We all love metroidvanias! But would we still love them if, instead of controlling a scifi bounty hunter, or a badass vampire slayer, we played as the alphabet? Answer: Yes! And ASCIIvania, an exploration platformer by Gharding3, is the proof! ASCIIvania is clearer documentation, a map screen and a mute button away from excellence, but its still a fun time.

Taking its cues from Portal 1 and 2, as well as Portal: The Flash Version, Portal Quest puts you back in the testing lab with a portal gun and little else to aid your escape. There's no GLaDOS, but there is a fun puzzle game set at just the right difficulty. And plenty of science.

Brent Silby's latest DHTML creation is Robot, a cool little retro shooter where Robot must fly and Robot must blast untold hordes of Alien Invaders. What's more, Robot must protect his pack of adorable Baby Robots. And since, as everyone knows, Baby Robots are Alien Invaders' favorite food, Robot is not going to have an easy time. A retro shooter with elements both familiar and unique, Robot is classic arcade fun.

You don't remember your master getting so old But today is a special day, and you have special plans together. Like she's always said: to achieve the impossible, all you need is a change of Perspective. An artistic puzzle platformer by NFyre, Perspective has an undercurrent of sweet melancholy in its text that helps to make up for slippery controls.

Chunkadelic, developed by Noel Berry and Chevy Ray Johnson for the Full-Indie 48-hour Game Jam is one third Atari, one third WarioWare, and one third discotheque. That adds up to a work that's 100% a love letter to arcade retro-gaming. Ephemeral, and a little heavy on the strobe-lighting, but overall an amazing spectacle.

Nitrome seriously overhauls their balloon-centric action avoidance adventure series with this latest installment! When the family pooch is stolen by a malicious spiky baddie, it's up to the son of a hero to venture out into the hostile wild blue yonder and explore stages packed with wild hazards and enemies. With a complete engine revamp, checkpoints, and more responsive controls, it's still a challenge, but not an impossible one!

Scientists have spent years and millions of dollars to turn a regular cat into The Magnetic Cat. His frizzy ferromagnetic fur allows him to stick to all sorts of surfaces, and, as the scientists unfortunately discovered, to easily escape from secret government labs. Now, he wants nothing more than to settle down with a family, but there's still 30 levels of obstacles in his way. A puzzle platformer developed by GrimToyz, The Magnetic Cat's well-conceived central mechanic and multiple-solution level design make up for the minor problems of implementation.

Grab your Photonic Laser Blaster, and get ready to bring a little light to the creatures of the dark in Photon Baby, a genre-busting platformer by Jeremias Babini. Drawing inspiration from all manner of genres, Photon Baby is a unique little creation, with influences as far ranging as Laser Physics puzzles and the 16-bit classic "Zombies Ate My Neighbors". Some of the later levels get a little busy with competing inspirations, but overall Photon Baby is perfect for arcade gamers who wish Halloween lasted all year.

Tiny world, tiny problems, right? More like "not right". Er, yeah. Anyway, Mini Quests is a pint-sized adventure/puzzle game by dishmoth available for Android devices and as a Java Applet for browsers. The chunky-pixeled isometric game puts you in control of a little guy out on an adventure, trudging through the fantasy lands as he hunts for treasure and fights/puzzles his way out of various scrapes, like you do!

As the forlorn leader of scattered tribe with the power to utilize the elements, scour the pixel islands in search of your magic totem powers in this retro real time strategy game. An innovative strategy game that makes manipulation of earth your main priority if you hope to crush your enemies as swiftly as possible. The ability to rain fire from the sky or electrocute your foes is just a nice side benefit of elemental dominion. Do you have the fortitude to reclaim a tribe's history from ashes and bring them to new heights? Prove your worth.

He's a ninja with a mission: to complete the report on time... it's Temp Ninja! In Games Northwest's high difficulty platformer, fly through the air avoiding spikes and trying your darndest to land on tiny platforms or plummet into the unknown. Grab the nearest cup of coffee and spiral your way through 20 levels of an experience you're not likely to find in your own office!

