Game developers will often provide players with tools that allow you to create your own level. In Level Editor, they've decided to skip the pre-made levels and just let you get straight to the level-building fun.You play a red hat-wearing stick man with an arsenal of building blocks and a craving for coins.

Robin the Archer in Pixeland is a platform adventure that's all about Robin, a cute little character made out of chunky pixels who's really good with the bow. Each level is filled with coins, enemies, breakable blocks, and a whole mess of tricky jumps to navigate. Work your way through over a dozen stages, stopping between levels to upgrade your abilities.

Choose between playing as Anakin Skywalker for the Republic, or as the Jedi assassin, Asajj Ventress, in this Star Wars action adventure game built in Unity 3D. Forget what you think you know about browser-based games and give LEGO Star Wars: The Quest for R2D2 a try. It won't be long before you get sucked into a time long ago in a galaxy far, far away, where plastic bricks vied for control of the universe.

How does one navigate a world frozen solid by an apocalyptic catastrophe? On a squeaky bicycle, of course! Pedal your way across eight treacherous landscapes in this stunningly gorgeous platformer by Reece Millidge.

In Finwick, the spritual successor to Platform, Jackson Lewis has once again crafted a brilliant gem of a puzzle platformer. Play the part of Finwick as he makes his very first delivery for the Royal Mail, passing through dangerous factories, quarries, forests and secret underground facilities.

RunMan: Race Around the World, by Tom Sennett and Matt Thorson, is a full-fledged follow-up to the RunMan series of speed-centric platform games. You control the titular RunMan who's really, really good at running. He's so good, in fact, he's entered a race to run around the world. Too bad everybody else quit when he showed up. RunMan is also an HonorableMan, however, and before he'll accept the winner's crown, he's going to earn it by running around the world on his own two little yellow feet.

In this funky little gem of a platformer, your goal is to make it across 26 levels in the fastest time possible. Collect the green atoms scattered along the way to remove 5 seconds from your time, but each time you die, you add 5 seconds to your total time. Customization features abound and help to enhance the experience within.

Man-eating plants! Skeletons! Giant spiders! Falling boulders! What do these things have in common? They're all very, very deadly. And they, along with a host of other unpleasantness hungry for your demise, are waiting for you in Spelunky, an incredibly addictive roguelike platformer from Derek Yu. Explore, descend, discover... just remember to watch your back and keep one hand on your whip!

The latest platform puzzle game from Edmund McMillen, Time Kufc brings to the platformer table multi-dimensional planes. Press the [A] key to switch planes and alter what is visible on the screen. Sometimes you can see the other planes while you are occupying the current one, but you can't see what overlaps between planes. This creates an interesting dynamic that involves a lot of guessing with your jumps, especially when movable blocks make their appearance.

Someone in Station 38 needs your help, and you'll never guess who it is! Pat Kemp's Station 38 puts you at the helm of a lander-type spacecraft, thrusting and sputtering its way through 38 levels in response to an SOS from deep within. And when you receive a distress call from Station 38 in deep space, well, you've just gotta answer it!

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.

Unleash the power of the written word in The Wizard's Notebook, where your keyboard can conjure up cats, make the sun shine, and much more. Type words and reach for the stars in this clever little platform puzzler from Turtle Soup Games! And if you want to call yourself The Gamer Who Lived, we won't tell anyone.

Bleep, bloop, assimilate! The life of a robot is hard. When you're slated for that big old junk heap in the sky, do you go quietly into that long good night? If you're playing Mechanaughts, a quirky little action platformer, you fight your way to your oppressors and take your mechanical revenge. Since robots tend to have cold, unfeeling metal pincers for hands, that revenge is unlikely to consist of hugs and a heartfelt discussion on your feelings.

Your journey as Arkus Rei, space pirate, continues in this series of extremely challenging platform adventures. Follow the instructions given by your new found human companion to uncover treasure beyond your imagination. But first you must travel to several different dangerous locales and, well, survive.

Enter the world of the Waker, an enigmatic creature charged with guiding wayward dreamers to their respective awakenings. With the help of some magical orbs, you'll be able to fashion platforms and bridges out of dreamstuff, but be wary of how the platforms are constructed, or else you may steer yourself directly into the darkest nightmares.

