The first batch of eight (8) entries submitted are up and available to play! I think I have all the bugs worked out of the UI. I've rushed to get this up, though, so please be kind with your bug reports.

Our first ever game design competition deadline is upon us, just a little less than 12 hours away, and already I am inundated with unbelievably good, fantastic puzzle designs to sort through and choose from. Picking the best of them will certainly not be easy. I am working feverishly hard to make sure that you are able to play each and every one of the finalists, and depending upon the quantity of any last minute submissions received, I will (hopefully) have something up and playable for you over the weekend, so be sure to check back if you are as excited as I am about it! =D

Mark Arenz has been designing games over at Ridiculopathy for years now and he has amassed an impressive selection with creative and original gameplay. He has recently released a sequel of sorts to a unique game concept he created about a year ago, and this one succeeds in improving the idea and taking it to the next level.

You know that dream, the one where you're walking down the streets of London listening to the frantic sounds of Gogol Bordello, when homicidal cartoons start spilling out of the scenery? Me neither, but thanks to Toon Crisis I know how to handle myself in just such a situation.

Skatefall is John Freeborn's tribute to one of the earliest platformers, the Atari 2600's Pitfall! With a bodacious new skateboard, online scoreboard, bonus items and powerups, 2D platforming has a new name: Skatefall Harry. As a homage, Skatefall is extremely effective and faithful; the graphics and sound are perfect and the difficulty, while formidable, is appropriate.

Kodama is a quirky little ball-toss game that had me quickly hooked, and it wouldn't let me go until I had conquered its final challenge... with extreme prejudice. The gameplay is simple: you toss a little metal coin into a red or blue scoring area, while avoiding the black areas that will cost you one of your four lives.

Ever watched Flipper and were jealous about all the tricks he could do? Now you, too, can have the charm of a sea-based mammal with Dolphin Olympics. This flash game by Alan Rawkins puts you in the role of a dolphin in an infinite blue ocean. Build speed, leap from the water and perform tricks to rack up a high score and boost your speed for the next jump. It's a surprisingly simple idea that borrows elements from a number of games yet feels fresh each time you play.

Created by Robert Kabwe of Montreal, Nimian Hunter makes use of an engine that creates the illusion of 3D in Flash, and it's very, very good. Play as a hunter on a mission to feed the beast that commands you. There is a narrative that unfolds as you play, with at least two different endings. Altogether a unique and unusal game.

Bullet Bill is a fan-made side-scrolling action game that borrows a couple of characters from the Super Mario Bros. games. The gameplay is pretty standard for a side-scroller. Use the arrow keys to navigate while trying to hit the breakable blocks, Goombas, and even occasional Mario or Luigi. The challenge is to avoid the green platforms that you may remember jumping on from the original SMB games.

Four Second Fury has been around a few months, and now a sequel to that game has just been released, called Four Second Frenzy. While both games feature the same fast-paced action and gameplay, the sequel offers even more mini-games than the original (50 total).

Lacking any sort of plot, Four Second Fury launches the player into a series of 20 randomly selected, four-second mini-games ranging from simple dodging games to "Simon says" type games. It doesn't try to be anything more than that: just a simple, quick Flash game when you have a few minutes to kill. And don't expect it to last longer than that.

Egg Way is another great release from Dofi Blog, creator of the World of Sand games (Hell of Sand, Sand Sand Sand) and the unique New Rolling Omusubi game. The goal is to guide a freshly liberated egg yolk down to a waiting frying pan. Gravity is not your friend in this game, and if the yolk takes too much punishment you'll have to start over. Using a pen that draws temporary platforms you must guide the delicate yolk to the goal as gently as possible. And then... breakfast time!

A very impressive Shockwave 3D action puzzler that incorporates physics and a variety of compelling contraptions as the basis for its gameplay. What sets Impulse apart from others in its class is its exceptional presentation and the precision of its underlying physics engine. From Taparo of Munich, Germany.

