Jakub Dvorský of Amanita Design brings us another glimpse of his fantastic world of Samorost in this short animation entitled Plantage. Set to music by Under Byen, Plantage is not so much a story as it is a solemn celebration of life and rebirth.

Continue the adventure across the Plains of the Endless Grass in search of the Wiseman who knows every story ever told. Play as Myosotis and embark on a journey filled with fantastic creatures, breathtaking scenery and, of course, captivating stories. A Grain of Truth picks up (and leaves us) where The Trader of Stories: Bell's Heart left us: wanting more.

Today a very special Casual Gameplay Design Competition comes to a close, one dedicated to the realm of interactive fiction. We are very fortunate to have received so many excellent entries, and we are grateful to the development community for taking on our challenge.

Enter the eerie world of a playground at night and try to escape before becoming totally creeped out in this fun new escape from Dassyutu. The puzzles are a fun mix, mostly use of found objects and observational skills involving colors and shapes. There is almost no dialogue, but what's there is in English.

A delightful sliding block puzzle game packed with every idea for a tile-based puzzler you can think of, including pushable blocks, lasers, mines, key-and-lock combinations, and so very, very much more. Basically, it's just a mammoth game with an incredible amount of variety. It could be tighter, but it couldn't be much more ambitious.

A wonderfully bizarre and strangely fun interactive narrative by Jakub Dvorský of Amanita Design. Samorost is the granddaddy of all Web Flash point-and-click adventure games. It is full of clicky puzzles and beautifully rendered scenes mixed with animations and various gadgetry. The number one game in the Best of 2004, and now it even has a sequel.

We are pleased to announce our 5th Casual Gameplay Design Competition! Up for grabs are more prizes than ever before: over $10,000 in cash and prizes, including Adobe CS3 Professional licenses and the opportunity to have your Flash game appear on other platforms! We're kick-starting the new year with our biggest competition yet, and you can help make it our BEST ever! Update: Entries are all in!!!

Orbox B by GameBalance is a game of striking simplicity and compelling puzzle solving, and is the sequel to the original Orbox game previously reviewed here. A pure puzzle solving game with 30 levels, this one isn't the most innovative game you'll play this week, but it could very well be one of the most mind-bending.

Q-Block is an extremely nifty graphics editor that runs in your browser. It allows you to build 3D pixel art, just by sticking colorful cubes to each other one at a time. Rotate your artwork in 3D space by clicking and dragging anywhere on the screen. It's just as easy to remove blocks or repaint them a different color.

Also free for iOS and Android, in this creepy point-and-click adventure from Rusty Lake, it's your ninth birthday, but despite the festive mood, there's something dark on the horizon. Some frustrating puzzles may hold you back, but a surreal and creative atmosphere will keep you hooked throughout.

Virtual Villagers is back, and we're so excited we couldn't wait until the weekend to tell you! With Virtual Villagers 3: The Secret City, the surprisingly addictive real-time simulation game sticks with its proven formula and makes a few minor tweaks to freshen up gameplay. With new secrets to uncover, new technologies, real-time weather effects and a whole new island to explore, Virtual Villagers 3 has all the ingredients that made the first games so compelling, plus more.

For millions of time management and simulation fans, the opening is unmistakable: a ragtag, desperate group of people fleeing the volcanic destruction of their home wash ashore on the mysterious island of Isola, a place of wonder and magic. With that prologue began one of the most popular and best-selling village sims of all time, Virtual Villagers. Now available for all iOS devices is that very first adventure, Virtual Villagers: Origins, lovingly designed by Last Day of Work.

Here is our massive walkthrough guide for Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers! Everything you need to get through the game is here, including a lot of spoilers, so proceed at your own risk.

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'.

Enter into the experience of visualizing visualizing (whoa, meta!) in the CGDC7 award-winning interactive fiction title Dual Transform by Andrew Plotkin. Take on the role of a virtual engineer, of sorts, feeling the pressure of really making this project something to remember... something that really feels real.