You might not be ready for this Jelly Escape, a puzzle-platformer by Taw Studio. Games about anthropomorphic blobs making their way through dangerous obstacle-laden settings are nothing new, and this one is hit by a bit of CPU lag. With a fluid progression of 50+ levels, a comprehensive checkpoint system that allows the game to be challenging without ever feeling too tough, and a hilariously whimsical sense of humor, though, it's worth checking out.

Ever since Pac-Man first escaped off the right side of the screen to magically appear on the left, players have had a certain thing for games that skew traditional notions of spatiality. The Village Blacksmith offers another wonderful take on this kind of teleportation in Recursion, a cool little retro puzzle platformer. The series of single screen levels progresses nicely, even if the jumps require a bit too much precision. Still, Recursion worth playing over and over again.

Jonathan Whiting is here with another wonderfully vague Ludum Dare entry, arcade puzzler, Niña Nueve. Taking place in a nine-by-nine room (or does it?), Niña Nueve leaves it to the player to determine its mechanics, even as they grow ever more complex. Niña Nueve is a short game that will be run through pretty quickly. Still, it is a heck of a ride.

Be afraid. Be very afraid of his scary love. In Bear of Love, a tongue-and-cheek action game from LeBrancher and rzafael, you play a bear who needs to hug people in order to breath, creating a form of photo-hug-synthesis that will have scientists baffled for decades. But there's a catch: you tend to come on too strong and end up killing those you hug when you don't pull away in time. Bear of Love features some great 8-bit pixel art and the funny upgrades and animations will have you chortling to yourself long after the five or ten minutes it takes to finish this game, making it a perfect antidote for the Monday morning blues.

Predicament by Orangepascal is a back to basics escape-the-room game with lovely pixelart and features a story with an unexpected ending. You are a lone survivor who has fallen into a cave and must find their way out if they want to live. But, why are there objects already in this cave? For anyone with a need for a quick escape-the-room fix and a love for stories with ambiguous endings, there is no predicament... just play and enjoy.

The internet loves nostalgia! The internet loves zombies! What do you get when you take these two great tastes that taste great together? The Organ Trail, a parody of a certain edutainment adventure, developed by The Men Who Wear Many Hats, tasks you with the familiar goal of safely leading a party across the US to the west coast. However, this time your Conestoga is replaced by a station wagon, there are no buffalo, and, oh yeah, there are legions of the undead just waiting for a good ol' fashioned brain chomping. The Organ Trail sticks a little too close to its inspiration in the repetitive mid-game, but overall it is an enjoyable mix of shout outs and classic gameplay.

With gameplay inspired by the classic Rampage series, take control of a huge, angry dinosaur and smash your way through a fully destructive city. Punch through buildings and swat missiles out of the air as the army tries to stop you reuniting with your lost son in this epic 8bit arcade game.

Explore the Tiny Worlds of the Mushroom Kingdom in Johan Peitz's Ludum Dare entry, A Super Mario Summary. A distillation of the original 32 levels of Super Mario Brothers in single screen puzzle-platform format, A Super Mario Summary is a loving tribute, but more than that, a great game.

Created for the Ludum Dare 23 Jam, this charming puzzle platformer puts you in the role of Soldier Hinds as he attempts to escape the clutches of the evil Zordak on the small prison of Planet 161. It isn't just a great game for something created in under 48 hours. It's a great game full stop. Using three very different types of guns that allow you to manipulate your environment in different ways, Planet 161 dishes out cramped levels that unfold in complexity, offering up a few pretty compelling exercises for the gray matter while not suffering from being overly difficult.

Developed by Jonathan Whiting for Ludum Dare 22, Craequ throws players into a puzzling pixelated world of corridors, pushable blocks and crystal balls. It's up to the player to discover the logic behind it, but if you do, you'll feel really smart.

Anaksha, the butt-kicking heroine from the sniping simulation adventure Dark Angel, goes a different route in this collection of quirky old-school style adventures with a sense of humour. Solve problems for people, come up with creative solutions to obstacles, and a lot more in Arif Majothi's trio of games set in Anaksha's world. Originally conceived as a simple experiment with a new game engine, they show the evolution of talent and determination all the way up to "A New Threat", which boasts a ton of replay value for one very odd but entertaining adventure.

