From developer Nitrome is a new physics-based action game, Skywire. You control a small chairlift that runs a crazy path through the sky. Three passengers are on board who would appreciate if you got them to the goal unharmed. A variety of obstacles stand in your way, from birds dropping bombs, deranged-looking pandas, and whales that leap from the sea. Each hit you take knocks a passenger from the car. Lose all three and you have to start over again.

There is something inherently gratifying about smashing or destroying something, even watching a building be demolished is good fun. So it should be no surprise that we see the concept come up a lot in games. Stephen over at Ninja Kiwi claims that his latest Flash game, "is based on the very simple fact that popping balloons is fun". And you know what? He's right! In Bloons you get to pop a lot of balloons!

You sit yourself down in front of an odd looking, dusty old monitor that displays what appears to be a radar screen with a few colored markers and controls along the outer edge. There are no instructions to be found anywhere, just the thrill of discovery by pointing and clicking with the mouse. You can do no harm to it; nothing is going to break or send you whirling into space without a helmet. So leave caution to the wind and boldly go into Orbit.

A new game from Donut Games, creator of Castle Smasher, has just rolled onto the web: Chicken & Egg. All of the cute chickens have been trapped in their eggs by the Easter Bunny. It's your job to match like-colored shells together by sliding the eggs across the grid. When the pairs come together, they hatch, revealing a set of rather bewildered chicks!

The old "navigate through a maze" concept enjoys a small rebirth in the form of Overhead Persistence, a gorgeous Flash game by Acrid Rose. Guide the cursor through each level avoiding the walls and any other obstacles you come across. Normally a game like this wouldn't be anything special, but Overhead Persistence provides a stunning audio and visual package along with a level editor and other extras to make a worthwhile experience.

From John Hattan comes BaffleBees, a quick, fun puzzle game for those on a coffee break. Be the best by ordering your bees around the hive until your entire honeycomb is filled with honey. The game has extremely simple graphics and almost zero sound. That said, it is fun and casual play. There are a multitude of other games on the site that are worth a look as well.

Tau'Ri Bedrock by Luca Deltodesco is an unusual and original platformer. In Bedrock you play a... slime? blob? that has been tasked to roll a boulder through levels upon levels of verdant terrain in order to return it to its parent rock. It's a lot like a simplified version of Loco Roco melded with the indie title Gish.

Get the Glass is a 3D board game produced as a part of a new Got Milk advertising campaign in the US. The object of the game is to get the Adachi family around the board and into Fort Fridge so that they can...erm...Get the Glass. It's an absolutely beautiful game with gorgeous scenery and surprisingly smooth animation.

Bubble Tanks is a hypnotic and relaxing shooter if ever there was one. Man your bubble ship on an excursion through a vast bubble field seeking out hostiles to assimilate. The more bubbles you collect, the larger your ship and the greater your weapon become. But as you grow so do the enemies that you will find around you. It addictive and relaxing, a dangerous combination.

Danny Miller's Boomshine is a new riff on the chain-reaction action pioneered by Omega's Every Extend. The goal is to remove a given number of the colorful, floating dots moving around the screen. It would be a stretch to call Boomshine relaxing, but it is certainly refreshing, and a nice, albeit simple addition to a rapidly growing category of casual gameplay.

Tower of Babblers, an entry by Lars A. Doucet in our second Flash game design competition, is one part puzzle, one part frantic action game. It takes the contest theme of "grow" and morphs it a bit into "build", incorporating cute fuzzy creatures into one of the most unique titles entered into the competition.

Dotville is a city-building Flash game along the lines of Civilization, but greatly simplified. You play the leader of a tribe of Dots (yeah, Dots) and must rise to the rank of Emperor in fifty turns, then defeat the evil empire of Squares. It's a simple game, and yet somehow very complex; a bit flawed, and yet fun despite it's quirks.

For those who've been to Clack and back, it's time for another puzzle adventure with Clack 2, as Sean Hawkes has been busy finishing up the next in what is shaping up to be a series of delightful puzzle games. If you haven't already played the original, you may want to go do that first as it is an excellent introduction to these wonderful and original, Flash mechanical puzzle toys.

