Not long and nor very difficult, Blossom Spring Escape is a perfect mid-week break and a nice celebration of the season wrapped up into one. Amusing, easy on the eyes, logical, and just plain fun to enjoy the escaping madness. So take a few minutes out of your day and celebrate spring with a lot of pretty flowers and colors and logic puzzles. You know, just the way Grandma used to do.

It's an entire philosophy of bot-dom. UpBot is at peace with its purpose in life. It is UpBot. It goes up. It doesn't try to be something it's not. If UpBot needs to go left, then LeftBot is going to have to help it. The makers describe the game as "elegant," and that really is an apt descriptor for the solutions. When you figure it out, everything works together like clockwork. It's the figuring out that's the challenge, and the fun.

Leroy Smith's 2 on 2 Hall of Fame Challenge is an off-the-charts, old school basketball game featuring the self-proclaimed motivator of Michael Jordan. Use the keyboard to control your teammates as you attempt to defeat Team Leroy in three periods of no-holds-barred, high flying dunk action. Shazaaaam!

I don't know how to pronounce it, or even what it means but I love the game! Detarou's latest release is completely Detarou; in other words, it's a wonderfully weird, surreal, delightfully presented and maybe even a little unsettling point-and-click game with three endings to discover. The game itself defies any sense of reality, but it's funny, quirky, surprising and a real pleasure to play. And each ending only adds to the enjoyment of play with startling humour.

Crazy Over Goo is a physics-based projectile platformer that puts you in the gooey guise of a spheroid on a quest to find his pink-bowed friend. Use the mouse to aim your trajectory and try to reach each level's flag in as few jumps as possible. Contend with mid-air leaps, variable environments, gravity, spikes, and many other platform game elements.

The riddle of the sphinx is invoked at the beginning of Convergence, the flixel-based platformer/life simulator/interactive art piece that serves as the first release from Streetlight Studios: "What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?"... No, the answer isn't "William the Performing Dog". It's that miserable pile of secrets itself: man. And you'll be be spending an interesting three days in a life herein. Wake up, fall out of bed, drag a comb across your head and check it out.

Flaws, the interactive work of fiction from author Jon Ingold, is a difficult game to categorize as well as a different game to review. For starters, it isn't really a game in the traditional sense, more like a choose your own adventure produced for modern, Kindle-enabled devices. Then there's the nature of the story, where discussing even a few of the details can spoil whole bits of the experience. Suffice it to say, Flaws is an intriguing interactive fiction "game" about finding treasure and fame, the Andromeda galaxy, a mysterious diadem, and a possible assassination.

Cathode Rays starts out simply enough (with only one ray to handle), but the difficulty quickly ramps up as you're required to thread the rays through tight passages and time your movements to match moving and fading planks. Soon you'll be trying to manage four beams at once in sparkly vector glory. Can you wrangle these ridiculous rays?

No wait, come back! This one is satire, I promise! For one, there's its pedigree: Anna Anthropy, master designer of such games as Mighty Jill Off and Redder, someone who clearly knows from killer pixel art, engaging concepts, and uber-difficulty minus uber-frustration. Then, there's its sponsor, adult swim a network that time has shown to have quite the track record in promoting works that capture just the right blend of retro aesthetics and modern sensibilities. And, last, but not least, there is the fact that Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars is a heck of a lot of fun to play. It's a high-quality throwback to 80s arcade-style risk-reward action whose gameplay sucks you into a frantic world of patterns and rhythms, scratchy sounds and blocky graphics, high scores and extra lives. And Lesbian-Spider Queens, of course.

Second Person Shooter Zato is a unique kind of action game that flips everything you know about shooters on its head before turning it inside-out and looking at it through a mirror. Well, that sounds like it would cancel the weirdness out, but it doesn't! In this game, you control a gun-toting hero who is being attacked by groups of enemies. However, instead of getting a first-person view of the action, you can only see yourself through the eyes of the enemy. Spin around, fire your weapons, and hope you can survive without looking at the world from behind your own gun!

Christine Love's Lake City Rumble II is not your run-of-the-mill fighting game, but instead offers an experience where choice and interpretation is everything if you want to pack a real punch into your attacks. Will you beat Qaisar, or accept defeat? Time to enter the arena.

