futuristic things abound in this edition of Weekend Download! One game explicitly states it takes place in the future, while the other two you pretty much just assume they do, as squares/circles aren't self-aware enough to hate each other in the present, and flamethrower technology has some decades to go before it matches Fire with a Riot.

Link Dump Friday brings you zombies, tentacles, coins, sweet tricks, and more to get your the gaming fix you need to start your weekend off right.

For a while now, we've been doing these Babylon Sticks Caption Contests as some of our You Are Games escapades. We've done seven of these contests so far, and we've had seven winners, out of over seven hundred comments. With the proper focus and concentration on the goal, the winning caption may very well come to you.

The front of the Othello box promises that it takes "a minute to learn... a lifetime to master". Now, admittedly I've never been all that interested in spending my lifetime becoming a reversi-master (especially if Settlers of Cataan is nearby), but I think the phrasing is something that resonates with us as gamers. This week in the JayIsGames Vault, we take a peek a trio of games: puzzle, word, and platform, where the complexity hides just below the surface.

These games are just too cute. And when I say "too cute", I seriously mean they contain more cuteness than should be allowed. Round pandas munching on bamboo? With sound effects?! Pixel dudes hopping over cliffs? Moo cows floating on buttery clouds? SOMEBODY MAKE THE CUTENESS STOP!!! (Or, not.)

It's time to make with the games! Or, to play the games that have been made for playing! Several fun little diversions below, and if you ignore hyphens (which, let's face it, we all do), each one has a one-word title. Isn't that... neat?

The weekend's almost here... so we should play some games... the weekend's almost here, I think I'll play some games now! That's right, lambs and rams, it's time for another installment of Link Dump Friday, this time featuring adventure, platforming, puzzles, beauty, and exploding rabbits. Enjoy!

This week, at the JayIsGames Vault, we have three masterpieces from the past: an other-worldly point-and-click classic, a horror shooter that won't stay down, and a tasty bowl of primordial soup.

A recent spat of long travel times allowed us to dig deep into the Android Marketplace and uncover a handful of really great games. The first of our findings are presented below for your gaming pleasure! Don't leave home without stocking your phone with awesomeness!

This edition of Weekend Download wants to look back to previous editions for inspiration. Problem is, can you really trust your hindsight? After Weekend Download played Hindsight, Weekend Download is not so sure! *bites nails*

Instead of games, this week's Link Dump Friday has a four-hour power-point presentation on fossil fuels, and a mandatory six page quiz after. Seriously. I wouldn't even bother clicking through if I were you. But then, I'm just arbitrary blurb flavour text. What do I know?

This week's Vault is for people who don't like fast-paced gameplay, but still appreciate the finer things in life. Which is to say... really super awesome stupendous games. Here are three titles you can relax, sit back, and play at your own pace while still enjoying a challenge and some of the best work to come out of the Flash development community.

You're travelling through another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. And touch screens. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. And the edge of your iPhone. That's the signpost up ahead. Your next stop: Mobile Monday.

From life sims to indie music to painfully difficult 3D games, we've got your weekend in gaming covered! Covered like your morning piece of toast! Covered like the wagon you rode in to reach Oregon! Covered like... something else that's covered!

Ready to do some riddle solving for a chance to win SpaceChem, the hyper-challenging logic puzzle game created by Zachtronics Industries? Of course you are! We've got ten copies to give away to ten random people who can solve our riddle.

Good morning, internets, and welcome to your weekly serving of Link Dump Friday! Today we bring you goats (chilled, not broiled), lonely space guys, explosive fruit, and more. If that all sounds strange to you, then you're clearly not doin' it right! Sit back, relax, and start your weekend off right.

Graeme has been busy the last few months revamping his Lazylaces site and I'm pleased to announce that it's now back online and better than ever! Everyone here at Jayisgames wishes Lazylaces the best and we recommend that you stop by for a visit to see more point-and-clicks and escape games than you ever knew existed.

This week's Vault tickles your brain with three different types of puzzles, ranging from a deviously simple-in-concept brain teaser to a set of surrealist explorations through one very jazzy (and inky) landscape.

A definite "physics" theme for this edition of Weekend Download, featuring two games that bank their entire existence on force, momentum, gravity, friction, and all that sciencey stuff. Do they have what it takes to impress you, master of real world physics? Find out below!