You tell yourself you don't care about her anymore. She broke your heart and to forget the pain you throw yourself into your ninja training, pushing your muscles further than any human should rightly expect of their body. You tell yourself it doesn't matter, and for a while you think you might believe yourself. It's not until your friend informs you that she's been kidnapped by the ruling species, werewolves, that you come to understand that it's all a lie. You still love her enough to rip through every single werewolf keeping you from her, or die trying.

Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink! Actually, that couldn't be any more inaccurate here. In I-Fluid by Exkee, you are a drop of water, and your task is to navigate an intricate 3D world of a kitchenette that seems to be rather devoid of water. With the outward appearance of a platformer but the heart of a phuzzler, I-Fluid boasts an incredibly realistic atmosphere and a solid set of challenges to go with it.

The new game from Gregory Weir is an unabashedly highbrow and experimental platform game, where the ground is made up of literature. Try to touch as many words as you can, as prose by H.P. Lovecraft, T.S. Eliot and others stretches out before you. It's interesting enough just to be forced to read by a platform game, but the real treat is all the visual embellishments.

The Lost Vikings? Old news. This is Hans Hans the Biking Viking, who, along with his friends Freya and Thor, must escape from the nefarious but incompetent Loki's lair. Use Thor's strength, Freya's magic, and Hans's... well... jumping bicycle to outwit an 11-level dungeon full of tricks and traps.

The source of BOXGAME's name is obvious: it's basically a puzzle platformer wrapped around a box. Perhaps by M. C. Escher. The direction of gravity changes depending on how you cross from face to face, turning walls into ceilings and pits into doorways. Jump and rotate your way to the exit in this unique game by Sophie Houlden. Don't forget your teddy bear!

Observe this failure of an elephant. It is tiny. It is blue. It has forgotten every level of this new platform game by jmtb02 but the first. An animal known for its memory can't remember anything about the game it's starring in but a single configuration of blocks and spikes. This is it. This is the only level. What a failure of an elephant.

This surreal platformer by Makibishi Inc. drops you unceremoniously into a world gone absolutely loony. As it turns out, stars are the cogs by which time ticks in this universe, and as fate would have it (as it often does), those stars have been scattered to the ends of the earth. You, a fearless yellow blockhead, must gather up the missing stars in hopes of setting things right in the world again, or at least as right as things get in that place. Which isn't very right at all.

The first Flash game from Anna Anthropy, When Pigs Fly is an extra-challenging offbeat platformer about a pig who has to escape from a cavern using her newly-grown wings, which are unfortunately the most fragile creation in the history of the universe. Even negotiating a simple floating block takes some skill, and an innocent staircase becomes a jagged nightmare.

You control three different characters: a hulking heavy weapons master, a stealthy ninja scout, and a shield-bearing defense specialist. They are the Galactic Commandoes, and they're here to solve a series of platform/puzzle levels using their unique strengths and abilities! Yeah, teamwork!

A sequel to the fast-paced bow-and-arrow blast-fest so many of us loved, it's Twin Shot 2. Take your chubby cat-cherub duo through 100 new levels of twisted, cartoony Greek mythology, perforating curious little gelatin-demons of all shapes and sizes.

From developer Lucas Paakh comes a journey into the fantastic with William and Sly. Take on the role of an agile fox in a fantastic world, working to uncover all of it's secrets and find out the reason why a network of teleportation runes has suddenly stopped working. With a massive map to explore, achievements to earn, and powers to acquire, William and Sly is almost more experience than game.

You are the Parasite, a squelching land-squid from the stars who sees profit opportunities where a less sophisticated alien might see bunnies and butterflies. Your goal in this new platform game from Nitrome is to destroy all of the planet's tree spirits and replace them with mining structures. If you have even a touch of the arch-villain in you, this game will charm you down to the core of your thin, waxed mustache.

Mabushi is a ninja who looks like a bean, but he doesn't let that get him down. Not when he has the prettiest girl in the village for a girlfriend! Yes, life is a pretty sweet fruit if you're Mabushi... at least until a jealous demon lord absconds with both his girlfriend and his sword! Set out across the land to help him rescue his true love as you hop, shuriken, dart, and generally ninja your way through this gorgeous, retro-style platformer!