From Halfbrick Studios comes a cave flying-style game with the power to keep you playing for many multiple hours. Jetpack Joyride takes the best from jump-and-run-style games and mixes in a host of achievements, missions, store upgrades, vehicles and more, crafting a game that looks phenomenal and will keep you doing "just one more joyride" dozens of times in a row.

Neutral brings out the big guns by delivering an escape game that's meatier and more complex than anything they've put out in recent years. With puzzles, clues, and items galore, it's a satisfyingly challenge experience that's a lot bigger than you might think...

Arzea is a Metroidvania-style adventure game that demonstrates the kind of danger that magic can lead to. You're a wizard stranded in a strange world with only your wits and a variety of spells and upgrades to help you get home. Your main goal is to find your way home from the strange land of Arzea. There's at least a good half hour of gameplay here, probably closer to an hour if you're out to find all the upgrades and collectible shards.

A clock. A telephone. A mirror. A chest of drawers. This room looks ordinary... but it's missing a door, which would seem to be important to the whole "escape" focus. But this stylish and surreal point-and-click game from Studio Maarten will surprise you with its clever concepts and unique approach, even if the ending is a bit of a let down.

Mya of Neutral just released her latest escape game, and it's another masterpiece. You find yourself trapped in a room that seems quite pleasant, but is full of a rather baffling array of hidden clues to find and codes to crack. With a little bit of elbow grease and some clever thinking, you too can conquer this fun, logical, and playful escape game from the creator of Vision.

Max and Anne are two very different young people, but they've both found themselves at the same college in the same student housing. Your choices will determine their lives, grades, and even their love-life in this funny, light-hearted, and addictive visual novel simulation!

The grandaddy of all escape-the-room games, Jan Albartus' Mystery of Time and Space dates way back to 2001 which, in terms of casual Web games, is almost the beginning of time. In MOTAS, you don't get to escape from just one room, oh no. There are now 20 rooms to escape from! Limber up those point-and-click fingers, you're about to embark on an epic classic.

Egypt got you down? Zombies trashing your tulips in the Wild West? We've got some help for you in our strategy guide for Plants vs Zombies 2, Popcap's popular free-to-play tower defense game for iOS and Android!

Two fighters stand side-by-side. You play Tori, the red fighter, and your opponent is Uke, the blue fighter. By manipulating eight different joints (shoulders, elbows, hips and knees) target attacks toward your opponent to score as many points as possible. Just as in Toribash, the characters are subject to rag doll physics; the goal being to contract or extend various joints in order to spring your warrior into action.

An anagram puzzle game from Martin Sears, presented with the distinct flavor of British educational programming. Don't be fooled by the charming hand-drawn appearance and the curiously twisted vignettes between levels; don't worry if the first few levels seem too basic. This turns into a serious brain-twister.

Short, sweet, and sentimental, Matiawase is still an entertaining little escape from the everyday. Perfect for playing during a short break or using as an excuse to take a short break, something that will transport you away from reality for a few short minutes, a perfect cure for the mid-week and mid-winter blahs.

Witherworth University Professor Nathaniel Paynuss believes that proof-reading is meant to be a weapon to get back at those snotty collegiate brats making fun of him on "The Face Book". In First Person Tutor, an "educational" arcade game developed by Big Blue Boo Labs for the 7 Day FPS Game Jam, you play the role of beleaguered TA to the evil professor, held captive by a huge pile of student debt. You have a stack of papers to mark, and a score of professorial grudges Paynuss would be happy to settle by GPA proxy. You know what you have to do. The unique premise of First Person Tutor should appeal many on the internet, but it's very polished for a Game Jam work. The dark satire of college politics should give it wider appeal.

Added to the mysteriously vacant Flash flight sim category, Goggles Flight Sim dares to let you go places where you may only have heard about. Using information collected from Google's mapping service, Mark Caswell-Daniels has created this Flash application that allows you to fly around the world to destinations of your choosing. Casual fun.

Check out this early effort from the great room escape designer Kotorinosu. While Color is a pretty basic, bare-bones escape it is definitely worth the effort, especially to see the genesis of what would come later. Even in this early design there are hints of the clever puzzles and solutions which would eventually make them one of the most popular room escape designers we've ever featured. Time to learn some color theory!

