So the kitties all enjoyed their delicious hot pot party. From the looks of it, they had a really good time. Now it's time to tidy up: pick up the mess, wash the dishes, put things away and take out the trash. Um, fun? Yes! It is in this escape game from Detarame Factory. Cuteness, whimsy and straight-forward puzzling makes it so.

Detarame Factory shows once again how to make a charmingly whimsical escape game that is just as clever and tricky as it is cute. You've decided to have a party and make "hot pot": a delicious stew of various fish, veggies and spices. To gather the recipe and ingredients, you'll need to solve a host of puzzles, collecting clues and tools along the way. There's lots to explore and two endings to find, so you'll want to set aside a little time to enjoy the whole party.

After all the predicaments Choko-Chai's three cats have found themselves in, and escaped their way out of, it's their turn to play purrfect heroes when the baker's apprentice is locked inside but can't find the door code. You can help by solving puzzles, unlocking multiple doors and cupboards, until you've found all the ingredients necessary for a cake shop escape!

This luxuriously appointed seaside suite is an escape in every sense. From the many logically designed puzzles which you must solve to unlock to the door to the beautiful setting which whisks you away on a seaside vacation, there's much to explore and discover. So set aside a half hour or more and take your time to enjoy the view and escape from it all.

It was supposed to be simple: break in to the department store, steal the top secret documents, and get out. But someone gassed you, and now you're alone on the store's roof, and things are bound to get more complex before they get simpler. So begins Gatamari's newest escaper, Mission in Department Store.

Explore this lovely room for an assortment of items and clues, putting all the bits together, opening drawers and cupboards, until you've uncovered the code that will open the door. If you enjoy pretty aesthetics and logical puzzles, then the occasional fussy mechanism should be little bother. Even with a few flaws, like thorns on a rose, there's ample fun to be had here—as well as two ways to exit.

Packed into this lovely mini-escape are some entertaining puzzles including a really tricky color-based one and not one but two endings (the bad and the good) along with some...let's say slightly inappropriate language, which one would probably expect with a hockey team.

You've been kidnapped. Or at least, you think so. And trapped in a strange house packed with puzzles, you've been trying to find your way out for, oh, four games now. This final fifth installment in the Escape-Men spin-off series provides even more weirdness and questions, but also some unexpected and welcome complexity to go with its quirky ending.

Somehow you've been cooped up inside the gen-kan, where some dangerous devices were placed. Now, can you avoid making the wrong move and escape from this place alive and intact? Since this room escape is by the inventively creative Kotorinosu, you know you can count on heaps of fun while trying.

"Earth. Music. Honey." Not the name of a new retro-styled homage band but just some of the words you'll encounter in Robamimi's latest escape-the-room creation. While enjoying the serenely pretty aesthetics, search this room closely, looking for words and figuring out how to turn them into clues. Make the right connections and you'll solve your way out the door.

Tesshi-e's first escape game of 2014 reunites you with the mysterious Mr. K, a friend you haven't seen since 2011 who enjoys renovating rooms with all manner of mysterious puzzles and mechanisms to trap you. Featuring hippos, birds, secret codes, and a fine beverage to go with swanky piano music, it's another great example of Tesshi-e's ability to marry logic with whimsy in design.

Bad weather overtakes you as you're hiking a snowy mountain, so you escape the elements inside this unassuming mountain hut. Luckily, No 1 Game has picked this exact location for another game of find the escape men. Looking everywhere something tiny and flat could be hidden and solving a few puzzles makes for a fun way to wait out the snow storm.

Comically complicated contraptions and delirious devices are waiting for you inside Haretoki's marvelous escaper's fun factory. Looking as if designed by a kid on a Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs bender, this is not an easy escape by far. Yet each puzzle has a solid logic and, by constructing helpful objects and carefully deciphering the myriad of clues, you'll find escaping not only possible but immensely fun.

When it's THIS cold outside, most of us want to stay indoors, but after a rough work week you're determined to go out and enjoy yourself. Too bad a freak snow storm has you trapped inside with ten little green men...

