The first part of a trilogy, The Freewill Cycle: Volume 1 is in essence a simple point-and-click escape game created in classic adventure game style. You awake in a room. Could be in a spaceship, could be in a space station, could be just a strange building in East Podunk, Michigan. As you explore the story unfolds, giving, in a few short clues, a vivid account of what may have happened and the personalities of the people involved. Who, by the way, are mysteriously missing.

In Kidnapped by Aliens, previously unsung developer Selfdefiant tells the story of a human protagonist who has been kidnapped, and awaits who-knows-what from his captors. By the use of a little ingenuity, our hero manages to escape his cell and explore more areas of the UFO that contains him, with the ultimate goal of returning to Earth... perhaps. The surreal but perfect background sound and puzzles that make sense without being too obvious turn this game into an enjoyable experience.

In Smile For Me, you are a recently deceased person who, seeing the tears of a grieving loved one, seeks to bring joy to that individual. Give it a try if you feel like you might like a breath of fresh air, a few minutes of unadorned sincerity to cleanse your palate, and a darn good escape game to boot.

Though the original Who Am I? was a good-looking room escape game with some clever puzzles, it suffered from a lack of polish and some illogical puzzles. Robamimi has ameliorated these problems by reformulating (and, in numerous cases, entirely changing) the game's puzzles, cleaning up the interface and adding a save feature as well as a twinkly soundtrack.

While not the magnum opus of the escape game genre, Mystery House in Japan is fun, quick, and indisputably well-designed, perfect for a brief break in your day. While Bianco Bianco may not be the most stunningly original designer out there, it can always be counted upon to provide a solidly constructed and entertaining experience.

A lighter. Some flour. A stick, a rock, a knife and a towel. How, using only these handful of items, can you escape a room? Six different ways, apparently, at least in Room Escape SIX, a new escape-the-room game from Japanese designer Kotaro. You are the latest challenger to enter a strange, hexagon-shaped building that exists solely to be escaped from; how you do so depends upon the way in which you use the room's odd furnishings.

You wake, cold and alone, in a room lit only by a single, faint candle... that gleams off of the links of the chain connecting your leg to the wall. Uh-oh. From there, believe it or not, things only get worse. You are trapped in a house of horrors, and must solve puzzles and face supernatural terror in order to regain your freedom. Of course, there's also the matter of your murderous captor... where could he be? You might just find out.

Another brilliant room escape game from Neutral, the authors of the amazing Vision. Lights features inventive tough-but-fair puzzles, gorgeous rendered scenes, and enough charm to drown a dozen rubber duckies.

The next chapter in Afroninja's long-delayed Escape Series is here! This time, you wake up in a bathroom with the exit blocked by a bank of lasers. Point and click your way out using common household items, as the timer in the corner reminds you once per second, how tragic your brain is.

It's another blast from the past with this week's Weekday Escape. It's an oldie from our friends at Bianco-Bianco by the name of Escape from Dr. Ichie's Factory, another gem in the Dr. Ichie series. The story's a familiar one: you wake up in the middle of an odd factory building, and you find a note from the culprit, Dr. Ichie, telling you that you have to solve some puzzles to escape from it.

Melon Lacquer. Mellifluous Lymphocytes. Marimba Lion. Just what, exactly, does #07 ML stand for? Anyway, this is another high-quality escape-the-room game from consistently excellent Japanese designer 58 Works, who also made Cottage and Escape from Test Kitchen 2.

Toys is a compact, high-quality escape game that, if not exactly groundbreaking, is certainly enjoyable. A prominent feature of one of the game's puzzles is the usage of stereograms, a form of optical illusion in which a three-dimensional image is hidden within a two-dimensional picture. All in all, a high-quality production.

Rougoku falls into the category of more "realistic" escape games, those that concentrate in large part upon collecting and using items in practical ways (with, of course, a few genuine puzzles thrown in). It is a solid room escape game from a solid developer, familiar and proven with games like this.

Finally we find out why we have been trapped in so many different rooms in the Great Escape series by Mateusz Skutnik and the Pastel Games crew. Apparently there have been ghosts at every turn, slamming doors and locking us in various areas of the house, and now it's up to you do deal with those ghosts, once and for all. The Great House Escape takes the locale from each of the six previous installments, plus hallways connecting them all, and turns them into one big final "great escape" game.

Loom Blend is another room escape game from Place of Light, who previously brought us Room Fake, Room Bath, Room Marine, and Loom Above. The game's scenario is nothing new: you are in a room filled with diabolical puzzles and more than a few secrets, and must employ all of your wits to escape. A simple premise, but one that Place of Light does very well.