Overhead Consistence is another mouse maze game, but please bear with me... this one's good, even if you don't normally go for manual dexterity games. If you don't believe me, go check out Overhead Persistence, reviewed here in March. Has JohnB ever steered you wrong? This one is well worth the effort.

99 Rooms is a beautiful Flash point-and-click adventure of the 'escape the room' variety. The object is to make it through all 99 rooms to the end. The game makes use of gorgeous photography for visuals, and a moody atmospheric soundtrack for effect.

Escape Series #1: The Car is a point-and-click room escape game that does everything it should do without venturing beyond the scope of the genre. Regardless of its normal appearance, The Car provides a great room escape experience that's both fulfilling and free from random pixel hunting. Short and sweet, and with more installments to come.

Take control of a flock of Canada Geese and fly for as long as you can, gaining more birds to increase points, and avoiding their natural predators. Like propellers. With upgrades to buy, achievements to discover, and high scores to capture, Endless Migration is a solid, if repetitive, avoidance title for the goose in all of us. HONK!

We've just finished a complete walkthrough (with images) for Dream Chronicles 2: The Eternal Maze!! Be warned: contains major spoilers, so proceed only as a last resort.

In this fantastically retro explorer platform you play as our pink haired hero who was drawn to this strange cavern filled with spikes and mystery. Search for a way to activate the statues and discover the drive that pulls you ever forward in this gem by Sophie Houlden.

Bloktonik is an addictive new colored block-matching game with a twist: blocks come into the play area from all 4 sides, and it's up to you to manage where they land. A new twist on an old classic, Bloktonik is a great way to waste an afternoon. Or several, depending on how willing you are to are to avoid the real world.

Last Day of Work loves virtual sims. I mean seriously loves them, at least according to their lead designer. And, well, their product line, which includes the massively popular Virtual Villagers series. For those of us who love messing with the lives of little virtual people without all that faffing about on an island, Last Day of Work created Virtual Families, a game which featured the animated people without the exploding volcanoes. Now they've come out with the sequel to that fabulous game, Virtual Families 2: Our Dream House, which deepens the gameplay of the original in new and interesting ways, and all for your handy portable iOS device!

Rusty Lake takes you to a theater of the mind in their latest entry in their beautiful but bizarre and unsettling escape series, as a very special performance is about to begin, and a myriad of puzzles await. Also free for iOS and Android!

On of Eyezmaze has just released an updated 'remake' of his original Grow game, Grow (ver. 3), the game that inspired so many sequels and clones. It's one of the most unique and amazing Flash games ever produced, due mostly to its intricate animations and myriad combinations of possible outcomes. Now with 2 endings!

There's a strange little town you might not have heard of, but once you find your way there, you just might not be able to tear yourself away. Pastel Games offers up a chilling, atmospheric point-and-click adventure set in the wild west. There are legends about a woman who appears to be linked to a series of bizarre events, and you probably don't want to be around when she finally shows up... even though she's dying to meet you...

The latest installment in the Westward series takes things in a different direction, forgoing the old west setting and the casual village simulation gameplay for a medieval setting and casual kingdom simulation gameplay. It's bigger, it's better, and yet it's still familiar to fans of earlier Westward games. Be prepared for much fun to be had!

Explore deeply layered fantasy landscapes, encounter boss battles and intriguing characters, discover treasure chests and secret coves, upgrade armor and weapons, level up and and everything else you'd want to find in an epic RPG platforming adventure. The on screen controls make your journey all the more enjoyable for a classic gaming feel. Any nostalgic cravings you had for your favorite games of old will be satisfied as you are the hero and your quest is great. Keep that sword handy and your magic prepped; who knows what danger lurks beyond those gates? You'll soon find out!

From the creators of Dr. Ichie's Room, Escape from Dr. Ichie's Cafe places you once more in the grasp of the mysterious doctor. He or she has locked you in a cozily wood-paneled cafe, filled with clever puzzles that tread the fine line between challenging and infuriating, providing a mentally stimulating experience that never crosses into head-banging-on-table territory.