Santa has kinapped you, again, because he has lost the happy coins, again, and needs you to find them (and his sack of presents) to save Christmas, AGAIN...Tesshi-e is back with another trippy holiday scenario with The Happy Escape 6.

At first, you can't make out much in this escape-the-room game from Kotorinosu. Could this thing be a door? What are these green squarish things you've found, almost by accident? Yet, if you manage to solve the puzzles and survive the pixel hunts of this room, details come into being. You'll be that much closer to success.

Seek out a half-score of hens and escape the cabin in Yuri's Chick Hide and Seek 14. Interface issues mar the sweetness, but overall Chick Hide and Seek 14 has a comforting familiarity to it that will go great with an afternoon cocoa break.

Japanese developer Coconuts Park presents a cute and light-hearted entry in their long line of cute and light-hearted point and click games with Booca in the Southern Island Episode 2. The second of the first three of their games to be translated in English, Coconuts Park certainly has an eye for appealing and simple, but not too easy, escape style games. Give it a shot to relive the horrors of birth order all over again!

Robamimi returns to the single-walled venue of room escapes with everything you love about a Robamimi design: a user-friendly interface, clever yet solidly logical puzzles, and a beautiful setting all rolled into one roomful of fun.

Pesimari, the small sundries shop out on the edge of town is holding an escape event. Of course you're intrigued by this and might want to pick up a Mr. Birdy mug cup while you're at it. It looks easy at first, but there are some clever tricks in store for you here. You'll have to find all the clues and work out what they mean if you're ever going to escape. Maybe, if you're spend your time well, you'll leave with an extra happy coin for your wallet, too!

In the religion of Shinto, the Inari is the Japanese kami of foxes, fertility, rice, agriculture and industry, and prosperity. Here, in Robamimi's photo-realistically beautiful escape-the-room game, your success is determined by how well you can find and decipher the clues, utilizing found items and finding enlightenment—of the escaping kind.

Experience the memories of happy coins past in this, the 91st escape-the-room game by our dear friend, Tesshi-e. And what is a friend for if not to lock us up and force us to point and click all over the place, seeking out clues, useful objects and seven shiny gold coins in order to escape? Although you'll revel in the familiar, Tesshi-e has some sly tricks to keep you on your toes and scratching your head.

It's Halloween, and everyone's out trick-or-treating, including Japanese developer Choko-Chai's trademark three cats. When they visit the wrong house and end up locked inside, though, it's time once again for them to escape. Choko-Chai's games have a charm all their own; the puzzles are neither too challenging nor too easy, there's a changing cursor right where it counts, the cats' animated antics are hard to tire of, and the one time there's a puzzle that requires knowledge of something Japanese, the creator provides a Wikipedia link.

With both a main quest to help the birdies reunite and a side quest to find all seven hidden eggs, White Cage is a lot of entertainment packed into a little space. So welcome Petithima back and enjoy White Cage!

Why rack your brain wondering why Detarou is so so strange when you can spend that precious brain power figuring out the abundance of puzzles in store for you in this latest surreal escape from the weirdness master? Significantly easier and a teensy bit less offensive than some Detarou offerings out there, this episode has three endings and plenty of humorous surprises throughout. And you thought it was just about Japanese floor coverings!

Ready for a burst of warmhearted cheerfulness to lift your mood? The autumn leaves are falling and weather is cooling down, but there's still a world of fun outside. In order to open the door , though, you need to play a game of hide-and-seek with ten adorable chicks in this sweet escape game by Yuri.

In the language of flowers, gazania means "I am proud of you." Here, in Robamimi's lovely escape-the-room game, flowers and a feeling of pride go hand-in-hand as your success in deciphering clues and solving puzzles result in a blossoming sense of accomplishment. The challenges that keep the exit door closed are just enough to feel good about as you step out into freedom.