G-Sensor is a solid, well-plotted and very enjoyable escape-the-room game from Japanese developer HILG. You, as a nameless business-person, have checked into the mysterious Uncle Boo's Hotel, and now you can't get out!

Another haunting opening to another superb point and click game. New from Pastel Games and Mateusz Skutnik, creator of Covert Front, the Submachine series, and The Great Escape series, comes a sequel to last year's desolate adventure, The Fog Fall. The Fog Fall 2 is set in the same post-apocalyptic warzone as the original and is filled with gorgeous artwork, moody sound effects and frighteningly stark locations.

Loom above is the latest room escape game from Place of Light, one of our favorite room escape game developers. It's not nearly as long or challenging as previous releases we've seen by this developer, and there are far fewer items to find. The puzzles are all fairly straightforward and the game is a joy to play because of how well everything fits together. See for yourself.

With just enough challenge to engage, but not overtax, the mind, The Wedding Anniversary is a perfectly mellow respite from the workday world. A simple piano tune floats through the air. Relax, kick back and indulge in a bit of sentimentality... a wonderful room escape game that's more fun than a chick flick.

The sixth installment of Mateusz Skutnik's Great Escape series. By now you should know what to expect; beatiful cartoony backgrounds, quirky music, and improbable contraptions you must build to make your unlikely escape. Oh, and bats. Maybe you weren't expecting the bats, but they're in there too.

Neptune is quite different from GUMP's previous room-escape games. It doesn't begin with an interesting introductory movie in which a pink-haired character does not encounter a huge building and doesn't decide to enter it, not passing an enigmatic red ladies' shoe that isn't resting on the ground outside.

Quaint room is a relatively short and easy room escape game, but it is also impressively polished and well-made. The graphics are aesthetically pleasing in a tidy sort of way, and the interface is completely smooth and user-friendly. So, take a break. Relax, step back a few years and enjoy this lovely example of classic Japanese gaming goodness.

Another Room, by Japanese designer Mofuya, is a sweet, semi-short example of classic point-and-click that is executed with near-perfect competence. The game's puzzles are simple but well-crafted; while not wildly creative or different, they nonetheless offer a satisfying variety of problems to tackle. The room's neat, somewhat subdued appearance is pleasing to the eye and makes it simple to navigate the surroundings.

Ever wanted to combine a hidden object game with a riddle-centric room escape title? Like strawberries and bananas, the two genres go together remarkably well, as Elephant Games' Lost in the City eloquently showcases. Steeped in mystery, you travel from room to room finding items, solving puzzles, deciphering riddles and completing simple mini-games as you unravel a particularly intriguing storyline filled with strange plot twists.

Back to the basics again with Kagi Nochi Tobira 2, the simple and original puzzle game sequel to the very well-received Kagi Nochi Tobira from September of last year. There's not much else to say other than the raw creativity and sense of discovery in these simple puzzle games create an exceptionally engaging and appealing experience. Another example of why simple ideas are often among the most fun!

Today we have two short but excellent escapes for your mid-week gaming pleasure, and they couldn't be more different. One is gorgeously quirky, an eccentric little time-traveling escape game that will fascinate and bewilder; the other is a gritty and darkly realistic game that challenges the player to break out of the confines of a bleak prison cell. So, take your pick... whimsical or grim? Fantastical or gloomy? Whatever you choose, you're sure to enjoy.

Enter the Kid's Room. You left your myPhone behind when visiting your friend's house, and he hid it in the kid's playroom. You go to get it, possibly to get away from your annoying myRobot for a while, but some prankster locks the door behind you when you enter. Of course. It is an excellent piece of work, with puzzles that make sense, fine 3D graphics, and just the right amount of satisfaction when you figure something out.

Tortuga Episode 2 is an escape-the-room game set on a pirate ship; the second installment of the Tortuga series. You have just escaped the locked room from episode 1 and the pirate is still sleeping off the sleepy spray you got him with prior to your escape, but you are still locked up on the pirate ship. You must look for items and clues to reveal a solution on how to get off the ship.

All room escape games have secrets. Some room escapes, however, keep their cards especially close to their chests, relinquishing their grasp bit by bit; these are sometimes the most frustrating, and often the most intriguing. Sagrario's Room is such a game, and a superb one at that.

An uncommonly lovely escape game that is also, for better and for worse, unusually difficult. We've come to expect great things from Place of Light; their previous games are both excellent and well-executed. With Room Marine, however, they have positively outdone themselves. While the difficulty of the game can be at times taxing, the reward is more than worth it; if you're a serious connoisseur of escape games, you're gonna love this one.