It's always been our philosophy that robots are our friends. They're smart, they can do cool things like make toast, and if they ever rise up and start an apocalypse, they'll remember we were nice to them! Not everyone holds the same "just in case" ideas in mind, of course, and Crash the Robot from Tamas Games proves just that. Your goal in this physics-based puzzle game: set up bombs to press buttons that eventually cause a robot to be destroyed. Fortunately, the little golden guy doesn't seem too upset about it, as level after level he comes back for more. Points for persistence!

Edutainment!... Commence eye-rolling, people. For some reason many are skeptical of any game that claims to "make learning fun". Perhaps it is the feeling that, since most believe learning (if not necessarily schooling) to be naturally fun, any subject that has to be made fun must be really dry. That said, while Mission US: For Crown or Colony is unlikely to redeem the genre for everyone, the tale of a teenager coming of age in Colonial America makes for a solid adventure, whose gentle challenge is balanced by excellent production values and historical detail.

Front Runner's protagonist would rather sit unaccosted on his asteroid outpost, playing his space-recorder, but all the quirky locals just won't leave him be. And as arcade games have taught us for years, such aggravation can only be answered by taking the wheel of an absurdly overarmed runabout and showing all comers what-for. It takes the vastness of space and turns it into a strange, colorful neighborhood of oddly shaped planets and goofy, irksome monsters. Empty space is rarely this lively, or this silly.

A lovely little game that will twist your perception of reality into a hundred lovely different shapes. Psychosomnium was originally a downloadable game by cactus. Now, with its Flixel-based Flash port from Miroslav Malesevic, anyone with a browser and a keyboard can experience the body-switching weirdo-world that is the inside of cactus' mind!

Escape from the Living Room 2 is a fun stand-alone room escape, a bit of a nostalgic nod to the past while incorporating all of the elements that make the more current Tesshi-e games much more fun and playable. Whether you are young and new to the genre or an old, old veteran like myself, Escape from the Living Room 2 is quite a fun classic room escape game, perfect for the mid-week break.

I think it's about time that I admit that I just don't understand marketing. I wouldn't know why a jump and run platformer based around racing through a myriad selection of websites would be considered an apropos format for an ice cream bar ad . But hey, I do know a good time when I see it, and Lowe Brindfors and B-Reel have certainly given Unilever their money's worth in Magnum: Pleasure Hunt

While the Sun from a distant universe falls from a sky, it's up to you and a magical mask that manipulates time to help him get back up in this short but beautiful little point-and-click adventure from a talented team of students at DADIU.

Zombie Cats really do exist! It may just appear to be a simple point-and-click puzzle game, but the threat is real, I tells ya! You may scoff, but with the onslaught of zombie games pervading the internets, we should be taking this seriously. Use your mouse to click on objects and interact with the environment to help eradicate the Zombie Cats and to save the rest of civilization.

Transylvania is without a doubt the best point-and-click game about a sleepwalking potato who accidentally drives his car into the depths of hell that I have ever played. The bar has definitely been raised for that particular niche. But be warned: the dangers in this place aren't just of being scared, nor even of being trapped there forever. No, you can expect to die many, many times on your quest to escape back to Miss Potato, often in extremely unfair (but hilarious!) ways.

The Roman Numeral part of my brain tells me that the title doesn't quite scan, but the tower defending part feels nothing but glee: Protector IV.V, an expansion pack for Undefined's popular fantasy strategy series has just hit the internet! It's nowhere near a sequel, but it has a host of new quests and all the exploration and variety the series has displayed thusfar. It's a treat for all strategy-lovers looking for an complicated addictive challenge.

Fresh from the bronze halls of Nitrome comes Steamlands, a game that mixes strategy, defense, and building genres with a steampunk exterior to make a final product that begs you to become addicted. A great war has left Europe in ruins. Even though the last of the machines have been disassembled, pirates still roam the land with their patchwork tanks built from scrap. As a lone mercenary commander, you must pick up a spanner and build your own war machine by scavenging parts from defeated pirates. Embark upon dozens of missions in this expertly-crafted game of combat, strategy, and on-the-fly steam tank construction!

If to be 'stalwart' is to be filled with resolve, courage and physical endurance, then it's fair to say that Jonathan Whiting's game may bring out the little stalwart knight in all of us. This is a game that presents simply with pixel art and easy to master controls, but a closer look reveals its true side-scrolling, platform and challenging avoidance essence. And all with rhythm!