Yona Yona Games debuts on JIG with this sweet escape named after a children's singing game. By gathering clues and using found items, you must not only secure your freedom but also that of a charming little blue bird. The puzzles are light enough for spirited and happy game break yet pose just enough challenge to make that door key well-earned.

Choko Chai's cats are a charming trio full of winning personality and charm. They also keep finding themselves in sticky situations. This time it's being stuck aboard a passenger ship as it sails out to sea. Help them solve codes and put items into creative use or call them onto stage and put them to action. While the puzzle solving and exploration can be hit-and-miss, most the fun and entertainment of this escape game comes from the three cats' ameowsing antics.

A funky beat, a big screen television, a bunch of puzzles, and several not at all creepy bird statues watching you from every single angle... it may be weird, but it's also Tesshi-e, so you know it's bound to be good. So start hunting for clues and cracking puzzles and find your way out!

Elegant, calming, and packed full of puzzles that require deductive reasoning and not a little brainpower, Robamimi's latest escape game offers a soothing atmosphere to go with its clever design, making for the perfect way to wake up the slumbering escape artist in your brain for the day.

Haretoki doesn't disappoint with this latest escape-the-room funhouse of clever puzzles and baffling devices. Quirky contraptions line every wall, inviting experimentation and exploration. You'll need to think outside the box and work through clues that are logical yet subtle, but the "This is way cool!" payoff is worth it.

How can you win the woman of your dreams? Well, if you're a painter, it's by buckling down and creating a masterpiece in your studio... right after you track down all the little green men hiding throughout the place, of course. Another short, simple, and sweet escape from no1game!

Yuri has more seek and find cuteness for you in an escape-the-room game set in a summer backyard. Ten tiny chicks are hidden from view but you'll need their help to get out. So look around and solve puzzles to coax them all out of hiding. There's two endings to enjoy as well.

Blooming full of sweetness, this escape game from Fuwayura is on the easy side. Explore a single scene, finding the clues and items needed to solve a handful of puzzles and grow a batch of flowers before you can go outside and enjoy the sunny day.

In this escape-the-room game from noprops (also known as Mygames888), you find yourself in a familiar situation: locked in a room in which you must solve puzzles until you reach the exit and make you way out. Yet there is also something different, more surreal, that makes Lift stand out from most games you're used to. For this reason, it's not to be missed.

Hottategoya has mastered the miniescape quite well by giving a threefold of puzzles to solve all wrapped up with stylish presentation. Explore a series of very sameish rooms, climbing the stairs until you reached a locked door, then breaking the code that opens it. Do that three times and you'll be out before you know it. The easier challenges make this game perfect for beginners or for anyone who has a hankering for an escape but only a moment to spare.

Escape from the Dome is not rocket science. It's a cute and fun way to pass a few minutes and sharpen those escaping skills. You know, in case you find yourself under a mysterious dome in real life.

Detarou is not afraid to be offensive and this escape-the-room game is exactly what you'd expect from the designer, who once again found new lines of weirdness to cross over. Locked inside this strange cafe, you must look around for clues and helpful items, solving cleverly tricky puzzles and avoiding the bad ending in order to unlock the door and escape. A solid logic and an intuitive interface make the experience more pleasant even if the sights you encounter are uncomfortably inappropriate.

It's a hot summer so you rent a cool bungalow for a nice bit of relaxation. Or so you thought, because in Tesshi-e's world all doors are to be looked at suspiciously. Turns out this one is no differently as you're soon locked inside with no key in sight. Time to escape! Search around this whimsically appointed vacation cabin for clues and helpful objects, solving puzzles until that elusive exit key is in hand.

Play a quick game of hide and seek with Yuri's troupe of adorable chicks and they'll help you figure out the ice cream parlor's door code in this whimsically cute escape-the-room game. Gameplay centers around find all ten of the baby birds while solving a smattering of codes and item use puzzles. Easy as pie once you know to look everywhere a tiny peep can fit and it's the perfect way to infuse some sweetness into a summer day.