It really is amazing to see such creativity sprout from a simple word, as with the recent competition and its "grow" theme. Beginning with a very simple premise of expanding rectangles on a grid to connect them, Wouter Visser creates a unique and enjoyable puzzle game entry with PLANned. In this 18-level game, there are only but a few rules that you need to know to get started.

Sphere is a great-looking room escape by Japanese developer neutral. The visuals have a wonderful polished 3D appearance that seem a bit surreal at times, almost as if you were inside a doll house. The challenge level is an almost perfect mix of vague clues and helpful hints that keep you interested without frustrating you.

The second installment in Shawn Tanner's Escape Series has been released: Escape Series #2: The Closet. Each game has no plot, no characters, and no motive, just bare-bones point-and-click room escaping. The first game had us trapped in a car, and now we've moved indoors and are stuck inside a closet. Search the area for items you can use to help you escape!

On of Eyezmaze continues to impress and amaze us with his game development skills, and Dwarf Complete is no exception. Perhaps his most ambitious project to date, the game was commissioned for the online RPG, Lineage II, and it even features dwarves from that game. Dwarf Complete is an amazingly good adventure puzzle game with quality, presentation and gameplay that all helped push this title to the top of the Best of 2007.

Stop Disasters is one of those games you could easily dismiss before even launching it. However, the ISDR group has not drenched their game in messages and important life lessons that we all should follow. Instead we get a game which is easy to pick up, figure out and get in to, but hard enough to challenge and reward not only planning but learning about successful planning.

David Scott is back. If you don't recall who that is, you will certainly remember Flash Element TD, David's first JIG-featured title. In Flash Circle TD, you will immediately find yourself at home with similar concepts as before. It is your duty to defend your position against wave after wave of various types of monsters.

The new Nest of Moai game features a bigger screen, more stages, and an interesting "zoom" feature that lets you take a closer look to find hidden moai statues. Simply move your mouse over the statues as they appear. Quirky, casual fun as one might expect from a game with Japanese roots.

Turning Moai features the same statues from the previous moai games but with a slightly different take on the gameplay. Instead of rescuing or touching the heads, you must move the cursor to make them face the same direction. Same great Moai sound and music, same catchy gameplay!

Earning an honorable mention in our 2nd Flash game competition is Rings and Sticks, a captivating and original puzzle game from designer Komix and created expressly for the competition. More so than any other entry in the contest, Rings and Sticks took the Grow theme and made it a fundamental element of the gameplay.

Frost Bite is another great-looking game from Nitrome, creators of Hot Air and Scribble. Your goal is to climb to the top of each stage, fending off monsters and collecting bonus items along the way. The best part is that you get a grappling gun you can use to latch onto platforms and swing yourself upwards. The gun doubles as a harpoon to attack enemies and gather items, making its use a central element in the game.

Free Rider is a brand new take on the massively popular Line Rider, which you voted best web toy of 2006. Pete adds several interactive elements to the mix that actually serve to create an entirely different experience. It's more like Line Rider meets Teagames' BMX series, the result of which is a create-your-own-level style of game.

In Gateway 2 you again guide a robot, through a dream-like setting, in order to solve numerous and varied mini-puzzles for a seemingly unknown purpose (though a purpose there is, as you soon discover). Using well-placed musical cues and subtle environmental sound the author has created a virtual world that draws you in from the moment you launch the game. The setting and aesthetics are so enticing and mysterious, it doesn't matter at first that you don't know what your ultimate goal is (or indeed if you have one).

Apple Farm is a simple and very stylish arcade game in the style of Breakout. You control a cute little bear trying to catch apples the bouncing bird knocks from the trees. Gather fruit and drop it in the basket as quickly as you can and try not to let the bird touch the ground!

Tabuto is a fast-paced action game with a strangely mesmerizing concept. Cards fall from the top of the screen, and your job is to touch them with the cursor before they vanish. The more you collect in a row, the more points you get, but if you drop 20 it's game over.

