July 2012 Archives

So Loki's got an army, and the Avengers have a Hulk, but you? You got a tank, bro, and an awesome one to boot! In Emitter Critter's arena shooting sequel Awesome Tanks 2, take control of the mean green machine once more and fill your enemies full of lead, destroying them all and the spawners on each level to win. Use [WASD] or your trusty-dusty [arrow] keys to steer, and aim and shoot with the mouse, avoiding enemy fire as you attempt to blast them into shrapnel. Make sure you destroy crates, too, since you can find power-ups in them in addition to the coins your enemies also drop, which you can spend on upgrades and weaponry between stages.

Like its predecessor, Awesome Tanks 2 isn't exactly deep or full of fancy book learnin', but its bouncy soundtrack, vibrant style, and fast-paced, simple gameplay makes it a fantastic dose of action whenever you need it. It kind of makes you wish the game has a versus mode, since pitting two tank armies with different abilities against each other would be a lot of fun considering how varied the tanks can be. Though Awesome Tanks 2 feels less like a sequel and more like an upgrade in terms of content it provides over the original, you'll find a greater variety of weapons to purchase and more challenging levels overall, including slightly more reasonable prices for your upgrades this time around. It's quick, explosive fun that comes with a level editor for you to design devious gauntlets for your friends to run through, and is proof that sometimes simple is just what the doctor order. In this case assuming your doctor likes explosions and massive property damage, in which case you've probably been playing too much Team Fortress 2.

Play Awesome Tanks 2

The end of the world comes not with a bang, but with a whimper and a shadow in Placeable's eerie horror adventure Snowdrift. Sam is an old man who has managed to hold out against a sinister living darkness that has overwhelmed the rest of the world, eeking out a lonely existence day to day in a cabin in the snow-carpeted woods. Survival depends not only on finding food and water in the barren landscape, represented by the bars in the top corner of the screen, but also keeping enough wood stocked to stoke his fireplace and keep the darkness at bay at night. If you venture out after nightfall, you have a better chance of encountering animals to hunt, which becomes a necessity as you slowly strip the more easily found berries from bushes, but your lantern has limited fuel to keep things lighted and safe. Use the [arrow] keys to move, [Z] to interact/confirm, and [X] to open the inventory. There are three possible endings to discover, centering around Sam's actions and whether he answers the door whenever it's knocked at. A knock at the door in the middle of a sentient, evil night? Sure, answer it. What could go wrong.

Snowdrift has, hands down, some of the best atmosphere you may ever find in a horror game, especially one with this sort of visual style. Unfortunately, an overall lack of polish from a few persistent bugs and lack of a pause feature, to say nothing of a much needed proof-reader, makes this feel more like a concept than anything approaching a full game. It's unfortunate, since the surreal supernatural premise is so eerie it actually is genuinely scary, and makes Snowdrift the sort of thing you'd love to see expanded on in the future with a larger scope and more attention to detail. Which might happen, since the developer intends to create a sequel rather than updating this incarnation. With more to do and a cleaner design, Snowdrift could have been a serious contender, but as it stands this little Twilight Zone-esque concept of a game is still worth checking out if you love atmosphere and otherworldly creeps.

Play Snowdrift

Man. Robots. Always havin' existential crises and what not, amirite? In Folmer Kelly and Tom Wright's melancholy little puzzle platformer A Void for Machinery, you control a lonely little robot searching for something through a hostile landscape. Use the [arrow] keys to move and [X] to jump, pushing blocks and flipping switches to help you get over or around obstacles and trying your best not to land on anything hazardous. Fortunately, if you get violently disassembled, you'll just start the area you entered over again. It's like if Astar came out of retirement to star in a browser game. ... anyone else remember Astar?... man I'm old.

There isn't really that much new about A Void for Machinery, since it is, in essence, an extremely simple puzzle platformer about pushing things and trying not to die. Without doubt, however, the game is absolutely beautiful, and has a sort of effortlessly engrossing visual style you really want to lose yourself in. The downside is that both jumping over hurdles and pushing blocks can be frustrating... the former because getting up over a small bump you should just be able to hop onto can be finicky, and the latter because blocks can slide and don't always fall the way you need them to if you don't have the proper momentum going while you push them. A Void for Machinery was created to showcase what Stencyl can do for Newgrounds' Stencyl Jam 2012, and though fairly simple and familiar, it's an exceptionally lovely little exercise with a seriously professional design from two creators we hope to see even more from in the future.

Play A Void for Machinery

It's elemental, my dear Whoever! (Is it Alonso? Please let it be Alonso.) This week, the Vault is overflowing with water, flames, and tiny bearded frozen men. But there's no need to panic, since that's perfectly normal... ish! At least, it is when we're looking at some of our favourite games that bend the powers of the natural world. It's designed for those of us who used to lie awake at night throughout primary school, wishing we had the ability to harness the wind so we could drop buckets of deadly hobo spiders on stupid Jimmy Jones for stealing our favourite Pog slammer during recess even though the teacher said she couldn't prove he'd done it even though you know he totally did. I mean... so I hear, anyway.

• Ice Breaker - While they'll never replace Erik, Baleog and Olaf in my heart, there's just something about the grim looking little bearded vikings in Nitrome's physics puzzle series that's hard not to love. In each game, your goal is to swipe the screen with your mouse and carve away the frozen vikings from the ice they're trapped in so they drop safely to the boat waiting below, presumably where they are revived with gentle cooed reassurances and warm fuzzy blankets in the viking way. Nitrome's games are always gorgeous, but Ice Breaker packs a particular charm with its simple gameplay and cartoonish style that makes it hard to put down, especially when it fits so perfectly inside any sized break you might have. Plus, with the upcoming iOS edition, you'll find better visuals, bosses, adventure, and more. There's no time like the present to get (re) acquainted with these grumpy little marauders and remind yourself why Nitrome is so good at what they do.
• FireBoy and WaterGirl: The Forest Temple - Oslo Albet's puzzle platforming series has been wooing fans since 2009, despite the fact that it requires some serious individual dexterity for each hand. You control FireBoy and WaterGirl individually but also simultaneously, with different keys on the keyboard used for each character. The goal is to get them both safely to the exit in each level by helping them work together to overcome the different hurdles in their way, and keeping them out of dangerous elements that oppose them. The series boasts some seriously clever (and devious!) design, but despite the challenge never winds up feeling unfair. It delivers a brisk, good-looking little adventure that adds just enough new wrinkles as you play to keep you interested without overloading its core concept. The result is a game that sizzles more than it fizzles, and will keep your fingers and your brain fit.
• The Pretender: Part One - Everyone loves a magic show! You know, right up until your soul is painfully torn from your body and hurled into another dimension. Launching Pad Games' puzzle platforming series about a Victorian stage magician who bites off more than he can chew has long been a favourite of mine. Your goal is to find your way back to our world, rescuing the souls of your audience along the way, who were scattered throughout elemental realms when your tricks misfired after a magical book you find turns out to be sorely out of your league. Each stage allows you to transform into different elemental creatures with various abilities, such as allowing you to float or burn through things, and you have to harness these abilities in specific order to best proceed. The game has an elegant simplicity to its style that makes it easy on the eyes, and its clever concept stays neat and tidy throughout rather than overburdening you with piles of powers that might have cluttered things up.

While we welcome any comments about this weekly feature here, we do ask that if you need any help with the individual games, please post your questions on that game's review page. Well, what are you waiting for? Get out there and rediscover some awesome!

Oh, Little Red Riding Hood. You with your crimson cloak, guileless observations, and boundless naiveté, how do you do it? Somehow you find yourself Little Red in Danger again, trapped inside Grandmother's house while untold peril lurks outside. You're asked to "wait here like a good girl" because it is so very dangerous outside. But, should you listen? That's the pressing question in IDAC's mobile escaping adventure: to discover just how and when to safely exit this quaint abode.

Play by tapping the screen, finding items and hints hidden across the room, and trying to escape from the house you were locked inside. Clues and puzzles scattered everywhere add up to plenty of in-depth exploration. Be precise where you tap; a surgeon's touch will prevent your missing essential clues. Utilizing your inventory is intuitive: tap once to highlight an object then tap the screen where you want to use it; double-tapping brings inventory items into closer detail and is also useful in certain interactive areas. Keep in mind there are two ways to exit and both bring happy endings—well, one is happy only for the wolf whose appetite is whetted by blood red head coverings.

Players familiar with Gotmail's browser-based escape games will recognize many a characteristic Gotmail trait—both good and not-so-good—in this release from the developer's mobile franchise, IDAC. Little Red in Danger especially succeeds at creating an intriguing environment that you really want to play around in; the neato graphical style is even worthy of being wallpaper on your mobile device. The design is well-drawn and eye-pleasing so that the smaller screen is never itself an impediment to immersion in the setting. Conversely, the means to navigate these deceivingly serene surroundings are not so user friendly: pixel hunting is an uninvited guest here at Grandma's house.

As a welcome plus, Little Red in Danger does a great job of challenging your sleuthing skills, often putting your inner Matlock to the test, requiring you to rethink possible solutions and recheck doubtful areas more than once. At times it proves frustrating as any mis-tap means missed information, so if you prefer more affable escape-the-room games, this one might not be for you. On the other hand, for those who enjoy creative means for problem solving and an Engrish-faceted scenario to quirkily wrap it up, Little Red in Danger has the perfect basket-full-of-goodies just for you. "So, do you think you can get out of this alive?"

It's always interesting when a developer takes a familiar mechanic, then remixes it to make a new kind of enjoyable puzzle. Case in point: Jump Me, a simple idea puzzle game by Ozzie Mercado. It's likely that the game would have never have been made if versions of checkers (or draughts, if you're the kind of chap who's okay with the madness of pronouncing it as "drafts") hadn't been kicking around since ancient times. But that allows Jump Me to be different enough to feel fresh, but familiar enough to easily learn.

In each level, the goal is to move each piece into an outlined area, completing the puzzle. Use the mouse to select a piece, then click the arrow to indicate what horizontal or vertical direction it will go. Pieces can also "jump" other pieces. Pieces that move a single space cannot immediately be moved, but jumping a piece will allow it to be moved again. Jump Me only has fifteen levels, but after the requisite tutorial, it wastes no time getting to the challenging stuff. The aesthetic is minimalist, but clean (though the close quarters mean you'll occasionally select a new piece when you meant to click an arrow.) Jump Me is a fun and challenging diversion for puzzle fans to check-er out on their coffee break.

Play Jump Me

They say you can't keep a good dog down, and the spectral polter-pooch Bub seems to be proof positive of that. Too bad he's been keeping himself entertained playing with bones from the local graveyard... bones the zombies will rise at sundown to claim if he doesn't bring them back! 2-Bit Bub is a free action puzzle platformer (of sorts) for your iOS made by Laika to promote their upcoming feature film ParaNorman. As Bub, you'll have to hop, chomp, swing and sling your way through levels trying to snatch the supernatural zombie bones by flinging yourself through the air on ghostly floating rings. Which is pretty impressive when you think about it. I mean, I'm not a dog person, but even I have to admit I don't think either of my cats could be mustered to care about stopping a zombie apocalypse, even if they were the ones who caused it.

Tilt your device left or right to make Bub trot around the screen, and drag your finger down from the top of the screen to make him launch himself in that direction. If a ring is in his path, he'll bite down on it and hang there until you launch him again. Of course, not all rings are alike, and some will behave in different ways. Each level has three optional stars for you to collect to improve your score, but what you really want is that zombie bone floating somewhere onscreen. If you make a mistake and can't proceed, tap the pause button to reveal the reset button so you can start the stage over. Currently, there are only thirty stages available, but you can look forward to more available when ParaNorman hits theaters on August 17th.