We've just finished a MASSIVE walkthrough for Dracula 3: The Path of the dragon! Be warned: This guide contains spoilers so use it as a last resort.

From the creator of Windosill comes a quiet, creative romp through an imaginary world. Seasons is a gorgeous piece of interactive art that lets you explore half a dozen scenes with Thomas and his unicycle. Pedal through the snow and see which animals pop their heads out. Shake the beehive and see where the bees go. Take a dip in the lake and watch your reflection in the water. Seasons is nothing short of beautiful, and its relaxing, webtoy-like presence will captivate your curiosity for longer than you might expect.

This sequel to Lucas Paakh's William and Sly is a vast, richly layered feast for the eyes. While gameplay remains much the same, there are also marked changes (improvements as far as most players will be concerned): no more darklings or boss battles yet plenty of exploration, item gathering, and questing. Gaining helpful abilities involves your platforming and puzzle-solving skills to add just the right amount of gameplay into what is a sumptuous work of interactive art.

In this atmospheric point-and-click adventure, your brother goes missing, and you start thinking maybe his ramblings about doors to other worlds weren't just crazy talk when you follow his trail to Tibet and stumble across some very strange places.

Tiny vampire, meet tiny vampire hunter! In this creepy Metroidvania adventure, explore a dark and spooky castle for new skills, secret passages, and power-up hearts, in order to take down its dangerous overlord. The twist? Although it make be huge to our hero, this entire castle fits on a single screen! But just because you can see everywhere you need to go doesn't mean this adventure will be easy, and the local monsters would still love to make a meal out of you. Maybe size really DOESN'T matter...

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.

Hearken back to those adrenaline-happy days with Vector Runner, an arcade action game concerned purely with the sensation of speed. Control a humble blue cube on its journey down a futuristic highway, dodging deadly pyramids of various shapes and sizes. Wherever you need to be, you're going there fast.

A new room escape game has just been launched by Neutral, creator of some of the most highly rated games here at JIG! Switch confines you again within a stunningly rendered room and dares you to escape from it. Use your point-and-clicking fingers and your logical puzzle-solving skills to unlock the mysteries that await you in this fresh new game.

Norapoly is a speedy miniaturization of Monopoly with some extra RPG strategy and survival tactics thrown in for good measure. The clean 8-bit-esque graphics fit nicely with the speedy gameplay, and give the five levels of this game a comfy, old-school feel. So forget the dice, your sword is now your weapon. Go ahead and tackle Norapoly (and possibly win second prize in that beauty contest).

14 Locks, the latest game from Bart Bonte, is not strictly an escape game but it is still fun to navigate your way through the imaginatively decorated spaces, each one becoming more elaborate than the last. Bart has created something that is pretty exciting and amusing to play with this Unity platform, although it can be a little nausea inducing, so please be warned.

Robby wants to rob a bank, but things don't go so well when the police show up. As the officer counts down from ten, it's up to you to find out a (probably weird) solution that doesn't end with our hero dead or in jail in this wonderfully silly point-and-click puzzle game made in just 48 hours.

In this escape game from Pine Studio, also free for iOS and Android, the tomb doors are locked, and the skeleton in front of them doesn't seem to be a good sign. You'll have to pay close attention to your surroundings and really think carefully to find a way out and end up better than those bones did!

RGB is another great-looking room escape game by Japanese developer neutral, author of the previously reviewed Sphere. Not only is this game great looking, it plays exceptionally well with several puzzles that will perplex and confound you, though it won't take you long to solve. There are two different ways to escape, can you find them?

It's word game meets physics puzzle in Prose and Motion, a unique game by DeeperBeige. Click and drag letters to the starting point on each stage, carefully arranging them one by one in a neat little row. Spell a word to move on to the next level, spell the correct word and you're even more awesome!

In Timemu, you control Timemu, an emu with control of time. Timemu (or "Tim" for short) is just trying to find a home, but must use his powers of temporal self-duplication and navigate several platforming levels to do so.