A lovely escape game that does nearly everything right; the graphics are good, the puzzles varied and inventive, the interface clean and user-friendly. Completing Cosmo does take just a smidgen of comprehension of mathematics and astronomy, but it is easily one of the better room escapes to come along recently.

From the creators of Dr. Ichie's Room, Escape from Dr. Ichie's Cafe places you once more in the grasp of the mysterious doctor. He or she has locked you in a cozily wood-paneled cafe, filled with clever puzzles that tread the fine line between challenging and infuriating, providing a mentally stimulating experience that never crosses into head-banging-on-table territory.

New from Gregory Weir, eternally inventive creator of The Majesty of Colors, comes the enigmatic and unsettling Bars of Black and White. It is an escape game, but the point is not to escape the room; it is a social commentary—or maybe it's really just an exploration of one person's mind? The possible interpretations are endless.

T2B Escape 4 offers all the complexity, creativity and whimsy that we've come to expect from this popular escape-the-room series, with the difficulty ramped up a generous handful of notches. It has simple puzzles, complex puzzles, puzzles that cannot be solved until the very end, puzzles that can be cracked with nothing but a little clever thinking... the number and variety are really amazing.

Terminal House is the first of a series of four escape-the-room adventures by developer, GUMP, that chart your oddly pastel-blue hero's quest to gain freedom from mysterious captors; perhaps the least sophisticated of the group, it is nonetheless excellent. I love the game's quirky sensibility, its commingling of surreal elements and standard escape-the-room tropes.

December 31st, 1999. A mysterious conversation occurs between two concealed figures, only to be cut short by an unseen disaster. 100 years later, you wake up in a library, disoriented and alone. What are you doing in this strange house, and how can you escape? An escape-the-house, rather than escape-the-room, adventure, Time Escape is a complex quest that will test your wits and boggle your mind.

In Escape, a multiple-room point-and-click escape game in the Trapped series by Godlimations, play as Dialla Reineheart, a spunky red-headed lady detective tasked with bringing down a sinister crime syndicate. Your partner, Mickey, has been tragically slain by the leader of the gang, the ruthless Dan McNeely; now, you must escape from his clutches. This won't be easy.

A simple and charming room escaper from Japan that is just right for an afternoon tea. Filled with objects to find and puzzles to solve, and just a few smallish pixel areas to give you pause. It's simple, short and sweet, like a new year's baby offering promise of a better life ahead. So Happy Birthday 2008!

Cottage is an escape game that manages to successfully combine cleverness with a relatively low level of difficulty; while the puzzles may seem simple, they are still creative and inspired enough to delight even the veteran escape gamers among us. Fabulous graphics, fun puzzles, and an adorably surprising ending... it warms even my cold, grumpy New Yorker's heart.

You might think that after escaping the kitchen only to find yourself locked in a living room, and then a bathroom, and then a basement, that we would learn not to get into tight situations such as these again. But then Mateusz Skutnik sends word of yet another installment in the Great Escape series and we're all lush with excitement. Somehow it just doesn't stand to reason. Or does it?

It's that most special time of year again. Time to get on your softest, most comfortable pajamas, and make a mug of peppermint hot chocolate. A crackling fire would be nice, accompanied by Bing Crosby crooning about white Christmases and silver bells...as you sit down, with a sigh of contentment, to play Neutral's newest holiday room escape game. Ah, that most special time of year, indeed.

Charger Escape, the latest from Pastel Games, is not simple an excellent escape game, it is also one that features ponies! And farm animals! And kittens!! It is a rare game that manages to soothe and relax you even as it challenges your mind. Although not particularly difficult, nor is it very long, Charger Escape contains puzzles that are well-executed and creative.

Hotel 626 is an amazingly innovative, beautifully-produced nightmare of a game. After "checking in" (giving the website your name, email and creating a password), you are immediately whisked away into the opening movie: your awakening, in the middle of the night, in your room at this hellish hotel.

Rodrigo Roesler is back with the third and final installment of his Trapped trilogy of point-and-click adventure games. Trapped Pt. 3: The Labyrinth puts you right back into familiar territory: you've just killed a man and now you must escape from a strange house. Oh, and it's about 18 years in the past.

Onamis seems to be a portmanteau of the French words for "friendly" and "one". As soon as you are trapped inside, you might start to wonder just how friendly people really are. There you are, with no map, no guide, and no inventory. You don't have the ability to turn around or look back. There's not even a clue. Well, except that scrap of paper on the floor. Maybe someone was being friendly, after all.