2-Bit Bub is, by and large, a very simple little game, but it's the sort that gives you hope for advergames as a whole because it's so darned gorgeous and fun. It looks and sounds absolutely beautiful, and while the gameplay is very basic and straightforward, there's a nice degree of challenge to it that makes it well worth the price. Which is, y'know, free. It did feel a little sluggish at times on my first generation iPad, which can make some of the timing tricky, so you'll want to pay attention to patterns and plan things out. A pedigreed example of an advergame done right, 2-Bit Bub is a ghoulish good time with style to spare to make up for the fleas. Do ghost dogs have fleas? I bet they do, and they're probably impossible to get rid of.

2-Bit Bub

(iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on an iPad (1st gen). Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.

What's that, boy? You smell new mobile games on the horizon? Well by all means, then. Fetch! Fetch from the future my time travel-enabled pet canine! And while you're at it, find us a good pizza. Oh, and the ending to Breaking Bad, I'm dying to know how it all wraps up. You know, if you've got time.

More Puzzle Quest is coming - For Puzzle Quest developer Infinite Interactive, the last few years have been filled business mergers, strategic partnerships, and other business buzzwords you might find in a Dilbert comic. All of that has settled down now, and the studio is back to its independent status and ready to return to its roots. Namely, its puzzle RPG hybrid roots! When asked about the possibility of more Puzzle Quest in the future, Infinite Interactive founder Steve Fawkner said "...if you shook a Magic 8-ball and asked ... it would probably say 'all signs point to yes!'". Sounds good enough for us! Commence the happiness feelings!

Flight coming soon - Good news for lovers of the browser game Flight! In just a few days, a mobile port of this charming browser game will materialize, bringing with it all the challenge and charm of the original, now with a touch screen! Playing as a girl wishing to see her mother for Christmas, you toss paper airplanes in a variety of locations, guiding it through the air in the hopes it will make it to its destination. Watch this space for a full review the minute it's available!

Baldur's Gate coming to iPad - Can't wait for September to begin? We can't imagine why, at least, until you've finished reading this note about Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition coming to iPad in September! The improved remake of the classic '90s RPG was first teased months ago, but a release window has finally been nailed down. The updated release will feature a new adventure in a new area along with three new characters: a monk, a half-elf mage, and the blackguard Dorn Il-Khan. Oh, and multiplayer matchmaking has been improved, along with plenty of enhancements for the touch screen interface. Let the impatient countdown timer watching begin!

Adventure game Lili unveiled - From an ex-Gears of War developer, Lee Perry, and his new studio BitMonster Games, Lili is an upcoming mobile adventure RPG hybrid that looks too stunning to be "just" a portable game. The team licensed Unreal Engine 3 for the release and aims to make a game filled with exploration and discovery, one that's enjoyable for nearly everyone to play. Sounds like a grind-free fun-time adventure to us, and we're excited to see more!

Got some delicious info on an upcoming mobile release, current event, or other tasty news tidbit? We want to know! Send an e-mail with "Mobile Monday" in the subject line to johnb AT casualgameplay DOT com. We'll sift through the submissions and feature our favorites on a Mobile Monday article! Keen!

What do you get when you combine a bumbling commander, an unexperienced captain, and the sound of gunfire? You get Great Big War Game, a war themed turn-based strategy game by Rubicon, sequel to Great Little War Game. The enemy is approaching. Do you have what it takes to fight back?

Each map in Great Big War Game is based on a hexagram tile system. Each unit has a specific number of tiles they can move per turn, as well as a range of fire. Climbing up or down a cliff takes more movement points, and can increase or decrease your line of sight. Just tap your unit to see how far it can go that turn, touch and hold the unit to see how far it can fire. These are important tools when planning your strategy, as you can also tap and hold enemy units to see if you are stepping into their range of fire. Depending on the level you can have a barracks, factory, airbase, and a boat yard available for your use, with units ranging from scouts to tank killers. Each have a specific role to play in your defense or attack mission. You have to be versatile to retaliate against whatever your enemy throws at you!

There are four modes to choose from when you start Great Big War Game: campaign, skirmish, pass and play, or online play. If you are new, I recommend starting with the campaign, as it gives some gameplay tips and introduces units at a good rate so you can understand how they work before you have a whole aresenal to choose from. There is also an extensive in game manual to help you with the finer points of the game. In the campaign mode, your level objectives change as you progress, while the objective in skrimish mode is always to wipe out the enemy however you can. To play online, you have to create a free account, but then you are able to play with friends or strangers cross platform.

Analysis: Great Big War Game plays a lot like a board game. The turn-based play is nice as it gives you time to think about your moves. There is also a one move undo button, so if you tap the wrong square, or rethink your move, all is not lost. The fact that attacking doesn't end your unit's turn helps make the strategy all the better. This allows you to run in, take a shot, and run back out, and is a great tactic for taking out stationary units. The varied terrain throughout the levels adds yet another layer of depth to the game.

Though the cartoons between levels are supposed to be funny, I personally found them to be a little off-putting. Please be advised to save your game and not just turn your device off, as I lost progress in this way. You can easily save anytime by hitting the pause button and then selecting the save game option. The music and sound effects are very fitting for the game, but if you get tired of them, you can turn them off in the option menu. One of the great things about the game is the size. It really is great big. You get an involved single player campaign, and multiple maps to skirmish on. If that's still not enough for you, addition maps are available as an in app purchase.

Great Big War Game is a solid entry in the world of strategy games. With so many units to utilize and terrain to consider, there are many different tactics to pursue. Be prepared to shell out long amounts of your time strategizing in front of your screen. War has never been so much fun!

Great Big War Game

(iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch)

Great Big War Game

(Android)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on an iPad 2. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.

Originally released in 1983 by Tim and Chris Stamper's Ultimate Play The Game, Atic Atac was one of the most heralded games for the ZX Spectrum. A top-down action-adventure game, it was the deceptively simple looking tale of an adventurer trapped in a haunted castle who must battle his way from basement to "atic" to find the keys that would let him escape. As the 80s turned to the 90s, Ultimate Play The Game would evolve into a little company called Rare and the Spectrum would cease production, but a group of enthusiasts would keep the art of the Speccy alive even today. A group of them, Retrospec, have developed a remake of the no-longer-available classic. And so, here it is: Atic Atac, offered now to addict and challenge a new generation of gamers.

Although you can customize the controls in Atic Atac's menu, the default setup using the [arrow] keys for movement, [shift] to fire, and [ctrl] to pick up items works quite well. You start by choosing one of three classes of hero to play as, each with their own strengths and weaknesses and access to specific kinds of secret tunnels. The Knight can quickly fire spears in the direction he's facing, the Wizard can fire a ball of energy that will bounce around the room, but only one at a time, and the Serf who can fire each of a pair of spears that will return to him after being thrown.

You must explore the castle from atic to basement cavern, staying alive long enough in each room for the doors to open. Staircases will lead you from floor to floor, as will a misplaced step on an open trapdoor. Keys will open gates of the appropriate color, and possessing certain items in your inventory will fend off the deadlier (and likely-to-be-key-guarding) monsters. Though the layout of rooms remains the same, items will appear in different places in each playthrough. Your health, represented by a slowly consumed roast turkey, will reduce over time, but can be replenished with a variety of foodstuffs found around the house. Only the most skilled will be able to assemble the Golden Key of ACG and escape!

First, a caveat: This reviewer wasn't alive in 1983, let alone a Spectrum ZX owner, and even if he were, he'd probably be more obsessed with that walking egg with boxing gloves. Thus, accuracy of adaptation is not something that we'll attempt to assess. But, speaking as a modern type of gaming reviewer guy, Atic Atac is a polished piece of work, and an incredibly addictive experience for any era. The furious combat is reminiscent of early Legend of Zelda dungeons, while its exploration aspects invoke such classics as Gauntlet and Adventure for the Atari 2600. Of course, Atic Atac also replicates that specific brand of retro difficulty, hailing from a time where gamers were expected to happily draw their own maps, and just go along with the idea that dropping a clawed hand to distract a hunchback or whatever was a perfectly reasonable puzzle. It should be no surprise that Atic Atac was an inspiration for the similarly obtusely-difficult UK game show, Knightmare. No matter: whatever old-school quirkiness Atic Atac has is balanced by the clear love that both the original and remake designers had for their creation. Put a Duran Duran cassette in the tape deck, cue up a few Fifth Doctor serials, and prepare for a first rate "atic" crawl.

Windows:
Download the free full version

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

What springs to mind when someone says the word "maze"? Probably not an image of a butterfly dancing along a series of colored tiles to the sound of piano keys. Sergey Mohov, on the other hand, envisioned exactly that, turning the butterfly and piano vision into a gorgeously styled maze puzzle game by the name of Dédale. With music provided by Fractures, it is up to you to brave 100 levels of tile coloring, butterfly leading, maze escaping fun.

You'll only need your brain and a mouse for this game (or your brain and a few fingers for the mobile version). Simply left click on the starting tile and drag across the spaces where you want the butterfly to move, changing each square's color as you pass. Every tile needs to be crossed to complete a level, and in early stages you can't backtrack, so plan ahead! Later on, you'll encounter new tiles that require alternate strategies to deal with, such as large tiles or tiles that need to be passed over twice.

Dédale is the perfect type of game to play at any time of day, but most especially when you're feeling like you need a respite from the chaos of the world and want a piece of calm to settle into. The endearing butterfly and the soothing piano notes will certainly help lull anyone into a sense of ease and security. There is no dying, there is no time limit to constrain your thought process; there is nothing but the joy of using your noggin' to move on to the next challenge. So turn off your phone (unless that's where you're playing the game), maybe close the curtains, and grab a cup of something warm and soothing because the world can wait while you and the butterfly traverse the enchanting music painted maze that Mohov has created.

Windows:
Download the full version

Mac OS X:
Download the full version

Dédale

(iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch)

The story of Atlantis is one of the oldest legends in western civilization, and it holds as much fascination today as it did over 2,000 years ago. Whether it be an allegory on hubris, a thinly veiled reference to the destruction of Thera, or an overblown tourist trap in the Bahamas, the story still resonates even today, especially in Alawar's new adventure hybrid Eternal Journey: New Atlantis.

Amrite Stone, the heroine of the story, is an archaeologist working on the newly discovered ruins of Atlantis with her fiancé Michael. The first building uncovered, the temple of Mars, has been shielded with a handy geodesic dome allowing for an archaeological dig without all that pesky scuba equipment (or, at this depth, all those expensive submersibles). Pretty soon, though, the story takes an unusual twist, and next thing you know Amrite is participating in a rollicking sci-fi adventure that travels to some pretty unexpected places. If this doesn't say much about the story, well, that is deliberate as there are some pretty interesting plot twists that are better experienced first-hand. Here's a hint: pay attention to the word new in the title.

Eternal Journey: New Atlantis has the basic bells and whistles of most adventure hybrids, a changing cursor to indicate different areas of interest and navigable areas, a bottom-loading inventory, a refilling hint timer, a handy notebook to keep track of the story, sparkles of light to highlight items to explore (which are absent in the advanced mode), etc. While there are some interesting hidden object scenes and puzzles in the game, the emphasis here is on the adventuring aspect. Best of all is the map feature which allows instant jumping around without a lot of tedious back-tracking.

Analysis: First of all, it's a refreshing change not to be battling demons, ghosts, ferocious dogs, or psychotic witches in Eternal Journey: New Atlantis. Instead, what Alawar has produced is a fantastic science fiction adventure that journeys far beyond the "traditional" Atlantis. Think less Atlantis and more Stargate: Atlantis, although the story itself is not related to that beloved TV series.