Dys4ia is a retro arcade-y piece of interactive art by transsexual author Anna Anthropy about her six-month experience with hormonal therapy. Raw and emotional, but surprisingly humorous, for good or for bad, this is the kind of game that will get people thinking and talking.

Playing a secret agent is always fun, even when it's pared down to a simple one-button game, like in Agent Turnright by Pencilkids. 16 levels of mini-games await you and your right pointer finger as you help Turnright work his way to defeating the boss and winning the girl. In how many clicks can you complete this adventure?

In the year 2049, all the water on Earth has been depleted. The nearest source of the good stuff is our friendly neighborhood Mars. So... let's go get it, shall we? Mars Commando is a defense game that emphasizes unit placement and strategy over swarms of soldiers, allowing you to earn the satisfaction of eradicating thousands of aliens with half a dozen of your own troops.

In Tiny Airships, you'll use your airship to defend your home against the vile Tyrian Empire and hopefully you'll manage it without plummeting to the earth. The various combinations of upgrades add a nice level of depth, since you can customize your craft to suit your play style.

Ms. Particle-Man! Ms. Particle-Man! Showing off things that Silverlight can! What's it like? Pretty good! Ms. Particle-Man! A fun little work from Picobots where the quest for the Higgs Boson particle takes on the guise of a 1980s arcade hit, Ms. Particle-Man is so aggressively science-geeky and displays such love for the games it emulates, that a nostalgia trip is almost inevitable.

Captain Commander: Defender of the Galaxy! Crash landed on an alien planet, it's up to him and the trusty blaster at his side, to run, jump, shoot, drive and fly across the landscape, decimating the population and rescuing his comrades from their probe-happy captors. A fine retro run-and-gun action game from PixelJAM and Adult Swim, there's be much havoc to wreak, and many green things to insult before the mission is over.

Hot Tub Heist is a gloriously silly action arcade game from Beef Jack Studios. It stars a speedo-clad body-builder who must abandon his daily GTL routine, so that he may battle through a collapsing high rise, to reach the safety of the alien-proof subway below. Hot Tub Heist is goofy, but its constant race to the bottom is a compelling premise.

Sometimes, it seems like we could all use an extra pairs of hands. There's just so much to do around the house: taking out the garbage, washing the dishes, pushing around the giant crate collection, flinging yourself across that inconvenient electrified spike-filled pit in the backyard, defeating the neighborhood evil overlord. Wouldn't having a clone on-hand just be great? Keybol apparently thought so, and the result is Splitman, and it's good ol' puzzle platforming fun.

In 1993, a new star appeared on the NES horizon. A big man with big dreams, big muscles, a big mustache and no shirt, Abobo had nowhere to go but up. Recently however, he was lured back to spotlight by a team of developers, including ThePoxBox, Pesto Force, JackSmack, and the guys at I-Mockery, hoping to make the ultimate love letter to the Nintendo Entertainment System. The result it Abobo's Big Adventure, a retro arcade action-adventure game years in the making. It's a bold, brassy, over-the-top labor of love that pushes 8-bit nostalgia to its very limit.

In 1993, a new star appeared on the NES horizon. A big man with big dreams, big muscles, a big mustache and no shirt, Abobo had nowhere to go but up. Recently however, he was lured back to spotlight by a team of developers, including ThePoxBox, Pesto Force, JackSmack, and the guys at I-Mockery, hoping to make the ultimate love letter to the Nintendo Entertainment System. The result it Abobo's Big Adventure, a retro arcade action-adventure game years in the making. It's a bold, brassy, over-the-top labor of love that pushes 8-bit nostalgia to its very limit.

Raise your hand if you've heard this one before: The evil Dr. Mad has corrupted the programming of six thematic robots and has sent them out to do his bidding, each utilizing a weapon that would be suspiciously effectively against exactly of their evil kin. The only thing possibly standing in Mad's way is the new creation of the good Dr. Thane: the high-jumping, fast-dashing, laser-blasting, ability-stealing Rokko Chan! Okay, Japanese developer King admittedly isn't exactly trying to hide the inspirations for his retro platformer. But if Rokko Chan may look and play like a ROM hack, then it is a very lovingly crafted one of high quality.