Tesshi-e once again teaches us the art of constructing a useful item from random bits of crap found around a room we've been locked into in the entertaining and challenging Escape from Tesshi-e's Room 2.

Here is a full scale escape-the-room adventure made (near) perfect by Kotorinosu's skillful design. Inexplicably locked inside these space age surroundings, with no narrative or changing cursor to guide you, you're left to your observational skills and ability to make connections between clues, using objects (repeatedly) to break through multiple locks until you are free. It's lengthy enough and challenging enough to hold you captive for most the afternoon, both in frustration and delight.

No1Game is back with the road trip that won't quit, finding those elusive international symbols for an exit in a busy Service Area. Get those lazy bums back to work in this delightful mini-escape. It reminds us that in the vast excursion that is life it is not the destination but the journey that is important. And, you know, the escaping.

When out on a stroll through the park, you come across a relaxing-looking cafe and decide to have a little repast. In the ordinary world, you'd order some food, eat and go. This is Tesshi-e's world, though, and you're inside an escape cafe. Now you have to search around for clues and useful items, solve puzzles and gather up ten happy coins before you can get the heart-shaped key and unlock the exit door. Only then can you have a nice treat to fill your tummy before you leave. That's the Tesshi-e brand of fun which we know and love!

Maybe you do need to be a little bit fruity to love escape-the-room games, but suzumeDr proves once again the satisfaction of being locked in a room with only your wits to free yourself. Tending to be more easy than some of this author's earlier works, this escape presents a handful of logic-based puzzles where the biggest challenge is uncovering the clues and putting them to work in the right place.

Find the Escape Men Part 52 in the Gas Station is a delightful mini-escape featuring logical puzzles, amusing dialogue, and even two different endings. Welcome to yet another short and whacky escape adventure with those hard-to-find little green men. Time to gas up the car and go!

The same ol' same ol' is exactly what you want when you're in the mood for light, casual puzzles in a minimalist setting. Hottategoya follows up the similar rooms series by stepping up the navigational obstacles which test your powers of observation. Solve three codes, open three doors and, quicker than you can say dèjá vu, you'll have that same great feeling that comes from a successful escape.

A ninja protecting himself with bubble wrap? Check. A strange line of leaping dancers? Yep. Some dude with a green face peering at you through a hole in the wall? Okay. Small blue men doing...something to a vase? Yeah, Detarou's back with another surreal room escape.

Join Yuri's chirpy hide-and-seek playing bunch of baby birds in the park playground, where they've nestled into every possible hiding spot waiting to be discovered by you. Your goal is easy: click anywhere you think a baby fowl could fit, pick-up and properly use a smattering of objects, and collect all ten chicks before you can find the exit and escape.

Yoshio Ishii has another question for you, and in this third installment of the addictively clever puzzle series, provides even more smart and simple levels where you'll have to think outside the box. Or circle, I suppose. All you have to do is read the question and figure out which circle you need to click... even though they both seem identical.

Enjoy the beautiful visuals and dense puzzles of one of the best room escape designers working today. The haunting melody, crisp visuals, and engaging puzzles of Mild Escape 6 are a great way to show fans appreciation for sticking with the designer for so long.

Where do you think you're going in this traffic? It's bumper to bumper for fifty miles! You could sit and complain... or you could hunt down the ten little green men curiously hiding throughout your vehicle. A short escape game that relies more on observations than puzzles, but provides a giggle or two along the way.

Three doors, three locks, three puzzles, three clues... sound familiar? Hottategoya serves up another blink-and-you'll-miss-it escape game with simple logic and observational puzzles that will whet your brain's appetite for more.

In order to escape, you'll need to find your way through four rooms, observing signs and clues, solving puzzles and deciphering codes. Despite the title, though, this is not a heavy undertaking. Simple, quick and perfectly logical, Heavy Room by Triple Rock is just the right balance of ease and fun for a mini game escape anytime you need one.