The production values are everything you would expect from Alawar, including the usual stunning graphics and haunting soundtrack. Amazing animations also contribute to the adventure but stunning graphics and animations are not exactly uncommon. What is uncommon these days is what Eternal Journey: New Atlantis delivers in spades: a fantastic story! Most adventure hybrids have a storyline that could be summed up in two sentences and the ending can be seen usually within the first 20 minutes of play. Not so here, as Alawar has taken great pains to create an involved and involving adventure, but we shouldn't be surprised, these are the folks who brought us the Snark Busters series and Dark Strokes: Sins of the Fathers.

The hidden object scenes, what there are of them, are definitely up to snuff with a lot of interactivity involved, including "secondary" scenes hidden within the main hidden object scenes. The adventuring aspect is top-notch and rates with the best of the hybrids and is a fantastic complement to the amazing story. Where the game falls down, if only a little, is in the mini-games and puzzles which are all very familiar and at times a bit too easy. Considering the quality that is present everywhere else, though, this is a minor quibble.

Eternal Journey: New Atlantis is an amazing science fiction adventure wrapped up in an exquisite bow. The two modes of play ensure that a wide range of adventure fans can enjoy this marvelous story in all its glory. Time to forgo the ghosties, ghoulies, and long-legged beasties and set off for a kick-butt adventure to the stars! Or the bottom of the ocean. Whatever!

A Collector's Edition is also available. It includes wallpapers, extra gameplay, and a built-in strategy guide. Remember that Big Fish Game Club Members pay only $13.99 for Collector's Editions, and collector's editions count 3 card punches of 6 total needed for a free game.

Windows:
Download the demo Get the full version Also available: Collector's Edition

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

Tetris has been conceptually reverse-engineered again, and this time, you already know what pieces you get to work with in advance. However, instead of letting gravity take its course, and dropping your blocks into a rectangular box to form lines, you will need to drag them into a geometrically designed frame that could be a letter, numeral, or symbol. ScrollGroup's newest production, ShapeFit offers you a truly casual tangram puzzle game experience, as there aren't any time limits to worry about or stress over. Your only goal is to solve the puzzle, and fit all of your puzzle pieces into the shaped frame.

The game is entirely driven by the mouse, which makes this a great game to sit back, relax, and just let the logic portion of your brain and index finger go to work. The puzzles appear to be deceptively simple, but you may find that just isn't necessarily the case. A strategy you might employ is to look for unique sections of the enclosure, that may seem to have only one part that seems workable; and yet it is actually a combination of multiple pieces that will solve your dilemma, and still alow you to fit the rest of your parts in. You can also get hints, should you find yourself stuck, but only three per level, so use them sparingly. ShapeFit isn't for players that are solely looking for flashy graphics, or exquisitely composed music, but it isn't trying to be. It is a simply-designed, clever puzzler, that lets you exercise your gray matter, and that can be a good thing, too.

Play ShapeFit

ShapeFit

(Android)

ShapeFit (free)

(Android)

Thanks to Cyberjar88 for sending this one in!

Dear reader, I love you, but I also resent you a little bit, because writing this review for Eighty Eight Games' insanely addictive arcade dungeon-crawling retro iOS game 10000000 means I had to put it down. Which, when we're talking about a glorious, fast-paced hybrid like this, is the last thing you want to do. You control a hero who wakes up in a dilapidated castle full of monsters, from which he can't escape unless he racks up a whopping 10000000 total points by tearing down corridors full of treasure and enemies for as long as possible. With everything from dragons to demons to goblins to freaking ninja in your way, do you stand a chance of ever escaping? More importantly, given how gloriously fun and hard to put down this game is, why would you want to?

Our hero, upon entering the dungeon, immediately begins running to the right until he hits an obstacle. Enemies, chests, and locked doors are all dealt with by swapping tiles around on the grid, matching the appropriate icons to attack, get keys, items, and even wood and stone. There's no time to sit and think your moves out, however, since time is constantly running out, and if the edge of the screen catches up with you, your run will come to an end. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because it will let you return to your castle's main hub, where you can spend the wood and stone you gathered on rooms that will let you upgrade your equipment and skills, or get perks, with the gold and experience you've earned so far.

10000000 is simple. Simple like a fox. With its retro style and "just one more run" style of quick gameplay, it manages to hit that perfect sweet spot of arcade action that turns it into the sort of thing your fingers will be itching to reach for whenever you have a free moment. (And even when you don't have time to spare.) The upgrades and mini-objectives will appeal to achievement fiends, which helps take the sting out of how very grind-y the game is by design. It's not particularly deep or complex, and players who don't find high scores particularly gratifying may be put off by how repetitive the game honestly is. But if you're looking for a game with all the arcade addiction of Bejeweled liberally spiced with endless dungeon crawling goodness, upgrades, monsters, and flashing lights and sounds, then 10000000 is more than worth the price of admission. I know what I'm doing once I finish writing this, and it's not "going outside to be a productive member of society". Thanks a lot, 10000000. I can check out anytime I like, but I can never leave.

Windows:
Get the full version

Mac OS X:
Get the full version

Linux:
Get the full version

Peru, 1950. Strange signs have appeared in the misty mountains. You, a famous spelunker, head to the area to investigate them.. Such is the humble premise of Cavenaut, an exploration-based action-adventure game by Bruno Marcos. Don't think that the ruins of Machu Picchu will reveal their secrets so easily, however. Snake, Bat, Spike, and Spear stand in your path, and if you hope for mysteries to be unraveled, you must be quick of both mind and fingers.

Viewing the area from a top-down perspective, move your character with the [arrow] keys. You're going to want to start by heading to the right to pick up the shovel, a useful tool that will help you clear out loosely packed dirt and other parts of scenery. Wield it (and any other items you find) in the four cardinal directions with [WASD]. While it's best to discover the mechanics of Cavenaut for yourself, generally you will explore ruins, finding artifacts which will unlock new areas for you to explore. In addition to the general darkness of unmapped territory (which goes away as soon as it is explored), hazards such as the pattern-following snakes, the random-walking bats, the straight-line shooting arrows, and extending/retracting spikes will kill you if you so much as graze them. Expect death, and lots of it.

With a challenge level that's brutal, but fair, Caveanut has the addictive quality of the most punishing of retro-styled games. Is every playthrough somewhat an exercise in masochism? Yeah, probably. However, frustration is counteracted by constant sense of progression. Death only sends you back to the beginning of the screen, and since each step you take will often reveal more of the danger within each room, it never feels like your efforts are wasted. At its best, Cavenaut feels like a magnificent long-lost Indiana Jones Atari game, capturing in equal parts the excitement and danger of exploring a place long hidden from human eyes. Cavenaut loses itself a bit in the mid-game, with a number of water-flow puzzles that require just a little too much pixel-perfect reaction time, and a few "Oh wait, that wasn't the friggin' final level?" moments. That said, Cavenaut is a very clever kind of game that takes its time in building to satisfying conclusion. You'll need a hundred lives to complete it, but they'll all be good ones.

Windows:
Download the free full version

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

Victim, or killer? That's what you have to discover in Elephant Games' hidden-object adventure adventure Surface: The Noise She Couldn't Make. When a young girl is found lying unresponsive by the roadside in the middle of nowhere, a bloody knife beside her despite a lack of wounds, and not carrying any identification, the hospital turns to you in desperation. As a psychic detective (snicker, snort!) you'll have to use your unique abilities to enter the helpless girl's mind and see why she's a prisoner of her own thoughts. If you don't succeed, not only will TLC not make a terrible reality show about you, which could be seen as a sort of reward actually, but it's unlikely your Jane Doe will survive. Can you navigate the minefield of symbolism and mystery in her head to save her? And does she really deserve saving?

Jane Doe's brain is a confusion jumble of surreal imagery, but the dangers are very real to her, and so it might seem to you, since it quickly becomes apparent that someone or something doesn't want you helping the girl. You'll have to stay on your toes as you hunt for clues and solve puzzles, dealing with Jane's physical symptoms as they pop up in the real world by fixing the psychological manifestations of them in her dreamscape. Since this is a dream, few things function the way they should and you'll encounter mazes, obstacles, and locked doors of an unusual type. Fortunately, if you get stuck, you can use the hint function to get pointed specifically towards your next step, or skip troublesome puzzles altogether. Even more helpful, the map will show you any locations you can actually do something in and let you travel there instantly with a click. Plus, if you gather the glowing blue flowers hidden throughout the game, you'll be able to spend them on decorations for your superfluous magical detective's office because... well... just because, okay?!

Analysis: Despite the goofy "psychic detective" premise, Surface: The Noise She Couldn't Make stands out as one of Elephant Games' most intriguing and beautiful titles to date. The design of Jane's dreamworld is gorgeous, full of secrets and lush visuals that makes it especially fun to explore, and the concept of a person's mind manifesting as a town unique to their psyche for you to traverse and solve mysteries in is very clever. The story is a little slow moving, broken up by long chunks of backtracking and item hunting that kind of drags, especially when the clues you'll encounter about Jane's troubled past are a lot more interesting. Because the game takes place in a dreamland of imagery and symbolism, some of the obstacles and item uses are sort of deliberately goofy and illogical, which won't appeal to every player. On the plus side, this does mean that a lot of the puzzles you'll encounter are quite creative, if on the weird side.

The tone of the whole game, from setting to story, sort of wavers between 14 year old dramatic teenage girl wishful fanfiction and... grim. But if you're willing to take that with a grain of salt and can handle some illogical item uses and pacing issues, Surface: The Noise She Couldn't Make is actually an extremely engrossing game. It isn't perfect, and the subject matter won't be to everyone's tastes, but players looking for a more unusual and creative game will want to try the demo. It's on the lengthy side, and the heavy emphasis on its unusual story makes it stand out from the pack. Imaginative, dark, and more than a little weird, Surface: The Noise She Couldn't Make is an unusual game that will take a certain sort of player to appreciate it, and is well worth checking out.

A Collector's Edition is also available. It contains a bonus chapter, art gallery, strategy guide, and more. Remember that Big Fish Game Club Members pay only $13.99 for Collector's Editions (or 2 club credits), and collector's editions count 3 card punches of 6 total needed for a free game.

Windows:
Download the demo Get the full version Also available: Collector's Edition

Mac OS X:
Download the demo Get the full version Also available: Collector's Edition

You know, as morbidly amusing as watching a man's hopes and dreams visibly crumble because of a little white ball rolling two centimeters to the left of a hole can be, golf isn't really what you'd call exciting. turboNUKE aims to change all that however with Turbo Golf, doing away with the slow, methodical approach to the sport and cramming it full of running, wild swings, upgrades, and more.

The goal is to get your ball into the hole before anyone else does, and to do that you'll need to hit it from one end of the screen to the other, running after it whenever it lands to belt it again. Aim your shot with the mouse, and click to fire when the power meter is where you want it. Along its arc, the ball will nab coins you can spend on better equipment in the store, but when it hits the ground your golfer will sprint up to it so you can whack it again. Terrain like sand traps and the rough will hinder you, but you can use power-ups once per hole to get a bit of an edge. When the ball is close to the hole, you'll have to put it in the same way. Of course, the other golfers are going to be doing all this at the same time you are, and the fastest one to sink their ball wins. I have to tell you, I'd watch a lot more golf if it were less polite clapping and more grown men stampeding around, flailing clubs and hooting like gibbons. But then I also say the same thing about American Idol.

Turbo Golf is exactly the sort of weird, chaotic wonderfulness you'd expect from turboNUKE, and though it can start to feel a little repetitive, it's also surprising how fun these relatively simple gameplay changes to the sport are. The course designs are fun and silly, rendered in the team's signature cartoonish style, and if you already enjoy golf games and aren't a stickler for rules it's also kind of compulsively playable. Turbo Golf does just enough to feel like its freshening the familiar gameplay up, and is packed with unlockables and upgrades to boot. So go ahead. Channel your inner Happy Gilmore and give it a little tap-tap-tap-a-roo.