Interactive art has a reputation for being light on the challenge, but These Robotic Hearts of Mine, a puzzle game by Alan Hazelden definitely shows that it doesn't have to be. It's a simple game of gears and direction... one that I would love to see re-created in the physical space of a gallery. However, each solution presents another line in a story of technology, hearts and heartbreak. The puzzles alone would be fine, and the elegy is affecting. However, the combination fits like one hand into another.

It's hard to figure out what just happened. You took a walk in the park, like you do every night. This time though, there was a man... there was a gun. Now you find yourself a dark industrial world of shadowy figures and shifting backgrounds. You'll have to rearrange every single room to have even a chance of escaping... and you just know that time's running out. Five is a puzzle platformer from Z3LF where changing reality comes with the click of the mouse.

You've got to appreciate those evil overlords who go out of their way to spend that extra buck for solid dungeon construction. Now, if only they didn't leave their door keys lying around, their treasure would be safe from the local green-hooded retro hero contingents. Oh well. Dangerous Dungeons, an arcade platformer developed by Adventure Islands for a month-long game jam, has an old-school style and old-school difficulty to match.

After Star Wars: Episode II and that whole Spider-man fiasco, one cannot help but be a little wary of clones. However, leave it to Roman Gecerov and Yuriy Kurenkov to show us that just because something's a little familiar doesn't mean it has to be bad. Shameless Clone doesn't rip off anything... it rips off everything! A pitch-perfect recreation of every mid-90s arcade space shooter ever, filled to the brim with skewered references and memes, Shameless Clone is a bullet hell whose authors have nothing to be ashamed of.

We've all been there... Friday night, just hanging out at your house at R'lyeh waiting, dreaming, for your cult leader servant to finally complete the ritual that will grant you unlimited power. But then, all these lame-o cops, Miskatonic professors, mystics, and asylum escapees just had to show up and try to ruin your fun. Good thing your very tentacley touch brings the corrupted servitude of madness. Still, you'd think they'd just learn to Leave Cthulhu Alone! In this flashpunk tower defense game from Loserville Express, messing with the old ones has never been so much fun!

Those darn emo kids have accidentally summoned a horde of alien-zombies to destroy the city! Who should we call? The police? A dashing bandit? A Victorian-era, impressively side-burned gentleman thief? A redneck in a trucker's hat? Jason Vorhees? Well, all are options in Random Heroes, the new platformer from Woblyware. Random Heroes is a solid run-jump-and-shoot action game with a very cool aesthetic design that goes very well with its parallax scrolling effects.

Pixels! Love 'em or hate 'em? You might have no choice but to do the latter in this action-packed arcade shooter. Soak in the retro vibe as you blow apart incoming pixel enemies, raining laser fire down on the field to blast chunks off of them, and nabbing power-ups that drop to increase your strength.

Pixel Quest is a retro-themed platform adventure starring Rex, an adventurer who wears a spiffy little hat. Finding treasure is his favorite activity, and today he's on the hunt for the Golden Frog idols. It's your job to keep Rex alive as you dash through several dozen levels, each well-stocked with falling spikes, lava pits, and traps that come out of nowhere. You know, standard treasure-hunting stuff!

Bicicletas Hoy isn't the first interactive music video on the web, but it's definitely one of the most charming. Developed by Argentinian design team Videogamo, this pixelated piece of interactive art features the musical stylings of rock band Bicicletas and their infectious song Hoy. It's short and not much for challenging, but makes for an engaging two minute romp.

It's a popular misconception that cats have nine lives. In reality they've actually got infinite lives and are forced to restart at checkpoints every time they lose one. Katwalk is a short, fairly easy platforming metroidvania game, so aside from one tricky section involving swimming you won't need catlike reflexes to succeed.