Cheerio, my good man, pip pip! The name is Sir Reginald MoneySeize II, Esq. I'm out to construct the world's largest tower, and I'll need 1000 golden coins to do it. Are you up to the platform-jumping challenge, my well-buttered scone? I sincerely hope so, for I'm simply too well bred and important to fall to my death on a bed of spikes.

We interrupt your internet viewing to bring you this important news bulletin: Rabbit Wants Cake. That is to say, one little remote-controlled rabbit needs to avoid spikes and furry monsters on the way to get cake. Program the rabbit by recording and tweaking its movements, in this odd little platformer by John Cooney.

Run and jump with one hand, warp reality with the other. Ian Snyder's Push is a platform game with an exciting and inventive twist that lets you reshape levels in real-time with an omnipotent force bubble. Plus you can make your own levels for others to tear asunder.

If you were to ask us, "What is Bango?" we could say a lot of things. "A board game! A breakfast cereal! The newest pop music superstar!" But of course, since Bango! is actually a puzzle platformer, we would be dirty rotten liars. Race across blocks that plummet behind you, trying to clear the screen of them without falling yourself. It's harder than it sounds, and with an extra five levels each of "extra-hard" and "frustrating" difficulty, it's a challenge for everyone!

In Greg Sergeant's aptly titled puzzle platformer, Use Boxmen, you, believe it or not, use boxmen to collect boxes. It sounds fairly simple and straightforward, but it's not, really. Some puzzles require you to think outside the box to reach their oftentimes very clever solution. Solving puzzles is only half the battle, however, as Use Boxmen takes its platforming element very seriously.

When you load up Raider: Episode 1 in your browser you can expect solid controls, a good story, and magnificent level design that will put your platforming skills to the test. This first in a series of five episodes sets a high standard for the four episodes to follow.

Shy Dwarf is a gorgeously animated little adventure where you play as a little black blob with a jaunty red hat. But Shy Dwarf is something of an enigma. Fun, short, and completely baffling. We're not sure exactly what it all means, or if it's supposed to mean anything at all. Whatever the case, we couldn't resist its unmistakable charm.

At first glance, Scarygirl comes at you blazing on all cylinders like a triumph in Flash game production values. From the very start of the introductory cinematic sequence, the player is offered a glimpse at what appears to be one of the most fantastic Flash games to ever appear on the Web. In the end, the good outweighs the bad. Players can put up with loose controls, slipping and sliding their way through levels, when the brilliance of the rest of the game is so appealing. Every element combines to lift Scarygirl above the competition, serving to create one of the most exasperating yet fulfilling Flash games available today.

Fantastic platform puzzler in which you play a Victorian magician who must correct a mistake by leading poor ghostly souls to a magic door. Including smart and elegant brain teasers that get increasingly more complicated as the levels progress. Altogether a fun and challenging new puzzle game from a promising new group of Flash game developers from New Zealand.

Braid is a groundbreaking platform game created by Jonathan Blow. With a deep, intriguing storyline, gorgeous artwork, enchanting music, and the unique ability to manipulate time, Braid is built from dozens of unique puzzles (no filler material) that will challenge your ability to think laterally while inspiring your philosophical mind to search for meaning with every object you encounter.

Action, adventure, and painful, spiky death can all be yours in Chup, a new platformer from Tomas Pettersson. With a retro vibe and an intensely charismatic star, Chup offers a tricky jumping adventure that would make Mario proud.

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.

Tower of Greed is a game about the banker's favorite deadly sin, in the form of an aggressively retro, fast-moving platformer. Will you exit the tower with untold riches? Or will you be betrayed by your own avarice? If your fingers are nimble enough, let's find out!

What if Mario, instead of instantly reappearing at the beginning of the level after he died, had to earn his reincarnation by traveling the realms of Diyu, being judged by the kings of Yama? This is a game about that from Yoshio Ishii of Nekogames.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a... OW! Ew... is that a spleen? The fifth chapter of the puzzle-platforming Karoshi series is here, and it's one of the best of the bunch. This edition comes with a flying, indestructible, Super Saiyan alter-ego, a dubious power when the goal of the game is to kill yourself.

Help guide Spewer, an adorable pink blob, through a series of diabolical tests put forth by a watchful scientist in this physics-based platformer. It's a journey of adventure, excitement, and child-like wonder. Also, vomit.