You've been knocked on the head and placed into a prison cell, and there's some kind of coronation going on in a little less than 24 hours. Your first priority is going to be figuring out who you are, why you are where you are, and what to do about it. Then you need to figure out what you need to get in order to do it, and finally, you have to figure out how to get it all done in the time period you have.

The theme has shifted to an urban environment where zombies are literally coming out of the sewers, and all this brick and steel is used to an impressive (and often confounding) level. Timed drops and lateral thinking are hallmarks of "phuzzle" games, something the first in this series loved to dish up for players. The sequel takes it all that step further.

The passing of a season always makes me nostalgic for it. Lord knows that I'm never too thrilled with skidding my Honda on the icy roads of winter, but now that the May-Flowers-bringing showers of April are upon us (in the Northern Hemisphere, at least), I find myself wishing for one last walk in a swirling frozen cloud of flurries. While Chione is quite unlikely to heed my prayers, I can take solace in January, an interactive art webtoy release from Rich Vreeland. It's an impressive debut release that manages to truly capture the beauty and melancholy of a walk of a blustery winter's evening.

A new-agey, color-based puzzle game reminiscent of Auditorium, Subtle Energy succeeds in being a pretty relaxing puzzler. The soundtrack is inoffensive aural Xanax, and it is always soothing to watch colored pixel streams flow about the screen. The puzzles themselves are few, and while most are not too difficult, you will likely find that some make you stop and think.

In Big Evil Robots, you control a pint-sized protagonist armed with a slingshot and marbles, tasked with saving the city from a series of mechanical menaces. Aim your shots with the mouse and shoot marbles inside each robot to reach its glass-like core. Earn points and stars by collecting coins and firing as few marbles as possible.

Bela Kovacs may wear his sunglasses at night and waterfall exhale like a total bad ass (not that you should imitate him, smoking is bad, kids, don't do it), but for some reason the Budapest police department doesn't want him as a detective anymore. When his niece is viciously murdered, however, he's not going to let any power on earth stop him from catching her killer. Not even preternatural powers. It's easy to get engrossed in this fascinating tale of darkness, serial killing, revenge, curses, and the Old World.

Shadow is a quiet yet solid escape game by Kotorinosu, which stands apart from the crowd of point-and-click puzzle games with its simplicity, appealing graphics, and honest escape game fare. If you have an appetite for honest-to-goodness escape games, then loosen your belt a knotch and enjoy a hearty helping.

When dungeon crawler meets Bomberman, BinB is the result. A simple-looking arcade game at heart, this little release from Maxim Karpenko (a.k.a. Kendja) packs a lot of bombs, a lot of power-ups, and a surprising amount of strategy, especially when you consider it's mostly about blowing things up and collecting gold.

The Who Am I? series of puzzles are Robamimi "light", leaning more on the central wordplay than the complexity of the other individual puzzles. Play 18 Who Am I? and enjoy a lot of well designed and well executed escaping gameplay wrapped up in a fun 10 minutes or so. So relax and enjoy the soothing rhythms of a mellow jazz soundtrack as you ponder the universal question, Who Am I? Or, at least, the 18 Who Am I?

Go underwater in Lucas Paahk's stunning new exploration-centric sandbox game about one lovely fish and one big, beautiful ocean. Collect tokens, run races, perform acrobatic tricks and uncover secrets in a truly stunning oceanic environment. Though lacking any sort of story or overarching goal, Azurefish provides a relaxing, atmospheric experience that you can really sink yourself into.

If you like edgy atmosphere, mysterious trappings, and figuring things out without instructions, Eli Piilonon's puzzle/riddle game This is a Work of Fiction is well worth your time. Just be persistent, and don't let the paranoid ambiance get to you. It is a Work of Fiction, after all.

In Filipe Sheepwolf's stealth game, not only do you need to figure out how to solve puzzles to manipulate the enemy territory, you've got to do it without attracting any attention, and banging into walls or sailing in front of a security camera tends to hinder that. Newton, Newton, what hast thou donest. For fans of the genre it should be even more enjoyable, and the cinematics are quite cool, even if the plot is a little hokey. Elite players, get ready to mock us lesser mortals. The rest of you, grab your favorite sugary comestible and try your best.