An action puzzle sorting game filled with bugs and grubs and leafy plants, Ant Tracks puts you in control of an army of ants on their way back to the nest after a successful foraging. This magnificently beautiful and enjoyable game is extremely well-polished from its photo-realistic graphics to its tranquilizing, almost Pikmin-like, soundtrack. Wonderful.

Added to the mysteriously vacant Flash flight sim category, Goggles Flight Sim dares to let you go places where you may only have heard about. Using information collected from Google's mapping service, Mark Caswell-Daniels has created this Flash application that allows you to fly around the world to destinations of your choosing. Casual fun.

One step beyond Shaolin Soccer, Lucky Eights throws poker into the already freaky mix of martial arts and organized sports. This Flash-based card game requires instantaneous reflexes and precision mouse clickage.

Tringo is an addictive puzzle game concocted by Nathan Keir in the beautiful bizzaro-world Second Life. The rules are a mixture of Tetris and Bingo. Arrange a series of shapes on a 5x5 grid and earn points by constructing blocks of 2x2 or greater, which are then eliminated.

We hosted our first Flash game design competition, and what an amazing event it was! 21 creative and original puzzle games were submitted from all over the world, and just about any one of them could have walked away with one of the prizes. You simply must play every one of these games and experience the amazing quality present in each of the entries. Cheers to everyone that participated, either by submitting an entry or by playing the games submitted!

Submachine 3 is a point-and-click game of exploration and puzzle solving created by Mateusz Skutnik. As the intro so cleverly notes, there are no items to collect, no diary to keep, no trash bin to check, and no spoon to, er, bend. It's just you, the machine, and an infinite metallic world to explore one screen at a time.

Horse Racing is the latest gameSheep effort, a Flash racing game that puts the player in control of one of three (3) different horses on a race to the finish line. Use the mouse for control in this easy-to-play game, running and jumping over hurdles and catching power-ups for some crazy horse shenanigans.

The summer of surreal surprises continues with this Flash adventure game from Slovakia. Haluz is a game of the point-and-click variety that contains several scenes and a variety of simple puzzles that must be solved to advance. What do you do when a very large bird makes off with your rooftop satellite dish? Well, use the resources around you to your best advantage and get it back.

Far, far from Skid Row, in a make-believe land (somewhere that's green,) lives a meat-eating plant in a terra-cotta pot. Now this plant is no ordinary meat-eating plant, for it can use its powerful jaws to grab ahold of ceiling or floor and pull itself along. Use the mouse to move the plant through 15 unique levels in Feed Me, a new platform game by Nitrome.

Timed Climb is yet another simple idea made into a unique and challenging Flash game. Using only a single button for platform jumping, the objective is to reach higher platforms to 'conquer' them. Timing is everything in this game, as the name suggests, with one bad jump often ending it all. An addictive game with a novel high score system.

Jussi and Marko, Flash game developers at OOPixel, borrow a little gameplay from several classics and wrap them all together into one nicely polished and addictive game. Asteroid Adventure is an arcade action game that will be both familiar and new to anyone that has played Asteroids before.

Geartaker is an arcade action game of skill in which the player jumps from wheel to wheel by clicking the mouse precisely. The author borrows the gameplay from another of his games, High Wheels, but strips it down to just jumping, plain and simple. A charming game with addictive gameplay from one of the best casual game designers there is, Tonypa.

A fellow graduate of RIT, John Resig, has developed an awesome little Javascript library, called jQuery, that takes much of the chore out of client-side programming and makes it fun. Learning to use jQuery took just a couple of hours and I have already rolled out the first site features that make use of it.

Billed as a "candle-lit rendezvous between Erno Rubik, Dorothy Parker, and Milton Bradley," RSVP puts you in charge of arranging guests around a table such that each is surrounded by compatible people on either side.