Play Turbo Golf

Earth! Air! Fire! Water! irRegular Games! By your powers combined, I am... a physics puzzle!... okay, so maybe it's not as dramatic as the cartoon show, but this way you aren't subjected to the spandex booty shorts or the green mullet. Elemental Balance puts a new spin on a tried-and-tested concept by throwing different elements into traditional physics-based puzzling. Your goal is to clear a particular item on each level by setting and detonating bombs that will blast it around into what will destroy it. Through each of the themed sets of levels, new elements are introduced that have an impact on the way the pieces work.

Just click onscreen to place a bomb if you have one available, then hit [spacebar] or click the button to prime them for detonation. Then, it's a matter of just clicking on the bombs to set them off, and if you have more than one placed, you can detonate them in whatever order you choose. Elemental Balance has a whopping 48 levels, some of which are more interesting or clever than others, but the unique spin it presents on the physics puzzle genre makes it worth checking out. Frankly, I'm just disappointed the Earth stages don't let you play with Brawndo to manipulate the plants... it's what they crave, after all. Later stages get extremely complex, tossing fuses and multiple elements into the mix, and since the game allows you to easily fine tune bomb placement or reset at a snap, it never really becomes that frustrating. Elemental Balance is still, at its core, a very familiar game that could have implemented its ideas in even more effective or creative ways, but if you feel like pretending to be an extremely ineffectual Captain Planet for the day, it's a solid little experiment in elemental mayhem.

Play Elemental Balance

Most of us don't have much quarrel with our neighbors, I would hope, but even when we do take offense to them blaring The Safety Dance at 2:00 AM or drinking milk straight from the carton in their underpants on the front lawn, it usually doesn't devolve into a violent free-for-all. Usually. Nerdook's Deadly Neighbors 2 is a turn-based strategy game of disputes gone wrong as you control a family out to bring the hurt down on their neighbours. (Yes, with a "u". Leave me alone. It's proper.)

Create your pack of battlers, choosing from a variety of classes with different strengths and weaknesses, and then duke it out on the field (or in this case the yard) by maneuvering your family around screen turn by turn. The active character is denoted by a white ring, and blue squares are spaces you can move to, while red squares are occupied by enemies you can attack. Reduce your opponents to zero hitpoints to win and earn coins to unlock more classes, and upgrade points to toughen your own team up or allocate new abilities.

Deadly Neighbors 2 allows for the sort of casual strategy battling that's easy to leap into whenever you have a few moments, though you might wish it had done away with its coin-based unlocking system for a more traditional experience points/level up model. It feels like it's made to be played and enjoyed in bite-sized chunks, and if you like a more streamlined, pared down version of the combat found in Final Fantasy Tactics, then Deadly Neighbors 2 might be for you. Just remember, kids, this isn't the sort of behaviour you should be emulating. Or fashion.

Play Deadly Neighbors 2

Based on the B-movie of the same name, the one famously riffed by the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew so many glorious years ago, MANOS - The Hands of Fate is a retro-styled platform game from FreakZone that may very well be as punishing as the film itself. In a different sort of way. Armed with a few guns and an impending sense of "doom", work your way through the game's enemy-infested levels in an attempt to best your own speedruns. The Master would be pleased if you got a high score.

Using a set of virtual controls, move Mike left and right on the screen, jumping and firing his gun with the buttons on the right. Timing is everything, and MANOS is packed with things moving, from snakes to floating eyeballs, bouncing liquor bottles to whatever those shiny hovering tumbleweeds are! You only have a few hit points to spare, and once your lives run out, you have to start over from the first stage. Fortunately, a few power-ups can be found to aid you, such as hearts and 1-UPs strewn about the coins and gems. Just shoot the hand statues and collect away!

Depending on your history with MST3k or B-movies in general, you'll probably walk into the MANOS - The Hands of Fate experience with different expectations. You don't need to know a thing about the original film to enjoy the game, it just adds a new layer of happiness when you can imagine Mike, Tom, and Crow suffering through along with you. There are plenty of references to delight MST3k fans (though never enough to please us MSTies), so keep your eyes peeled!

The only real downside to the MANOS game is the fact that it's a precision-based platformer attempting to skate by with virtual controls. The jury is still out on whether or not this is a good idea, and if you ask us, we still don't think virtual buttons are an acceptable substitute for a good physical gamepad. However, MANOS makes the best of what it's got, and if you're up for a double dose of punishment, Torgo will be happy to talk to you about Master all evening long. He'll even throw in some creepy passes at your wife for free!

Ermahgerd, you guys! This week we have a whole plethora of things for you, including the opportunity to win one of the site's favourite classic indie adventure games, ponies applebucking each other across the room, the Fluffy Dimension, and endless terrible deaths! It's like Christmas in July, only more confusing!

CONTEST: I For One Welcome Our Adorable Robot Heroes Essentially, I'm a terrible person who can really only muster up my top levels of excitement for games that involve terrifying things or fine feathered freaky friends, but even I have to admit that the Amanita Design hit point-and-click adventure Machinarium is both amazing and adorable. So let's give you a chance to put some metallic sunshine in your day by giving you the opportunity to win one of three free copies of this story of love and robots! To enter, just play the free flash demo and leave a comment here. If you haven't already experienced Machinarium, you'll definitely want to... the game isn't one of the community's most beloved titles for no reason. Rules: Entries must be submitted by August 3rd, 11:59 p.m. EST (GMT-5). Winners will be notified by e-mail shortly thereafter. Winners are selected randomly. One entry per person only. You must be at least 13 years of age or older to enter. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. UPDATE: And the winners are: David B., Iena42, shjack180. Thanks for playing, and you'll be notified by e-mail soon!

Return of the Fluffy Dimension Quantum Conundrum, or as I call it ever since I started watching Star Trek this past week on Netflix, "Being Imaginary Best Friends With John de Lancie", is a great little cartoonish first-person puzzler that revolves around you as a young boy trapped in the house of your uncle, an eccentric inventor. You must use a device that allows you to swap dimensions around you to manipulate your environments along the way if you ever want to find your way out and rescue your marginally grateful and uncle. It's fun, it's weird, John loved it in his review, I loved it since I picked it up because I do what John tells me to do, and if you've already bought and loved it too then you'll be thrilled to hear there are two upcoming DLC packs due out later this year that will add even more content to the game. The packs will, unfortunately, cost you an additional $2.99 USD apiece on top of what you've already paid, which is a little disappointing, but The Desmond Debacle (July 31st) and IKE-aramba! (August 28th) will definitely be welcome if you're already a fan.

Now You're Thinking With Triangles We've talked about the upcoming first-person puzzle platformer TRI before, but now you can play the demo! The game, coming for PC and Mac, is an absolute trip to behold and a blast to play, as you create triangles that allow you to explore and manipulate your environment in a variety of strange and useful ways. The pre-alpha release video on the official site showcases the game's groovy style and theme, as well as how you can use your TRI power to spawn and tweak triangles to do everything from let you stick to walls to shift light and much more. If you like unique indie adventures with a heavy emphasis on puzzle and exploration, this is definitely one for you.

Party Cannon, I Choose You! You're getting closer and closer to your dream of forcing your favourite colourful cartoon ponies to beat the hay out of each other, you monster! Progress marches on for Fighting is Magic, the upcoming totally free fighting game based on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and since we last checked in quite a few new things have been revealed. There are a ton of My Little Pony projects out there in the works, but few can hold a candle to the degree of polish and professional detail in Mane6's work, and the most recent video showing combat and combos is a prime example of this. The animation is fantastic, and while initially you'll only be able to play as the show's primary pony cast, you can look forward to a total of seventeen ponies in the roster eventually. (Although the confirmed lack of Discord makes me sadface.) Stay tuned for more updates, and keep yourself in fighting shape for the eventual release!

Making Stabbing Look Pretty The upcoming episodic adventure strategy RPG The Banner Saga is one of those games you can yearn for as much as you dread, because you know it's gorgeous and is absolutely going to devour your free time. This week, you can snag a preview of how combat is going to look thanks to the art direction in this blog post, which more than showcases the cinematic animated style the development team is trying to keep throughout the entire game. It's particularly interesting because it showcases some of the thought process behind designing it... chances are not every player will notice or appreciate the care that goes into deciding whether the tables are messy after a viking feast, but it's minor details like that which bring a whole new depth of subtle life to the game.

It Doesn't Count If You Keep Your Finger On the Page If you're old enough to remember a time when your imagination was your graphics card, then prepare to get all wistful and whatnot as you browse You Chose Wrong. This wacky and delightfully morbid little Tumblr highlights the many, many, many possibilities for failure and death that came about when you picked the wrong path in the classic Choose Your Own Adventure books. From the weird to the horrific to the silly, it's a fantastic little trip down memory lane and proof positive that whether games are on a console, your browser, your desktop, or your bookshelf, their creators love to do horrible things to you. Aw.

Do you know an upcoming indie project or some community gaming related news you think deserves some attention? Send me an e-mail with LINK DUMP FRIDAY in the subject line at dora AT casualgameplay DOT com with the info, and we'll judge it with the all-seeing glare of our own self-importance for inclusion in a future Link Dump Friday article!

Disney's Gravity Falls is about a small, rural town in Oregon where strange, occult happenings are an undercurrent to every day life. But for two of its denizens, Dipper and his sister Mabel, the outside world is out of reach when Grunkle Stan accidentally locks them in the attic of his museum/home/bizarre curios shop. Now it's up to you to help them break free in this point-and-click adventure game, the Mystery Shack Mystery.

Play as either Dipper Pines, the intelligent and insatiably curious young adventurer, or as his adorably goofy sibling Mabel. Each character offers a slightly different experience while you collect items, search for clues, and most importantly, escape! A changing cursor helps to eliminate most of the pixel hunting and a hint button exists to offer a useful nudge if you need it. The game isn't particularly difficult or long, and Mystery Shack Escape probably would have been a more fitting title given the lack of any one overlying mystery. However, these shortcomings are counterbalanced by a bunch of laughs, secret easter eggs for fans of the show (including a very esoteric coded message), and some inventory-based puzzling that's suitable for kids and inner children alike.

Play Mystery Shack Mystery

If you just finished playing through every dibbles game you could get your hands on and still haven't had all your demanding puzzle needs met, then Dibbles Pro Pack is the next logical step. Gameplay remains the same: set action stones to order the procession of the dibbles, constructing a path to ensure the king's safe passage to his destination.

Harkening back to the initial red demise environment, this pack of 33 all new levels is more like an intermediary between the earliest and the most recent Dibbles installments—not as troublesome to figure out as the latter but more challenging than the first game in The Podge's addictive puzzle series. Same old setting, different problem-solving scenarios, plus the user friendly features of the newer titles mean all your puzzle whims can now be met.

Play Dibbles Pro Pack

Reisen. If my Google searching is reliable, it's a German word meaning "to travel". And that's certainly what the star of the Reisen series, Sneedle's lovely 10-episode adventure puzzler with hints of escape, has tasked herself with doing. (The preceding link and the image link go to a list containing links to the ten games. The play buttons below link to the individual games.)

The Reisen series catalogues the tale of a small red-headed girl named Jitter, who recently lost her parents to the war (World War II, most likely) and wants to go see her grandmother. This is easier said than done, as at the story's beginning she is confined to a bunker far away from where her grandma lives. If she wants to make the journey, she'll have to be cunning and resourceful, doing everything from trekking through dark forests to pole-vaulting over deep water to getting guards drunk.

Every game in the series can be played (almost) entirely with the mouse, using an interface many should be familiar with. Navigate by clicking the yellow arrows, and click on objects to interact with them and sometimes pick them up. If something is in your inventory (the column of circles on the right), click it to select it, then use it on the environment-- or on the "+" in the corner to examine it up close. Your goal varies from game to game, but just focus on doing what you can and you'll get there.