Bored with running games such as Canabalt and Robot Unicorn Attack? You should be, because they don't have giant squids, lava, lightning, oil slicks, and main characters who are on fire. Flood Runner 3: Armageddon, however, does. We mentioned Clockwork Monster's Flood Runner 2 in a previous Link Dump Friday, and this one's got even more over-the-top action to help you feel like a demi-god dashing through the mortal realms.

Pigs take to this sky in this very creative and original platform puzzle game, where physics and time meet in a why you've not seen before. And it is so captivating that you will probably end up finishing it in one city. So go on, get those pigs in the air.

If you're looking for a fantastic point-and-click adventure that combines mystery, suspense, pharmaceuticals, science fiction, and an extremely goofy English translation, then look no further. Take two shots of Dr. Stanley's House 2 and call me in the morning. Presuming, of course, that you ever find your way out of the air ducts.

Zombies and siege weapons and physics, oh my! The community has created another great batch of levels for everyone's favourite game about doing terrible things to royalty with catapults, and added in an Undead Mode to boot. While it's nothing fans haven't seen before, it you love the series then "more of all that awesome stuff" is hardly a bad thing.

Nerdook goes intergalactic with this cute, simple to learn RTS-lite title that stars you as a bounty hunter traveling from planet to planet deploying your robot army in an effort to bring The Bad Guys(tm) to justice. Build and upgrade your army as you take on the worst the galaxy has to offer in this clever little hybrid.

What's better than having no new logic puzzles from Conceptis? Having plenty of new logic puzzles from Conceptis! Continuing its series of pencil and paper games transformed into browser experiences, Conceptis has just released Basic Logic Fill-a-Pix Light, a minesweeper-esque take on using numbers to create pictures on an empty grid. If you enjoyed Picma Squared, any of the Conceptis Light games, or logic puzzles in general, you'll definitely want to check this one out!

Crime does not pay, especially if you're Ziggy Fraud, the most suspicious looking man alive who probably gets arrested just for existing. Help him pull off the greatest heist of his career and then escape his would-be captors in this bizarre puzzle platformer that defies the laws of physics (and even the game engine) to make one silly, clever experience.

Whether your are attempting to break in due to having lost your keys or due to having lost your job and are in need of some disposable income, Apartment House Escape is an amusing "reverse" escape, where you are trying to break in rather than out.

Roadkill Revenge is a top-down action puzzler where you control a rocket-powered vehicle with the intent of causing a chain reaction of destruction across 45 traffic-filled levels. Accomplish tasks ranging from blowing up specific buildings or vehicles, or causing a certain dollar amount of damage.

Choo Choo Puzzles, the new simple idea dragging puzzle from a team led by Piotr Iwanicki, sounds like a cross between a candy bar and a maze you'd find in Highlights for Children... kind of inappropriate for a fun little game with only a tenuously abstract connection to railways. Fortunately, the simple mechanics of Choo Choo Puzzles present a worthy challenge for puzzle-lovers of all ages.

Nitrome's latest damsel in distress is actually the one doing the distressing. Jump and run past Princess Nectarine's array of traps and monsters, rescuing villagers and avoiding peril in this cute, tricky arcade platformer. Just ask yourself... is this lady fair's hand in marriage really something you want? After all, it's not like there's going to be room at the loony bin for both of you...

The shooter lives! Matt Roszak's Epic Battle Fantasy series steps out of its genre and into the shoes of the "bullet hell" arcade action greats. Unlock new characters, improve your abilities, earn challenging medals, or just last as long as you can in Survival Mode. Bullet Heaven is a fantastic example of the shooter genre doing what it does best; making you squeal "ohgeezohgeezohgeez" over and over again while you sweat bullets to match the hundreds onscreen.

Eugene Karataev delivers another installment of his sunny, popular physics puzzle series and piles on the cameos to boot. Slice your way through the landscape in order to provide safe passage for your hapless yellow friend to the exit, snagging stars along the way if you're clever enough. It's a fun, cheerful, and very yellow diversion that fans of the noble art of "slicing junk the heck up" will enjoy.