Although you may have played similar games recently, such as Geometry Wars, Grid Wars, Rainbow Wars, and the like, this next one was very nicely done in Flash and requires no download other than the usual loading within a browser. Engaging from the second it starts, Neon is one of those rare games that just feels great to play.

Gwen is a surprisingly gorgeous surrealistic adventure composed of richly detailed scenes filled with art, animation, sound and interactivity. With an over-arching narrative that borrows from the teachings and beliefs of Buddahism, this point-and-click game has more soul to reveal than most other games of its type. From Taiwan.

Just in case you were not already aware... 13 is out, and just in time to help make for a lovely weekend(!) Listen online, or download for later. Either way, it's always nice to get something for free. =)

One-Off is the latest escape-the-room creation by the Gotmail team. This time your task is to get a beautiful blue motorcycle out from the garage where it's kept. The motorcycle is locked, and so is the door to the garage. In order to open them, you'll have to search the garage for gadgets and clues and combine those with the environment at the appropiate places.

Another Web jewel from Australia's Game On initiative, Chiko: Accidental Alien is an exceptionally gorgeous and well-produced Flash adventure game that will keep you busy for hours. Help Chiko return to Earth after being swept away on a stray rocket shuttle found in a museum's basement. From there Chiko is taken to Squerx, the biggest fun park in the galaxy, where he embarks on a journey that spans three (3) delightful episodes.

Grow Nano is another fantastic release from On at Eyezmaze, creator of the unforgettable Grow series of flash games. Each installment uses a common theme of placing objects in a certain order to allow a sequence of events to play out. Grow Nano tweaks this idea and introduces timed gameplay. Instead of moving and placing items, all you have to do is click on certain hotspots as quickly as you can. It's a lot more difficult than it may sound, but strangely enough, almost as rewarding.

Cubic Exploding Goro is nearly as strange as the name suggests. This 3D action game from Japan puts you in the shoes of Goro, a grim angular anti-hero in a violent, polygonal Shockwave-powered world. Weird, fun and, with over 24 levels and a wide variety of enemies, quite challenging.

Developer Code is a series of six (6) point-and-click games of the escape-the-room variety, brought to us by IBM in China. The gameplay is the usual for this kind of game: For a reason unknown to you, you find yourself in a locked room with no apparent way out.

Chris Benjaminsen of Cosgames has come up with a simple and yet intensely effective multiplayer version of the classic arcade game, Asteroids, playable in any browser with the Flash plug-in. Each player (up to 16 in a room) pilots a ship in an all-out deathmatch, melee style, with the objective being to rack up more kills than deaths. Mad multiplayer mayhem, classic arcade style.

Panzo Invaders, like Gel Invaders before it, is a Shockwave arcade game similar in gameplay to a combination of Space Invaders and Breakout. Toss a steel ball up at floating enemies in the sky, but don't get hit by them when they fall to the ground! Grab coins for points and power-ups to extend play. Colorful and delightful.

Created by Bernd Mattiebe of Germany, Wogger is a multi-level, point-and-click surrealistic adventure in the same vein as the venerable Samorost. While much of the game is finding the correct click spot to move the story forward, there are a couple of puzzles that will pose a challenge for some.

L'expresso Empoisonné (The Poisoned Coffee) is a superb point-and-click mystery game created by Anode and Cathode, the authors of The Museum, The Casino and others. Paintings and other artwork have been stolen from a museum gallery. All of the evidence points to Damien Bestieu, one of the featured painters.

Monster Trucks Unleashed is an impressive 2D action driving game involving huge-wheeled monster trucks (of course), unlockable levels, and upgradable trucks. From the amazing Stimunation group of European Flash game developers.

A stylish Flash Breakout clone from GameDesign, Block Kuzusi demonstrates a great deal of respect for its roots while offering just enough originality to feel fresh. It is one of the better versions Breakout I've seen online, and well worth a look.