The bomb is going to go off in five seconds. This can't be changed. Your task is to guide a bunch of individuals through their final five seconds of life before the bomb does go off. Can you get 100% by helping all of the stick figures attain their goals before being vaporized by the big one? And will it matter?

If a three-year-old or a five-year-old were to make their own platform game, Androkids 2 is exactly what it would look like. If you never quite got over collecting coins and jumping on the bad guys, this is definitely right up your alley. Kid-tested and approved.

Put Paper Mario and Tim Burton in a blender and you get Paper Moon, a smooth, sophisticated example of how to integrate design and mechanics into a masterful casual game. It's a platformer with a twist, and with enough style and depth to keep you coming back for more.

Scarygirl is a huge (hours long) and absolutely stunning platform game just released today by a collaboration of companies, including art direction by concept creator, Nathan Jurevicius, an Australian-born artist now living in Toronto, Ontario. Although currently marred by gameplay issues causing player frustration, it is without a doubt one of the most visually appealing browser-based experiences we have ever seen.

What's better than a game about a shuriken-chuckin', rope-swingin' cyber-ninja with green glowing eyes and powers of invisibility? Two games about that ninja. Final Ninja Zero is Nitrome's prequel to Final Ninja, with a secret weapon that puts it ahead of any other platform game in a browser: cyborg ninja monkeys.

The latest wacky puzzle from Nitrome, Rustyard has you indirectly leading a junkyard robot with a striking resemblance to Wall-E. You cannot control the movements of the machine, but you can manipulate the environment with its buttons and switches and trolley tracks. Get the robot to the generator and charge up! Bzzzap!

Monochro Observer is a lovely little puzzle/platform game by Japanese game developer Tatsuya Koyama. Control two people, one who lives in dark and one who lives in light, as they cooperate to reach the exit together. Just look at those little munchkins, staring at each other across the impassable divide between worlds. Lonesome. Longing. The fire of passion smoldering in their eyes…okay, not that last part.

Don't Look Back is a modern retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, although there are subtle differences. For one, the mythical greek poet favored a harp over a handgun, and for another, he didn't need your platforming skills to guide him on his journey.

Schizo-Phrenzy is a surreal platform adventure with an art deco look and a discourteous attitude towards gravity. Guide the mentally unwell private investigator John K. Facey on his quest to confront the titanic Mayor and discover the true extent of his own madness. Schizo-Phrenzy will fill your shoes with spider eggs during the night, and if they hatch, you are in real danger of having your privacy invaded.

The writing's on the wall at The Glassworks Company for Kapowski, who just got fired for getting a little too creative at work. Now you've got to prove to your boss that you're capable of making it in the window-washing world with your new power gloves and a little high-flying daredeviling. Enter The Glassworks, the latest platforming experience from the talented crew at Nitrome.

The ray gun: time-honored weapon of choice for protection against baddies of all kinds. But if there's nothing to protect against, what good is it? Transmover, a puzzle platformer by Japanese game developers Polygon Gmen introduces a new function for your favorite hand-held emitter of energy: transmotion. In layman's terms, this simply means when you fire your gun at a block, you and the block switch places, a tactic that injects new life into the block-maneuvering platform genre.

Hey casual gamer! Here's a stylish platform adventure about wizards, nifty upgradeable special abilities, and running around red-colored landscapes zapping things with lightning! Created by Spelgrim, Hey Wizard drops you in the shoes of a wizard trying to get his abilities back from the evil Megagate. Using little more than spell physics to fling yourself around the landscape, destroy all of his evil minions while upgrading your abilities with each trophy you grab.

Brad Borne has combined the ludicrous physics of his own Fancy Pants Adventure with the stylized world of Mirror's Edge to produce a joyful ode to parkour and platforming. Though you'll have to slow down if you want to collect every messenger bag and trinket, the real heart of the game is in running full tilt. The game world feels chunky and reliable, perfect for wall-jumping and launching yourself off of ramps with legs pinwheeling.

Nitrome has released Twin Shot, a new platform adventure full of Roman architecture and archery, perfect for playing with a friend or taking a solo challenge. It's a beautiful platformer, with creative nods to Bubble Bobble. The sound effects and music also take somewhat of a retro cue, and the graphics are quite stunning, with very detailed character designs and backgrounds.