Two years ago, Antony Lavelle released Upgrade Complete. A mix of shoot em up and space invaders, the games main purpose was to unsubtly parody one of the more obnoxious aspects of modern gaming: the inclusion of unnecessary and convoluted upgrade systems. Everything came at a price and had to be bought: weapons, graphics, music, buttons... even the pre-loader and Armor Games intro animation. However... it turns out that the developers weren't quite done... After all, what is an upgrade system without a sequel that requires you to restart your progress from the beginning? Thus comes Upgrade Completer, a game that advances the original's premise as much as its humor.

Though I am not usually a fan of turn-based strategy games, occasionally one comes along which is able to engage me with surface simplicity, and, before I know it, has me in the throes of complete addiction. Tic Tac Toe, a game created by Paul Neave as an apparent advertising tie-in for the popular breath-mint line, is one such game. A work that manages to reward cautious planning while retaining its power as a grim reflection on the nature of aggression, Tic Tac Toe presents an amusing challenge along with questions that cannot be easily dismissed.

When the Sun and the Sea have a falling out, it's up to you to dive into the ocean and retrieve the Idols hidden beneath the waves, carrying them all to the mountaintops where they rightfully belong... or so you think. Gregory Weir's latest experimental platformer is short, dreamlike, and surreal, and worth a play despite suffering from some tedious avoidance/platforming sequences.

Bugs and I have an uneasy friendship. On the one hand I can appreciate the beauty of creation in their skeletons, the elegance of their societies, and the important role they play in our ecosystem. On the other hand, should one drop down the back of my shirt, talks are going to break down pretty quickly. It is to the latter part of my psyche that Insectonator, the new shooter from SonarGames, is aimed. It might not be too nice to all things great and small, but if you have a hankerin' for some arthropod blastin', it'll be sure to catch you in its web.

Fly and Blast asks you to choose between piloting a jet, a helicopter and a super-powered heavily armed flying exoskeleton within minutes of loading the game, all of which will serve you well in this side-scrolling shooter. Give Fly and Blast a shot if you enjoy flying or blasting. Just don't be surprised when you find yourself drawn to the battle suit.

Way back in 2003, XGenStudios released the first version of Stick RPG. A semi-remix of the flash dating sims that were gaining popularity, it focused on humor and role-playing elements rather than scantily clad anime girls. Whatever its inspirations, the tale of a Stickman trying to make it in an unfamiliar world was quite fun and quite well-received. And so fans eagerly waited for a promised updated sequel. And waited. And waited. And years later, Stick RPG 2, a huge open-world RPG, has finally been released. Was SRPG2 worth the wait until "when it was ready"? Unambiguously, yes.

With its cute animation, wacky yet suspenseful music, amusing sound effects, and its bizarre characters, Chubby Hamster is a fantastic adventure all on its own. Help the poor hapless hamster escape before he meets unspeakable doom. Unspeakable, I say!

A snazzy little physics puzzle game with birds singing, little flowers blooming from the walls, and a golf ball careening off a land mine on the golf course. Your ultimate goal is to get the ball into the hole and move onto the next level, and for bragging purposes, you want to take as few shots as possible to do so and collect as many hearts as possible along the way.

Not Your War is a classic-style vertical shooter that feels like Robotron or Smash TV. Use the mouse and keyboard to control your small craft as you survive through 11 levels, taking on waves of enemy drones, fighters, and ships. Upgrade your ship and take down the Rhean forces in this challenging arcade title.

Leonardo Da Vinci. A man whose insatiable curiosity shows within every one of his many works. However, it was in the year 2011 that the most impressive of his plans were discovered and released by some talented people in the form of Fun da Vinci: yes, it seems that Leonardo was the inventor of the physics puzzle, and the world of casual gaming is all the better for it.

From Foddy.net, creator of QWOP, comes another bite-sized keyboard-based game that makes about as much sense as a boat made out of tahini. In GIRP, you play a climber scaling the side of a rocky cliff. The water is on the rise, so you've got to stay ahead of the liquid or face certain watereyness. By using the keyboard, you can fling your hands to nearby grips, moving one arm at a time to ascend the wall. If you played QWOP, you know this isn't a game of slow precision. It's about slapping the keys in some sort of strategic pattern and hoping everything works out in the end!

Mars Yongknows that clicks don't grow on trees. He knows exactly how many clicks you'll need to clear a level of its brightly colored shapes, and that's all the clicks you're going to get. The skill it requires is much more a matter of spatial logic and planning than reflexes. If that sounds up your alley, give it a try.