There are a lot of things we could do without, and this week's Link Dump Friday highlights some of the ways your life could be improved, such as through the judicious application of dynamite, unsafe playground behaviour, hard surfaces, and more. See, we're always looking out for you.

This week on our semi-irregular You Are Games feature, we ask you to think back to an era centuries ago. It was a time when castles were all the rage and checkerboard designs started popping up on every tapestry and tabletop. If you've got a quirky quip that works well with the Babylon Sticks comic below, post it as a comment. We'll select one as the caption for next week's feature, and we'll award a nice prize along with it.

It's been a long time since my village was destroyed. Since then, I've been on a journey that's spanned the world-map, searching for the six Medallions of Power. Now, as I place the final medallion, the Medallion of Light, I hold my breath as the stone gate slides opens... To reveal another edition of the JayIsGames Vault! Today we have a point-and-click puzzler to treasure, a pixel space shooter that's the alpha and omega, and a retro roadtrip to the coast you'll be sure to enjoy... providing you can ford the river.

Are you ready to be impressed? Some seriously good looking games have recently been released for Android phones, pushing the limits of what the mobile devices can accomplish, and threatening to scrape the upper limits of your data plan cap. If you can afford the price of entry, however, you can enjoy a near-console-quality game in the palms of your hands, making your phone so much more than a way to talk to grandma every Sunday.

Hello there, weekend gamer! Tired of the rest of the week sapping time that could be spent playing games? We know how you feel! Make the most of your weekend by playing a few free games. They won't demand your entire afternoon, leaving you free to kick back and play even more games!!!

Wipe the sleep from your eyes, most cherished reader, it's time for Link Dump Friday, and games wait for no man! Jump start your brain with physics puzzles, point-and-clicks, big angry mechs, and more to help you prepare to hurdle the last obstacle to your weekend.

Wow. We covered so many games in 2010 that our Best of the Year awards turned out to be the largest feature we've ever compiled. 29 categories, hundreds of games and thousands of votes have produced the results that are now up online.

After some incessant needling and the exchange of certain bits of valuable information, I finally got my hands on the combination to the JayIsGames vault. Let me tell you, taking the grand tour is quite an experience: you'll find all manner of slightly-dusty but still excellent casual games. Today we'll be looking at a point-and-click advergame that puts others to shame, an adorable shockwave action game that will be sure to throw you for a loop, and an artistic webtoy that you might find a little sketchy

Pop quiz: what did you have for breakfast today? Was it a bit of asteroids with a size of Puzzle Quest? Probably not, since most humans need cereal and waffles and stuff to survive. But, next time you wake up, you can supplement, you know?

Time to invent a new word! Or, phrase, rather. Ready? "Platform Adventure Paloozathonvania"! You like? Hope so. It took hours of intense research to come up with that particular combination of letters, not to mention the trademark hoops we had to jump through to print it. But now it's there, and it describes the bulk of this week's downloadable games quite accurately.

Link Dump Friday wants to tug at your heartstrings with a tender tale of motherly love... and then RRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIP them out and devour them after the end of the world!... wait, no, sorry, don't know where that came from. We would never do that to you! We'd rescue you from the aliens, after all, and then we'd BLAST YOU TO SMITHEREENS WITH OUR AWESOME LAZORZ!... okay, fine, how do you show affection, smartypants?

Take a look at the cartoon to the right. Do any funny quips or bits of dialogue spring to mind as you view this unfinished comic? We want you to send them to us! Post your caption ideas as a comment, and yours could get picked to be the caption in the final version of the comic! Prizes and glory will soon follow.

The Vault is seemingly endless, which is awesome! It means there are soooo many fabulous games to revisit. It's like Washington's Library of Congress in here, only funner. And unlike Grandma's photo albums crammed full of awkward family photos, there are no cringe moments when you revisit some old time Flash games. So let's pull up our ergonomic computer chairs, grab our Manually-Operated User-Selection Equipments and enjoy an interactive look at this week's Vault offerings.

Hey there Android gamers! Miss me? Well fear no more, as I, the Android Game Finding Android have returned with more games for the mobile scene! The Marketplace has enjoyed a healthy surge of content in the last month or so, and I have poked and prodded my robotic nose through those releases to find the best of the best so I can share them with you. Now, since I'm sharing something, will you share that ice cream sandwich with me?