Daxo is an interactive portfolio created by musician and designer Hans Reichel. The style is similar to Blue Suburbia, another non-game we featured recently on JIG, and pulls together sound and image in a fusion of interactive multimedia.

Bonte Room 2 is the sequel to Bart Bonte’s first room escape game we featured back in December. The game shares a lot with its predecessor, including simplistic art style, room layout, and a strange animal that's integral to solving the game's puzzles.

There is more than one way to enjoy this simple but effective Flash platform game construction set. Leveraging the power of player-generated content and the Web, Block Action puts platform game level design into the hands of millions and thus offers virtually unlimited variety in ways to enjoy its gameplay.

Hit the dance floor in this foot-stomping, original new take on the connect-three puzzle genre of casual gameplay. In Disco Jungle, play as a funky blue elephant with a special ability to absorb the color of any dance floor tile and then drop it anyplace else. Use it to match three (3) or more same-color tiles, horizontally and/or vertically, to score points and clear levels.

Gamma Bros. is a deliciously slow-paced old school space shooter created by PixelJam. It's written in flash and offers both an online version and downloadable files for the Mac and PC. Although simple in looks and design, Gamma Bros. gives the illusion of a massive game world interspersed with moments of action and quiet space floating.

Brain Strainer is a physics-based construction kit with which the player creates a quasi-perpetual machine from a palette of objects including bumpers, kickers, conveyor belts and other contraptions. The objective is to score enough points to launch a rocket.

Dice Wars is a unique new turn-based strategy game from Japan. Using nothing but dice and a randomly generated territory map made of hexagons, the game is similar in gameplay to that of the board game, Risk, though much simpler and quicker to play. The objective is to conquer all territories and eliminate all your opponents by attacking them with dice.

From David Thorburn, the fertile mind behind the enormous Teagames site, Orangutwang is a cute and original Flash-based action game. As with most of the other work available on Teagames, Orangutwang manages to blend Thorburn's remarkable physics expertise with simple and intuitive casual gameplay.

Combo! and Blockdown are two great flash puzzle games by Anders Pousette. They're remarkably simple and build upon classic puzzle gaming themes while throwing a few fresh ideas into the mix. Each comes with a public high score board to give you a chance at your 15 minutes of fame. You'll have to earn it, but with the amount of time you'll spend playing each game, odds are you won't really mind.

Chick Flick is an action game of rescuing little chicks by bouncing them on a trampoline up into the safety of their nest. It incorporates a simple and accessible gameplay mechanic that is similar to Breakout, and yet there is surprising depth to enjoy here. Excellent casual game design, as usual, from UK-based Nitrome.

An intense, fast paced game from developer f1ash, Iconien plays like an modern update to the arcade classic Missile Command. Put your basic click & drag mouse skills to the test as you defend your base from wave after wave of stubburn missiles, creepy bugs, mindless circles and powerful tanks.

In Blue Suburbia, artist and flash designer Nathalie Lawhead creates a magnificently dark and dramatic world filled with striking imagery and haunting vignettes. The project began as a small animation on her website and grew to incorporate her own poetry and a number of small scenes commenting on western society and the modern school system. The application is more like an experiment in interactive poetry rather than a game, as there's no real goal, purpose or progression. Even still, Blue Suburbia is an absolutely stunning piece of artwork that you'll want to explore to its fullest.

ZWoK! is a charming and addictive, multiplayer, turn-based strategy Flash game in which players engage in battles using projectile firing weapons. It's a fight to the finish where the team with the last Zwok standing wins. The game is essentially a simple version of multiplayer Worms, and yet its simplicity is one of the games most redeeming qualities. It easily surpasses most Flash multiplayer turn-based strategy games I have played.

In the Calucci game you play the role of a Mr. van der Berg, a key witness in the prosecution of a ficticious mob organization, the Calucci family. In return for identifying the family's boss, Paul Calucci, you are granted protection with a new identity and residence in a community far away. Unfortunately, you no sooner get inside your new home and someone comes a knocking on the door. What will you do?