Hottagoya's triplex style of puzzle presentation is elevated to a new level in this refreshing escape game. You're not so much trapped inside as hovering above a labyrinth forest of evergreens. With some wandering about, you'll eventually find a box containing your first clue: a map of sorts. Follow it to the next clue until you can find the exit door and decipher the secret code to escape.

Belonging in the very easy but very cute category, ten little balls of yellow are hiding in this room and need to be found before you can solve the door lock code and escape. Some are in plain sight, others need help out of a sticky situation and some need to be uncovered. Click around the room, use objects creatively, solve a couple puzzles and you'll be out in a peep.

Hottategoya has three rooms for you to escape from. Within each, the smallest of details are changed but the rest is very...similar. Your goal is to point and click around the scenes, observing the clues and associating them with the proper puzzles. Unlock all three doors and soon your brief excursion into three similar rooms will be over.

When you're inside this sublimely surreal environment, a room of saturated pastel colors and depth, it's hard to think why you'd want to leave so quickly. But if you are quick to observe clues and put them together then, with only three codes to solve, you'll be out of here within minutes. As always, MyGames888's impeccable design and inventive puzzles offer a truly satisfying escape from the ordinary.

Tateita's short and sweet escape game makings are what's in store for you in the oddly named, sg6. The room is unfurnished and offers few clues and even fewer puzzles to solve, but solve them must if you want to escape. So poke around a few corners, make good use of items you gather and, with two shakes of the dice, you'll be out.

When Detarou's playing Willy Wonka, any factory you visit is bound to be a little... off. With everything from a sober frog man, a de-pants/pantsing conveyor, a less-than-talented ventriloquist and more, this is one of the weirdest escapes yet... though thankfully with its share of clever puzzles to keep you occupied.

You're in a room with a beautiful view of the horizon. An Escape from the Scenic Room might be the last thing you're interested in doing, but in Tesshi-e's latest escape game of the same name, that's exactly what you're tasked with. The bouncy accordion music somehow fits the atmosphere quite well, the visuals are realistic but not overwhelmingly so, and the puzzles are well-designed and flow perfectly.

The doorknob is broken, so you're stuck in your apartment. Maybe, if you can get him to cooperate, your Neighbor can help? Point-and-click around the room, looking for a creative means to earn his assistance, solving puzzles and decoding codes. Red herrings might lead you astray while the comical style and Robamimi's affable charm makes you feel part of the jocosity, not only as a good neighbor, but as a welcome friend.

Hottategoya puts you in the middle of a maze and asks that you not only find your way through it to the exit, you must make sense of your comings-and-goings and open three locked safes before you can leave. Thus, navigating the layout more a challenge than the puzzles themselves. Yet the concrete feeling of success when you reach the end makes this escape-the-room game rather amazing (it had to be said!)

Mygames888 sashays down the escape-the-room game runway with a smartly cohesive design, a clever array of puzzles and a looks that's as tasty as frosting on a raspberry layer cake. Although there is no changing cursor, navigation and exploration are usually intuitive but do require thinking outside the overtly seen. A bit of inference and curiosity to guide your explorations, questioning newly opened possibilities, you'll find your way out with the exit key in hand and a suave feeling of accomplishment to bask in.

Although you've been asked this question before, there are more ways to distinguish the differences between two seemingly alike spheres. That's why this pleasantly straight-forward puzzle game from Yoshio Ishii is so good to play. Throughout twenty levels, you'll decide which of the two circles before you has the requested quality. At times obvious, other times needing lateral conclusions or outside knowledge, More Which? is just challenging enough to be gratifying.

So you want to be a ninja? You've gotten the cool clothes, the headbands, the shuriken, the blow-darts, the green escape men ...what? You didn't know that green escape men were a vital part of the ninja accouterments? Well they are if you want to graduate, or at least escape from the ninja house in this latest escape men finding thriller from No1Game!