Sprout is a creative and original adventure puzzle game created for our second CasualGameplay Design Competition. From the moment you lay eyes on it you know it's something special. The unique artwork for a Flash game has a paper-cut appearance that lends a storybook atmosphere to the game. This environment perfectly suits the role you play as a young seedling trying to find its way home. Sprout has everything we love to see in a Flash game: originality, a simple design, and a beautiful presentation.

More than just Dis or Dat questions, the quiz show with attitude has recently gone through an upgrade to feature complete rounds similar to the You Don't Know Jack CD-ROM games. Expect strange topics, off-beat humor and tons of backtalk from our favorite narrator. Brought to you by Jellyvision.

Block Quest, the sequel to Block Action, is a free online platformer game with hundreds of user-created levels to play. Run, climb and wall jump your way through the surprisingly deep variety of stages of varying difficulty and creativity. It's a very simple game idea that has turned to gold in the hands of its users.

Instead of simply moving one object around the screen to avoid the falling dots, in Formation you must control an entire setup of orbs that rotate and periodically change position. Touch one of the flashing white balls that fall from the top of the screen and it becomes part of your formation, thus forcing you to be mindful of yet another ball's position and causing your brain to hurt.

A brand new game from varStudios, the creators of Neon Wars 2, has recently graced the internet: Abstract Sea. Using simple but stylish visuals and a nice electronica soundtrack, the game puts you in control of an armed ship at sea fending off enemy attacks. The game has a very visceral feel to it with screen-shaking explosions and a few power-ups floating atop the deep blue sea.

Orange, a follow up to the first color-themed game Red, is another physics-based Flash project by designer Case. In the center of the screen sits a heavy orb. You control a mobile orange dot with the mouse and can fire shots at the nearest object. Move around the screen shooting at the orb in an attempt to push it off the screen. Get too close, though, and its gravity starts to pull you in.

You might have guessed that with a name like Growbal Warming, it is likely the next entry from our "grow" themed competition; and you'd be right! The game was designed and created by Richard Ohanian, a fellow alum of RIT, and it features gameplay that mimics the futility we potentially face with the problem of global warming.

The rather strange online flash game Toon Crisis 2 combines photographs of real locations in the UK with cartoon enemies leaping out of bushes to attack you, all in the traditional click and shoot style. If you think that's weird, check out the weapon: your right hand with thumb and forefinger extended.

Take this not as an announcement that Mixed Tape #15 was just released, but rather as a last call to get it while you can. While I had made a regular practice of posting an announcement here when Mercedes Benz releases a new FREE mixed tape for everyone to enjoy, I skipped it when number 15 was released in December primarily because things were already quite busy for us here.

Hewitt is a top-notch online adventure game that two developers, Casper Smith and C. Gianelloni, spent over a year creating. Their hard work is apparent: Hewitt looks and plays great and is a surprisingly long game. Aside from some fairly quirky puzzle elements Hewitt provides a solid experience for any adventure/point-and-click fan.

Jussi Kari at ooPixel has just finished a new update to his version of the classic game of the same name, Samegame. And while this is essentially the same game as Samegame, there are some improvements that make this version even more addictive than the original.

In what is probably the shortest installment of the Grow series to date, the minigame Grow Nano vol.2 from Eyezmaze is still full of charm. The mechanics are the same as other installments, simply click the items and hope you found the right order. This time around there are just three things to choose from: a cape, a headband, and a stick. Experiment to find the right order and see what happens!

Yes, it's an advergame for SPAM: the stinky French garlic flavor kind. But much, much more than that, SPAMalot is a Flash defend-your-castle Flash game with an absolutely severe Monty Python element thrown up into the mix for good humor, good times.

The Gaffer is an action-based Flash game by James Green of Black Galleon. You play a chubby warehouse boss who must load boxes onto trucks that pull into the dock. Each stack is outlined on the back of the truck, all you have to do is carry the crates one by one and put them in the right place. It's a very straightforward game that keeps you hooked with its charming presentation and simple gameplay.

FoolYoo is a well designed game with a good sense of humor and fluid gameplay. You are a samurai and you must defend yourself from attack by demons with your trusty katana. Three different types of demons will attack you, all requiring different tactics to defeat. In between rounds, demonstrate your l33t sushi ability by deftly slicing vegetables for soup.