The title of Melee Man, a flixel action platformer by The Village Blacksmith and David Vs. Goliath, seems like it was decided on before the game was developed. After all, the guy has a gun and sucks at melee. Onomastic incongruity aside though, it's a really nice game. It's designed to the 160x144 specifications of the Gameboy Color, and, along with the kicking chiptune soundtrack, truly feels like an unreleased prototype for what would have been a really cool cartridge.

After a long night of haunting and spooking, there's nothing that your average vampire/mummy/witch likes more than going home to the comfort of their own coffin/sarcophagus/cauldron. In Halloween Shooter, a physics puzzler by GameShot, it's your job to blast them all home for a good day's sleep. Very polished in presentation, with some excellently designed set pieces, Halloween Shooter has a cool retro aesthetic and bouncy sound effects.

In the beginning, there was the void, and unless you put your puzzling skills to work in this little experimental game, that's all there will ever be. Use a series of powers, unlocked as you play and experiment, to shape the world around you and turn it from an empty void into a space teeming with life and drama.

In this puzzle platformer by Arctic Arcade, control both heroes Sir Valiant and... err... Steve on their heroic quest to save the princess before they wind up killing each other. The 8-bit graphics, spot on music by Rayne Leafe, and the homage paid to classic console games are sure to please retro fans, while the snarky humor and challenging gameplay can make it a fun experience for any gamer

Even with the promise of super-abilities, volunteering to undergo tests performed by mysterious organizations is the kind of thing that seems like it could go either way. That said, it's already too late for the mild-mannered and slightly-jerkish Melex Archer: he's signed his name on the dotted line and, with the influence of radioactive Thelemite, he's been given a ton of power and no particular sense of responsibility. Sure, he'll spring into action and brawl his way through waves of mutants, but it's sure as heck not because mission control is telling him to. No sir. In this fun little retro fighting game from Sos, the hero is as much a danger to the town as the monsters he faces.

Werewolves, dragons, and mermaids, oh my! LittleGiantWorld puts you in control of every monster ever, but the goal is less world domination and more sweet moolah. Gather new creature DNA to create and manage a zoo/expo hall/what could possibly go wrong facility for the customers to visit and bring in more money. Despite some repetition, it's a cartoony, appealing little time management simulation worth a look.

Marcy and Justine just want to do a good deed, handing out free personal safety alarms on campus. How dare those stupid students feel so safe that they refuse this offer? Clearly they don't understand the danger they're in. It's time to teach them, brawler style, in this former Ludum Dare action satire entry.

Pedro and the Pearls of Peril is the kind of game that's likely to have appeal to multiple demographics. First of all, there will be those in the mood for a good action-shooter, with some shades of Metroidvania and a masochistic edge of difficulty. Then there will be those who'll be convinced once they see the name of Robot Wants retro-maven Hamumu on the title screen. There will be those Cub Scouts who just happened to stumble over the game on the Boys Life website, and are intrigued by what wacky new adventures Pedro the Mail Burro has gotten himself into this time. And last, but not least, there is the not insignificant group of gamers who have a thing for alliteration. Never count them out.

Flee Buster is a retro arcade game about a little human escaping abduction from an alien tractor beam. No wait, it's about a spaceship on the run from Pac-Man's violent quadrilateral cousins. No wait, actually it's about a frog trying to jump as far up as he can from some evil looking spike-water. A bit schizophrenic? Perhaps. But this action-arcade release from Chevy Ray that took first place overall in Ludlum Dare 21 makes one think of Neapolitan ice cream: it has three great tastes that taste great together

The hermit's son has been kidnapped by demons! Are you a good enough king to rescue him? And, while you're at it, could you do something about that advancing purple wall of doom? And, also, could you tell the peasants to knock it off with all the portentous statements concerning the upcoming apocalypse? Sigh... It seems that a monarch's work is never done. Though by the end of KingStory, the new adventure platformer from KintoGames, you'll at least have a pretty sweet crown on your head. That makes it all worthwhile.

MercX is a retro action adventure sidescroller where you control a pixelated hero on an epic mission to rescue a biologist's daughter and save the world. Take out numerous enemies and strong bosses across six missions in different environments. With its 1980s-style graphics, music, and controls, MercX is simple old-school shooting fun.

