
For this week's You Are Games, we want you to put on your level design tin foil hats and dial them to "R-I-D-D-L-E". We are looking for submissions of one-panel riddle puzzles to create one big honking JIG community riddle puzzle game that we will share with everyone once it's finished. Prizes will be awarded, and anyone who gets their idea(s) into the game will have a place among the credits inside the game.

This week's You Are Games challenge leverages the awesome and unique opportunity being offered by Inexile Entertainment with its new Prius-branded version of a fan favorite here at JIG! Fans of physics puzzles and fuel efficiency, your time has come at last! Fantastic Contraption is back with a new look, new levels, and a chance to win $1,000!

Protonaut is best described as a platform physics puzzler: a platformer covered in a velvety layer of physics, served with a generous dosage of puzzler. The premise of the game is fairly simple: you are a small character (presumably the Protonaut), tasked with collecting all of the gaseous elements in each level. Run, jump, and shoot projectiles to solve each level's puzzle.

Minecraft is a sandbox game that lets you make your own world out of colorful building blocks. Construct a fortress, and then plant tulips on the parapets. Dig a vast network of subterranean tunnels, drop a colony of people down the rabbit hole, and watch them wander. Or, if you're in a particularly metacognitive mood, make a sandbox. Uncage your imagination, and let it take you where it will.

This week on You Are Games, you get to review the games. Send us a review of one of the following games: Upgrade Complete, Minecraft, or Lights. We'll choose our three favorites and feature them on the site! Check out the rules and guidelines in the full article, and remember to have fun. Reviewers, Assemble!

In our inaugural entry for a brand new feature, You Are Games, we are highlighting the latest from Grubby Games: Incredibots 2! Now in open beta, we are leveraging the community and level sharing aspect of the game with a mini-competition instead of a review. Announcing the
Jay is Games Incredibots 2 Mini-Brawl!

Shift 4 is now available to play and it brings with it a shiny new iPhone app of the original Shift experience to take with you on-the-go. If you're familiar with the Shift series so far, a lot of the elements in this game will seem very familiar. However, twists do come, as you will eventually find yourself having to control more than one silhouetted fellow. You've now got to use a team of folks to reach the exits and advance.

There's nothing quite like a day on the farm: the smell of freshly tilled soil, tender plants sprouting, and honeybees buzzing in search of nectar. Some call it work, but if you've ever met Alice Greenfingers, you know it's more like play. The lovable pig-tailed girl is back, tending her Uncle Berry's farm in Alice Greenfingers 2, a sequel that does nothing but improve upon the original.

IncrediBots is a brand new physics-based webtoy from Grubby Games, creator of the Professor Fizzwizzle series. Much like Fantastic Contraption and Line Rider before it, IncrediBots gives you a handful of simple tools and sets you free to explore your creative impulses. Draw shapes, connect them with joints, and tweak their basic properties to create living, moving, and functioning 'bots that can perform any task. You can even make movies, complete with text, than can be shared with the IncrediBots community.

There's been an accident in the slime factory and now it's up to you to clean up the mess. In each level you must collect all of the puddles of goo and direct them down one of the available suction vents to make it all go away. To do so, you'll have to push boxes out of the way and mind the arrows which allow you to travel in one direction only.

This is Sand is a lovely little
web toy, a nice, gentle way to ease your brain back to life after the weekend. It could hardly be simpler or more elegant: the program converts pixels into digital sand that falls, stacks and layers just like the real thing, providing an endless array of possible designs, landscapes and pictures.

Fantastic Contraption is a physics puzzle game in which the objective in each level is to move all red objects into a rectangular goal area. To do this, you are given a blue rectangular building area and a few different materials in which you can build your device. Standing in your way, however, are a variety of obstacles, ranging from gaping gaps to a sea of circles bent on destroying your red-object-mover-apparatus.

If you've played the original, or the even better update to that one, then you probably will be thrilled to know that Tony has just released a third game in this fantastic series that takes the concept of
negative space and turns it upside-down. Shift 3 extends the familiar jump and run, puzzle-platformer formula by adding a few surprises.

