A lecturer at The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University in Software Development for Games, Jeff Wofford has been working in the games industry for over 10 years. He has also just released this addictive little Flash puzzle game that plays like a cross between a tangram and a sliding block puzzle.
In Red White Yellow, the objective is to create groups of the same color in quantities of 6 or more by dropping the falling blocks into place. However, like its name suggests, Red White Yellow is also the order in which you must clear groups from play. It's a unique new twist to the new generation of falling block puzzle games popularized by Lumines. The selectable soundtracks make this game really special.
Bloxorz is a simple idea for a puzzle game that is beautifully executed. The objective is to tumble a rectangular block through each stage and deposit it into the square hole at the end. Using a series of bridge-opening switches, teleporters, and block-splitting switches, solve the puzzle each stage presents to move on to the next of the game's 33 levels.
Ring Pass Not is an original new puzzle game by indie developer, Sandhill Games. The objective: fill the magic circle with tiles by matching adjacent tiles by their color or symbol. Score bonus tools and power-ups by completing special combos of tiles, which will help you advance further in the game with its 30 unique and increasingly more difficult levels.
Ricochet shooting stars across the sky to light the heavens and unlock levels in this dazzling new action puzzler by Hero Interactive. Starshine is a game of rays and angles in which the objective is to light all of the stars to advance to the next level. You have but a single shooting star in your arsenal to fire from anywhere along the outer edge of the circular field of play. The path your shooting star will take depends on the type of stars it comes in contact with.
A missile is launched and it is up to you to solve the mysteries and rituals of The Shrine and save the world. In this amazing and well-produced point-and-click adventure by Aztec, you will encounter lots of items to find, hidden rooms, and various contraptions to activate and control. Cut scene animations reward you at various stages along the way.
Just when you thought you had seen the last of the Submachines for a while, Mateusz Skutnik comes around full circle and delivers another installment in one of the best point-and-click room escape game series on the Web. Submachine: Future Loop Foundation features music from a band of the same name (Future Loop Foundation) and it sets the mood very nicely for another enjoyable adventure.
Loose the Moose is the latest point-and-click, escape-the-room game from Bart Bonte. As with most other games like it, the premise is a simple one: you're in a room, you need to get out. You will have to be observant and think logically to solve puzzles that lead you to your escape.
Designed for our recent "grow" themed competition, Rob Allen of Foon.co.uk sent word today that he has finally finished his entry, and we have been scrambling ever since receiving his note to come up with a prize to award him for the latest entry ever. Eye Defence is an action puzzle game with elements of both Grow and Hapland rolled into one.
Designed for our recent "grow" themed competition, Rob Allen of Foon.co.uk sent word today that he has finally finished his entry, and we have been scrambling ever since receiving his note to come up with a prize to award him for the latest entry ever. Eye Defence is an action puzzle game with elements of both Grow and Hapland rolled into one.
Hoshi Saga is a simple game of discovery. One part point-and-click and one part puzzle game, the objective in each of the game's 36 stages is to find the star. How you go about doing that is different for every stage. The task is up to you to figure out how. Just right to get those brain cells jumping with inspiration and excitement on a Monday.
Dr. Steel has enlisted the talents of Starkraven Madd to take the task of growing his robot army and transform it into a stimulating puzzle game for the masses! It's a simple matter of placing the fuses in the proper slots to provide energy to the mysterious robot growth chamber.
Well, it's happened again. You've gone and gotten yourself stranded in the middle of enemy territory, surrounded by mines, turrets, and electrified Tesla gates. As usual, your only hope is to get to that little flag, even though all it ever seems to do is take you to another enemy-filled battlefield. Hmmm... Your steering mechanism also seems to be stuck, so you'll have to let the terrain dictate your path.
We here at Casual Gameplay have been fans of the work Yoshio Ishii has been doing in Shockwave and Flash for several years now. He may be best known for his Neko series of games (neko means "cat" in Japanese), though he has also created some of the best Panzo games as well. His latest effort is this beautiful and delightful game that will give your brain some stimulation as you play.