This is a series with good points and bad points, like many others. The visuals are relatively unimpressive, the puzzles are okay in the logic department, and pixel-hunting can get annoying, although it gets much more tolerable later in the series. What really makes it worth playing, though, is the story. Jitter's tale is an epic one; she meets many allies and enemies throughout her journey, and has her share of both comedy and tragedy, plus a few philosophical discussions about war and humanity.

If you've got a large block of time to kill and don't mind mature subject matter, playing the Reisen games back to back is a good idea.

Play Reisen ep. 1 Play Reisen ep. 2 Play Reisen ep. 3 Play Reisen ep. 4 Play Reisen ep. 5 Play Reisen ep. 6 Play Reisen ep. 7 Play Reisen ep. 8 Play Reisen ep. 9 Play Reisen ep. 10

Costis doesn't remember how he got here. He doesn't know why the world keeps changing around him. And he certainly doesn't know the man in black who seems to be following him. But every little boy knows when it is time to explore, and so he will. For better or worse... Blackwood Prologue is an interactive art adventure by Blake Mann, that takes you inside the mind of a kid who just might be seeing his future in his dreams. Move Costis with the [WASD] or [arrow] keys, and click the pieces of dialogue to advance the story. There are also 6 hidden orbs to be unlocked by performing certain actions.

It's kind of hard to judge Blackwood Prologue as is. Certainly it has a marvelous atmosphere, and moments that manage to be both evocative and unsettling. However, like its inspiration Coma, there's more symbolism and eeriness than plot which makes it lean heavily to the "art" side of the "interactive art" descriptor. Certainly we have seen works that use the premise of dream logic as a crutch for vague or half-developed ideas. However, as the title states, the game is a prologue, and presumably the foreshadowing will pay off in the full Blackwood title the author currently has in development. For now though, Blackwood Prologue is an immersive, sometimes scary walk through a beautiful dreamscape, and hey, maybe that's enough.

Play Blackwood Prologue

Haretoki is back with another escaping gem that turns room escaping conventions on its head. Sometimes Sunny Block brings a refreshing charm and gameplay to the escape game genre.

Sometimes Sunny Block appears at first glance to be (and actually is) a basic one-room escape. The furnishings are sparse and utilitarian as this room is definitely not a "living" space. There is the standard navigation bars and an easy to use inventory, although the game could also have benefitted from a save feature and perhaps a music clip. Unfortunately this is not the game for the color-blind, as nearly every puzzle features color in some way. Haretoki packs the room with some delightfully entertaining and original puzzles which we've come to expect since Sometimes Cloudy Challenge, the game that featured an escape from a rotating room.

One of the things that makes Sometimes Sunny Block stand out from the rest of the room escaping pack is the use of a found object in no less than four different puzzle solutions, bringing an elegance to the form that is rarely seen. Robamimi once used an abstract artwork as a dual solution, but how many escapes can claim four? While Sometimes Sunny Block is not terribly difficult, the charm of finding new and interesting ways to solve the puzzles within the strange room create an atmosphere that definitely can compete with the well-established designers of the field.

Play Sometimes Sunny Block

The Effing Worms are back? Quick! Call the House Atreides! Call Beetlejuice! Call Kevin Bacon! Wait... We're the ones controlling them? Never mind then. Lets wreak some havoc! Effing Worms 2, an arcade action game developed by Effing Games, has the player guiding the actions of their very own huge voracious annelid. And man, those puny humans have never looked so tasty.

Use [WASD] or [arrow] keys to steer your worm left and right, as well as to speed up or slow down. Generally, gameplay will consist of choosing the right time and place to surface and chow down. Though gravity affects you when not underground, building momentum and using your wings to "swoop" up and down can keep you aloft for longer. At the bottom of the screen is your hunger/health meter. Take too much damage or fail to eat enough to offset your hunger pains, and it's game over. After eating a certain number of enemies, an upgrade will be unlocked, giving you the choice of two modifications to your collossal beasts. The further you go in the game, there'll be larger numbers of enemies with better firepower, but you can always stay below and much on a few lizards for health when needed. Despite its subterranean star, Effing Worms 2 can't really be called a particularly deep game, but it has that visceral kind of DESTROY EVERYTHING! fun that will never stop being addictive. There's no real goal beyond eating, growing, and upgrading, but adding those little bits of customization to your creature is strangely satisfying. At the very least, Effing Worms 2 should help players de-stress as they munch their way through a coffee break.

Play Effing Worms 2

Flex those metacarpals, because the moon is in danger from alien invaders and the only thing standing between it and utter distruction are your typing skills. I really do hope you were one of those kids paying attention in 7th grade typing class and not just playing Math Blasters, because the entire human race is depending on it. Moontype: Episode 2 by Chman is a fast-paced action arcade typing game where you need to keep enemies from destroying our beloved moon by quickly blasting them out of the sky. Just type the name that appears over an enemy's head and hit [enter] to fire a rocket at it, and try to keep them at bay across each stage. Your moon can only take a certain amount of damage, so you'll want to keep any baddies and their own fired projectiles at bay by typing as quickly as possible to take them out before they reach you.

The game features smoother graphics than the original, a choice of difficulty settings (Hurt me plenty!) and, for the more mathematically minded, a numpad typing mode, which will blow most players out of the water. In fact, anyone who beats even the easiest of these levels deserves an honory Administrative Assistant degree from their nearest accredited community college. Throw different play modes, like survival and quick race, into the mix and you have a great little game that'll keep you playing long after you beat all the regular levels and have been fired from your cushy middle management job for playing video games instead of, you know, working. If your boss does happen to walk by, you can say you're practicing your typing, right?

Play Moontype: Episode 2

Woodhead may be developed by a studio called Terrible Games, but never fear: that's just an example of the kind of sarcastic, hipster-ironic humor that the game uses as its backdrop. If you're a fan of The Onion, you'll love the interstitial newspaper headlines between the levels, but even without that, this is one of the most accessible yet challenging, straightforward yet never repetitive block sliding puzzle games out there, and the game takes full advantage of the strengths of the iPhone for its interface.

The core of the game is swiping left, right, up or down to make Woodhead go that direction. You'll have a star-marked goal to head for, a couple of shiny jewels to pick up along the way, and a goal number of "strokes" to beat in order to make par, like golf. Manage to pick up all the jewels at or under par, and you'll three-star the level. Three starring a level unlocks secrets and bonuses, but all you have to do to move to the next level is to get Woodhead to the star. This is generally pretty easy, and enables frustrated players to move on when they're stuck.

If it were simply sliding around a tiled board, it'd be pretty boring, but Woodhead includes an impressive number of other elements, such as keys and locks, expendable "friends", spikes and black holes, sticky goo, and more. In levels with friends (all of which can die with no penalty), the blocks all start the level asleep and can be woken up or put to sleep with a tap.

Analysis: The game requires a significant amount of spatial intelligence and planning skills to excel. You have to do things like place blocks or unlock locks the moment you pick up the item, so you have to be able to envision all the steps you're going to take towards the end of the level right then. This is exacerbated by the lack of a one-move-back undo button. All you can do is restart the level, even if you just made a swiping error at the last moment.

The snarky humor of the cutscenes and newspaper headlines between levels won't be to everyone's taste and may offend some. Again, it's really similar to The Onion, so you should have a good idea of what to expect based on your reactions to that website, or check out the screenshot for an idea. But even if it's not your cuppa, a simple tap to skip and you're back in smooth, relaxing, puzzling goodness.

I don't know much, but I do know this: When taking a vitamin or other pill with water, you should lean your head down rather than up, since, as most pills tend to float, the physics will take it to the back of your throat making it easier to swallow. Oh. And I also know that the JayIsGames archives is packed with a number of wonderful hits from the past. That knowledge is probably more relevant. This week in The Vault we'll dive into the action-packed advergame housing market, pick puzzling peculiarities from a pack of nearly-parallel photographies, and guide an adventurous stickman through an obstacle course designed by one of our favorite mad geniuses.

• Mansion Impossible - The greatest twitchy real estate arcade game ever produced (and, indeed possibly the only one), Mansion Impossible, by 3Form, is pure mindless fun. Admittedly, there's not much strategy beyond buying low, selling high, and clicking fast. Still, slowly clawing your way up to affording the giant mansion on the hill has all the capitalistic joy of triumphing in a competitive family game of Monopoly. Interestingly, Mansion Impossible also functions a bit as a cultural artifact for the 2005 real estate market, where home values could always be counted on to rise, and it was believed that investors only bought what they could afford. A version made with the cynicism brought by burst of the housing bubble would be very different indeed, one thinks. Economic realities aside, though, an iconic graphical style and bouncy sound effects gives Mansion Impossible a freshness that is timeless, whether things are Bearish or Bullish.
• 6 Differences - Photography works so well in browser gaming, that it's a surprise that we really don't see it more often. Oh sure, it seems to have the market cornered on the "Creepy House With A Mysterious Secret Point And Click Horror Game" genre, but to really get a feel for the possibilities, all one needs to look at is 6 Differences, by Case. Packed with gorgeous scenes ranging from shining cityscapes to dingy billboards, it may be the most beautiful spot the difference game ever produced. Mixing photos with ethereal animation gives 6 Differences an other-worldly quality, showing off an Earth very much, but not quite, like the one outside the window. Uncross your eyes, and take a good look.
• Escape From Rhetundo Island - Rob Allen is probably best known for his Hapland series of games (and, of course, the banner he made for a certain awesome casual gaming site), but all of his creations are worthy of acclaim. Case in point: Escape From Rhetundo Island. Though there's still the stick figure to guide and protect, Escape From Rhetundo Island mixes the pointing and clicking with a little Lemmings-styled strategy. The puzzles require careful timing, and the stickman seems particularly suicidally overconfident this time around, but it all comes together to make a game that's just frustrating enough to make the triumph of beating it extra sweet.

While we welcome any comments about this weekly feature here, we do ask that if you need any help with the individual games, please post your questions on that game's review page. Well, what are you waiting for? Get out there and rediscover some awesome!

Ninjas... aliens... hedgehogs. They're FAST. How fast, you ask? Click into ClickPLAY Quickfire 2 to find out. Your only goal is to find that "play" button as quickly as possible —that means plenteous finger convulsing mini-games and neuron buzzing puzzles to keep you sock hopping through 20 levels. Each scene asks for a different action: spot the difference, play roshambo, put the story scenes in order, find all the rotten tomatoes... just the sort of silliness you'd expect from NinjaDoodle.

Play the entire ClickPLAY series:

As in ClickPLAY Quickfire 1, this follow-up in the popular ClickPLAY series offers no other help than the sound of a clock counting down or classic jukebox rock-n-roll to set the pace. The only impediment to making your score soar is the speed of your thinking-to-clicking reflexes. Instantaneous responses are required for the highest total. Your reward, besides the grin-inducing pictures both zany and cute, is 18 bonus levels for more energetic fun. It's fast. You'll have a blast. The time won't last. So click "play!"

Play ClickPLAY Quickfire 2

It's alive! Aliiiiiiiive!... or, at the very least, a free word puzzle for your iOS thing by Xether Labs, which is almost as good as the unholy flesh monstrosity you stitched together while playing God achieving sentience. The concept of Frankenword is simple. Using the two word clues onscreen, figure out what bizarre new term you're about to coin by dragging letters into the appropriate spaces from the pool of available options. Once you succeed, you'll be treated to a definition for your new creation that makes a bizarre sort of sense, or be prompted to make your own. You have a limited pool of hints available, though you can earn more by plugging the game on Twitter or Facebook if you're into that sort of thing.

Frankenword is sort of the perfect little party game, practically begging to be passed around a group of people after dinner as an actual physical board game. It'd be a perfect fit, but as it stands, the digital incarnation is still pretty excellent at providing laugh out loud moments when played with a friend. It's exceedingly simple, to be sure, and it's a little disappointing whenever the game asks you to come up with your own definition, since the silly ones provided with the app for the rest of the words are part of the reward. These are the times when the title really showcases how clever it can be, despite its very simple premise and gameplay.