Oshidama is an simple and elegant flash game by Game-Pure, the creators of Speed Cluster. The goal is to nudge a white orb to the exit point on each screen. Walls, pits and other obstacles stand in your way, forcing you plan your path and be ready for a last-second save at any moment. It's an interesting mix of strategy and fast-paced cursor shifting delivered in an astounding audio and visual atmosphere.

Often I think to myself what I would do if I was ever in a futuristic jet on a futuristic highway chasing tanker trucks, launching missiles at them, and all the while avoiding sentry and assault drones. With Damien Clarke's new game, Jet Speed, I no longer have to ponder this theoretical scenario in my head—I actually get to give it a try!

Stained Glass is a simple and beautiful logic puzzle with an arrangement of tiles in the right-hand "window", each in four segments, with each segment potentially a different color. You must arrange colored tiles in the left-hand "window" so that all of the colors match. When you finish one level you move on to the next, larger level. Another classic casual game by Taro Ito of GameDesign.

On has just today posted a new mini-game to his Eyezblog, and it is a simple little puzzle game called Neighbors. The game is played by dragging each of the colored-top creatures to one of the 9 container pots such that everyone gets along happy and content. If you put one in the wrong spot, its neighbor(s) won't like it and will have a tizzy fit.

The Roomz is a point-and-click game with similarities to online riddle games along the lines of God Tower and Ouverture Facile. One key difference is that The Roomz has a slight adventure flavor to it and, as a result, is more interactive. Each room has a locked door and keypad. You must use clues inside the room to discover the password to get out. Move objects and use the magnifying glass to peer at the scenery in detail.

SpeedCluster, by Game-Pure, is an arcade Flash game that is remarkably easy to play: just drag cards from along the bottom row onto one of the four blue markers at the base of each column where random cards will fall. The cards you drag must be either one higher or one lower in value than the one that is falling. It's as simple as that.

Isn't it such a turn-off when a game takes itself too seriously? Well, you won't have to worry about that when you play Chilly Beach Beach Hunt from the guys at ilaugh.com, the self-proclaimed "second sweetest comedy portal on earth."

With simple gameplay and an almost frantic feel, Tower of Moai is as entertaining as it is... weird. The goal is to save scrambling moai statues stranded on top of a wobbly tower. As the moai statues move the tower bends with their weight. Use the mouse to guide the platform and try to keep it beneath the swinging ladder.

O Quarto is a great looking point-and-click game made by Andres Calil of Me Pixa. Once again you are trapped in a room and must search the area for items to help you escape. The art style of this game is superb and reminds me of an interactive oil painting. The game is also quite mysterious and offers some wonderfully perplexing mysteries that must be solved in order to escape.

Poco Parco is an extraordinarily quirky Japanese title that works much like the Grow series of games. Click the items at the bottom of the screen to start different events, each one interacting with the last. What sets this game apart from the rest of the clones is its adorable presentation and the ability to click and play with the objects that grow on the screen.

Borrowing a page from the book of Ikaruga, the absurdly talented developers of Stimunation Games have just released this stunning Flash shooter that will make your jaw drop and your eyes water from ogling the screen for hours.

2007 IGF finalist Bubble Islands is a new falling-object puzzle game from Dot-Invasion, the talented crew behind the previously reviewed Meteor Busters. Flash-based and completely free, Bubble Islands is fun, cute and loaded with enough content to rival similar commercial games.

Quadradius is an online, multiplayer, turn-based Flash game that takes the skeleton of the board game checkers, and pumps it up with a massive list of power-ups and new strategies that turns the game into an addictive and very compelling new concept. In fact, calling it checkers is an oversimplification that does not do it any justice.

Castle is a short but good-looking point-and-click game from the Japanese website Usagi no Sippo (Rabbit's Tail). The game takes a page from the Grow book of Flash design and lets you create a scene by clicking various objects on the screen, each time causing something new and interesting to happen.