Logic puzzle fans of Minesweeper and the recently reviewed Slither Link will enjoy this latest logic puzzle design from Wouter Visser, author of PLANned. The rules of Count Out are simple to understand: derive the locations of all the golden squares on the board from the numbers given.
NOBuzzle Tree is a beautiful logic puzzle game that is based on a simple concept; but its simplicity may be deceiving. The 'grow' theme implementation in this game, apart from the obvious sprouting tree blossoms, actually has a similarity to an Eyezmaze Grow game: Each puzzle has a correct sequence that will make the tree blossom in full. Can you find it?
Slither Link by Luke Harrison will tickle the fancies of you logic puzzle fans out there. While Luke gets the credit for making this polished Flash version of Slitherlink, the actual puzzle was invented by the Japanese publishing company Nikoli. Nikoli is also known for popularizing Sudoku, and publishes a number of other similar logic puzzles.
Enter the Rental House and note the viridian green walls. This Japanese-made adventure offers a quality game play experience packed with puzzles that will force you to think logically. It is a straight forward game of its genre with only a couple of minor pixel hunts involved. Easy enough to complete on ones own, and yet challenging to give you about an hour's worth of fun.
OK, here's the scene: you're stranded with a handful of your best friends on some strange platforms suspended above an endless black abyss. You're understandably a little bit scared, all of you. You won't wander off onto a new platform unless you have at least one friend to go with you, and inevitably one of you chickens out and stays behind in relative safety—after all, they've seen some of the platforms drop away into nothing!
Welcome to Tonypa's school of game design. Start with a very simple gameplay idea; it doesn't have to be original, but the idea has to be simple enough for anyone to understand immediately. Include a few attractive graphics in a minimalist style of your own design. Add a pleasing and relaxing soundtrack. Toss everything in a box and flip it upside down. Voilà. Brand new game all your own.
Colour Connect is a game created by Matthew Dirks and submitted to our first game competition. It was initially comprised of only a single, randomly generated level, and it showed a lot of potential. Responding to the feedback he received from the first version, Matthew recently reworked the design into a full-featured, multi-level game that is both fun and addictive.
I think many people who frequent this site would agree: Tonypa is one of our favorite casual game designers. Grow Word, his submission to Casual Gameplay's second competition exhibits many of the characteristics that we have come to love about Tonypa's games: it's elegant, understated, and easy to learn but hard to master.
A match-3 action puzzle game with zoo animals and a memorable soundtrack. While the moody animals are a nice touch, it is the Quest mode which makes this game enticingly addictive. As the zookeeper, you are set to 10 different tasks by your angry little boss. With clever variations, an emotional lot of animals and an uppity, cigar-smoking boss, Kiteretsu's Zookeeper will keep you busy and entertained.
On from Eyezmaze just released a brand new game he made to celebrate the birth of a friend's baby, Galves Adventure. In this charming little point-and-click, adventure puzzle game, help baby Galves make it through to where the sleeping boss lion lay. Click on various items in the right sequence and at the appropriate times to advance the little baby up to the top, at which point a boss battle will commence.
Frog and Vine is a unique collection of puzzles entered in our second Flash game design competition by Matt Slaybaugh, creator of Escape to Obion. Frog and Vine is one of the more varied entries and features four types of puzzles that can be completed in any order. And if the name didn't give it away, each one involves frogs and/or vines!
Aqui Griffin delivered a visually stunning entry to our recent game design competition that is as easy to pick-up and play as it is to look at. enQbate is a simple puzzle game in which the objective is to highlight all cells in play by mousing over them with the cursor and then clicking.
At first glance, the latest offering from Taro Ito's GameDesign appears to be just another Tetris clone, but closer inspection reveals gameplay dependent upon color rather than shape. In Porolith Flash, the objective is to stack and group shapes of the same color together to remove them from play.
You sit yourself down in front of an odd looking, dusty old monitor that displays what appears to be a radar screen with a few colored markers and controls along the outer edge. There are no instructions to be found anywhere, just the thrill of discovery by pointing and clicking with the mouse. You can do no harm to it; nothing is going to break or send you whirling into space without a helmet. So leave caution to the wind and boldly go into Orbit.