It's easy to sit down and burn your way through the 100 free stages currently available in a short period of time despite a few frustrating stages where the clues don't really feel like they adequately or commonly describe what your solution is supposed to be. An additional whopping 600 stages are available as optional in app purchases, with more free batches planned for future updates. But even if you don't spend a dime on it, if you enjoy casual, silly wordplay Frankenword is one lurching word beast you won't mind encountering.

Frankenword

(iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on an iPad (1st gen). Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.

Tower defense games are everywhere these days. It's enough to make you wish you could turn that rickety old stapler in front of your desk into a snazzy Gauss rifle and blast away all the junk and get right to the good stuff. Well, Ed 'Ryzed' Ryzhov and Konstantin Groshkov have just what you need, the aptly named Overhaul, a slick new hybrid that mixes up match-3 and tower defense to blast away your workaday blues.

In Overhaul, what should be a routine mining operation on a newly discovered planet goes awry when the local populace, a mix of insectoids and robots decide its time for you to hit the road. Your mothership in orbit drops down modules to help protect your mining vessel. But before they can be activated, three of the same have to be matched in rows to create a level one module, combining three first levels to get a level two, and so on. You better have a good memory, however, as the abilities of the different blocks takes awhile to get down and the labeling of the modules isn't always intuitive.

Still, the backdrops, animations, and SFX are just right and it can be really satisfying to see your fully upgraded lasers drilling down to the core of the invading bugs and bots. Even the atmospheric soundtrack by THESANDS does its job, giving you something to bounce to between enemy waves, and heightening the tension when the battle is on. Overhaul is firing on all cylinders, as will you long after this turbocharged defense game is over.

Play Overhaul

If I invented a fantastic new type of gadget, I'd sit in my room and play with it all day. But that's not science, and in Yury Grigoryev's new puzzle platform game Portal Quest a minimum wage lab worker—that's you—has ended up in a deadly testing lab with today's new toy, a portal gun. Your goal is to escape the lab, moving with [WASD] and firing your portal gun by clicking the mouse. The portals are linked, so walking into one sees you emerge from the other, allowing unusual ways around a room.

Portal Quest takes obvious cues from both Valve's Portal and Portal: The Flash Version, but distinguishes itself with short, snappy puzzles and a clean pixel-art style of its own. Portal veterans will appreciate the way complex rooms end up with simple solutions and players new to the concept will also find a solid puzzle game in front of them. It's missing GlaDos, and cake, but makes up for it with 30 levels of perfectly pitched brainteasers. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

Play Portal Quest

A few big names are rolling out exciting mobile projects in the coming weeks, and not just big names in the mainstream gaming world! Sega's got some news to keep us cool through the summer, while Nitrome and NimbleBit have some pieces of excitement of their own to share!

Nitrome to break iOS ice - Nitrome, the folks who make pretty much everyone's favorite pixel-gorgeous browser-based diversions, is preparing something special. Specifically, it's a mobile version of Ice Breaker built from the ground up for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch! All we know so far is that great things are planned and that the game is approaching completion. Ice Breaker iOS will support Retina displays and feature upgraded visuals, an explorable map, bosses, unlockable secrets, and a "proper" adventure. Ready to slice some ice?

NoNoSparks Genesis going mobile - Love picross but want more laughter with your logic puzzles? NoNoSparks Genesis, the browser game from Beardshaker, arrived just a few months ago to fill that gaping hole. Now, the team reports it is working on a mobile version of the picross game specifically for iOS devices. No juicy details as of yet, just some excited players eager to get some puzzles solved!

Jet Set Radio going mobile - Dreamcast owners and retro gaming fans will no doubt recognize the name of one of the most stylish graffiti-tagging arcade stunt games from the 90s. Now, Sega has announced the series will get both iOS and Android versions for the upcoming HD reboot. The portable Jet Set Radio looks almost identical to its console counterparts, but with the added bonus of using pictures you've taken as in-game graffiti. Look for the new Jet Set Radio games in the next few months!

Pocket Planes flies onward - For all of us still helplessly hooked on Pocket Planes, news of this update won't exactly be a surprise. But for everyone who managed to take a break, NimbleBit recently rolled out an update for our favorite casual sim, fixing a few bugs, tweaking a few gameplay items, and an in-game guide to help give new players a little push in the right direction. Be sure to check out our Pocket Planes review if you still haven't grabbed the free game, then look into our Pocket Planes walkthrough and Pocket Planes trading post when you're ready to go that extra mile.

Got some delicious info on an upcoming mobile release, current event, or other tasty news tidbit? We want to know! Send an e-mail with "Mobile Monday" in the subject line to johnb AT casualgameplay DOT com. We'll sift through the submissions and feature our favorites on a Mobile Monday article! Keen!

Just when Cthulhu was about to destroy the world, a mysterious figure appeared and locked away his powers. Only by becoming a true hero could he get them back, according to the narrator. Unfortunately for the world, Cthulhu took some courses in fourth wall breakage back at R'lyeh Tech, and he hears what the narrator says. Thus, Cthulhu embarks on an epic turn-based RPG quest in which Cthulhu Saves the World... so he can destroy it! Along the way he'll acquire a groupie, be stymied by dancing zombies, investigate cow abductions, and show a bunch of hideous terrors beyond the ken of man's pitiful mind what's what.

Cthulhu Saves the World really does a good job of boosting the strengths of classic turn-based RPG games and minimizing their weaknesses. Enemies get stronger every turn, and your MP recovery for beating them lessens, giving an incentive to end battles quickly, thus providing some of the urgency that this style of combat can lack. While the game utilizes random encounters, there's a limited number per dungeon, so if you're going crazy trying to find the exit in a dungeon, at least your frustration isn't exacerbated by constant interruptions. You can save at any time, and there are helpful exit-hinting torches in some of the more maddening mazes. The one uncorrected weakness of classic RPGs is in save slots: the mobile versions have a mere four, which makes it difficult to have a couple different games going at once.

For this kind of retro, walking around maps, random encounters with turn-based battles kind of game, a controller is usually the ideal form of input. Adapting it to a keyboard isn't difficult, but adapting it to a touchscreen is much trickier. For the mobile versions, Tinkerhouse went with a primarily swipe based scheme with a few big on-screen buttons: an A button which generally functions as confirm, and a B button which generally functions as back. It's fair to say that it never feels as natural as either a keyboard or controller set-up, and when playing the game for a few hours at a stretch it can do a bit of a number on your hands, but it's hard to think of a different approach that would have avoided these drawbacks without having drawbacks of its own. For many players, the portability of a touchscreen device will outweigh these negatives anyway. This is a great game for playing a few battles on the bus or tweaking your party while waiting in line.

Cthulhu Saves the World is modestly advertised as having six to ten hours of gameplay, which for its price tag would be amazing even if that was all you got. Most players will find far more than ten hours of content here, however. Not only did the regular mode take your obsessively completionist reviewer much more than ten hours (must read every bookshelf!), but that's not even counting the bonus modes. Cthulhu's Angels, for example, contains all new dialogue, totally different all-female party, and many other surprises. Highlander mode gives you a one member party, and Overkill mode rockets you to level 40 so you can experiment which different skill sets, putter around maps looking for missed treasure, and other exploratory stuff.

Analysis: Zeboyd Games originally released Cthulhu Saves the World for Xbox Live Arcade several years ago, followed by a Windows version which was met with much rejoicing, selling more in the first week on Steam than it had in months on XBLA. Now, Tinkerhouse has made an authorized port to iOS and Android devices, and it's a great treat having this gem of an RPG on the go.

For a game about a cosmic horror who literally drives enemies insane before destroying them with tentacle attacks and whose avowed goal is to annihilate the entire world, it's surprisingly gentle. Kind of... sweet, actually. While the pixel art visuals of some of the enemies are certainly grotesque, there's nothing here that will haunt your nightmares, and the script and plot seem almost designed to make you want to reach into the game and give Cthulhu a big cuddle-wuddle, just like his groupie Umi. The satire is never mean-spirited and the developers obviously love what they're sending up. It's funny, yes, but it's also a game that leaves you with a smile on your lips and a warm feeling in your heart. It may horrify a few Lovecraftian purists, but most fans will be charmed, and turn-based RPG devotees will adore it.

Cthulhu Saves the World

(iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch)

Cthulhu Saves the World

(Android)

Cthulhu Saves the World

(Kindle Fire/Android)

Windows:
Get the full version (via Steam)

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on an iPad and on Windows. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.

I Wanna Be The Guy was a small indie platform game released by Kayin way back in 2007. If you're wondering what took so long to get a sequel, you probably never played the original. A quick refresher: you could be killed by falling apples. You could be killed by apples that fall upwards. If you avoided the apples, a cloud could drop out of the background... and kill you. And that would be how you got past one screen.

I Wanna Be The Guy: Gaiden lives up to its precursor's exceptionally difficult, exceptionally unpredictable, and exceptionally funny legacy, and it delivers in spades. Not to reveal any spoilers, but there are no less than three different ways to die between starting the game and selecting the first level to play. But enough about ways to die, what can you actually do in this game?

You play as The Lad, an intrepid hero who must — for some ultimately unimportant reason — make his way through some of the most difficult stages you will ever see grace your screen. To aid you, you have both jump and double-jump, and trickier terrain can be traversed by hitting [C], which will launch a grappling hook that can come in handy in several situations, the least of which being to swing across gaps. The hook can also pull you up to higher platforms and in special cases be used to grab and hold items. Your gun also comes into play, a small peashooter which fires a relatively weak but infinite number of shots, while holding [X] charges your weapon into a super-shot able to knock out enemies with a single blow or to activate certain (and of course, unmarked) triggers.

Though this game is quite short, at three frustrating levels, the sheer difficulty stretches the playtime quite considerably. At this stage, the length seems only temporary. From the blurb accompanying the release, we can expect more episodic content to come, and from the creativity and inventiveness shown here, the following installments should be well-worth anticipating.

Analysis: A lot of games like to hold your hand and whisper to you "No, honey, don't go any further until you have the key for the chest in the next level, you'll need it." I Wanna Be The Guy: Gaiden does the opposite. It will show you a key and a chest and both items can kill you by flying across the screen and smashing you in the face for no reason. Then the roof will fall on you and the ground will turn into killer, pointed spikes. If you get past that, who knows what will happen next?

The beauty here is the uncertainty and unpredictability of it all. Even if you know where to go and what to do, there is no telling what will happen next. Many is the time I've stood completely still, looking at the level ahead and weighing up which inanimate objects may kill me and how before I progress (and then get killed). If it sounds frustrating, it's really not, at least in my experience. I'd get so pent up with anticipation during the obstacle course that the inevitable death would make me laugh — every time. It's almost a relief to be treated like this, the game doesn't care about you, not one little bit. It just sits there and makes you wonder, can you get past that zone? Is it worth... just one more try?

Windows:
Download the free full version

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

The brutal Machines have been running the show for a long time, but hope for the enslaved arrives in the form of furry, pink, multi-armed and multi-gunned Belle, the star of NC Soft and Fabrication Games' iOS title Project 83113. Using her acrobatic platforming talents and flair for action, Belle will run and gun her way through hazardous levels full of metal enemies in a race to the core to take them down once and for all. Though short and perhaps a little tricky to get the hang of, it's a slick and stylish sci-fi blast packed full of lasers, explosions, and, most importantly, the cute.