BubbleQuod is a physics-based puzzle-platformer from Ukrainian developer Garbuz Games. To free yourself from your self-constructed prison to keep out the dangers of the world, you must roll across fifty stages and seek the bubble-bursting pin. The developers offer two levels of difficulty: "normal," which allows for in-air control, and "hard," which is more realistic.

Older material from SKT Products, known for oddball classics like the Moai games and Mr. Sweets, Escargone brings you 30 levels of one-switch snail platforming. Although it drags a bit in the beginning, the patient player will be rewarded when it hits its stride in later levels.

Tyler Glaiel, the programming and musical composition half of the team behind Aether, has released an amazing new platform-puzzle game with a unique look and gripping, oppressive atmosphere. Whether you're looking for fresh new gameplay, or you're interested in games with subtle emotional values, Closure is where it's at.

Despite being a relatively simple game, YHTBTR has earned quite a fanbase. It boasts a game manual, four walkthroughs (including one YouTube walkthrough and one in German), a speedrun posted on YouTube, a Spanish Wikipedia page, a text-adventure version, a novelization, and a fan-comic. Come see what all the hype is about.

Andrew the Droid is a retro-looking title that utilizes the familiar level rotation concept found in a number of games. Work your way through over two dozen levels, avoiding hazards as you unlock exits, collect chips to grant you new abilities, and rotate the stage to let gravity pull you where you need to go.

Eternal Red is, by its own admission, a cross between a platform arena style shooter and a real-time strategic defense game. No story, no dialogue, just you and the seemingly non-stop litany of enemies appearing from one door that try to make it to the second.

John Cooney, author of TBA, TBA2, Grid16, and the Ball Revamped series, has unveiled his latest epic adventure. Along with timeless, classic platforming gameplay, Achievement Unlocked offers you the opportunity to earn no less than One. Hundred. Achievements. Holy bat farts on a bus.

New from the snowy peaks of Mt. Nitrome comes Frost Bite 2, a direct follow-up to last year's Frost Bite platforming game. Work your way up the snowy mountain peaks using a grappling hook that can latch onto almost anything. Stomp or harpoon enemies to clear them out of your way, move boxes to reach high spots, and collect bonus letters to unlock secret stages. A few new tricks can be found up Frost Bite 2's fuzzy parka, such as new enemies and new objects to grapple.

As the game begins, you've been ousted from your throne by the original game's hero, and you're forced to flee your own palace to seek a way to reclaim your seat of power. You will need to steal the four magic swords to make him disperse back into the darkness from whence he came, fighting and platforming all the way. As a departure from mainstream game design, Armed with Wings 2 is worth a look even if fighting games aren't necessarily your thing.

Lyle in Cube Sector is a relatively old Metroidesque platformer in traditional NES style. You play as Lyle, who adventures through Cube Sector, using cubes for everything from attacking enemies to playing basketball to feeding a dog, with the ultimate goal of retrieving his cat Keddums.

Archibald's Adventures is a puzzle platform game from Rake in Grass, creator of Larva Mortus, KingMania, and others. You play the skateboard-riding Archibald who accidentally becomes trapped in Professor Klumpfus' twisted underground lair. Roll your way through 100+ stages, moving boxes with bubblegum, leaping gaps with a running start, and hitting switches beneath pools of acid to work your way out of the mutant-infested passageways.It's one of those rare games that keeps begging you to come back for more.

Nitrome's Toxic 2, baby. It's here. In a world where machines rule over humanity with a literally iron fist, a lone, slightly overweight, Hazmat-suited warrior must discover and destroy the robot overmind. That's right, it's Man Versus Mechanaloid: Rumble in the Nuclear Waste Processing Plant. If you liked the first game, you'll love this one; and if you had criticisms, they've mostly been addressed. Just brace yourself to take many an acid bath.

Buggle Stars is a well-executed platformer with tight controls and over 15 interesting levels and 4 mini-games to unlock. Each level presents a sequence of stars that you must collect, in order, to advance. A variety of goals change up the gameplay just enough to keep each level interesting and addictive, and a bit intense at times.

From The Fancy Pants Adventure creator Brad Borne comes a 2D re-imagining of the 3D action-adventure console game Mirror's Edge. Mirror's Edge 2D uses the Fancy Pants engine and adds a whole host of new acrobatic moves, allowing you to jump, climb, scramble and run across rooftops with surprising fluidity.