One of Spore's most touted and talked about features is how it leverages user-created content to populate the countless planets within the Spore universe. The Spore team accomplishes this by putting powerful and easy-to-use tools to create elements of the Spore universe in the hands of the masses. One of those tools is being released today, the Spore Creature Creator.

Music Bounce is a bit like Breakout, but with an unlikely musical twist. Each level presents you with a different layout of colored bricks. Your job is to wipe them all out by striking them with ammunition from an array of gates on the left side of the screen. And if everything is running properly, Music Bounce can be magical.

Scorching Earth is an intriguing turn-based puzzle game in which you control the actions of an inferno as it seeks to devastate 50 levels worth of landscape. The levels are composed of square tiles, filled with various types of terrain—grasslands, water, trees, and so forth. Your goal on each puzzle is to destroy the required number of tiles. It's a good, solid, innovative puzzle game, and it's fun.

Blockoban is the latest from JP, who has just launched a new website that features user-created content, called Bonus Level, along with fellow game designers, Wouter and Tonypa. With names like that attached you can expect high quality, and Blockoban delivers. It's a game where you slide blocks around and try to match their colors to specific spaces. That simple mechanic is fleshed out with challenging level designs and high quality production values, delivering an experience that will keep you hooked.

A new webtoy designed to steal your afternoon and be a playground for your creativity. Earth Editor uses similar particle physics and materials as previous games but adds a unique twist: centralized gravity. Drop some sand on the screen and it's pulled to the middle. Add water and you have yourself a little planet. Then you fling some meteors and watch the fun explode!

Netshift is the Web-based successor to Blackshift, an action puzzle game download from
Rob Allen, the man who brought us the
Hapland series and many other excellent titles. Netshift, currently in beta, makes the original game more accessible, and it even includes a level editor with which to create and share levels with the Netshift community.

XSketch is a multiplayer Pictionary-style game with an interesting twist on gameplay and scoring. Players can jump right into any game already in progress and begin to have fun immediately. Points are earned by drawing and guessing successfully, and monthly competition leader boards give the game a real competitive feel.

This update still utilizes the same slick interface and near-flawless gameplay mechanics as before to create a serious action-puzzle challenge. If you didn't play Contour when it was first released, there's never been a better time to give it a spin. Since then, the community embraced the editor and set to work creating new levels. In fact, so many new levels were created that Sean hand-picked some of the best and updated the game.

The original Shift was an interesting platform game that used negative space as an entertaining hook, but it came with a few problems that ultimately made it feel unfinished and experimental. Now, Tony of Armor Games has released Shift 2, which is basically the game the first one should have been. It's not enough of a leap forward to warrant the "2" in its name, really, but it refines and expands upon the original concepts to deliver a smoother, more drinkable dose of run/jump/puzzle distraction.

Every time we review
a picross game, there always seems to be a hubbub about what site does it
right. Either there's not enough puzzles to solve, not enough variety in the puzzles, it's all too easy or too hard, or the pictures look like someone sneezed on a piece of graph paper. (I'll admit to being among the gripers before.) And every time, there's at least one person who suggests Griddlers.

When you think of what this medium is capable of it's easy to grab for lofty terms like "emergence" or even "organic beauty", but have nothing solid to hold onto. The Powder Game is a rare beacon of hope for those who dream of deep interactivity. It is a fondue of loose goals and free play; creation and destruction wrapped in a tumbling embrace. Oh yeah, this game is that good and will keep you engaged for hours.

Remember Line Rider? That was a pretty sweet webtoy made by a guy from Slovenia. But did you ever get the feeling that Line Rider could have been so much more amazing if there was more of a game to it? Fresh off the CandyStand, we have Line Golfer. It's like Line Rider, but you can golf your way through the mouse-drawn levels instead of watch a character sled through them. Frankly, it's money.

Contour is a clever re-imagining of Marble Madness by Sean Hawkes, creator of several games entered into previous competitions such as Orbit and Clack. An isometric grid is placed over the playing field that holds a ball and a white exit square. Click on individual tiles to raise the ground from that point, causing the marble to roll downhill. The goal is to move the marble to the exit tile by raising and lowering the floor, a feat that requires both intelligent planning and fast clicking.