Controlling Belle is simple in concept, but requires some quick fingers to master. She'll continue running left or right when you swipe in that direction and stop if you press and hold on the screen. Swipe up to jump, and tap and hold while she's in mid-air to slow her fall by gliding. Swiping downwards will cause Belle to slide underneath any obstacles, and she can wall jump by swiping away when she's clinging to the side of something to boot. If all this sounds fairly rad for one little pink critter, wait, there's more! Belle will automatically fire at any enemies in her path, and tapping on them will unleash a bigger blast that will drain some energy, while hitting the bomb icon will devastate almost anything on-screen. Destroyed enemies will release green light that can restore Belle's health, represented in the top-left corner, but if she takes too much damage she'll respawn at the last checkpoint she passed. If you're having too much difficulty making it through a stage alive, you might want to replay previous levels to nab more crystals you can spend on weapon upgrades, or keep your eyes peeled for blueprints you can use to build bigger guns altogether.

Platforming on a touchscreen device is kind of a tricky beast to wrangle, and as clever and responsive as Project 83113 is, if it's your first touchscreen platform rodeo you might find it hard to get the hang of. Fortunately, there's no real penalty for dying other than getting booted back to earlier in a level, so you can spend some time mastering Belle's moves without ever feeling like you're failing. The game is gorgeous and full of flashy action, despite a feeling of repetitiveness to some of the levels, and managing to nab all the medals for a level always feels like an accomplishment. On the downside, it would have been nice if the story had been better integrated into the game itself rather than left as unlockable tidbits, and the crystal pieces you'll gather versus how many you need for upgrades will probably force you to replay stages a lot unless you feel like shelling out for a bunch of them through an in-app purchase. With fantastic style, tons of action, and flair to burn, however, if you're up for the challenge, Project 83113 is a remarkable little action platformer well worth checking out.

Project 83113

(iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on an iPad (1st gen). Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.

Claret Spenser doesn't care much for the outside world, she's happiest working in her airship repair shop. Machines are easier to deal with than the aristocracy of her floating city or the winged Skyborn race that conquered the humans generations ago. But, of course, her brother just had to sell the family shop and promise her hand to that cravat-wearing rich boy. And that rich boy just had to be on board his air ship when Claret decided to "borrow" it to make her escape. But hey, while she may need more than elbow grease to get out of this jam, a girl handy with a rivet gun should never be underestimated. Skyborn, an RPG from Dancing Dragon Games, is a unique whirlwind of a fantasy-steampunk adventure that demonstrates just how far the RPGMaker framework can be pushed in the hands of talented designers.

The basic mechanics of Skyborn are typical for the JRPG genre. You lead a party of characters exploring different locations, interacting with NPCs, completing quests, fighting enemies, gaining experience points (XP) and developing skills. Use the [arrow] keys along with [Z] and [X] for movement, interaction, and accessing the status menu. Intuitive mouse controls are also available if that's more to your liking.

Battles are turn-based and prompted by encountering visible enemies roaming about the map. A unique threat-based system determines how enemies interact with you, so depending on your party's actions enemies will focus attacks on characters that appear to pose the most danger. Once killed, enemies do not respawn until a location is left. A nice touch is the battle-difficulty adjuster, which should alleviate frustration for those in it just for the story and give a challenge boost for those here for the monster bashing. Other unique elements include "Exploration Points", glowing bits of scenery which reward examination with XP, and the Augmentation system which Claret can use her to upgrade weapons and armor with various jewels and items.

Analysis: Skyborn aggressively wants to make a good first impression. Upon starting the game, you are blasted with an enormous quantity of quality: beautiful music, gorgeous art, an intriguing storyline, and a fully realized steampunk world. Relatively short for an RPG (about 10 hours of content), Skyborn keeps all its pistons firing throughout the whole experience, and it makes for an exhilarating time. Part of the game's immediate success comes from its characters. They're fairly archetypal, but intensely loveable, Claret in particular. If Lucca, Agatha Heterodyne, or Kaylee got to star in their own game, one has to think it would look at least a little like this.

Of course, the wonderfully expressive character art that accompanies the text does at least half of the work. They give storyline conversations a wonderful sort of visual novel-styled gravitas that adds a lot to storyline depth. (The comparison is particularly apropos: while text-heavy is probably too strong a term, Skyborn is certainly not text-light.) True, many of the NPC and enemy sprites feel a tad generic, and the steampunk elements are much more unique than the fantasy ones. However, the world of Skyborn captures the essence of the living, breathing, slightly dingy beauty of an industrial city as well as any of its 16-bit styled inspirations. Also of note is the game's beautiful (and original) background music. Release a soundtrack CD, stat!

Skyborn's plot is as captivating as its world, though the character archetypes in play admittedly make some of the twists predictable. Then again, good writing can breath life into even the most rote of storylines, and that is not something Skyborn lacks. Dialogue is crisp, and factions of the fictional world are allowed to develop and clash in a way that's complex without being convoluted. Things sometimes get a little lost during dungeon crawling/maze sections, though the complaint there would be that they're unnecessary and a little confusing to navigate but not at all dull. A slightly artificial lengthener for a fairly linear, fairly short, and fairly easy game. Still, it's hard to complain about having more monsters to shoot rivets at, and overall, Skyborn keeps the pace fast right up to its rollicking conclusion. Some plot threads aren't entirely tied off, but hopefully that's so that a sequel can be made. Pretty please?

Skyborn is, above all, stylish, but not in a way that gives its content short shrift. Rather, it gives players what many most desire in a role-playing game: a peak into a world different from our own, but filled with characters that we can adore, and stories that we will remember. Highly recommended to anyone with even the slightest love of RPGs.

Windows:
Download the demo Get the full version

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

Oh, DHTML. We may not ever quite fully understand your often alchemical javascript manipulations of the DOM of HTML, but as long as Brent Silby keeps making awesome arcade games within your framework, you'll always have a place in our hearts and twitchy fingers. His latest 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.

Move Robot with the [WASD] or [arrow] keys and fire to the left and right with [ZX] or [NM]. Surrounding him is a number of Baby Robots, who will generally follow Robot's movements, with just enough random wandering to keep things interesting. Aliens will attack from the sides of the screen, and you must defend your brood. The game ends when either all of you Baby Robots have been destroyed, or when Robot loses all of his health. Knowing when to throw yourself in front of an attack, or when to sacrifice one of your babies will be key. New forms of enemies with new behaviors are constantly introduced, meaning players must change their strategy on the fly, which gets pretty exhilarating.It's hard to identify a specific inspiration for Robot, which is probably to its credit. Certainly bits of Space Invaders, Robotron, Defender, even a little bit of Galaga are present, and fans of those will have a lot of fun with this. Really though, Robot is its own creation and its classic arcade fun is a wonderful addition to Silby's body of work.

Play Robot

Night after night, you dream of her. Anna. But... they're not dreams, they're nightmares. And now, you find yourself staring at the very house you see each night in your sleep. This isn't a dream, but it isn't quite real, either. Welcome to the haunting world of Anna, a first person horror adventure game by Dreampainters that will leave you too frightened to turn your back on a dark corner for the rest of the night.

Anna plays out from a typical first person perspective, allowing you to freely move and look about each area. To interact with or examine things, simply click when the cursor changes to a small target. If the cursor switches to a hand, hold the right mouse button and drag to manipulate the object you've just taken hold of. The inventory can be accessed by a middle click on your mouse, and from there you can combine items, examine them, or grab them to assist you in solving a puzzle or two.

Things move at a slow sort of pace in Anna, presenting you with a handful of things to examine at once while challenging you to not only be observant, but to be curious, too. Take a closer look at everything you see, try to pick up objects even if they don't seem so portable. You never know when a short scene will be triggered or what effect your actions will have on the broken, frightening world around you.

Analysis: Anna isn't the sort of game that flings zombies at you from behind barred doors or splashes screaming faces on the screen when you're focusing on a puzzle. This is a much more subtle and insidious type of horror game, the kind that can really get under your skin and haunt you deep inside. The story and setting lay the groundwork for the spookiness, putting you in a world that isn't quite real and gets even less real as it progresses. And as you discover more of the story behind this house you're in, you start to feel like you're in a very unsafe place. But you can't get out, you can only go forwards. Yipe.

What Anna gets oh so right in terms of atmosphere and puzzle design, it tends to skip over some of the more invisible aspects, namely the interface. While moving around is smooth enough, any time you want to use an inventory item or interact with a piece of scenery, it feels as if you have to click more than you shouls. No keyboard shortcuts to be found, just slow mouse menus that many similar games have replaced with button combinations. It's an awkward barrier when you first start the game, and even a little ways in you'll find it somewhat frustrating. But eventually it all sinks in, slowing down your pace and actually adding to the deliberate, haunting nature of the game.

One of the more curious aspects of Anna is that it features three possible endings, each depending upon how mad your character is at the end of the game. In other words, the more paranoid and frightened you get, the less appealing your ending may be. This means you'll probably want to play through the game multiple times to get the different endings, bumping up the total play time to around six hours or so.

An incredibly chilling game with a story and setting to match, Anna is a superb indie horror game that's best played with the lights on. And friendly people in the house to watch your back.

Windows:
Get the full version

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

This time it's really witches! Some evil witches! Or at least, a witch. Turns out, they don't really appreciated being thwarted on multiple occasions, and this particular one has used her considerable bag of tricks to bring tragedy upon an entire kingdom. Since the court magician is powerless, it falls to you to be a bad enough dude (or dudette) to track down the ten magical gems necessary to power a staff that can restore the land in Oneon's hidden-object adventure Echoes of the Past: The Revenge of the Witch. Now with ten times more magical MacGuffins!

Turns out the kingdom would have been been 100% evil shadow minion free if only the ruling house had sprung for a mouse, since that's all you need to click around and solve puzzles or gather clues. ... or, okay, I guess technically your magic, sassy talking mirror who provides hints might be some help too. The witch isn't just going to kick back with a cup of newt bile or whatever witches drink, however, and as you play and search the kingdom you'll constantly have to deal with her interference. Her magic can turn inanimate objects against you, make hellhounds out of puppies, bar your way, or even craft cunning magical locks to prevent you from getting the tools you need... although I might offer that any devious supernatural puzzle you can circumvent simply by waiting a moment or two and then clicking a "skip" button has some flaws in the design.

Analysis: Come on, who doesn't like a good ol' fashioned witch thwartin'? I mean, aside from the witches themselves. Though Revenge of the Witch doesn't necessarily offer much new to the tried-and-tested hidden-object/adventure genre tango, or even the plot, it does present it in an exceptionally clean and well done manner. The beautifully drawn environments have a wonderful air of magic and mystery about them, and fans of slightly darker fantasy will enjoy getting lost within it and dealing with the troubles that pop up. The hidden-object scenes that require you to put items back where they belong are a nice touch, breaking up the usual gameplay, and the puzzles and item uses are all nicely logical. Revenge of the Witch is, by and large, a very well made game that, apart from a faint graininess to the already dim visuals and a few obnoxious minigames, is easy to get into and play.

What it isn't, unfortunately, is particularly challenging regardless of the difficulty setting you choose. It's the sort of game you pick up if you're looking to relax for a while, where the puzzles are all straightforward and everything you need to get past an obstacle is usually close by. Chances are if you try the demo you'll find yourself breezing through it, and diehard fans of the hidden-object adventure combo might find this one a bit too familiar, but if you want is something well made, packed with magic, and full of breezy entertainment, you'll want to check this out. It even includes a puzzle editor as a bonus feature in the Collector's Edition, which might be a first. The plot is fast moving with a few little twists to keep you on your toes, and should have more than enough haunted suits of armor, creepy talking child drawings, and bizarre amoeba minigames to satisfying even the most eccentric enthusiast. You guys are weird.

A Collector's Edition is also available. It contains a bonus chapter, art gallery, strategy guide, and more. Remember that Big Fish Game Club Members pay only $13.99 for Collector's Editions (or 2 club credits), and collector's editions count 3 card punches of 6 total needed for a free game.