John's got problems of his own, but those will have to wait while he tackles his job as a new 11th grade English Literature teacher at a school conducting a very unusual experiment. In this smart visual novel, you'll watch the lives of your students unfold through personal and private conversations you're not meant to see, and have to decide how to help them when they come to you for advice. A surprisingly fun, funny, and touching story that deals with everything from sex and sexuality to self-confidence, love, and, of course, privacy.

A soothing sound toy with which to bathe the aural senses, Pianolina is a beautifully designed and gorgeously sounding Flash application created to introduce you to the sounds of the Grotrian piano. Choose between several different compositions and see how the notes react to gravity as they bounce around the display.

9:05, by Adam Cadre, is another snack-sized text adventure that is just right for a casual audience. Even if you're new to the genre and are looking for something short and simple as a primer, do give this one a try. You've screwed up on the job before, but never like this. You've overslept in a major way, and you're in for a world of trouble if you don't act fast.

The revered series continues directly after your flight in the air balloon from Daymare Town 2. Later you find yourself in a hospital and must get out. New features include a new cursor to show places that you can move, translations and thoughts, and dialogue via pictures. What are you waiting for?! Go play it now!

Hetherdale is a city of legend dreamed up by a mad poet... or so scholar Heather Montrose believes until she gets an invitation to come to Africa in search of it. A point-and-click adventure from the creators of Morningstar, Hetherdale is an ambitious game bogged down by some overly fussy puzzles, but with an interesting story at its core.

The Island: Castaway is a new simulation-meets-RPG game that combines a Virtual Villagers kind of atmosphere with gameplay reminiscent of Wandering Willows, putting you in the role of a castaway on a lonely tropical island. Gather tons of items you'll use to hunt, fish, build, cook and more, all while fulfilling the needs of your friends and uncovering mystery after mystery on the fog-shrouded land. Play it casually, but be prepared to sink a lot of time into this excellent game!

Normally when you pause a game, everything stops, but in this hard as nails platformer, your momentum is preserved, allowing you to soar through hazards and over great distances... which does NOT make it any easier. A beautiful looking, beautiful sounding game that will pound the snot out of you at any given opportunity, and for some people, that's exactly what they're looking for.

Everyone knows Tesshi-e and Robamimi. But what about Mike Morin? Ben Leffler? Eli Piilonen? These (and more!) may not be the names you immediately think of when you want to play an escape game, so we're here to change that. Here are twelve of the best escape games you might not have played!

Submachine 3 is a point-and-click game of exploration and puzzle solving created by Mateusz Skutnik. As the intro so cleverly notes, there are no items to collect, no diary to keep, no trash bin to check, and no spoon to, er, bend. It's just you, the machine, and an infinite metallic world to explore one screen at a time.

The second installment in Shawn Tanner's Escape Series has been released: Escape Series #2: The Closet. Each game has no plot, no characters, and no motive, just bare-bones point-and-click room escaping. The first game had us trapped in a car, and now we've moved indoors and are stuck inside a closet. Search the area for items you can use to help you escape!

Would you like to learn numbers? Of course you would, and Frog Fractions is just the game to teach you. With upgrades, maths, and some major hidden surprises, this is the best retro edutainment game you'll play all day. AND NOTHING MORE. Certainly not a parody game you don't want the kids to play. Nope.

The enemies are coming, and you know what that means! DINNER TIME! Though it may sound horrific, Little Guy Games delivers an absolutely adorable and addictive arcade game for your iOS that sends you ricocheting around the screen to destroy the invading force and feed your friends. Vibrant and gorgeously designed with some surprisingly clever and varied gameplay, it's simple to pick up but hard to put down.

The Bonte family cat is at it again, and now all the Christmas ornaments have been scattered throughout the house. Track down all twenty of them, but beware... this clever feline has set up puzzles for you to contend with! Also free for iOS and Android bundled with Where is Cat?

Created by Macoto Yanagisawa of Japan, this Shockwave work of art is a nice diversion from the usual fare, and there is much to see and hear in this electro-luminescent piece. Click the mouse to cycle through the displays; move the mouse to interact with each. Although it's not Electroplankton, it is very reminiscent of the musical wonder-toy for Nintendo's dual-screened handheld.