The setup's a tried-and-true one, and one many can sympathize with: the protagonist is worn out from days of work, and is invited by a friend to a quiet room. It's a masterpiece of escape, with soothing guitar music, photorealistic graphics, and puzzles that make sense if you think about them just right. Come, escape the chaos of your day for a little while thanks to Tesshi-e.

Once upon a time there were three little cats that had a bad tendency to get stuck in rooms. Now they've found themselves in the roles of Little Red Riding Hood and they need to escape the room before the Wolf wakes up and decides to make a meal out of them. With your help surely they'll succeed! You don't need big eyes, big teeth, or big ears to play this but you do need a healthy dose of clever thinking.

You're trapped and need to escape but there's no easy out in sight. What do you do? In Tateita's Ladder you will have to make use of not only a ladder but other items you find as you explore the walls of your cell. If you're clever enough you'll find your way to freedom in no time in this short but sweet escape-the-room game.

This surreal barbershop setting is absolutely fitting for an escape game by Detarou, the designer known for zany performances and hair-raising weirdness. Cut down the strange and you'll find the very basics of a great escape game here: a full treatment of formidable yet logical puzzles with multiple interactive areas to explore and three endings to discover. Ready for a new look? Try the Detarou style.

You are a cute kitty, trapped in a not-so-cute dungeon. You can escape, but there are rules you'll need to follow in Niliter Game's puzzle platformer, Cat Walk Once. Though the Japanese text is untranslated, Cat Walk Once has the retro charm and clever level design of the most classic Gameboy puzzlers, and it's something that will definitely be played much more than once.

Kuruma is a room escape game from MyGames888 with fantastic minimalist design that features a room that's empty except for a shiny new car. In this one you will use found items several times until you are breathing the fresh roof air. It's a quick and fun experience perfect for a break, be it mid-day or mid-week.

Robamimi takes you on a wonderful ride from beginning to end during this aesthetically gorgeous escape-the-room game in the tradition of Hermit Rabi and Wonder Fountain. Just follow a changing cursor to gather tools and solve puzzles until you open the door: only to learn there's more to explore! The hexagonal room designs mean extra footwork in your efforts to make sense of clues, yet the reward is well worth the experience.

Kung Fu paradise's little brainchild, Tsuregemu 4, drops you in the three-room house of an animated white stick figure named Shirojin; his only housemate is his cat. Obviously, your task is to escape from the house by any means necessary, even if you have to solve a hundred puzzles to do it. The drill should be familiar by now: click around to inspect and interact with things and pick up inventory items, and use or examine things from your golden inventory bar at the bottom. Tsuregemu 4 won't be winning any awards with their 3D graphics, but you can tell what you're looking at most if not all of the time. The game's true meat, however, is its puzzles, which are original and cleverly designed without being too nonsensical, and many of them require interacting with Shirojin and his cat in various ways.

There are two circles in front of you: Circle A and Circle B. One of them has a certain quality. And the question you must answer, in this puzzle game by Yoshio Ishi, is simple: Which? Figuring out the challenges will depend less on logic, and more on playful experimentation to determine what the developer had in mind. This can be occasionally frustrating, but all of the levels are quite clever, making for a quality five minutes of fun.

Pull up a seat beneath the Japanese quilted Kotatsu and enjoy this delightful little gem based on the traditional heated table frame. If there is any downside it is the lack of a changing cursor which might lead to some minor pixel hunting, a small complaint considering the entertainment this little gem brings. Sit down, power up, and let the warmth of Kotatsu Escape sooth away the stressful day.

Happy birthday to you, haaa-ppy birthday tooo you! Well, it's somebody's birthday here in LiberTechno's festively decorated escape-the-room game, and this somebody thinks it's great fun to rig up the room with an abundance of challenging puzzles. This equals a hefty amount of content while the large banquet table in the center of the room will also challenge your navigational skills, which is especially happy for anyone who'd much rather sleuth his or her way through clues than fill up on frosting-laden cake.

Underneath that rainbow of squares lies demons galore! Cool demons, though! Mamano Digger is a simple idea puzzler by Hojokama Games that makes the SameGame formula feel a little different. A minimalist gaming experience that probably won't have much replay value once you've beaten it, but you probably won't be able to stop playing until you do.