Here are a couple of devious puzzle games by Alessandro Cima and available on the CandleLightStories website. The first was created as a Halloween treat, and now a second puzzle game in the series has been released. So far, according to the website, not a single person has solved it. This sounds like a challenge the JIG community can come together on and crack in no time.

After much on-again, off-again with BBC restrictions that allowed only UK players to experience this fantastic game, the very kind, talented and generous folks at Preloaded are now hosting the game themselves! So, if you are located outside the UK and wish to play this fantastic piece of work, you may now play the game from Preloaded's CDX website.

Developed by Red Redemption and funded by the BBC, the Flash-based Climate Challenge is a thoroughly researched, compelling resource-management sim. As the "President of the European Nations" you must radically reduce your people's carbon emissions over the course of a century, while remaining popular enough to stay in office.

Castle Smasher is a simple but amazingly entertaining game where your goal is to destroy a castle using nothing more than a catapult. Fling stones at the opposing structure to whittle it down to nothing as efficiently as you can. Upgrade your shots between levels and be as frugal as you can with your firepower. Once you run out, it's game over.

Rooms by HandMadeGame is set in a mysterious mansion with rooms that move and that contain magical items to help you make your way through. It is a clever mix of point-and-click and puzzle elements that together create an engaging game play experience. It is also a 2007 IGF Student Showcase winner.

Escape Series #1: The Car is a point-and-click room escape game that does everything it should do without venturing beyond the scope of the genre. Regardless of its normal appearance, The Car provides a great room escape experience that's both fulfilling and free from random pixel hunting. Short and sweet, and with more installments to come.

For those who prefer a single-player experience, or at least one to practice with to hone one's skills in preparation for a heads-up match against another human opponent, and if a little Japanese text won't scare you off, then give Taro Ito's GameDesign Flash implementation of Hanafuda a try.

Bryon Vandiver's Multiplayer Koi Koi combines the same classic Hanafuda deck with a unique ranking system to bring the excitement of this Japanese card game to casual gamers around the world, and all within the convenience of your favorite browser.

Paths 2 brings back Tyler's winning action/puzzle concept and adds just the right amount of spit and polish to make it brand new. Featuring gameplay that is a cross between Super Monkey Ball and Labyrinth, Paths 2 puts you in control of creating a path and clearing the obstacles to allow a red ball to roll toward the exit. It's a challenging game of both fast reflexes and thoughtful pre-planning.

Capsules is a simple game where you must maneuver an orange shape around red obstacles in order to reach blue spheres throughout the stage. The levels are remarkably unique and bend the formula in every possible way. You can even create your own levels with the included editor!

Eater of Worlds is a stylish side scrolling action game with a fun little twist: you're a blob that absorbs everything it comes in contact with. From fish to seaweed, cats, trees, humans and trucks, the world is your buffet and you're ready to eat. Gather as many objects as you can across the game's three levels and see if you can secure a space on the high score board.

Stick Remover presents you with a tower of sticks wobbling under its own weight. A star is suspended from the top above a red limit line. Your job is to remove as many sticks as you can while keeping the star above the line.

Yahoo! Mail Ultimate Championship Games is a series of four short mini-games created to promote the improved Yahoo! webmail service in the UK. Each one has a distinct e-mail theme and is incorporated in a slick, nighttime gameshow-like style complete with videos and a futuristic neon-purple interface. Master the surprisingly entertaining mini-games while accidentally learning about Yahoo! Mail's new features.

Goldburger To Go is a short flash game where you must position various components in a Rube Goldberg-type device in order to assemble a tasty (but unhealthy) snack on a skateboard at the end.

When we made the announcement for our 2nd Flash Game Design Competition we said that additional prizes would be announced, and we weren't kidding. I have just confirmed with Adobe that not only are they going to sponsor this competition as they did our first one by offering two (2) Flash 8 Professional licenses to award to the top two games submitted, they will also upgrade those prizes to the Adobe Video Bundle if either winner has made good or innovative use of either Premiere Pro for video or After Effects for animation/video within their Flash game!

Ouverture Facile is French for "easy opening" and is an online puzzle/riddle game similar to Dumb: The Game and God Tower. Using a combination of flash, images and other media, you must gather clues to find the solution to each level. There are over 90 puzzles to solve, so you'd better get started...