If you're like me and suffer from "Funky-Chicken-itis" and are looking for a tool to help you shake yo' groove thang, might I recommend a little dance music? The Tony-b Machine is a cool techno-music webtoy to give you just the right beats. Simply slide the sliders and push the buttons to crank out your own thumping creation.

Free Rider 2 is a sequel that continues the more interactive spin on the Line Rider formula. Using a large tool set you can sculpt, edit and decorate the environment any way you choose. When you're done, take to the arrow keys and drive your rider through the stage. It's webtoy-meets-level-editor kind of experience, and it's even better than the original.

From the award-winning Preloaded design team comes a new physics-based game designed for the Science Museum in London. Launchball is a fabulously produced take on the 'guide something to the goal' family of physics games. There is even a level editor with which to create puzzles and send them to your friends.

The next entry is from Damir Srpèiè of Slovenia. You might remember Damir from our first competition with his popular and creative entry, Personal Universe. Roped! implements "ball physics" as well as 'rope physics' in this unique puzzle game that also includes and integrated level editor and save feature.

A soothing sound toy with which to bathe the aural senses, Pianolina is a beautifully designed and gorgeously sounding Flash application created to introduce you to the sounds of the Grotrian piano. Choose between several different compositions and see how the notes react to gravity as they bounce around the display.

Here, among the roses of red and strange mushrooms, we find Alice. Is she visiting the Queen of Hearts? No, it isn't that Alice. Meet Alice Greenfingers. She doesn't have time for chasing rabbits and general nonsense (save the occasional gnome); she has to take some tomatoes to the market while the demand is still high!

Ha55ii, creator of the previously reviewed Liquid Webtoy, has put forth another addictive webtoy: Powder Game. It bears a similarity in essence to the Falling Sand games, but takes it a step further with the introduction of wind and air pressure.

Acrobots are little 3-legged acrobatic robots that hop and jump around and react to each other. Together they form an unsual webtoy that includes impressive physics as well as some very fluid animation. Very nicely done by the same Vector Park folks that brought us Levers, and Feed the Head.

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.

Paintball is a simple time waster that should prove a fun diversion for an hour or two. Or three. The playing field consists of: a ball, which drops under gravity and bounces; a square, which the ball is trying to reach; pre-set platforms which the ball will roll/bounce on; and custom-made platforms which you draw freehand on the screen. Simpler than some games with this feature, Paintball is unlikely to elicit gasps from its players with advanced physics, but what it does it does very well.
One of the most creative entries in our August game design competition was a modest appearing title with a relatively big name: Personal Universe. It was created by Damir, a game designer from Slovenia, and his game was an audience favorite. Many asked for more levels and a way to share levels with others. Today he delivered an update that makes that all possible.

Deadly Rooms of Death is a turn-based puzzle game; one turn being the amount of time it takes Beethro, the central character, to move one square or to swing his sword by 45 degrees. DROD is very much a puzzle game, but unlike any other you may have played before. It is actually the sequel to the critically acclaimed DROD: King Dugan's Dungeon, and both were created by Caravel Games.

Rubicon is an amazing machine-building puzzle game, level editor, and sandbox toy. Gameplay consists of moving crates to one or more targets for each level. Each crate must come to rest on its corresponding target for a green light to appear. Use the component materials provided to construct any machine that will succeed at the task.

In this charming little game, you play the role of a bored tire manufacturing worker named Dink. Dink's tired of his pathetic day to day existence doing the same old thing. In fact, he'd quit his job were it not for his eight starving children and warehouse load of credit card debt. Today though, things are going to turn around for poor Dink as he discovers his inborn talent to make music from old factory machinery.

Personal Universe is a puzzle game that lets you play with physics. Using sets of colored blocks you must build moving machines that help you complete tasks. Just as the name implies, Personal Universe gives you the materials to let you build a living universe all your own. It's filled with possibilities and offers a surprising amount of freedom to explore and experiment at your leisure.

A Break in the Road is a unique game that puts you in the role of a DJ recording sounds throughout the city to mix into a one minute song. An amazingly well-produced cut scene, complete with top-notch voice acting talent, introduces the back story and drops you right into it.