See why this is considered one of the most terrifying horror games of all time! Nobody is willing to enter an abandoned house where the entire family committed suicide, but you're looking for the truth... unfortunately, somewhere in the dark, something is looking for you too...

A sequel to Mateusz Skutnik's excellent point-and-click adventure series, Submachine 2 will have you mapping out tunnels as you explore the dark recesses of this classic-style Flash game. The Submachine series is among the best on the Web, so if you love first-person adventures, ala Myst, don't miss this one.

An adventure game in the classic sense of the genre, as well as in a more low-tech DHTML implementation, the Mystery of Castle Wildenburg combines original photography of Germany's deep woods with the cartoon drawings of artist Aurèle Mechler, which together produces a unique visual appeal to this engaging and compelling Web-based game by Jörg Jochims.

File this one under brain training games: Math Mountain is an addictive arithmetic game wherein you climb a mountain, competing against another person or the computer, by answering math questions correctly. If you're not very good at arithmetic, Math Mountain is a fun way to practice; if you're already good, then why not give your brain some exercise?

We have just finished a massive walkthrough guide for Virtual Villagers 4: The Tree of Life. This guide will provide all you need to help you get the most from your experience with the latest Virtual Villagers game. Be warned: This guide does contain spoilers, so proceed with caution and as a last resort!

Playing God has a bit of a poor reputation: the kind of reputation that leads to torch and pitchfork wielding villagers smoking you out of a burning windmill. However, Alxemy, the new Doodle God-esque puzzler by Hyptod, reminds us that sometimes combining elements to make new life feels more like toying with a new Lego set, rather than a crime against nature.

The Love Letter is a unique stealth experimental game by Alex Cho Snyder and Pat Kemp, where you must read a note from a secret admirer while dodging the taunts of your classmates. Originally a Ludum Dare entry, The Love Letter is a short bit of sweetness that will have you going "AWWW!" by the end.

In FazeCat's everything-but-the-kitchen sink defense game, Paladog, Critterland has been invaded by zombies, witches, skeletons, and just about every evil little thing you can imagine, including television sets! It's up to you to fight them off, but are you dog enough to take them on over a whopping 120 levels, including special mini-games. Paladog is a big, cuddly, newspaper-fetching machine, that brings back the Sunday paper, but slobbers all over the funnies... and you love it anyway.

Ninjadoodle is at it again! ClickPLAY is back with 20 new levels of ClickPLAY clickiness! It's more concerned with how quickly you think, relying less on reflexes and more on the little gray cells that occupy your noggin. Fans of the genre are sure to find lots of entertainment in this quick and amusing little distraction. Come on, click Play and begin! You know you want to...

Bright, colorful and puzzling is what you get with Fun Pipe! Tap to rotate pieces of the pipes so that all colors make a continuous track. Add in special tiles and a tap counter, and you've got yourself an engaging puzzle game to tackle.

Don't ever upset the Mushroom King, or you'll wind up like Bad Viking, who will never know the joy of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich again unless he can figure out a way to lift the curse in this very silly point-and-click adventure, also free for iOS and Android.

Manuel Fallmann's latest offering on his MINDistortion site is a turn-based strategy game against the CPU, or a human opponent at the same computer. The object of Quarkz is to be the first player to reach the number of points designated as the victory condition by adding particles to the...

Amorphous+ is an overhead arena combat game that casts you in the role of a little bald human character with a ridiculously over-sized sword: the Splat-Master 9000. This weapon is tailor-made for fighting Glooples, which are basically man-sized soft-skinned green blobs of goop.

While zombies are perhaps over-common, and pirates are getting there, casual gaming doesn't have nearly enough zombie-pirates. At least that's the argument given by Pirates of the Undead Sea: Rise of the Ribcage, the new point-and-click adventure game from Pahu Pahu, and, given its quality, its a strong argument indeed. Captain Black Sam has spent years sailing the seven seas plundering and pillaging. After a night of too much rum, he wakes up to find his ship at the bottom of the ocean... and after fifteen years of decaying and trying to figure out why he isn't dead too, a chance mermaid-sighting convinces him the time is nigh to set out on another grand adventure. And so, you're off to seek glory, gold and grog! Mostly grog!