There's nothing unfamiliar about the setup of Find the Escape-Men 49: In a Hut. Since this is a Find the Escape-Men game, you have to find 10 green men before you can pull off your great escape. However, it shouldn't take long to realize that something is a little... off... about our protagonist. I feel we could feature more work from No1Game, since what they do, they do well. Their puzzles are original and logical yet not too frustrating, there's no tear-your-hair-out pixel-hunting, and there's just the right amount of whimsy holding it all together.

Getting into a science laboratory is much easier than it looks; just ask Dee Dee. Getting out of one, however, is another story. espcgm's clever little escaper drops you into what appears to be a chemistry lab, and tasks you with puzzling your way out. Don't let the MS Paint graphics throw you off; Escape from Mystery Science Room is not a bad game. The meat of an escaper is its gameplay, and this is a game that has it; the puzzles are logical and flow well, and although there's no changing cursor, the lack of pixel-hunting means you don't really need it. Overall, EfMSR is a game that's just difficult enough, and well worth the trip.

From the imagination of MyGames888, enter a dreamlike aquatic abode full of enigmas. If you want to escape—and avoid a permanent case of prune skin—you'll need to find the answer to many questions such what does that turtle have on its back and why is that fish behind bars? Put together clues and creative tools to solve puzzles and find your way out to one of the funnest "Congratulations!" screens in the genre.

While the surroundings may look dull in this escape game from new-to-the-scene designer, Indice, the beauty in its clean design and simple lay-out soon becomes clear. Just a bit of wit and logic is all that's needed to solve the puzzles before you, making for a brief but satisfying excursion that will leave you looking forward to the next sticky situation you can be trapped in.

Although Soom 2013 isn't long at all, particularly compared to Place of Light's earlier works like Loom Dawn and Room Marine, it's good while it lasts. The room and its puzzles are very well designed, and although the lack of any sound can be a little disconcerting, it doesn't really get in the way. As someone born in the year of the snake myself (...er, not this year of the snake, the one 24 years ago), I consider myself qualified to recommend Soom 2013, and I do so eagerly.

Escape from the Room with Three Keys 8 is less of a full room escape and more of a serial, one of those five to ten minute "to be continued" shorts shown before the main event. Here's a perfect way to take a short yet entertaining break that will leave you wanting more.

Once in a blue moon Tesshi-e gets mischevious and builds an escape around finding not one, not two, but whole lot of lucky coins in a room. These escapes make Tesshi-e fans very happy, thus the title, The Happy Escape. The Fourth time's the charm in this escape where the only objective, besides finding Santa Claus' sack of presents is finding the ten Happy Coins hidden in the room. Another Holiday treat from the mind of Tesshi-e!

Nekonote's diminutive cherubs are extremely shy and they're hidden about this winter landscape for you to find. Search around, solving puzzles and performing certain actions needed to gain a key, a helping hand or otherwise uncover the hiding spots of each of the ten dwarfs. Like the chirpy pip-squeaks you're after, this point-and-click game is short and simple but big on cheerful cuteness.

Enjoy the anticipation of Christmas Eve year-round with this amusing room escape packed with an astonishing number of puzzles for such a small room. The basic premise of the game is simple: it is Christmas Eve, your boyfriend is on his way over, the tree is not decorated, and you can't remember where you stored the ornaments. Can you decorate before your date arrives? Better hope so!

Hottategoya presents a math lover's dream escape: a room full of ten safes, nine of which remain locked until you arrange the proper algebraic equation to get them open. One by one, you'll gain the buttons needed to solve each numbers puzzle until, likely in a matter of mere minutes, you've earned the key to the exit door. Whatever your attitude toward algebra, you should feel happily liberated once you succeed.