Turning Burning, the third in Zibumi's Tom "Tucker" Crubucker series of games, picks up where the last one left off. Tom has just escaped the room he was trapped in, and confronts the mastermind behind it, a bizarre prince who asks him to rescue his rose, which has been stolen by a sheep...

Escape from Test Kitchen 2 is a standard escape-the-room game from Japan, somewhat reminiscent of a game from the gotMail folks. Players must collect bottles and mixers, pieces of a map, safe combinations, and the like to find a solution and escape from what appears to be a small cozy restaurant.

In Crypt Keeper, you find yourself plunked down in the middle of a truly spooktastic graveyard. How and why did you get there? Not important. It's the middle of the night, and there are creepy noises and big ominous tombstones and omigosh you need to get out right now!

Tortuga Episode 1 is an escape-the-room game set on a pirate ship; the first installment of a series, from Mateusz Skutnik and Marek Frankowski, that promises to be adventuresome, if not epic. Parrots, treasure, peril and puzzle awaits those intrepid enough to brave the pirate ship.

In Charisma, you play an orange-jumpsuited, blue-afroed dude who is trapped within what appears to be a combination living room/recording studio. There is a second gentleman inscrutably watching you from behind a glass partition, his hand poised above two buttons. He, for whatever reason, is not going to be of any help (and, in another departure from reality, smashing the glass and demanding he release you is not an option). So, it's up to you to explore the room, figure out what he wants and, eventually, set yourself free.

The 4th in a series of Great Escapes by Mateusz Skutnik and the Pastel Games crew, The Great Basement Escape is another short and fun room escape game in the same whimsical style that we have come to love and expect from the series.

Ghostscape, a new escape game by Psionic, is just chock full of supernatural goodness. You play a veteran investigator of the occult who, upon hearing rumors of a haunted house, cannot stay away...and what a paranormal gold mine it turns out to be! Chairs and cups move as if grasped by some invisible hand, mysterious diary entries litter the floor, grotesque paintings adorn every room. And then, of course, there are the ghosts.

Created by the Fox Network as a companion game to the Web series of the same name, The Cell is a lengthy, highly entertaining adventure through an elaborate dungeon complex. Our hero, Spence, must complete a series of increasingly bizarre and dangerous challenges as he ascends to the surface. And he needs your help to escape.

Neutral Halloween mini-game is what I'm calling this cute and easy escape game with a Halloween theme (well, it used to have a Halloween theme. The pumpkin has been replaced with a piggy bank now.) It features the same excellent implementation features of all the other Neutral games, along with simple yet appealing and effective graphics. I'm sure you will find this one worthwhile of your time!

It is a classic horror scenario: the car broken down in the middle of the road, the swirling snow and biting cold, the beckoning light visible just over the hill. A house! Oh, thank goodness. But what's this? The lights are on, cheery fireplaces crackle in every room, yet no one is there. You call out a hello, but your voice echoes unanswered through the hall. How strange.

Dr. Ichie's Room is a solid escape game experience from Japan with polished and appealing graphics, logical puzzles and no pixel hunts necessary. Although the game is from Japan, there are English translations included for all descriptions and explanations, making this Weekday Escape a worthy investment of your time.

The fourth in the "Core" series of point-and-click adventure games created by John Feltham has just been released. Soul Core is similar to other games like this, and yet introduces a unique concept as well. Use your mouse to add items to your inventory; click on inventory items and drag them to the game view to use them. Try to complete the game with 100% "soul" rating.

Ticket is a brand new game from the talented room escape designers at Gotmail. Like so many of their games to come before, this one features the same highly detailed, gorgeous pre-rendered scenes and the same point-and-clickery puzzles one would expect to find in a game of this nature. The only downside? There is no English version, so that will surely turn off a few.

Monster Basement 2 is every bit as entertaining and well-made as the original; like the first game, it is extraordinary for its thought-provoking plot and tense, eerie ambiance. Patrick Majewski, from Godlimations, has spared nothing in bringing his tale of monster-against-man-against-monster to life.

Matt Sandorf: Journey to Endless Entertainment is not just an artistic point-and-click game. It is an advergame—a promotion for the Sony empire from music to gadgets to games. It was created by Rodrigo Roesler, creator of the very popular Trapped series of games, and this one follows similar construction.

And really, that's what this delectable duo is: delicious, unpretentious, snack-sized games just bursting with escapey goodness. Are they remarkable? Not really. Satisfying? Absolutely. And as a plus, they won't leave grease stains on your couch.