The aliens are coming! The aliens are coming! But you can't worry about that right now, not when your promotion hangs in the balance on the success of the party you're throwing! Help Zee keep his guests happy, but keep an eye out for extraterrestrial interfereance in this silly, fun little point-and-click adventure from Zeebarf and Steve Castro.

When you run into a problem, it's always a good idea to look at things from a different perspective. In Sky Island, your perspective changes throughout the entire game. Tackle fifteen star-hunting levels that introduce a number of twists, such as enemies that need to be bounced upon, tricked to walking over certain blocks, or otherwise manipulated using your world-twisting abilities in this unique and engaging platformer.

Lots of wizards can shoot fireballs. Blasts of ice and electricity aren't so uncommon either. However, creating large stones out of nothingness requires an MC^2 amount of E, so only the most skilled are able to accomplish it. Such is the power of Wizard Hult, star of the new puzzle platformer from Bloblob. Alas, Earthbending skills ia not, in and of itself, a sufficient display of manliness for the witch who has caught his eye. And so she wait atop her challenge-filled tower waiting for the wizard to show his dedication... and to bring her something shiny and expensive. An innovate platformer with slightly finicky physics.

Something awfully scientific goes awfully wrong, according to the opening sequence. Scientists, explosion... you get the idea. Then we are in the head of our hero, who upon speaking to the first two-dimensional character wiggling against a wall, learn that they are the only hope in a world thrown into dimensional disarray.

infect.evolve.repeat.2 is the sequel to Manuel Fallmann's original infect game from 2005. Control a green germ by clicking and dragging to infect red blood cells and multiply your numbers. Evolve your germ to make it powerful enough to take on white blood cells and survive against waves of antibiotics. The game now features enhanced graphics, new missions, and achievements.

Despite the stripped down interface and fairly simple graphics Escape from the Room Surrounded by Bookshelves 2 is a lot of logical escaping fun. Try this fun and simple escape which is another step in the right direction from a talented new game designer.

Picma Squared is offering an experience that, especially in the multicolored format, just isn't being offered anywhere else yet. Established fans of picross looking for something new shouldn't miss this, and anyone who likes visual and logic puzzles will probably want to give it a try as well.

Gamystar continues a tradition of sweet and simple point and-click games; just use your mouse to click on items and interact with the environment, helping Adam safely journey to Paradise to be with Eve. It's really just a fun little interactive story with touches of humor. So help Adam find his Eve and enjoy the stone-age journey along the way.

Orange you glad that there's a brand new pack of levels for Johnny-K's physics puzzle series Cover Orange? Hey, I know I am. The lack of hand-holding means it's not a particularly great jumping-on point for those new to the concept (though I would certainly recommend the previous installments!), but fans of the series, or physics puzzlers in general, will have a fun afternoon with Cover Orange Player's Pack 2.

This lovely game by inversecoma offers everything we could want in a game, and possibly even that much more. This is an avoidance sidescrolling game that looks simple on the surface, but there's a whole lot more to it that will test your skills, patience and perseverance.

Point-and-click your way through the third installment in Pastel Games' Sneak Thief series! A brisk fifteen minute-ish diversion, this game will send you off into the weekend whistling. The titular thief finds himself in some kind of underground lair with a number of code pads and a safe. Will it turn out to be his downfall?

Go deep underground in this "What if?" approach to history from Pastel Games. In this short, easy point-and-click adventure, you play as a spy sent to infiltrate a laboratory in the Owl mountains. At first glance, it looks like you've broken into any other office, but pry around a bit and you'll soon find that there are a lot of secrets to uncover.

Don't let the man or your burgeoning psychosis keep you down! In this quirky, bouncy 3D platform-puzzler, you play as a hapless worker in a cardboard box assembly plant finally driven to the drink of insanity by his endless, repetitive work and finds himself transported to a weird and puzzling realm where the very world flips and rotates as you move. Will you ever get home? Do you even want to? A fun, silly game with one heck of an intro.

Even among turn-based RPG games, Flagstaff is deliberate, relaxed, low-stakes. The adorable big-eyed and big-headed sprites only add to that feel. "Who's an adorable little skeleton? You are! You are!" Although you can't save mid-level, each individual level doesn't take too long, which makes this a great choice for a little working day gaming break where you want to relieve stress, not aggravate it.