With an aim to get everyone online and sending email with the click of a mouse, the British Computer Society has commissioned this cute, Flash action puzzler called Mouse Mailer, starring PC Mouse. (Apparently they don't care much about Mac users ;)

Uchuwars is a classic-style shmup with weapon power-ups and bombs. I found this shmup when I visited Babarageo for the banner game reviewed recently on JIG. The instructions are in Japanese, but it didn't take long to figure out what to do.

Animator vs. Animation, by 17-year-old Alan Becker, draws a scene in the epic wars waged between the drawing and the drawn. Tensions draw high as the action starts simple and accelerates both in quantity and quality through the work, and the clever manipulation of screenshots will likely draw the appreciative attention of anyone who's ever worked in flash.

Babarageo STG Banner is a tiny 15 pixel tall space shooter. Most banner games have a single goal that can usually be accomplished in a few seconds. However, STG Banner introduces something a little different: rotating images with clickable hotspots. It may not sound like much, but it adds a surprising amount of strategy to an otherwise mindless game.

A sequel to Mateusz Skutnik's excellent point-and-click adventure series, Submachine 2 will have you mapping out tunnels as you explore the dark recesses of this classic-style Flash game. The Submachine series is among the best on the Web, so if you love first-person adventures, ala Myst, don't miss this one.

Akai Ryu, or Red Dragon, is a surprisingly addictive little shooter created by Jason Reinsvold and available to play on his LostVectors website. The object of the game is to stay alive as long as possible while shooting down all of the various enemies that come into play.

The enviably talented crew at Nitrome have just released their latest game and it's an ambitious effort to put it mildly. Roly Poly is a Flash action game of skill with a unique mechanic: Click and drag to tilt the play field and use gravity to roll the little hedgehog to the goal of each level, and within the time limit provided.

The Privacy is another Flash point-and-click adventure from the stellar Gotmail team that gave us The Bar, Il Destino, The Salon and others. The game is set in a high-tech, big-brother world where even the watchers are watched and elaborate security systems are commonplace.

Grow ver.2 is completely different than what Grow ver.3 turned out to be, and yet the basic premise is the same as it is for all of the Grow games: Just click on the various items, one-by-one, and try to make them all reach their maximum level. Hint: order matters.

Pricilla Gone Missing is a Flash point-and-click adventure from Johan Törnkvist, a talented design and technology student at Hyper Island in Kariskrona, Sweden. The game begins with the player learning of the disappearance of Pricilla (Aunt "Prissy") and that warrants an investigation. From there a charming little adventure unfolds in which the player must look for items and clues to progress through the story.

Galactor is a Flash-based point-and-click room exploration game from the Finnish Consumer Agency. Aimed at increasing awareness of consumer issues, Galactor's meticulous style and dry humor transcends the stigma often associated with educational entertainment. While the information within may not necessarily be accurate in regards to consumer protection laws outside of Finland, the game still contains a wealth of good advice and common sense.

The oddly named game, OUT file#01 is a classic Flash point-and-click room escape game, and it features all the usual suspects: locked doors, missing keys, pieces of paper with clues, and secret compartments galore. Your job, of course, is to escape by unlocking the mystery within the room that holds you captive.

As anyone who's worked in an office knows, staving off boredom is your primary objective. Enter Binball Wizard, a simple flash game similar to Cyrkam Airtös. All you have to do is kick a ball into a trash bin located somewhere in the office. Control the power, height and direction of the ball and smash objects in the room. Then sit back, finish your coffee, then maybe file that TPS report when you have time.

Bicycle Texas Hold'em is a free-to-play tournament-style card game for eight (8) players and is a fairly standard game for its kind. It features rounds of increasing blinds and classic all-in, no-limit betting. The buy-in is $100, though no actual money is ever won or lost in the game.