A new game from Donut Games, creator of Castle Smasher, has just rolled onto the web: Chicken & Egg. All of the cute chickens have been trapped in their eggs by the Easter Bunny. It's your job to match like-colored shells together by sliding the eggs across the grid. When the pairs come together, they hatch, revealing a set of rather bewildered chicks!
From John Hattan comes BaffleBees, a quick, fun puzzle game for those on a coffee break. Be the best by ordering your bees around the hive until your entire honeycomb is filled with honey. The game has extremely simple graphics and almost zero sound. That said, it is fun and casual play. There are a multitude of other games on the site that are worth a look as well.
Tower of Babblers, an entry by Lars A. Doucet in our second Flash game design competition, is one part puzzle, one part frantic action game. It takes the contest theme of "grow" and morphs it a bit into "build", incorporating cute fuzzy creatures into one of the most unique titles entered into the competition.
For those who've been to Clack and back, it's time for another puzzle adventure with Clack 2, as Sean Hawkes has been busy finishing up the next in what is shaping up to be a series of delightful puzzle games. If you haven't already played the original, you may want to go do that first as it is an excellent introduction to these wonderful and original, Flash mechanical puzzle toys.
It really is amazing to see such creativity sprout from a simple word, as with the recent competition and its "grow" theme. Beginning with a very simple premise of expanding rectangles on a grid to connect them, Wouter Visser creates a unique and enjoyable puzzle game entry with PLANned. In this 18-level game, there are only but a few rules that you need to know to get started.
On of Eyezmaze continues to impress and amaze us with his game development skills, and Dwarf Complete is no exception. Perhaps his most ambitious project to date, the game was commissioned for the online RPG, Lineage II, and it even features dwarves from that game. Dwarf Complete is an amazingly good adventure puzzle game with quality, presentation and gameplay that all helped push this title to the top of the Best of 2007.
Earning an honorable mention in our 2nd Flash game competition is Rings and Sticks, a captivating and original puzzle game from designer Komix and created expressly for the competition. More so than any other entry in the contest, Rings and Sticks took the Grow theme and made it a fundamental element of the gameplay.
In Gateway 2 you again guide a robot, through a dream-like setting, in order to solve numerous and varied mini-puzzles for a seemingly unknown purpose (though a purpose there is, as you soon discover). Using well-placed musical cues and subtle environmental sound the author has created a virtual world that draws you in from the moment you launch the game. The setting and aesthetics are so enticing and mysterious, it doesn't matter at first that you don't know what your ultimate goal is (or indeed if you have one).
Sprout is a creative and original puzzle adventure game created for our second Casual Gameplay Design Competition. From the moment you lay eyes on it you know it's something special. The unique artwork for a Flash game has a paper-cut appearance that lends a storybook atmosphere to the game. This environment perfectly suits the role you play as a young seedling trying to find its way home. Sprout has everything we love to see in a Flash game: originality, a simple design, and a beautiful presentation.
More than just Dis or Dat questions, the quiz show with attitude has recently gone through an upgrade to feature complete rounds similar to the You Don't Know Jack CD-ROM games. Expect strange topics, off-beat humor and tons of backtalk from our favorite narrator. Brought to you by Jellyvision.
Block Quest, the sequel to Block Action, is a free online platformer game with hundreds of user-created levels to play. Run, climb and wall jump your way through the surprisingly deep variety of stages of varying difficulty and creativity. It's a very simple game idea that has turned to gold in the hands of its users.
You might have guessed that with a name like Growbal Warming, it is likely the next entry from our "grow" themed competition; and you'd be right! The game was designed and created by Richard Ohanian, a fellow alum of RIT, and it features gameplay that mimics the futility we potentially face with the problem of global warming.
Hewitt is a top-notch online adventure game that two developers, Casper Smith and C. Gianelloni, spent over a year creating. Their hard work is apparent: Hewitt looks and plays great and is a surprisingly long game. Aside from some fairly quirky puzzle elements Hewitt provides a solid experience for any adventure/point-and-click fan.
In what is probably the shortest installment of the Grow series to date, the minigame Grow Nano vol.2 from Eyezmaze is still full of charm. The mechanics are the same as other installments, simply click the items and hope you found the right order. This time around there are just three things to choose from: a cape, a headband, and a stick. Experiment to find the right order and see what happens!