Room escape fans will be pleased to learn of a brand new installment available to play in the T2B Escape series. The new game, T2B Escape 3, features similar artwork, some pixel hunting and the lack of any backstory as in previous games, but that shouldn't stop all the room escape fanatics from enjoying another T2B Escape experience. Go forth, point-and-click your mouse, and escape!

White Zone is an intriguingly different sort of room escape game; it does not take place in any sort of concrete space. There are no walls, no ceiling, no door; instead, the player is faced with a few pieces of furniture—two chairs, a television, and a dresser, to be exact—arranged in a circle, seemingly suspended within a white void. Some forgotten corner of the Matrix? Perhaps.

Find key, then find door—
Kagi Nochi Tobira—
How hard could it be?

In Another Side, you inexplicably find yourself confined within a dollhouse-like room, a pretty little place marred by the giant wall of rock that exists in place of a door. That's right, there's not even a door to unlock! But there's plenty to explore and examine.

In this world of change, however, there is one constant. Come rain, come sun, come snow, there will be rooms to escape from. When the glaciers melt and California falls into the sea, there will still be screwdrivers and scraps of paper to collect. And in billions of years, when the sun finally blooms into a red giant and consumes the Earth, we will be here, faithfully, delivering Weekday Escape to you every Wednesday. ...Well, ok, maybe not then. Definitely up until the week before, though. After that we'll be updating from Mars.

A deeply satisfying escape game presented by Place of Light, you must find your way out of what is undoubtedly the oddest bathroom you've ever come across; codes and secret panels grace the toilet, gems are scattered across the floor and weird golden masks watch over the sink and bathtub. Perhaps it's the work of some eccentric, puzzle-obsessed billionaire....who has, um, slipped, hit his or her head and forgotten how to escape? Yep, that must be it.

This week, we present the exclusive debut of a super-duper, extra-special room escape game, one we can guarantee that absolutely no other website has yet featured. Don't you feel special? To all the JIG faithful, we present to you the world premiere of.... Casual Gameplay Escape!

Diversity is more of an escape-the-house game, rather than escape-the-room; in order to finally achieve freedom, the player must exit first a bedroom, then an office, then a nursery and finally a bathroom. This aside, Diversity is a well-executed, if fairly standard, point-and-click game, no doubt inspired by the classic Crimson Room.

Surprise! Suspense! A scintillatingly superb set of sequels, specifically suggested by your escape specialists for another Weekday Escape. Sequester yourself away, take a sabbatical from the scathing stupor of your work week. Salud!

Monster Basement is a chilling room escape game that injects mood and atmosphere into what is often an almost apathetic genre. The motivation to leave is made all too clear; this room with its vampire flies, blood stained meat hooks, and grotesque abominations sitting in fluid filled beakers, scares the jebus out of you, and as you slowly work through a way to leave this terrible place, things aren't likely to get better either.

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means. Yes! It means we're half-way to another Weekend Download, two days shy of a Link Dump Friday, and smack-dab in the middle of a Weekday Escape! So grab your mouse, your point-and-clicky finger and let's escape some rooms!

The 3rd in a series of Great Escapes by Mateusz Skutnik and the Pastel Games crew, The Great Bathroom Escape is another short and fun room escape game that will surely entertain like the others to come before it.

Bird's Eye View Escape is a unique, well-made room escape game that offers a new perspective (literally) on the genre; it also happens to be really tough. If you're willing to take on a challenge and have the stamina to crack open some seriously enigmatic puzzles, we heartily recommend this game.

What do robots and exotic birds have in common with stop motion animation? They're all components of this week's selection of Weekday Escape! Featuring three worthy escape games for your weekday escapism.

Welcome to another edition of Weekday Escape. This week we highlight a trio of escape games that, while not quite exemplary enough to warrant a full review, are nonetheless well-done and entertaining. So, enjoy this triple treat! See you again next week, same time, same channel.

Upon first playing Escape Artist, a new room escape game, you may be surprised that this is a creation of the same designers who produced such dark, brooding classics as the Submachine and Covert Front series. You'll soon find out, however, that Mateusz Skutnik & company do sweet, serene and light very well indeed; Escape Artist is lovely, cute without crossing the line into saccharine, and a real pleasure to play.

This just in! Gotmail, creator of numerous esteemed escape games, has just released Free Falling for our escaping pleasure. I haven't yet played through the entire game, but so far it conforms to the usual high Gotmail standard: beautiful, lifelike graphics, ingenious puzzles, and....a pachinko machine? Interesting.