Neutral's newest seasonal escape. What more needs to be said? This escape-the-room game, though miniaturized (that little banner at the top of Neutral's web page is the game—click it to begin), is full of the details and enjoyable, logical puzzles that you'd expect from the best escape game designer in the biz. Merry Christmas JIG readers!

The Dark Room is an absolutely brilliant Flash puzzle game that is as gorgeous as it is enjoyable. Using only the mouse, point, click and solve the mystery of the dark room in this amazing and remarkable hi-tech themed puzzle game. Created by Jonathan May of Woolythinking.

Sudoku is a popular puzzle game that began in Japan and has subsequently spread like a wild fire throughout the rest of the world. Similar in form to a crossword puzzle, the game is played using numbers only. There is no math involved, just the correct placement of the digits into every row, every column, and 3x3 square. Web Sudoku provides your daily puzzle fix conveniently over the Web.

The Stone of Anamara is a creepy point-and-click adventure game, created by Gabriel Rodriguez, that spans multiple chapters. In this first chapter, you uncover the story behind the asylum doctor, Alexander Graves, and the mysterious illness of one of his patients.

Sphere is a great-looking room escape by Japanese developer neutral. The visuals have a wonderful polished 3D appearance that seem a bit surreal at times, almost as if you were inside a doll house. The challenge level is an almost perfect mix of vague clues and helpful hints that keep you interested without frustrating you.

It's here! The next chapter in the captivating virtual island village sim is available to download. The follow-up to the monumentally successful Virtual Villagers game keeps the same formula as the original but adds all new puzzles, events, collectibles and more. It's the perfect follow-up to one of the most amazing casual games ever released.

Ballistic Wars is a fast-paced, turn-based strategy puzzle game from our 4th game design competition that earned it the third place prize. Work your way through 15 challenging levels against a mad professor bent on blowing up, well, just about everything. Simply click on your "troops", represented by camouflaged balls of varying sizes and special abilities, to launch attacks against the opposing forces.

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

Our hero is a cute little bunny with a cute little bunny crown, a newcomer to an island chain that recently experienced an "incident." As a result, its inhabitants and natural vegetation have been damaged, and like any good hero, you need to restore the land to its former glory. Along the way, find the girl, fall in love and marry her. Of course everybunny knows that the best way to a girl's heart is to gather rocks and wood so you can buy her things she likes, so get to it!

From Amanita Design, creator of the famously brilliant Samorost series, comes Machinarium, a game so well-conceived and implemented it can confidently launch as one of the best point-and-click adventures of all time. Machinarium is nothing short of a playable piece of art. Similar to Samorost in style and gameplay, you play a lone robot thrown out of the city working his way through desolate mechanical slums. Solve puzzles, find and combine items, and encounter loads of creative characters in your quest. Machinarium is one of those rare games you can't praise enough.

We're pleased to announce a very special Casual Gameplay Design Competition, one focused entirely on interactive fiction! For CGDC #7, we're calling on IF authors to craft one-room games incorporating the theme "escape". It's text-only this time around, so you can spend your time polishing puzzles instead of pixels. Full details are below, so fire up your Z-code compiler and get to writing!

Summer is often a season of sequels, a season of unimaginative rehashings of proven hits, hoping that the sweaty populace will be too befuddled to notice that the movie or game they're consuming is exactly the same as its predecessor only with all the charm and surprise sucked out. That's why Learn 2 Fly is as refreshing as a blast of south pole air.

Something has happened. You don't know exactly what, but you know that this place doesn't seem right. This place where the doors don't have hinges or knobs and passing through one feels like you're passing through space and time. No, it doesn't seem quite right, but some things seem...familiar. Such is the strange and wonderful world of Synapsis 2, the equally mind-bending sequel to the original Synapsis from early 2008.

Decision is a polished zombie action-defense hybrid from Fly Anvil, and it's a bloody good time. A cool, if slightly repetitive, mixture of serious horror, logistical strategy, frenetic action, and low-key parody, Decision shows that the undead can still pack serious punch.