Soccer Challenge, the latest from JP at Pepere.org, is an online flash game where you play eight different mini-games with colored soccer balls. They're all very simple and you can jump right in and start playing. Say goodbye to the next hour of your day.

JIG reader Josh recently pointed us to a flash version of the old raft puzzle everyone played back in grade school. The simple idea is that a group of people must cross a river using a small raft. Unfortunately not everyone gets along and there are certain rules that must be followed in order to get everyone across safely.

A minor release from flash game developer LUT!, known for the plasticine game Tomb of Doom and the point-and-click horror games Darkness 1 & 2, Invasion of the Space Invaders from Outer Space is a little on the wacky side. You fly a disguised space ship above the streets of Earth gathering humans and evading the police. Use your mouse to toss cars and people skyward, or just devour them in your toast slots. Stay alive long enough and you'll unlock a special bonus.

Getty Images has enlisted five artists and designers to produce 10 interactive Flash or Shockwave pieces, collectively known as 10 Ways. Each uses Getty's extensive collection of stock photography and is based around a related concept, such as light, space or transformation.

Echo Genesis is another digital media feast for the senses with a heavy emphasis on aural stimulation. Let your mouse guide you as you float dreamily through five (5) unique environments while interacting with the elements contained within.

JP of Pepere.org recently released a new version of his Ringmania game, creatively called Ringmania 2. In this latest update to the connect-three game based on magnetism, control is now with the mouse allowing more freedom of movement as you try to eliminate all of the colored rings from each level's initial configuration.

You may remember the name Hannu Pelkonen as the creator of the infectiously addictive typing games, Letters and Words, both of which were previously reviewed here. He now has a new game that was recently added to his collection at 2addicted, and this one is based on a familiar classic arcade hit from days gone by.

Following on the success that Arseniy Shklyaev enjoyed with his two previous action puzzle games, Orbox and Orbox B, his latest game is a rather odd combination of action and puzzle elements that will challenge both sides of your brain. The objective of Warp Forest 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.

Somnium Orbis is "an exploration of alternative means to progress through a surreal, otherworldly scene." In other words, you must figure out how to progress through each scene of the piece. The mesmerizing and slightly disturbing work of art was created by Nate Horstmann and Peter Schmalfeldt.

Like eating the middle of an Oreo first, ClickDragType skips past the plain cookie outside to deliver only the sweet puzzle center in a collection of 10 intriguing, mind-bending puzzles for your pure and uncompromising enjoyment.

Just in case you were not already aware... 12 is out. Listen online or download for another time, either way it's music. And did I mention it's FREE? =)

Air Support is a relentless one screen platformer with pixel perfect control. Try to stay alive as long as possible while deadly missiles fall from the sky and a parade of wicked monsters strut their stuff on the ground below. Unfortunately, every single missile is aimed directly at your head and you will need excellent reflexes to guide them to their targets without getting hit.

The talented crew at Gamesheep has just released their latest Flash game, and this one is a new take on the classic gameplay of miniature golf. Dumbolf stars a club-toting elephant that needs your help to make par on each of the game's 18 unusual and tricky holes.

On of Eyezmaze fame captures our hearts and minds again with Chronon, a brand new and unusual point-and-click puzzle game. This time-based puzzle takes place in the dwelling of a creature that leaves early in the morning and returns in the evening. The object of the game is to manipulate objects at various times throughout the day to complete the charming story. Brilliant.

Invader360 is a great little Flash based tube shooter, similar to arcade classics Tempest, Gyruss or, more recently, ABA Games' downloadable Torus Trooper. Developer f1ash brings this exotic branch of the shmup tree to life with frantic action and a minimal, well defined style.

Those shifty (har, har) 8-key critters are cruising down the screen towards you, an intrepid, er, lightbulb, as you ascend the y-axis in this evasion flash game. While 'don't touch the sprites' is a very (very very very?) common game mechanic, this is a superb execution with twists that make it less about endurance than about nerves.