Baby barbarians, guns with serious kickback, and a little guy who can travel between dimensions as easily as we eat pancakes. That can only mean one thing: somebody switched out my Flintstone vitamins with an off-brand replacement!!!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING JAY IS GAAAAAAAAAAMES! Robin Williams would agree; start your day off with a smile, and things will always look better. This week's assemblage of Link Dump Friday gems covers everything from a magical housefly to a genie with encyclopedic knowledge to tiny, tiny bullets.

What do we love? Stories, addictive simple gameplay, and... milk? Hm! The Vault caters to all kinds of tastes, and this week features a look at one of the simplest but most addictive stacking games around, a remarkably fun and silly board game designed to promote bone strength, and a point-and-click adventure originally conceived as a class project.

Another year has come and gone, and while you might be ready for 2011 to rock you like a hurricane, let's not forget the past so soon. We happen to think 2010 deserves a bit more than a parting affectionate fist-bump or an awkward promise to keep in touch. That's right, dear reader; it's time for the Best of 2010, where you and others like you with a passion for games, creativity, innovation, and fun come together to vote for the best of the best in every category.

It's... time! Time to sell bits and pieces of your time in exchange for blissful entertainment! Time to fill boring train rides, long queues at the post office, and somber evenings when you're supposed to be doing homework with... games! And we've got three games that are what we like to call "fun". Go on, give 'em a try!

Another weekend, another round of games! This edition features an accidental theme of retro-style games. Oops! Hope you're not mad at Weekend Download. Because if you are, you only get one hug from Weekend Download instead of two.

It's time for another installment of Link Dump Friday! Surely you know the drill. You don't need me. I'll leave you to your bouncy robots, your ancient temples, your ghost-on-a-leash, and your unsafe levels of electricity. I'm just gonna... lie down here for a sec... and rest my eyes... whoooo, what a week!

So, how do you feel about philanthropic coding? What about benevolent browser game creation?! Stanford University's annual Hackathon is a 24 hour event that encourages programmers to create non-profit software projects in less than a day. This year, in conjunction with that marathon, the university is holding a three week long Flash Game Competition, complete with prizes!

What-what in the Vault? This week we crack open the archives to peer blearily into the past at the very beginning of one of the simplest but best escape series around, take a peek inside the cranium of one very strange webtoy, and rip things up jmtb02 style with one seriously flashy shooter.

There's a lot of crazy stuff to play in this edition of Mobile Monday. Seriously, if you're in a bad mood, or if you haven't smiled yet today, you probably shouldn't even read about these games. 'Cause they're wacky.

Demakes are the new remakes, and remakes used to be the new... makes? Whatever. Anyway, as gamers, we're eating up these indie projects that come along and remake our favorite games as if they existed on older hardware. Something about those blocky pixels and simplified music makes the blood flow.

Link Dump Friday has been canceled, strangely enough, but there are still some things you can do to amuse yourself. Like press the spacebar, race a llama, knock over some blocks, or contort yourself into painful positions to avoid an even more painful end, to name just a few. No matter what you think, this Link Dump Friday is NOT Link Dump Friday. It's Link Dump Friday. Geez, get it right!

Now, feast your eyes on the giant comic for you to caption. (Giant. Geddit?) What's the funniest punchline you can come up with to go along with the picture? Let us know! Post your caption ideas in the comments box below, it just could be featured in next week's Babylon Sticks, and you'll receive a nice prize for your troubles!

The Vault takes a stop in 2007 and reminds you of the splendors to be found within The Tall Stump, the brainbending puzzles awaiting in 3D Logic 2, and the simple colourful joy that Seed offers. It's some of Dora's personal picks, and just the tip of the iceberg in a year of pure, undiluted awesomeness.

Ever had the feeling an app was following you? Like, if you go to make a cup of tea late at night, it's sitting there on the counter. Or if you make a blanket fort, it's there, pretending it did half the work. One of the apps below will follow you. Be careful.

So many games about cities, so little time! Whether you want a city that can't decide whether it's light or dark outside, a city that's infested with bugs, a city made out of colorful polygons, or, um, a city that's... not a city at all with blocks that change color... you're pretty much covered for the weekend!

Contest time! Nifflas' new game, NightSky, is out, and we're celebrating by giving away ten bundles of the game + soundtrack! NightSky combines a bit of puzzle solving, a bit of platforming, and a lot of physics. You control an orb that has a few special powers that helps it traverse the dark yet beautiful landscape. Enter to win a free copy!

The standard edition of Mystery Case Files: 13th Skull is out, so to celebrate, we're giving away copies of the game all weekend long! All you have to do is solve our little hidden object puzzle. Think you can manage it?