Developed for Something Awful's GameDev VI Challenge, the retro metroidvania platformer Psychopomps puts you in the shoes of Anubis, who has overslept. In his absence, his fellow soul ushers have gone missing and evil spirits have grown powerful. Explore your environment and shoot down your enemies as you rescue your friends and right the matter of directing souls.

In 1899 Steam & Spirit, you play a young Winston Churchill on a secret mission while traveling on a steamship in the Mediterranean. This episodic, old-school point-and-click adventure will have you solving puzzles and interacting with pixelated characters as you try to accomplish your mission. The game is written in DHTML (HTML + Javascript), so it may be played on some mobile devices.

You may have always wanted your own set of wings, and TwofoldSecret is going to grant them to you as you help their protagonist take to the sky in his crumbling, surreal dreamworld. In this explorative platformer, search the ruins of a dreamland for items of significance and discover the significance between his surroundings and what lies within them.

Twenty years after nuclear confrontation wiped out the planet known as Earth, Cosmonaut Laika receives a distress bark from the ruined surface. Armed with your trusty swap-gun, a rainbow shooting device that lets you switch places with pieces of the world around you, you land upon the planet to locate your companions. Every dog has its day, and today is the day you... Escape from the Puppy Death Factory! Brought to you by Arthur Lee and the fine people at Adult Swim. A fun, if deceptively challenging, puzzle platformer.

My Little Pony, My Little Pony, what will today's adventure be? Well, in Friendship is Magic: The Story of the Blanks, a retro-NES experience by Donitz, it seems that Applebloom is going with Twilight Sparkle to deliver a package to the magician that lives deep in the woods. But the woods are dark and scary, and you'll never know what you will find... Flowers? Friendship? Magic? Love? Diamonds? Candy? Who knows? You'll need a beautiful heart, faithful and strong, to make it to the end, but a little bit of magic should make it all complete.

Nitrome has done it again! We've guided the little blue piece of protoplasm test subject through two incredibly enjoyable series of experiments. Now, however, it (and you) faces its greatest opponent yet: a person sitting next to you at the keyboard! Yes, it's Green vs. Blue in Test Subject Arena

I appreciate the specificity of Space Arcade: The Game's subtitle. I was seriously worried for a couple minutes that I was going to have to deal with Space Arcade: The Hit Broadway Musical. However, as much as I crave toe-tappin' hits and elaborate choreography, I enjoy Galaga-inspired pixel shooter action even more. This appears to be music-meister Matt McFarland's debut game release, and it's so much fun that maybe he should consider quitting his day job.

Zounds! A movie-tie-in advergame that is a 16-bit platformer and doth not suck? And one that doth has been made by retro king Big Pixel Studios! Yea, verily! I personally may be a bigger fan of the Distinguished Competition, but any game that lets you control a Norse God that flings lightning and hammers around is certainly worth a look. Yes, it's Thor: Bring the Thunder, just released on the main Marvel site. Indeed, I've heard that the company has just released a 150 million dollar movie for the sole purpose of promoting this game. Was it a waste of money? By Odin's beard, I say thee nay!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There's something deliciously ironic about Canary. Set in space, Nitrome's "Best of 2011" award-winning game puts players in the role of a stalwart canary in the employment of the Canary Mining Colony. With rocks falling everywhere, hostile yet adorable aliens and a panoply of other things to worry about, the game really does give new meaning to the phrase 'canary in a coal mine'.

Shooter fans! Has this ever happened to you? You're trying to enjoy blasting the latest wave of Galaga-inspired retro-baddies, but find that the old-school chiptune music and sound effects are drowned out by the relentless sounds of mouse clicking and space-bar tapping. There has to be a better way to launch a space bullet, right? Well, Devilish Games has heard your concerns, and the result is Tag Attack: a shooter that focuses more on the aiming than the clicking, while not sacrificing the intensity of the genre.