Stained Glass is a simple and beautiful logic puzzle with an arrangement of tiles in the right-hand "window", each in four segments, with each segment potentially a different color. You must arrange colored tiles in the left-hand "window" so that all of the colors match. When you finish one level you move on to the next, larger level. Another classic casual game by Taro Ito of GameDesign.
Stained Glass is a simple and beautiful logic puzzle with an arrangement of tiles in the right-hand "window", each in four segments, with each segment potentially a different color. You must arrange colored tiles in the left-hand "window" so that all of the colors match. When you finish one level you move on to the next, larger level. Another classic casual game by Taro Ito of GameDesign.
On has just today posted a new mini-game to his Eyezblog, and it is a simple little puzzle game called Neighbors. The game is played by dragging each of the colored-top creatures to one of the 9 container pots such that everyone gets along happy and content. If you put one in the wrong spot, its neighbor(s) won't like it and will have a tizzy fit.
On has just today posted a new mini-game to his Eyezblog, and it is a simple little puzzle game called Neighbors. The game is played by dragging each of the colored-top creatures to one of the 9 container pots such that everyone gets along happy and content. If you put one in the wrong spot, its neighbor(s) won't like it and will have a tizzy fit.
The Roomz is a point-and-click game with similarities to online riddle games along the lines of God Tower and Ouverture Facile. One key difference is that The Roomz has a slight adventure flavor to it and, as a result, is more interactive. Each room has a locked door and keypad. You must use clues inside the room to discover the password to get out. Move objects and use the magnifying glass to peer at the scenery in detail.
The Roomz is a point-and-click game with similarities to online riddle games along the lines of God Tower and Ouverture Facile. One key difference is that The Roomz has a slight adventure flavor to it and, as a result, is more interactive. Each room has a locked door and keypad. You must use clues inside the room to discover the password to get out. Move objects and use the magnifying glass to peer at the scenery in detail.
Isn't it such a turn-off when a game takes itself too seriously? Well, you won't have to worry about that when you play Chilly Beach Beach Hunt from the guys at ilaugh.com, the self-proclaimed "second sweetest comedy portal on earth."
Isn't it such a turn-off when a game takes itself too seriously? Well, you won't have to worry about that when you play Chilly Beach Beach Hunt from the guys at ilaugh.com, the self-proclaimed "second sweetest comedy portal on earth."
O Quarto is a great looking point-and-click game made by Andres Calil of Me Pixa. Once again you are trapped in a room and must search the area for items to help you escape. The art style of this game is superb and reminds me of an interactive oil painting. The game is also quite mysterious and offers some wonderfully perplexing mysteries that must be solved in order to escape.
O Quarto is a great looking point-and-click game made by Andres Calil of Me Pixa. Once again you are trapped in a room and must search the area for items to help you escape. The art style of this game is superb and reminds me of an interactive oil painting. The game is also quite mysterious and offers some wonderfully perplexing mysteries that must be solved in order to escape.
Poco Parco is an extraordinarily quirky Japanese title that works much like the Grow series of games. Click the items at the bottom of the screen to start different events, each one interacting with the last. What sets this game apart from the rest of the clones is its adorable presentation and the ability to click and play with the objects that grow on the screen.
Poco Parco is an extraordinarily quirky Japanese title that works much like the Grow series of games. Click the items at the bottom of the screen to start different events, each one interacting with the last. What sets this game apart from the rest of the clones is its adorable presentation and the ability to click and play with the objects that grow on the screen.
2007 IGF finalist Bubble Islands is a new falling-object puzzle game from Dot-Invasion, the talented crew behind the previously reviewed Meteor Busters. Flash-based and completely free, Bubble Islands is fun, cute and loaded with enough content to rival similar commercial games.
2007 IGF finalist Bubble Islands is a new falling-object puzzle game from Dot-Invasion, the talented crew behind the previously reviewed Meteor Busters. Flash-based and completely free, Bubble Islands is fun, cute and loaded with enough content to rival similar commercial games.