This week your one and only Link Dump Friday serves up a tasty portion of ravenous sharks, sleep deprived bears, baseball bats, geeks, and everything else you need for a well balanced weekend. Well, apart from food, water, shelter, and direct social and emotional contact. But hey, forget about that. GAMES!

I ventured down to The Vault last night to see what I could dig up from the dusty old shelves down there, and I'm sure you're going to like what I found! Although these games haven't been in the limelight for quite some time now, they're still classics as far as browser games go and everyone should enjoy them at least a couple dozen times! Featured below is a room escape, an arcade game and one of the first physics puzzle browser games I ever played.

Wowee wow wow! It's a new year! Erm... now what? Isn't something supposed to happen now? Lightning bolts? Umm... cake? How about some nice puzzle games? Ok, that's cool, we'll do that!

Here is our massive walkthrough guide for Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers! Everything you need to get through the game is here, including a lot of spoilers, so proceed at your own risk.

It's the first Weekend Download of the new year! We should celebrate or something, shouldn't we? How about with showers of gold, rainbows and candy? Mmm, tempting, but difficult. Our airship is in the shop. What about with a bunch of games that celebrate retro gaming mechanics?! Perfect!

We've finally made it to the final day of the Humble Indie Scramble! Over the past week we've given away several Humble Indie Bundles to competitors who have the wits to unscramble a medley of anagrammed game titles and the good fortune to win a random drawing.We've promised some tricky twists for the big finale, and today, we're ready to deliver.

On this last Friday (and Link Dump Friday!) of 2010, take the time to indulge in a little pygmy love before the new year. Or maybe you prefer hurling yourself onto spikes? Flipping dimensions and/or gravity? Or maybe you prefer things a little more contemplative? One of these games is not like the others.

After nearly a week of giving away Humble Indie Bundles, we're finally starting to wind down the contest. We'll post the grand finale puzzle tomorrow, and we promise it will be significantly bigger than anything else significantly smaller than it. In the meantime, we've got another puzzle for you today.

If you've been playing along with the Humble Indie Scramble so far this week, you're probably familiar with the drill by now. Split one anagram with three game titles, enter for a shot at a Humble Indie Bundle, which are no longer available so your best chance at getting one is with us. But from here on in, expect some twists.

The second installment of the Humble Indie Bundle might not be available on the Internet's store shelves anymore, but we're still looking to give away a few more copies! If you want a shot at a shiny new Bundle, all you have to do is split the muddled-up anagram into three titles of games we've featured in the past and send in your response. We've had three winners so far this week, and you could be the next!

The holidays may be over, but that doesn't mean it's time to stop playing with toys. This week's edition of The Vault features some of the best webtoys you'll find, touching on artistic expression, creativity, and even just plain ol' jaw-dropping surreality.

Want to win a Humble Indie Bundle on our tab? While the bundles are no longer available, we managed to scarf up a few before the deadline and now giving you the opportunity to win one. And we've got a puzzle with your name on it. That is, of course, if your name happens to be Scramble.

Are you one of the estimated 6 million new iPad owners this holiday season? Or was it just new socks and a cheesy sweater this year? We've been keeping up with the gaming scene on Apple's really big touch screen device, and we're pleased to report there are several great reasons to part with some cash in exchange for a great gaming experience.

Day two of our mixed up Humble Indie Bundle giveaway has arrived. We've got a new puzzle for you to tackle today. Remember, your goal is to find the three game titles muddled up in the anagram that correspond to the clues. Think you know the answer? Send the three game titles to us and you could win a santa's pack chock full of great games.

How would you like a chance to get your hands on the Humble Indie Bundle for free? As luck would have it, we've got a few copies we'd like to give away. As misfortune would have it, there's a wicked little puzzle standing in the way. (Don't worry, it's a fun one though.)

Roguelikes seem to be a lost love amongst most modern gamers. "Give me simplicity!" they cry, "Give me pretty pictures!", "Let me play without reading a manual or memorizing commands!". Well, while they sit in the corner and play FarmVille, we'll settle down with our deliciously intriguing dungeon crawling RPGs of yore. Even though the glory days of Nethack are gone, the roguelike is alive and very well today, and there are a number of great projects that aim to bridge the gap between fans and non-fans so that everyone can enjoy the deep satisfaction of exploring the unknown.