You play a plucky astro-pilot in this retro-styled action adventure game, with an ill-defined though doubtlessly heroic agenda, who keeps crash-landing onto planets with hostile, labyrinthine space bases, losing your steadfast feline companion in the process. Cat Astro Phi is a nice, short action game with retro appeal, and even players who aren't the targeted allegorical Internet Citizen will find something to appreciate.

Teale Fristoe believes that love is expressed through devotion and makes this point quite succinctly in his latest platform adventure game. As I Lay Dying has one of the genre's more bizarre premises, but what really makes it stand out is how well the premise is integrated with the gameplay. Thankfully, the remarkably morbid subject matter is handled with as much dark comedy as Fristoe could muster. All in all, this is a solid platformer with an unusual enough premise that it's worth a look.

Today we launched a new banner game for the site, created by Mike Hommel of Hamumu Software. Mike is the author of the entire Robot Wants series of games, and this game plays very similarly to those. The objective is to light all the letters of the Casual Gameplay logo, as well as find all the JIGman bits scattered around the game. Sign in with a Casual Gameplay account and collect all the letters and JIGman bits to get your name added to the Hall of Fame!

This is your mission in Aah Little Atlantis, a pixelated turn-based strategy game; try to save as much of the Atlantean populace as you can, using nothing but floods, meteors, and the populace's own panicked fleeing. Your tools are floods and meteors, and you will deploy one of each on a single map tile, once every turn. Your charges are little Atlantean sprites, who will flee in terror from the ravaging deluge you let loose upon them, though they are oddly sanguine about meteors and will happily run toward them.

When evil robots strike and steal all your lighthouse bulbs, it's GIL to the rescue!... easily killed Gil, with no defenses and a soft, pink body, but GIL nonetheless! This simple looking but tricky platformer from Animals Play Games is guaranteed to test your skills as you run, leap, and flying-machine your way through increasingly difficult worlds filled with spikes, robots, switches, lava, missiles, mines, and much more.

There's a new science hero in town! Ray Ardent: Science Ninja is a solid platformer with a nice coat of polish that sets it apart from the rest, and it uses its hilarious concept to full effect which helps makes it a memorable game. Platform fans should certainly give it a shot.

Red and Giant Panda's master has been kidnapped by ninjas! Are you a bad enough panda to rescue him? So is the challenge of Neutronized's new teamwork platformer. Guide them through twenty levels of puzzles, alternating control between the differently-abled Giant and Red all the while. This is a slow-paced, almost zen, walk through a pixelated garden.

Sky Serpents, from popular developer Nitrome, casts you as a quasi-Norse hero on a sky-borne, gravity-defying quest to kill as many sky-serpents as you can to beat all records. Play Sky Serpents, not to save the kingdom or fulfill the prophecy, but to prove that you are the best.

There are three things that distinguish Bullethead from the hundreds of other similar, Space Invaders styled vertical shooters. Number one, it's by Nitrome, so you know it will be a high-production affair, with happy music and sound, and cute, colorful, pixelated artwork. And that should be reason enough to stop reading this and give the game a try!

Stinkoman 20X6, an old Videlectrix classic, follows the saga of the titular Stinkoman, an egocentric super-boxer who lives on Planet K and can never seem to keep his priorities straight. Even when his old friend, the rotund panda Pan Pan, is kidnapped, all he cares about is playing video games, eating chicken broth, and the occasional challenge.

Think you know games? Think you know games when their only representation is obscure and abstract imagery? Across decades and platforms, The Challenging Stage is a single screen test of puzzles and trivia where you have to guess the titles of 56 games, new and classic, from the weird images used on screen.

Sure, he may look like a footlocker and have unsettling pink bags under his eyes, but if your dog or cat or other pet should ever fall down a mine shaft leading to a subterranean geothermic engineering project of dubious provenance, Amil is your go-to fellow. Created by Robert Stone, Amil is a gravity-switching platformer with retro stylings and just a scintilla of RPG flavor.

In a world where people can't seem to see eye to eye on even the most simplest of things, it's comforting to know that we can all at least agree on the fact that hamburgers are the world's most perfect food. In the undeniably charming platformer, I Was Hungry But There Were Cannons, you will find no shortage of this most awesome of culinary delights, it's just that getting them all won't be easy.