Take a break to enjoy Tesshi-e's very unseasonal Christmas present to all room escape fans! Featuring some familiar things (it just wouldn't be Tesshi-e without Mr. Birdy and a wobbly picture puzzle, would it?) and some new, Tesshi-e is in fine form with a host of amusing and challenging puzzles dealing with logic, math, color, and a little intuition. With its lush tropical backgrounds (time for a beach vacation!), zippy music, and thought-provoking puzzles, Santa in the Southern Islands is a welcome room escape any time of the year.

Some might call this Haretoki creation one of the best escape games this year in terms of brain busting scenarios and enjoyable gameplay but that's up to you to decide. It isn't the prettiest room we've spent time in nor is it the friendliest, if you can stick it out through some head-desk-thump moments, it will reverse those escaping tummy growls into a plump full feeling of satisfaction.

Gracing the Weekday Escape stage this week is a touch of color therapy in a mellowly studious room from 10 Color Dots. Although the way may be bumpy in spots for those who do not read Japanese, this pleasant little escape utilizes its environment well to present clues and puzzles needing just the right amount of inference and deductive reasoning to solve. It's as enjoyable to spend time here as to earn your way out.

With a room full of clock-centric puzzles, SuzumeDr's characteristic style of themed escape-the-room games works exceedingly well. Although some of the clues have the potential to stump players, keeping in mind the motif should help you out. The clever contraptions and cunning creatively add up to a peppy and fun escape that's well worth your time.

In this fifth single-scene escape-the-room game, Robamimi knows how to turn a single wall into a place so House Beautiful gorgeous it probably makes all those bare-walled, minimalist games envious. Yet the puzzles are enticing, requiring thought and careful observation (even a bit of diligent hunting for a required tool), so you can't help but want to solve them all. You'll leave there satisfied from the enjoyment of a well-tuned escape even if a bit disappointed to go.

Being trapped inside Nekonote's basement isn't as scary as it sounds; it's actually a pleasant experience in a cleanly designed, brightly lit room full of cleverly-construed puzzles. The challenge is just enough to exercise your cranial parts without keeping you locked up longer than you'd care to be. This escape-the-room game proves that Nekonote has some happy tricks up the sleeve and may leave you wondering if we'll get to explore the rest of house someday.

When it comes to Tesshi-e, some things never change—because "he" is rearranging his room and has taken out all the furniture, he's found the perfect opportunity to revamp it for a new escape-the-room. And, of course, you can't resist the challenge. Although there is no furniture, there's no shortage of puzzles and fun, even without the fancy get ups.

Escape from the Room with Three Keys 7 is the usual minimal three puzzles, three keys, and out escape that we've come to expect from Hottategoya. The room is sparse and minimal, the puzzles are fun and amusing, the navigation is pretty easy as is the inventory control, and the whole thing can be fit into whatever time can be spared from a too busy schedule. It's a satisfying little room escape, something that can take your mind off of whatever is bothering you this week, and giving your brain a nice break.

You know what to expect from Escape from Mr. Y's Room 1+ if you've played Tesshi-e's past games: click around the room, solve puzzles, pick up items and use them to ultimately escape. If anyone knows how to follow a tried-and-true formula, Tesshi-e does; they've gotten a lot right in the past, and they don't change any of it. As usual, the graphics are nicely photorealistic yet never distracting, and the puzzles are logical and just challenging enough.

Forgoing the superfluous, Hottategoya gets out of the way and lets your brain be the star of this show. You are behind a door with three locks and need to earn three keys by opening three boxes by using three clues in...well, you get the point. Sorting out jumbled picture tiles, interpreting an abstract design, and applying a bit of maths skill is all it takes to succeed in this fine-tuned escape game you're sure to enjoy.

This week's featured escape game is a new installment of finding those elusive green guys that point the way out in Find the Escape Men 43: EM-taro, No1Game's epic serial about escaping ...whatever room they happen to be in this time around. Think of Find the Escape-Men 43: EM-taro not as a feature film but as a lovely animated short, something to hold your attention for ten minutes or so and provide a lovely mid-week break.