A polished take on a puzzle favourite, this tricky game will have you coming back for more anr more as you try and get your blocks onto the red line. There are forty-nine stages to complete as well as a neat level editor to facilitate your own creations.

You wake up alone and abandoned in a cell, with no clue as to the big W's; Why are you here? What's going on? Who are you? This short little puzzle/platformer is a moody bit of storytelling from KrangGames that shows sometimes you don't have to say a word to tell a compelling story.

Planets have gone un-drilled for far too long, and Nitrome wants you to answer the call in this colourful, bizarre follow-up to 2010's popular arcade game about weird looking aliens with a passion for property damage. Smash, drill, and blast your way through 24 new levels and wild environments.

Sgt. Kirley and his men thought they were finally headed home after the war, but instead they find themselves ordered to join up with enemy forces and sent to defend a massive trench, apparently in the middle of nowhere. Why? Well, it turns out zombies really like trenches (and this one is pretty sweet, amirite?), and if you want to protect this one from the new undead menace, you'll have to master your gun and handle your troops in this simple but effective shooter/defense hybrid from WootraGames.

Triangle is absolutely charming. Its atmosphere is decidedly different from practically every escape game I've ever played before, and for someone who's played as many as I have that's a feat. Explore the room, pick up various items, solve various puzzles, and eventually regain your freedom.

Art meets puzzles in Fernando Ramallo's simple but challenging title. Let the hypnotic colours and abstract animations soothe your brain as you shift and rotate portions of the image until everything snaps into place. Despite a lack of variety and one simple mechanic, Dependant offers a lovely respite from fast-paced twitch gaming and remains accessible to just about anyone to boot.

You might think that the combination of Boys' Life, the monthly Boy scouting magazine for ages 6-18, and retro-action-meister Hamumu make for an unexpected pairing. Heck, I was a cub scout and even I find it a little strange. However, I do know that when the creator of the Robot Wants series releases a pixel platformer based around a trio of differently-abilitied characters fighting their way through an alien landscape: I'm there. That game is Mad Planet, and it's got quality worthy of a merit badge.

Notebook Wars 2 returns you to the world of sketch-drawn ships and fighters in an epic vertical shooter by Francisco Ferreres and Dream Forge. Control one of ten hand-drawn ships across 13 levels that look like something out of a teenager's sketchbook. Blow away the bad guys to earn cash to upgrade your craft and fly to victory.

Would you like a jet-pack? Sure, we all do! However, I'm not so sure I'd be willing to volunteer for the strict testing procedures that would have to be completed before it's released to market: what with the dodging of missiles, the zapping of lasers, and having to deal with the inevitably-snarky AI running the whole thing. Omega Box, the new action game from Ironzilla, is the tale of a test-subject either much braver or much less lucky than I, who must fly around the experimentation room avoiding everything said snarky AI can throw at him.

Favimon, the new HTML/Javascript webtoy by Matthew Hollet, is a combination of the two topics the internet was founded on: Pokémon and "Who Would Win In A Fight?". You see, Favicons (the little graphical icons in your browser's address bar) have come to life, ready to attack all other pretenders to the internet throne RPG-style. And yes, you know it's your destiny to try and cache 'em all!

A kid-friendly point-and-click adventure game that sidles right up to that "interactive storybook" line, but doesn't quite cross over into it, thanks in part to a few mini-games, such as a stealth game where you must hide from a yeti-thing and a snowboarding game where you must avoid obstacles. This is a game that any six-year-old (or one just young at heart) with a mouse can play without getting frustrated.

You'd think it'd be clear by now that you shouldn't pick up a shiny gem when the statue holding it warns you of a curse. Sadly, Cactus McCoy, the titular protagonist of the new platformer from Flipline Studios, does just that, and the result is that he's been transformed into a walking, talking, punching Saguaro. So now, if he ever wants to make balloon animals again, he must return the gem to its proper location across the beautiful landscapes of the old west... all the way pursued by the mercenary gang that hired him to swipe the gem the first place. An excellent game for fans of westerns or beat-em-up adventures in general.