A pack of cuddly woodland creatures suddenly find themselves homeless at the hands of Big Brother and his menacing chainsaw. To escape to Paradise Meadows, they need to collect a golden acorn from each level (obviously). Regrettably, some of the adorable animals must be sacrificed along the way...

This piece was submitted to the 2008 SBGames Independent Gaming Festival in Brazil and it pushed the envelope of gaming and received high initial reviews. Yet, on the surface, the game seemed like nothing more than an awkward, weakly executed platform game. So what has everyone thinking about Estamos Pensando? Play the game then read our review and find out!

A follow-up to the original Draw Play, Draw Play 3 retains most of what made the original so interesting and introduces a more action-oriented approach to gaming. Like any platformer around, you control a little character who must jump and run to the flag at the end of each stage. The catch is that in Draw Play you create the platforms. Make stairs, hop from ledge to ledge, or use the pen and push yourself up as you move.

In Iji you play as, well, Iji. Iji is a human who has been enhanced with nanotechnology after Earth is abruptly invaded by aliens. Her new nanotech field provides her with a kind of shield and also gives her the incredible weaponry that every action-platformer hero needs to survive.

Tasha's Game is a whimsical platform adventure about a woman rescuing her friends and co-workers from evil black tentacles with the help of her magical flying cat Snoopy. Did I say "whimsical"? I meant "insane".

Karoshi is a platform/puzzle game where your goal is the exact opposite of most such entertainments: you have to die. Throw yourself onto spikes, zap yourself with electricity, smash yourself with a falling safe. It's like an extended version of the cathartic moment when you get finally get sick of Mario's empty-headed cheerleading and just hurl him off a cliff.

Meat Boy is a platform game that dares to ask the question "What if the main character from Knytt or N was made of bits of sticky, gooey raw meat?" And even though you never wanted to listen to the sound of meat slapping against solid blocks over and over again, when you're playing Meat Boy, you probably won't mind.

Orphan Feast is a hilariously macabre action platformer with great design and story, created by Robox Studios for Adult Swim. You are the gruesome Creaky Tom who has been given the odious task by Oliver Twisted to snatch up children so they can be ground up into pies for greed and "culinary perversion." Probably not a game to play with the little ones. ;)

Onekey is a character-based platform game played with only "one key", and thus the mystery of the title is solved. The catch is that you can't affect the main character directly. Instead, you control various objects in the environment while he blunders around falling off of things. This is a good one.

Is anyone tired of Portal-inspired games about some faceless dude stuck in a sterile laboratory environment full of death traps yet? I know I'm not! Here's another one, comin' atcha! Control a smoothly animated silhouette of a man who is trapped in the middle of a giant maze full of spikes and shifting blocks. Alter gravity by rotating the entire room 90 degrees at a time!

Amaaxla's Gravity 2 is a physics-based platform game of momentum and gravity. The objective is to collect crystals and reach the exit of each level. Collecting crystals is very important in that they allow you to purchase things in the shop and unlock other levels.

Puzzle Farter is a fun little platformer with a unique twist on the usual mechanic. Armed with only natural gas, make your way to the exit of each level. The physics in Puzzle Farter are elegant, yet difficult to master. One fart will only get you so far or so high, and it takes a moment for his gas to recharge. What the game lacks in music or plot, it makes up for with simple charm and giggles.

Gish is a 12 pound ball of tar. Gish is also a cult-classic indie platformer released by Cryptic Sea. In this game you control of a heavy, squishy, sticky glob of goo. Balls of tar would normally be rather inert, but this particular one has had his girlfriend taken away, thus inspiring him to get up off his lazy sack of goop and slosh into action. By becoming sticky, slippery, heavy, or using tar-like ball physics to bounce high in the air, its your job to squeeze through each level and solve puzzles with little more than your own gooey body.

Final Ninja is the latest Nitrome title to be released. It's a side-scrolling action/adventure with plenty of ninja-goodness like wall-jumping, stealth mode and rope grappling. The stealth mode is a pretty fun tactic, as you'll be met with lots of security systems and enemies that will require a delicate touch to overcome. But the grapple is definitely the key mechanic that makes this game shine.

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.