A special edition of our weekly Link Dump Friday feature has become a bit of a tradition here at JIG, a seasonal gift to our readers chock full of puzzles, escapes, platformers, more escapes, new games and old to bring joy to your holidays. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good browser game!

Take a gander at the festive Babylon Sticks comic created by our resident toonmeister, James Francis. Can you come up with a party-worthy punchline to fit the scene? If you think you've got one, post a comment below and you could win an Humble Indie Bundle!

Selections from The Vault for this week are 3 of my all-time favorite games, and I'm thrilled to be able to share them with you again. All three of these gems have long-lasting appeal: a puzzling platformer, a short yet challenging point-and-click adventure, and a remarkably futuristic turn-based strategy game. Individually, each of these games represents a tremendous achievement in browser-based casual gameplay and if you've never played them before, you're in for a real treat.

We've teamed up with Berzerk Studios to offer you a chance to be a part of Berzerk Ball, the follow-up to the Homerun in Berzerk Land! Not only that, you can win one of four iTunes Gift Cards, each worth $25! Continue reading for more details...

The winners of our Bejeweled 3 netbook giveaway!

A truly epic Mobile Monday this week, as we've got some huge iPhone game releases along with the results of our drawing last week! The name "Myst" will perk anyone's eyes up, and recently that game's sequel, Riven, was released on the mobile platform. And it's excellent! Combine that with a new game from the creator of Hook Champ, a hilarious browser game hitting iOS, and one of the best freemium city building App Store release so far, and you've got more than enough reasons to stay curled in bed playing iPhone games all morning long.

It's the last weekend before Christmas, so a lot of people are out shopping for presents and such. Not us. We're sitting inside playing games. All. Weekend. Long! Take that, thinly-veiled incentives to buy gifts!

It's bundle time again! Following the massive success of the original Humble Indie Bundle as well as The Indie Love Bundle(s), The Humble Indie Bundle #2 comes along with five great indie games, each available for Mac, Windows and Linux, with no DRM and a price tag of whatever you want to pay. Yay!

Link Dump Friday brings you some of the silliest and the weirdest games from around the web to brighten your day. Featuring miners in peril, rampaging alien crabs, ballistic livestock (or rather, livestock as ballistics), and the noblest steed a knight could ever wish for, it's like some fantastic potpourri of craziness. Just try not to inhale too deeply.

Stop and smell the roses... the pixelated ones, that is! This week's Vault offers you up a selection of some of the loveliest games you might not expect to stumble across, from an intelligent game of chess, to a rabbit's quest to destroy negativity, to a little bit of holiday cheer in one itty bitty package.

It's time for some freebies! Below, you'll see a little game titled Clock Blocks. Thanks to the developer 80d Games, we have three promo codes to give away to three random people! All you have to do is sign in below with a Casual Gameplay account and leave a comment on this page. We'll draw three names at random and announce the winners on next week's Mobile Monday. Simple!

Helpful tip for humans: if you ever find yourself in inclement weather, such as the rare steel storm that only comes out at night, seek shelter in the nearest building. If you can, find the Temple of Leemeealeaun, as it offers the best protection from these dangerous conditions.

Link Dump Friday's got your back with yet another installment of all the games you didn't know you needed until today. Why, using Link Dump Friday, you'll be prepared for space travel, medieval architecture, proper hammer usage... heck, you'll even figure out what to do if your legs suddenly start refusing to bend at the knee! This isn't just a weekly feature... it could save your life one day. You're welcome.

Another installment of You Are Games, another installment of the Babylon Sticks Caption Contest. We're asking you to supply a punchline for another Babylon Sticks comic. It's humorous on its own, but it needs a caption to really drive the hilarity home. Submit your ideas as comments, as many ideas as you'd like, but remember to keep them game-related! All entries are due by Monday, December 13th at 11:59 PM (GMT-5:00).

Our 9th competition today is concluded with the awarding of prizes as well as honoring all of the games that were entered. The "friends" theme was represented well, and one entry moved our emotions and some to tears with its heartfelt symbolism and imagery.

This week's installment of The Vault takes you on an adventure... three of them, in fact! We've brought out three of our favourite games that best capture the spirit of adventure, and are just the thing to check out if you could use a little escape from your everyday life. And who better to take you on that journey than a fluffy blue rabbit, a morose arachnid lifeform, and an evil mastermind? Sounds like a fun group to us.