Ian Snyder's Valo requires the same painstakingly delicate touch as removing a funny bone or charley horse from the classic game Operation, albeit with a much gentler, more abstract style. Use your expert pointing and clicking skills to navigate dangerous fields of red squares while clicking on or dragging the mouse over all the blue squares to earn points and advance to the next level.

An extraordinarily high-quality online puzzle game that brings in real-life events to give you clues on how to complete the levels. Sponsored by Microsoft and created in conjunction with 42 Entertainment, Vanishing Point is an excellent puzzler that plays as good as it looks.

Arseniy Shklyaev's latest game, Warp Forest, is a rather odd combination of action and puzzle elements that will challenge both sides of your brain. The objective is to collect all of the keys to activate the exit, and then make it safely to the exit to advance to the next puzzle/level. Now with the ability to create, edit and share custom stages with a simple level editor, the game has more potential than ever.

The grandaddy of all escape-the-room games, Jan Albartus' Mystery of Time and Space dates way back to 2002 which, in terms of casual web games, is almost the beginning of time. MOTAS is continually updated with new rooms to find your way out of, and this latest update puts the level count to 17. Can you solve them all?

Hidden Expedition: Titanic is a seemingly simple game of finding objects in a picture. The pictures have a mostly antique, nautical theme, and you need to find all of the objects on your list before your oxygen runs out. As you progress through the levels, the number of rooms you need to explore within the time frame increases.

For the past couple of days I've been playing this great little warcraft-themed, tower defense Flash game and I am certain there are others that will enjoy it too, but it may not be for everybody. Flash Element TD is a simple implementation of a defend-your-base game that features tower defense structures that are used to repel waves of attacking creatures, or "creeps."

Fields of Logic is an easy game to pick-up and play right away, all you'll need is your mouse and your favorite clicking finger. The first few levels get you warmed up and primed for a challenge that spans 16 levels total. At the end you'll receive a total time that it took you to complete the game, so there's an added incentive (and pressure) to get the job done.

Doctor Who Cyber Assault (or Cyberman) is a Risk!-like game from the BBC that incorporates several minigame-like elements into the main game. Move your units around the board to conquer new territory, then try and outwit your opponent with rock-paper-scissors-type fights. And when you take a territory with an enemy base, get ready for some gun-firing action.

Wooty tooty flip-bam-booty! We hosted our 2nd Flash Game Design Competition! Yes, the type of entry we were looking for was the same as what we called for during our first competition. The simple puzzle idea proved to be an excellent choice, and we have over a dozen excellent games now to choose from. Congratulations to Sprout and Gateway II for taking home the prizes valued at over $2000!!

Warbears: Mission 2 is a brand new installment in the unique point-and-click game vaguely similar to Rob Allen's Hapland games. Controlling four bears via a context sensitive action menu, you must discover how to infiltrate a house filled with paintball-loaded dummies. An extraordinarily cute, funny and entertaining game by Gionatan Iasio of Italy.

The popular desktop quiz show game makes the leap to the Web with You Don't Know Jack online, containing all the top quality entertainment that is packaged in the CD-ROM games. Each day a new DisOrDat puzzle is featured with full narration and some really wacky topics. Brought to you by Jellyvision.

Farm Hustle takes the simple formula from games like Bejeweled and adds an interesting twist. In order to get the animals back into their rooms, you must swap them to make rows or columns of three or more. The catch is that you must also use every square on the grid, adding a new level of strategy to your game.

Triple Jack Poker is similar to other browser-based, free-money poker sites with a few extras that set it apart from the rest. If you were a fan of last year's Last Call Poker, you will find that Triple Jack contains a lot of the excitement that made Last Call so popular and addictive. It is, quite simply, one of the finest free-money online poker sites I have ever seen.

Nobuyuki Forces 3 takes the duck-and-fire frenzy of Time Crisis and dumps it into your browser window. Playing a secret agent infiltrating the soldier-infested base of a power-hungry politician, you must survive several intense levels of shooting action while upgrading your stats and gathering items along the way.