Castle is a short but good-looking point-and-click game from the Japanese website Usagi no Sippo (Rabbit's Tail). The game takes a page from the Grow book of Flash design and lets you create a scene by clicking various objects on the screen, each time causing something new and interesting to happen.
Here are a couple of devious puzzle games by Alessandro Cima and available on the CandleLightStories website. The first was created as a Halloween treat, and now a second puzzle game in the series has been released. So far, according to the website, not a single person has solved it. This sounds like a challenge the JIG community can come together on and crack in no time.
Rooms by HandMadeGame is set in a mysterious mansion with rooms that move and that contain magical items to help you make your way through. It is a clever mix of point-and-click and puzzle elements that together create an engaging game play experience. It is also a 2007 IGF Student Showcase winner.
Goldburger To Go is a short flash game where you must position various components in a Rube Goldberg-type device in order to assemble a tasty (but unhealthy) snack on a skateboard at the end.
Ouverture Facile is French for "easy opening" and is an online puzzle/riddle game similar to Dumb: The Game and God Tower. Using a combination of flash, images and other media, you must gather clues to find the solution to each level. There are over 90 puzzles to solve, so you'd better get started...
An extraordinarily high-quality online puzzle game that brings in real-life events to give you clues on how to complete the levels. Sponsored by Microsoft and created in conjunction with 42 Entertainment, Vanishing Point is an excellent puzzler that plays as good as it looks.
Arseniy Shklyaev's latest game, Warp Forest, is a rather odd combination of action and puzzle elements that will challenge both sides of your brain. The objective is to collect all of the keys to activate the exit, and then make it safely to the exit to advance to the next puzzle/level. Now with the ability to create, edit and share custom stages with a simple level editor, the game has more potential than ever.
Fields of Logic is an easy game to pick-up and play right away, all you'll need is your mouse and your favorite clicking finger. The first few levels get you warmed up and primed for a challenge that spans 16 levels total. At the end you'll receive a total time that it took you to complete the game, so there's an added incentive (and pressure) to get the job done.
Wooty tooty flip-bam-booty! We hosted our 2nd Flash Game Design Competition! Yes, the type of entry we were looking for was the same as what we called for during our first competition. The simple puzzle idea proved to be an excellent choice, and we have over a dozen excellent games now to choose from. Congratulations to Sprout and Gateway II for taking home the prizes valued at over $2000!!
Warbears: Mission 2 is a brand new installment in the unique point-and-click game vaguely similar to Rob Allen's Hapland games. Controlling four bears via a context sensitive action menu, you must discover how to infiltrate a house filled with paintball-loaded dummies. An extraordinarily cute, funny and entertaining game by Gionatan Iasio of Italy.
The popular desktop quiz show game makes the leap to the Web with You Don't Know Jack online, containing all the top quality entertainment that is packaged in the CD-ROM games. Each day a new DisOrDat puzzle is featured with full narration and some really wacky topics. Brought to you by Jellyvision.
Farm Hustle takes the simple formula from games like Bejeweled and adds an interesting twist. In order to get the animals back into their rooms, you must swap them to make rows or columns of three or more. The catch is that you must also use every square on the grid, adding a new level of strategy to your game.
An online puzzle game in the same vein as God Tower, Dumb: The Game and Not Pr0n. These lateral thinking Web games are the work of one apparently psychotic mind, Mark Lautman. In the first 16 puzzles alone, you'll come across binary code, a crossword puzzle, a word scramble, and a quote from... nevermind, that would give the answer away. What they lack in polish they more than make up in deviousness.
by Elizabeth Reynolds is one of the puzzle games submitted to our first Game Design Competition. Four instruments sit silently on the right side of the screen, each in a different colored chair. Using the corresponding controls to the left, activate the instruments to produce a green wave on the bottom of the screen. Get the wave to match the pattern and you'll win!
Threesome is simple yet challenging puzzle game ported to Flash by Lightforce. It's a nice way to while away about half an hour, while looking at a pleasant composition and enjoying a challenge that is easily described but can be tricky to solve.
Two of the earliest entries into our first Game Design Competition, Puzzle 1 and Puzzle 2 come from the extraordinarily talented designer Tonypa. Each game is a unique take on our competition's theme of simple puzzles that you must figure out how to solve on your own.