When I heard the newest Nitrome game since Sky Wire 2 was called Small Fry, I turned to my own "Small Fry", seven-year-old Roland to help me out with the review. Roland says this one is special because you get four different characters, and you have to get them all to the tree house at the end of the level.

As you well know, new games are released everyday. So many, in fact, that it's impossible for anyone to play them all. This week we present a selection of downloadable platform games, one of the most popular genres of all-time. These aren't new games, however—they're just four nice games you may have missed before there was a Weekend Download.

Knuckleheads is the latest pixel-licious platforming fiesta from Nitrome. This time, you guide a pair of grimacing heads wearing Mexican wrestling masks as they bash their way through 25 levels of bats, spikes, and deadly lava. Why are they so angry? Maybe it's because their only method of locomotion involves constant trauma to the skull. Why are they wearing Mexican wrestling masks? I ...don't know.

A simple jump-and-run platformer with style, Space Walker shows that a very simple concept paired with simple graphics can be made into an enjoyable and very pretty casual game experience. Variety in enemy type, enemy movement, and gravity for each level provides an increase in challenge, while a randomized color scheme provides something new to look forward to. Nothing earth-shattering or all that innovative here, just a well-designed package from tip to tail.

Chronotron is a platform-puzzle game with a really innovative (and addictive) twist. If you're a fan of time travel theory or if you enjoyed any of the amazing time-based games (Timebot, Time Raider, and Super Earth Defense, in particular) from our replay-themed game competition last summer, then you'll love Chronotron.

Armed with Wings is an enjoyable platformer with some innovative twists. You play the role of a fallen hero, brought back to life from the "blackmist" in search of vengeance, armed with a katana and an eagle. That's right, an eagle. Designed to augment the typical start-to-finish run of platformers, you have control of an eagle that helps you reach your goal in a variety of ways.

Proo, a mischievous but good-hearted little girl who accidentally crash-lands her father's spaceship on a bizarre planet, must relearn basic skills like walking and jumping in order to navigate an enormous and beautiful world. With rising plumes of energy that can lift you to new heights, streams of red-hot lava that cascade into underground pools, and adorable pixel art, Pieces fulfills in ways most unexpected.

Planet of the Forklift Kid is a whimsical physics-based platform puzzle game, controlled with the keyboard. Your goal in each level is to reach the exit, usually by operating switches to open the doors blocking your path. It is an all-around well-crafted game that is so charming and odd that it's worth playing even though there are, at present, only 8 levels.

Cheese Dreams is a cute little platformer from Nitrome starring a bouncy bit of cheese (which just so happens to be the moon), mice in spacesuits, and Mario-esque pipes that send you soaring. As our orange protagonist snoozes one night, a massive mouse spaceship comes along and scoops it right up. Is it all just a bad dream, or are these mice really that obsessed with cheese?

An Untitled Story is a perfect blend of tough platforming challenges, intimidating boss fights, and cunning secrets, all wrapped up in a layer of childlike mysticism and rough-shorn beauty. It is a chilled-out hardcore wonderland of action discovery, plus an unidentifiable je ne sais quoi that just makes you want to drink it down in one gulp and then spit out a rainbow.

Attak is the game I've wanted to play since I was fourteen years old. If you ever tried to raise your power level while on the bus, and had an invisible energy duel with your buddy during class, you know what I'm talking about. Every single game ever made about Dragon Ball Z has been a lame cash-in, a modification of fighting mechanics or RPG mechanics, hobbled Frankensteins that never really grasped the dynamic of Power Level 1,000,000. Today, the brothers at JohnnyTwoShoes have delivered with sonic, accessible Flash.

The latest from OddGoo and the sequel to the first Amberial game released last June. The mechanics of the original are put to an olympic workout; rolling a ball around has never felt so fresh. From the terrestrial furnace to the skyways, to outer space and distant nebulae, this game explores both increasingly exotic settings and increasingly clever level design.

A brand new platforming adventure game has just been released from Nitrome: Dirk Valentine and the Fortress of Steam! Dirk Valentine uses similar mechanics as Nitrome's own Frost Bite. Move Dirk with the [arrow] keys and aim with the mouse. Press the left mouse button to fire the ricocheting chain gun. The slightly more serious tone and steampunk setting is a departure from Nitrome's usual fare, but the high quality of artwork, music and overall design remains the same.