The irresistible webtoy Line Rider has returned, now in a delicious "beta 2" flavor! The update fixes a few rough spots in the interface and adds some much-needed tools to the mix. Those of you already hooked on Line Rider will appreciate how much easier it is to create a masterpiece with the new additions, and first-time players will see just what all the fuss is about.

BrainBall is a collection of ten smart-making puzzle games that give your gray matter a workout every day of the month. Featuring logic, number, memory, spatial orientation and many more, BrainBall keeps the same types of games for one month but changes the content every day. Not only is your score kept and compared to other BrainBallers, but you can uh... what's that called? Learn! You can learn, too!

SissyFight 2000 is a free online multiplayer shockwave game that lets you take part in a good old fashion schoolyard tease-fest. Take your slandering skills to the playground and whittle down the self-esteem of the other girls by using scratches, grabs, teases, tattles and more. The game plays out in a series of rounds and works a lot like a complex version of rock-paper-scissors. The only difference is the loser of this game runs off crying.

Perfect for the impending holiday season, It's a Wonderful Internet is an interactive narrated storybook. Take in some soothing music as you listen to a classic holiday tale (tongue-in-cheek style) about a geek whose life is a little too dependant on the internet. Flip through the pages and interact with the scenery, and when the narration ends move your cursor around the pictures for some nice surprises.

Façade is an interactive drama that puts you in the role of a dinner guest catching up with your old college friends, a married couple named Grace and Trip. Using the mouse and keyboard, you're able to move around their apartment and manipulate objects inside, but Facade is no escape-the-room adventure game, most of the interaction involves, get this, talking to Grace and Trip.

As a casual gamer, you have certainly come across titles that fall into the defend-your-castle category. BowMaster Prelude fits that description as well, but certain aspects elevate it above other candidates, such as earning experience points and gold to recruit an army, the ability to upgrade and buy different arrows, and a unique feature that lets the hero leave the castle.

The latest addition to On's much beloved Grow series of games is now available. This one is titled Grow ver. 1, since it is based on one of the first concept games he created for the series. There is no score system, but rather he says to play it as you would look through a picture book. In particular, your children may enjoy playing it with you.

Snake Classic takes this simple game mechanic and gives it new life with catchy music, tons of gameplay options (how many dots to grab, sound effects, etc.) In addition you get to choose what colors your snakey protagonist will have using a grid of dots that looks like something out of a kid's dream box of marbles.

Months in the making, the latest installment of Inanimate Alice—Episode 3: Russia—is now available through an exclusive arrangement with the Guardian in the UK. Follow Alice as she deals with life and times, at age 13, in Russia with her parents through this rich interactive narrative.

Bacteria Salad is the latest entry in Persuasive Games' Arcade Wire series. Another attempt at "persuasion, instruction, and activism," Bacteria Salad is a light, humorous depiction of the complexity of the agricultural business.

Winterbells is a very simple wintertime game with the same gorgeous art and music found in all of Ferry's games on Orisinal. In Winterbells you control a snow-white rabbit who hops onto falling bells as they drift down from the night sky. Use the mouse to move the bunny left and right and time your jumps to keep moving upwards. The longer you stay hopping the higher your score.

by Elizabeth Reynolds is one of the puzzle games submitted to our first Game Design Competition. Four instruments sit silently on the right side of the screen, each in a different colored chair. Using the corresponding controls to the left, activate the instruments to produce a green wave on the bottom of the screen. Get the wave to match the pattern and you'll win!

Poid is a short flash platformer from Protopop Games, the creators of Nimian Flyer and Nimian Hunter. The Nephohedron transport ship (profit class) has run into a bit of a problem. On route to Junx city the navigation system failed and the crew wasn't responding. To the rescue is a small poid, a flea-like creature you release from a slumber pod. Guide your poid through the ship and uncover the mystery behind the strange errors.

Threesome is simple yet challenging puzzle game ported to Flash by Lightforce. It's a nice way to while away about half an hour, while looking at a pleasant composition and enjoying a challenge that is easily described but can be tricky to solve.