As the holiday season approaches, game developers start rolling out the big guns. Today's selection features some great-looking games that provide tons of entertainment, all packed neatly in their tiny little iPhone packages. Ain't they cute? Yes, yes they are cute.

Here's a bit of a blast from the past for you: BatMan. Not Christopher Nolan's dark, brooding Batman, not even Tim Burton's interpretation of the caped crusader. This is old-school Batman with old-school gameplay, and you'll love every minute of it! Where does he get those wonderful toys, anyway?

Oh joyful day! It's time for a contest! And not just any contest, either. We've teamed up with PopCap to celebrate the impending release of Bejeweled 3! Our original idea was to run a contest where the prizes included high fives and fist bumps, but then we decided to up the ante. How "up" did we up it? How about a Bejeweled-emblazoned netbook for the winner?!

It's the start of a brand new month, and we're going to kick things off with another batch of cherry-picked titles here at your one and only Link Dump Friday. Featuring zombies, silent judgement, true (but conditional) love, floating eyeballs, and one very tricky little white dot, it's a strange but very creative batch.

The theme of The Vault this week is replay, featuring Hanafuda, Flip Out!, and Puzzle Pirates. Some games get their own special place in our bookmarks or game folder and have us coming back to play again and again, year after year. Okay, well... maybe the theme should be obsession... ?

Ready to get lost in a dungeon? We've got a casual dungeon crawler that's packed with things to do, allowing you to delve deeper and deeper into the labyrinths as you continue questing for loot until the cows come home. Or until your bus ride ends.

And we have returned! After this author experienced a little lumbar calamity, Weekend Download is back and more weekendey than ever! So, what are your plans for the weekend? A light hoverboard ride through the forest? A teensy jog through a cave? A plain and simple walk through the forest? Or, just maybe, if you're feeling wacky, all of the above?!

If you're there and I'm here, then this must be my favourite day of the week! This week on Link Dump Friday we bring you not one, but TWO doses of penguins, a knight, some beasties, slavering zombie survival tests, and high explosives. Now that sounds like my kind of party.

In this installment of You Are Games, we're calling upon you, our loyal readers, to scratch your funny bone where it itches and create the caption for another Babylon Sticks comic created by James Francis. Submit your ideas as comments, as many ideas as you'd like, but remember to keep them game-related! All entries are due by Monday, November 29th at 11:59 PM (GMT-5:00).

This week's episode of the Vault features robotic puzzles, high-flying mammals and fast-paced arcade gameplay, and proof that you have it better than you think you do in one of the trickiest (and perhaps most subtly thought-provoking) simulation games on the web. It's Dolphin Olympics, Gateway, and Ayiti: the Cost of Life!

Doodle Devil is here and, as promised, we have it here first! The sequel to the amazingly popular Doodle God is now out in a Flash version for all those without a smartphone. More Doodle God is never a bad thing, and even though Doodle Devil doesn't reinvent the alchemical wheel, there's still plenty to love. The series distills a very basic element found at the core of all video games: exploration and discovery.

The week is long and hard, but just when it seems like you won't make it, Link Dump Friday appears with an injection of awesome to boost you through to your weekend! This week we bring you one mean wolf, alien cannibalism, robots in experimental servitude, and zombie uprisings! If that isn't adorable and kid-friendly, we don't know what is! Come to think of it, this might explain why we're not allowed to babysit anymore... something about a nightmare, I'unno...

Casual Gameplay Design Competition #9 games are now ready to play!! All entries are available to play immediately on the competition page. There is a place to enter comments for each game, so please use each respective thread to leave your kind feedback and constructive criticisms for the game authors. The competition period will span 3 weeks, and we will announce the winners of the competition at that time. If you wish to help judge the competition, read the rules and sign up here.

What makes a puzzle? This week's edition of The Vault has three examples that prove a puzzle isn't just about crunching numbers or smooshing the corners of a jigsaw piece to make it fit where it doesn't belong. Featuring a randomly generated brain teaser, a stickman with multiple potential horrible fates, and something simply soothing, we've got something for everyone. Unless what you're into is zombified pirate pony sudoku. Sorry. Maybe next time.

You have just under 24 hours left to get your games finished up and submitted in time for our 9th Casual Gameplay Design Competition. Remember that updates and bug fixes are permitted throughout the competition period, which begins on Tuesday and runs through December 6th. So get your games into a playable state and send them in. Don't forget to fill out the official CGDC9 Entry Form. Please be sure to read all the rules and guidelines for this competition before submitting an entry.