Phase Toy is a simple Shockwave sequencer that allows you to create compositions using a point-and-click interface. Just click on a cell to have the sequencer play the corresponding tone when the 'play head' sweeps over it. Click and drag to add several tones at once. Phase Toy makes a nice little diversion that is as mesmerizing as it is relaxing.

This simple and strangely compelling toy was just released onto Web featuring a primitive drawing interface with which to create a track for a little character to slide upon. Save and load tracks and even try to attain objectives to increase the enjoyment from this creative little sandbox webtoy.

Sand Sand Sand is another entry in the Falling Sand games from Dofi-Blog. This installment incorporates some of the best elements of World of Sand and Hell of Sand into one, allowing you to play with a variety of elements in even more ways than before.

The Dofi-Blog sand and zombie toys are making their way around the Web like a ??? explosion (inside joke), and for good reason: they are quite literally sand box games that allow for a seemingly infinite variety of creative play. And now the author, d_of_i, has released another sand world, Hell of Sand, which appears to be a combination of the previously reviewed War of the Hell and World of Sand.

There is plenty of remarkable work being done over at Dofi-Blog in both the Java and Processing languages. Although the blog is written predominantly in Japanese, there are several compelling and engaging interactive games and toys that should not be missed regardless of your language of choice. Strongly recommended: World of Sand.

It's about Chi power. Lead Artist for Lionhead Studios, Mark Healey, set out to create a video game of his own in his spare time. Over the course of a few years, an innovative and new, gorgeous and outrageous fighting game took shape under the name: Rag Doll Kung Fu. And now, a free demo is available!

la Pâte à Son is an amazing sound toy created in France. This original musical piece and compositional tool was conceived to encourage musical experimentation, and its achievements surpass its goal. Not only is this toy fun to play and experiment with, it is also capable of creating some very beautiful music.

Who hasn't enjoyed the simple pleasures of cutting paper into snowflakes on a cold winter day? With Make-a-Flake there is no mess to clean-up and you can even undo cuts gone wrong. This Flash toy is a fun way to express your creativity and get into the spirit of the holiday season.

iSketch is an online multiplayer Shockwave game similar to the drawing game Pictionary, and it works remarkably well on the Web. Players take turns drawing a word assigned by the game. When it's your turn, a basic and simple-to-use drawing interface appears with which to begin drawing. It's very well designed and loads of fun, though it can be terribly addictive so beware.

Scott Shiller is a Javascript and DHTML wizard and to prove it he has recreated the classic arcade hit Arcanoid with all original levels. There is also a level editor with which you can create your own levels and save them for others to play. The interface is slick and simple, and yet looks more like an application program running than code in a browser window. Amazing client-side programming.

Lite-Brite was a technological wonder when it was first released back in 1967 by the Hasbro toy company. Images were created by poking the colored pegs through the black paper on the screen, which made the pegs appear to illuminate from the light housed in the case. The screen resolution wasn't too good, but hey... it was 1967! And now, thanks to the magic of JavaScript, you can play Lite-Brite on your computer. May the wonders of technology never cease.
I've been having a lot of fun lately playing this old-school style, top-down shmup (shoot-em-up) called Hurricane developed by Nuvorm in the Netherlands. Along the lines of the arcade classic Galaga, this one has power-ups to increase shields and weapons with lots of cool pyro-technic particle effects. There is also a downloadable PC version of the...
File this one under interactive Flash tools for creative expression. Scribbler is just one of many interactive "toys" available at Zefrank.com. This "generative illustration toy" allows you to draw with the mouse in the window, then Scribbler takes over and creates its own drawing on top of what you've drawn. There are even interactive controls t...

Similar to South Park Studio's Create-A-Character, this little Flash avatar creator is a bit more versatile and has a few more options. Create a face of your own that fits your unique personality, then do a PrintScrn and paste into your favorite bitmap graphics program.

Thanks to WeezBlog for the link to a very cool site, Typorganism, where I played with all sorts of interesting type-related interactivity in an elegant Flash presentation. There is a visual composer feature which allows you to play with various palettes of sounds, organizing them as you might use a sequencer. If you like what you hear you can eve...