James was waiting. Waiting for someone to need his skills as a private eye. Or rather, he would have been if someone hadn't murdered the head of his five-person detective team. Radical Dog's quirky new noir-themed puzzle platformer offers a healthy dose of ridiculousness to go along with its mystery.

If you've not experienced Hashi before, Classic Hashi Light is ideal for getting familiar with the format. The goal of a hashi puzzle is to connect all of the numbered islands using a series of bridges so that every island is connected to each other in one system. Since this is Volume 1 in a periodically-released series, the difficulty might be a bit low for the experienced Hashi-head, but it's a great introduction to the puzzle for newcomers.

Gold Door Escape is a rollicking good escape the room game. Most of the fun is had in anticipating the bizarre, hilarious, or surreal scenes that await the player as they make their way through the strangest building in existence. Fun, slightly scandalous, and surprisingly logical, Gold Door is the perfect mid-week escape, especially for anyone who appreciates the outlandishness to be found within.

Everybody Edits is a bare-bones platform game played on the backs of the very people who build it! In this charming retro-looking game, you are given basic tools to place blocks, lay gravity-altering objects, and craft mazes and traps of your own design. All of this happens in real-time, meaning you can move and build at the same time, all while people from around the world run around in your world!

LightSpeeder is a modern day update of a classic light cycle survival racing game. This Unity title features impressive visuals, dynamic cameras, and the ability to jump over light walls as you face against three AI opponents. You can also play against a friend simultaneously in split-screen.

Card games turn deadly with Cardian, the strategy/defense/action hybrid that will keep you on your toes as you scrabble to summon enough soldiers to destroy your opponent's portal before they reach yours. Unlock new cards with unique creatures, abilities, or resources in your quest to defeat the six masters of the game.

The titular character in this kid-oriented, charming hidden-object/spot-the-difference title is a doll who is brought to life by the little girl who sews him herself. Adorableness ensues. Not too long, and probably best suited to a 15 to 20 minute break, if you're hankering for something sweet, skip the candy and try Bobblestitch. It's better for your teeth, at least.

Transmover: New Generation is the sequel to Polygon Gmen's Transmover, and it features as much great puzzle-platforming and laser-effected teleportation as the original. The original Transmover boasted a clever concept and fun puzzles, and if Transmover: New Generation is more of the same, it's more of the same good casual gaming.

Friends, readers, puzzle-solvers... lend me your screwdrivers! The latest installment of the popular Dismantlement series by Gam.eBB.jp has arrived, and this time time isn't on your side. Metaphorically speaking, anyway; there's a bomb hidden inside this watch, and it's up to you to figure out how to crack it open and save us all from certain ka-blooey!

Hambo is a physics-based projectile shooter puzzle where you control a bandana-wearing pig with a mission - to rescue his friend Bacon from the enemy! Use your mouse to aim your grenades, guns, C4, knives, and explosive-tipped arrows to dispatch the bad guys across 36 tricky levels. You can also create your own levels in the editor or play user-created levels for more variety.

The winner of the 2011 Stanford Hackathon represents the theme of benevolence by putting you behind the wheel of a truck making deliveries for the local food bank. Stop in as many green areas as you can before time runs out to earn cash to upgrade your vehicle in simple ways. It's a simple but solid step in the right direction for new developer JacobG, and as his prize included a review by us, we talk about what was done right, and what could be improved.

Certainly we know about the immediate dangers of the undead: the biting and the clawing and the infecting and the whatnot. What about the larger environmental concerns? I mean, a zombie claws his way out of a shallow grave... who's going to be re-sodding that ground? A vampire explodes in a fiery cloud of dust... someone needs to sweep that up. And don't even get me started on what can happen when a werewolf gets in your flower bed. 3kggames's new action looper Dirt of the Dead shows that the clean-up can get just as intense as the confrontation.

Test Subject Blue is the latest platform puzzle game from Nitrome. Jump platforms to reach the food pill that unlocks the exit capsule for each level. You will have to jump through force fields that transport you to different locations throughout the level. Navigate through each level in the shortest time possible.

I think that everyone, if only for a second, has considered the possibilities of traveling through time. Sadly, we don't have the budget for a DeLorean. So it's up to State Of Play to offer us the next best thing: the fast-paced reflex-testing microgame-fest that is A Short History of the World, a beautiful game with finicky mechanics.