It's bigger, badder, and, yes, REDDER than other platformers. A retro-styled adventure of space exploration set in your browser, REDDER offers a big map to explore chock full of challenges. Collect the gems you need to escape and make your way back home... or settle in to stay with the scenic vistas, strange environments, and hostile red robots. We won't judge you.

In this unique offering, you dive into the dreams of sleeping babies only to find yourself taking on the guise of strange aliens in an even stranger universe. Through the dreams of infants you will explore the lives of each of these aliens, experience their hopes and help them attain their dreams. You will do this despite the encroaching darkness, and the ever growing warnings of a dying world.

When does science go too far? How advanced can an artificial intelligence get before it is too advanced? And at what point does an homage cease to be an homage? The answers to these questions and more can be found in Condition, a sci-fi platform shooter by abielins and Lycheesoup that's just a little reminiscent of Cave Story.

The mystery of the ages has been solved! Today we can get a robot to move up a vertical plane using his grappling hook to attach to floating spheres! And it is terribly addictive too... How high can you go? The original game was fun, but hellish in its expectations and difficulty. Gravity Hook HD is MUCH easier to play. It is also prettier, has a better soundtrack and no doubt hides other gameplay enhancements.

A space themed puzzle that puts you in the role of dashing space miner. Use your gravity wells to siphon off the colorful "stuff" provided by gas planets, and guide it to your absorbers. Okay, maybe it doesn't sound too daring or exciting, even if you do manage to cast Bruce Willis in the lead role (which isn't the case here), but Eon does manage to provide a beautiful puzzle experience that is as elegant in its technical design as it is in its pixelated visuals.

Step into the shoes of a Stetson-clad treasure hunter with a glint of gold in his eye who can read five dead languages for no apparent reason and has his spelunking boots all laced up. Trounce baddies and collect golden idols that allow you to move from one leg of the tomb to the next in this pixelrific platform adventure game.

Where We Remain is a quiet game. It is also an action adventure game of exploration in a randomly generated world. You're a lost youth stranded on a haunted island in the Aegean Sea, searching for your lost love among the ruins of a wasted civilization stalked by mysterious spirits. Find 10 possible power-ups to help you complete your quest while avoiding the mysterious spirits that populate the island. You'll also discover that there's more to the island than initially appears.

Destruction is fun! There's something to be said about games that let you take out all of your pent up anger, especially when you get to take it out on an unsuspecting village. And the pachinko-style gameplay as you're rolling a boulder down a mountain makes this latest game from PixelJam more than just a simple smash-and-destroy type of game.

Taking home first prize in the Casual Gameplay Design Competition is no small feat, but David Shute's deceptively simple game of exploration does it with just a few small worlds. A short platformer that may stay with you a long time, Small Worlds offers detailed and surprising environments for you to reveal in your search for... a little peace and quiet.

Battalion: Arena is a grand way to get the morally questionable thrill of outwitting a fellow human being with miniature tons of steel and explosives at your command. The multiplayer chapter of the Battalion series may not stray far from its Advance Wars roots, but then, Advance Wars is a great game.

Tanaka is throwing a party. You help Tanaka invite all his friends to the party. They will show up, everyone loves Tanaka. Tanaka always tries his hardest. He will try his hardest to find all 72 of his friends to join his party. Can you help him find all 72 of his friends? Tanaka hopes so.

You play a poor and homeless beggar in this piece of interactive art from Scott Brodie. You must figure out how and what to eat, and where to go and what to do. You must learn the laws of the land the hard way, and you must ultimately learn to subsist on the charity of strangers, lest you fade and wither away to nothingness.

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 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.

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.

As the head of Castle Corp, you're watching all your business go across the hillock to Happy Family Shields and Accessories Incorporated. So what does a failing business do to get itself back on its feet? Why, employ a crew of knights with rocket packs to blast your rivals to medieval smithereens, of course!

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.

Despite the title, there's no water falling from the sky in Nitrome's new game — only little bunny-like creatures. Help them fly like little floppy-eared helicopters past electrified birds and other hazards to rest on the targets below.