Gift Wrapped is a simple holiday-themed game from the creative folks at Nitrome. Christmas day has arrived and you're itching to open your presents. But first you need to know which ones are yours. Look at the toy shown in the box at the top of the screen then try and find it in the pile of wrapped gifts below.
I've often thought that Jayisgames doesn't have anywhere near enough word games for my liking, and this almost makes up for that lack. This is a quick, clever Flash crossword puzzle from Taro Ito of Gamedesign, who brought us the recently-reviewed White Jigsaw and other addictive favourites of this site (Dice Wars anyone?), and it lives up to his previous standard. If you've a hankering for word puzzles, speak fluent English and have five minutes to spare I think you'll really like this.
Wired is a classic-style puzzle game the author, Vlad Kvitnevski, has taken and molded into something new and entertaining. The concept itself is one that you've probably seen before: Connect wires from one location to the next. It is a casual game perfect for a rainy day, as it's something you can get hooked on and complete without the hairs on your head going gray, or being ripped out.
Houses is a short and simple puzzle game that was an entry in our recent game design competition. In keeping with the competition theme, Sean designed the game to require little in the way of instruction, but there are hints to help you along if needed. The objective is to build 3 houses using all of the pieces given.
Submitted to our game design competition in August, Free the Bird is a simple puzzle game that offers a satisfying reward if you solve it by yourself. The game features the same pleasing minimalism artistic style that is Bart is noted for, and it is of clever design, too. Just enough for a midday break.
Eight Days is the latest point-and-click adventure from that fabulous French duo, Anode & Cathode. The 4-part episodic game is scheduled to "go live" today (October 19th) at 10:30PM GMT. And judging from their past successes with The Museum, The Casino, and L'expresso Empoisonné, we are likely in store for another excellent adventure.
Personal Universe is a puzzle game that lets you play with physics. Using sets of colored blocks you must build moving machines that help you complete tasks. Just as the name implies, Personal Universe gives you the materials to let you build a living universe all your own. It's filled with possibilities and offers a surprising amount of freedom to explore and experiment at your leisure.
Draw Play is a game by "Eggy" and hosted on Gamegecko. It plays like a standard platformer, but the catch is that there are no platforms; you use the mouse to draw in the platforms for the character to walk on, and then use the arrow keys to move the player over the drawn platforms to the flag for each level.
Created as an entry for our recent game design competition, Quadra Pair 42 is an innocent looking puzzle that will quickly have you in tears. Frustratingly difficult to figure out, the puzzle can be completed in just 21 moves. But the trick is in figuring out the rules first.
Grow Tribute is, exactly as the name implies, a tribute to the Grow series of games. For those familiar with Grow games, this one will feel like putting on an old favorite shoe or shirt again. The gameplay is exactly the same and the animations are rewarding, though without some of the charm that On of Eyezmaze is famous for.
Weight is a game of puzzle solving and light mathematics created by Sean for our first Game Design Competition. "Please calibrate scale 2..." is the only instruction you have at first. It might take a little clicking, but soon you'll discover you can add or subtract weights from each scale in order to match pairs of numbers on the left. The first few are easy, but as you get more scales to balance, your life gets complex.
Seen on Screen uses a computer monitor theme to present a variety of puzzles that you must solve by figuring out what to do for each. Sometimes the solution is straightforward, and others you will have to apply a little logic to derive the answer; and yet none of them are very difficult at all.
Liquid Colors is a brilliant idea for a puzzle game and one that works exceptionally well in Flash. It is another creative and original puzzle game entry to our recent game design competition. It was created by DDams of France.
If someone were to have told me that I'd be spending the next several hours flinging, flicking, snapping, bouncing, dropping and shooting a green gob of gooey slime around 50 levels of a unique new Flash platform puzzle game, I'd probably have expected to see an exceptional piece of work. Well, Sling is exactly that: an amazing new physics-based platform game and I have been playing and enjoying it for hours.