Betty's Beer Bar is a great arcade-style indie game by Mystery Studios. The game features a very simple mouse interface where you control Betty, the small town bartender with aspirations of running her own bar on the beach. Help her raise the money to fulfill her dreams by serving beer to customers as fast as you can. This online version serves as a quick taster of the downloadable version for Windows and MacOS.

Almost twenty years old, Woody Pop isn't as visually stunning or innovative as recent titles such as BreakQuest, but the collision detection and level design is solid, and the bright, chunky pixels still look good.

Nightmare Escape is a horror-themed, room escape game created by Robert Mac Nelly. It combines a macabre and bloody setting with some tricky riddles that will scare you and puzzle you at the same time. Be observant, know your surroundings, and think literally to find the answers.

JeuOnamis is a short room escape game perfect for a coffee break. It takes place in a single black-and-white room that appears to be in the depths of a nuclear power plant (cue Mr. Burns). There is no narration or story, just the implied goal of trying to leave through the big locked door in the center.

Il Destino R is a revamped version of the original Il Destino point-and-click room escape game. It isn't a sequel, but the puzzles are different, items have moved around, new items make an appearance, and there are a few extra nooks and crannies to uncover. The layout and visuals are identical in both games, but R offers more challenge and features a completely different car on center stage.

The online game Color Box by eyehook takes the familiar puzzle formula and tosses in a little color theory to brighten things up. Slide and drop squares of color to pile them on the bottom of the screen. Your goal is to make them vanish, but your methods will be a little different. Instead of matching like-colors you must use color theory to change the blocks to white. Fortunately you don't need an art degree to pull this one off.

Anyone who has ever attempted Sega's chaotic masterpiece Chu Chu Rocket will feel right at home with Puzzled Sheep's familiar arrow-dropping action. The cute graphics and proven concept make it a joy to play but, with only 20 levels to the demo, the fun doesn't last as long as you might like.

Ryan and Matt over at Grubby Games have a Flash version available of their award-winning downloadable game Professor Fizzwizzle, and it's now up and ready to play online in your browser. See what all the fusswussling is all about in this online version of the exceptional, award-winning Fizzwizzle puzzwuzzle game.

Another diamond in the rough of the Adult Swim games section, Fullmetal Alchemist: Iron & Flame is a Shockwave-based scrolling beat 'em up, reminiscent of arcade favorite Final Fight. Iron & Flame benefits from and is faithful to it's license, and fans of Fullmetal Alchemist will appreciate the cut scenes featuring several familiar characters, as well as attempts to place the story within continuity.

From Lightning Games and Playaholics, the Flash-based Lightning Pool brings all the accoutrements of modern electronic entertainment to the classic game of billiards. Race against the clock as you collect power-ups and coins, unlock secret levels, avoid obstacles and, of course, clear the table with style and finesse in this addictive take on pool.

The Da Vinci Code Quest is a Flash-based game comprised of a series of puzzles that together form the basis for a contest to promote the May release of the Da Vinci Code movie. The puzzles may be played as often as you wish, and there are several unique variations to each one. Wrong answers don't count against the player, nor does the time required to complete each of the puzzles.

Find the Bug is a set of three flash-based spot-the-difference games. Each game in the trio has a different set of themed images: nature, space, and classic paintings. You are given one out of dozens of images paired with a slightly altered version. It's your job to spot the five differences and click them before time runs out.

Escape to Obion is a five-part series of short point-and-click Flash games by Matt Slaybaugh of SkepticTank.net. The games are strongly reminiscent of old-style adventure games such as Myst, complete with the mysterious atmosphere, fiendish puzzles, and an absolutely gripping sense of exploration.

Flash developer and blogger LUT! has a few unique point-and-click adventure games just begging for your attention. They're short, moderately difficult, and one oozes style while the other tries to scare the ActionScript out of you.

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