Cyptograma has to be the most appealing interface to a cryptographic puzzle that I have ever seen. The game features quotes and phrases to decrypt from famous people, and are available in either English or Español. Each puzzle is in the form of a simple substitution cipher in which each letter of the phrase is substituted with a symbol. It is up to you to figure out the letter that each symbol corresponds to.
In this entertaining puzzle game You are the alchemist's apprentice left in charge of the alchemy shop while the master is away (probably away on business, but we don't really know for sure; details are sketchy, you see, and therefore we shouldn't jump to any conclusions.) In any event, she left some instructions behind: you must conjure three (3) items before the master returns.
Out 2: Out of File is the sequel to the room escape game Out File #01 by Isomura Kai of Tonakai Interactive. The story picks up after escaping the room in the first game and walking through a long winding cave. Now you find yourself in an underground complex filled with computers and machinery with no way to make it to the surface.
Colour Connect has many qualities of a classic casual game: it is easy to understand, simple to pick-up and play, and the randomly generated puzzles present a challenge that is difficult to master. Created by Matthew Dirks of British Columbia, Canada, for our recent game design competition, this puzzle game not only plays great it could also pass as an abstract work of art.
Sigil of Binding is a simple puzzle game submitted to our recent game design competition by John-Paul Walton of Ohio, USA. It is based on the familiar 'flip the squares to turn them all the same' concept of puzzles, and yet John-Paul's impressive audio and visual production skills turn this version into one all his own.
The problem with jigsaw puzzles is that they engage two conflicting parts of my brain: my hatred of disorder, and my utter lack of desire to do anything about it. You open the box and there they are, laughing at you, hundreds (thousands, maybe?) of oddly-shaped bits of cardboard. Some of them are even upside-down! White Jigsaw, by gamedesign, solves a lot of those problems: there's no picture, the pieces can't be rotated or flipped over, and it starts out small.
Gear Puzzle is a simple puzzle game featured in our recent game design competition. As the game begins, a small blue character with big puppy-dog eyes catches sight of a pink character locked in a cage. The cage is chained to a gear suspended from the top of the screen. Pegs line the wall and various sized gears are scattered around. Helpless but heroic, the blue guy does the only thing he can to help: jumps on the gear across the room and starts spinning it. Your job is to arrange gears on the pegs to transfer the motion across the room to lower the cage.
Submachine Zero: Ancient Adventure is a spectacularly detailed Flash point-and-click puzzle game from one of the leading designers of the genre, Mateusz Skutnik. This competition entry also placed within a tight group of puzzles that resembled a photo-finish at the horse races. In other words, it was difficult to pass this entry by as a prize winner.
Another competition entry that was only narrowly edged out of an award, Jewel Drop by Nick Redmond consistently received high marks from each of the four reviewers. This ear-training, color-layering game features a clean and appealing interface and a luxuriously rich soundtrack that together create a unique and original game play experience.
Dona Room 2 is the second room escape game from Japanese flash designer Noaki Nakashima. The game is every bit as quirky and amusing as the original Dona Room and offers more great point-and-click gameplay. The entire game takes place in your kitchen where a note from your mother says you must find a snack before you can leave. Unfortunately the potato chips and cake are locked away, so you must find items and solve puzzles in order to get to them. The game has a little Japanese text but is completely playable without knowledge of the language.
Keys very nearly placed among the winners in our game design competition, and if we had but one additional prize, it would have. This mysterious and charming little puzzle game fit the theme perfectly by closely resembling a puzzle you might find in Click Drag Type. In fact, there weren't many other games that came this close to exactly what we were looking for.
Gateway is an impressive and delightful 3D puzzle game from Anders Gustafsson, awarded Honorable Mention and the coveted Audience Award in our first game design competition. The game has a very simple premise: guide a robot through a series of rooms; but you will have to solve a mini-puzzle within each room to advance.
Right on the heels of our first game design competition, the impetus for which was Simple Andy's brilliant collection of simple puzzle games known simply as Click Drag Type, comes another installment of the series that includes five (5) brand new puzzles!
Cyberpunk is a simple Flash puzzle game disguised as an arresting and involving hacking simulation. Armed with four programs and some intuition, you'll have to sneak into a remote computer guarded by obscure (and not-so-obscure) passwords, as well as by some nasty puzzles.
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