Windows:
Download the demo Get the full version Also available: Collector's Edition

Mac OS X:
Download the demo Get the full version Also available: Collector's Edition

The tower defense genre has been around for years, punctuated every so often by the release of a game that sets a new standard. One of the first for the browser world was Desktop Tower Defense, and for the mobile market, an early heavy-hitter was the original Fieldrunners. Developer Subatomic Studios took a few years to do it, but the team has finally rolled out a worthy sequel with Fieldrunners 2. Expect more maps, more variety, more units, more enemies, and more rewards with this stunning release that will rewrite the way you think of the tower defense genre on iPhone.

Fieldrunners 2 pits you against wave after wave of fieldrunners, disposable enemies who crowd the level trying to make it across the screen. By buying and placing towers with different abilities, you can slow and eventually halt their progress, upgrading and deploying more units when the enemy creeps bump up their game. You can place towers on certain locations on the screen, and if the level has a more open design, you'll actually use them to block the enemy's progress, creating a gauntlet that pummels each foe as he weaves his way through the maze.

Instead of just static levels with waves of enemies, Fieldrunners 2 mixes things up with a variety of stage themes, each with a different goal and method for victory. Survival stages operate just as you might expect, throwing loads of enemies your way and forcing you to deal with them for as long as you can. The same goes for time trials and traditional wave-based levels. Puzzle stages are rather unique and require you do things like funnel enemies into certain areas or defeat them with particular towers. Later levels get even more creative with goals, turning the Fieldrunners 2 experience into something of a puzzle game instead of a typical tower defense title. But, you know, there's plenty of the latter to go around!

Analysis: Fieldrunners 2 spent years in the incubator, but it was worth the wait! This sequel managed to outdo its predecessor in almost every way, something very few follow-ups can claim. The design is more free-form and varied than the original, and it draws a lot of inspiration from the waves of tower defense games that have hit over the last few years. Even with the new elements, Fieldrunners 2 doesn't betray the proven defense formula, it merely complements it with a number of welcomed extras.

Here's the only real downside to Fieldrunners 2: no native iPad version, at least, none at the time of writing. Naturally, you can use the iPhone version on your iPad with no problems, but scaling the graphics doesn't look so pretty and is no substitute for a true iPad release. As with the original Fieldrunners, expect the big screen version to be released at some point in the future. In the meantime, break out your small iOS devices.

Three levels of difficulty can be selected before starting each stage, allowing you to earn more cash and points if you're up to the challenge. If not, no one's going to laugh at you for choosing the casual setting. We promise. No matter your mood, no matter your skill, Fieldrunners 2 has something to satisfy you. It stands out as one of the most full-featured and satisfying tower defense games on the mobile market!

Windows:
Get the full version

Fieldrunners 2

(iPhone, iPod Touch)

Fieldrunners 2 HD

(iPad)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on an iPad. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.

Prepare to go with the flow once more! The ethereal beauty of MoonMana's trippy puzzler is back in the Waterfalls 3: Level Pack. This expansion has everything we loved from the original: Psychadelic visuals, experimentation-based physics gameplay, and that trance-y soprano on background vocals.

As in the original, most of the mechanics aren't spelled out. Since the difficulty of the level pack pretty much starts where the original left off, new players might want to start with an earlier installment to get their bearings. In general, though, the goal of each level is to direct various flowing colors into the designated receptacles (usually denoted by the shapes swirling in the energy). Do this by using the mouse to place flow-affecting objects including gravity directors, bouncing barriers, and the obligatory portals. Don't forget to use the walls! The receptacles will take a little time to fill up with energy, and display a check-mark once filled. Filled receptacles will take a little time to drain, so players have a little leeway to move objects around, should the level require multiple receptacles filled. It's a very zen experience, and these 25 levels perfect for those looking to destress a bit (though those links at the bottom of the game-screen are a little awkwardly placed). Overall, with all due respect to T-Boz, Left-Eye and Chilli, this is one pack of Waterfalls you should start chasing ASAP.

Play Waterfalls 3: Level Pack

Once upon a time, Deirdra Kiai developed a small piece of interactive art called The Little Girl Nobody Liked. In it, the player advanced the story of the little girl by clicking either the little girl, or the group of friends encountering her. Different patterns of clicks lead to different paths the story could take, each playthrough taking about 20 seconds to finish.

Even with a good six or seven endings, the whole thing took only a couple of minutes to experience completely. However, they would be good minutes. With its soothing narrator and background music, The Little Girl Nobody Liked was a picture-perfect picture book of a minigame with a streak of subversiveness to match its adorable charm. True, some of the readership of the awesome casual gaming review site that featured it, might question if it truly "counted" as a game. But such differences of opinion mattered not, because other readers got themselves some milk and cookies, wrapped themselves in their favorite blanket and really enjoyed The Little Girl Nobody Liked, before settling down for a truly great afternoon nap. The End!

Play The Little Girl Nobody Liked

The Wish is something pretty and sweet, a greeting card interpretation of gaming created by BeardShaker Games, played for sentimental reasons rather than a yearning to exercise arcade skills or acute thinking. In a brief twinkle of game time, guide a falling star along its descent from the sky and gather as many or as few other celestial lights along the way as you desire.

There's very little gameplay here (for that, try Music Catch). Instead, the goal of The Wish depends on your outlook—dabble with some lovely images while listening to a soulful, guitar-led song, momentarily test your reflexive mouse moves or share a kind thought with loved ones on your Twitter feed or Facebook page. However you approach it, this tiny piece of interactive art is best appreciated with lights dimmed, distractions off and thoughts on good things. "Can a bigger falling star make a bigger wish come true?"

Play The Wish

Nitrome's second entry in their 50x50 pixel experimental series requires you do a very simple thing: Listen to a Van Halen song for six hours straight. Study its words. Heed its message. Don the hairdos. Only when you master the song are you able to fully understand the nature of J-J-Jump, a fast-paced platformer with a light puzzle twist. (Note: Van Halen not required.)

As the flood waters rise beneath you, you've got to climb the towers using the [arrow] keys and avoid enemies and obstacles to reach the flag at the end of each level, generally somewhere above your starting point. Yes, jumping is a major part of your ascent, as well as double-jumping and triple-jumping and beyond, but there's a restriction to make the game just a bit more interesting. At any given time, you're allowed to use the [up] key to make jumps only five times. Your remaining jumps are indicated by the arrows at the bottom of the game. You can restore your stockpile of jumps by picking up flashing orbs and passing by checkpoints, but you've still got to ration your jumps carefully to make it to the top. (Jumps made by springboards will not count against your stockpile.)

The tiny size may not be the best playing environment for a game where precision movements are key (particularly in later levels when you have to weave in and out of enemies), but it works well to illustrate that it's definitely possible to cram a quality game into such a small space. If you want a quick challenge, you might as well jump!

Play J-J-Jump (enlarged version)

Be honest. Between Steam's annual wallet-devouring sale monstrosity and prepping for our 10th Casual Gameplay Design Competition, you haven't had much free time, have you? Well, fortunately for you this week's Link Dump Friday is going to shove not only entertainment but delicious nutrients down your face-hole! Drama, adventure, zombies, and more await.

CONTEST: Congratulations, You Win Wrongness! If crudeness, violence, and a whole lot of gore doesn't make you cringe, then this week's giveaway is for you. Edmund McMillen's The Binding of Isaac is a brutally hard and brutally gross action roguelike where you control a boy named Isaac as he journeys deep into a cellar full of unspeakable monsters and traps trying to escape his mother. It's creepy, it's freaky, and if it doesn't offend you it can be yours because we're giving away five free copies of it. To enter, just play the free flash demo (which, as you should guess, is not for kids) and leave a comment here. If you already own The Binding of Isaac but not the expansion, you can choose to win that instead... just make sure you specify in your comment what you want! Rules: Entries must be submitted by July 27th, 11:59 p.m. EST (GMT-5). Winners will be notified by e-mail shortly thereafter. Winners are selected randomly. One entry per person only. You must be at least 18 years of age or older to enter. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. UPDATE: And the winners are: jestensli, auratwilight, Kirbypowered, spaceloaf, and madeleine. Thanks for playing with us! :)

Board Games and Begetting Mousechief, creators of the quirky and original board game/RPG Dangerous High School Girls In Trouble! is making a comeback with their upcoming PC/Mac title 7 Grand Steps. Billed as "part board game, part interactive narrative", the game will be a turn-based title in which players take control of a family across generations, where the choices you make and the fates themselves determine your rise or fall in a myriad of ways. Having had the good fortune to play an alpha version, I can tell you that the game is a little intimidatingly complex on the surface, but most certainly unique and engrossing in that way that only Mousechief can deliver. Look for 7 Grand Steps to hit later this year!

You've Come a Long, Long Way, Baby Been a PC gamer for a while? Then prepare to get all glassy-eyed and nostalgic with The Evolution of PC Games, a short video by Reverse Enginears, that takes you on a visual and audio journey from the past to present day. Showcasing everything from Zork to Duke Nukem to Portal, it's a fantastic and eye-opening example of how far gaming has come in almost every aspect, and is both great as a way to make yourself feel really, really old, and simultaneously really, really falsely superior to anyone who wasn't born when you were playing the original Elder Scrolls games. All it needs to really make it complete is some indie games, but maybe that's a project for another young enterprising enthusiast?

You And the Point Aren't In the Same Hemisphere In an update on the Torchlight asset theft situation, and an instance of less "missing the point" and more "trying desperately to obfuscate the truth", Serena Zhang of EGLS, the developers of Armed Heroes responded to a thread on TouchArcade claiming they hadn't done anything wrong. She mentions "similarities between several small monsters", when in fact it's outright duplication down to the misspelled file names of everything including landscape items, and seems to think that because their game is "an action MMO role-playing mobile game" where "the platforms, but also game mechanics, engine support, scenes and techniques employed in Armed Heroes Online developing are all largely different from Torchlight", they've done nothing wrong. She even points out that Torchlight shares many more gameplay similarities to titles like Diablo and Fate, to which we can only say... well... yeah... but drawing inspiration from a title is hardly the same as ripping out that game's content and claiming it as your own. That's Buffalo Bill territory. You can read the entire thread here, which includes an admirably moderated response from Runic Games president Travis Baldtree. Hopefully this all gets ironed out peacefully soon, but don't hold your breath.

Move Your Body to the Music Combinging the collective talents of a variety of professionals across many fields of expertise, the V Motion Project came to life on the large exterior wall of a building somewhere in Auckland, New Zealand recently. Using a couple of Kinects, a Mac and a PC, some audio software and a whole lot of wizardry and magic, this creative team produced not only an innovative visual instrument, but also a performance for lucky onlookers and a music video, so those of us who were not there can enjoy it, too. One of the lead developers of the tech behind this awesome spectacle is none other than Jeff Nusz, whom you may remember was the winner of our CGDC #2 with his entry, Sprout. So, it's no surprise to see more magic spring from his fingertips. Read behind the scenes, watch the video, then download the track for free.

The Zombie Apocalypse is Delicious We've featured them before, but purveyors of digital-turned-delectable gaming foods Gourmet Gaming has just turned out two delicious new recipes inspired by The Walking Dead PC game to help keep you fit and fighting when the dead are breaking down your door. The St John's Dairy Farm Biscuits and the Energy Bar will keep you going right up until your brains are sucked back like a lumpy slurpee. Gourmet Gaming's recipes are delicious and easy to follow, and I personally recommend Minecraft Mushroom Stew and Persona 4's Aiya Rainy Day Special Mega Beef Bowl. Allez cuisine!

Do you know an upcoming indie project or some community gaming related news you think deserves some attention? Send me an e-mail with LINK DUMP FRIDAY in the subject line at dora AT casualgameplay DOT com with the info, and we'll judge it with the all-seeing glare of our own self-importance for inclusion in a future Link Dump Friday article!

Those crafty rabbits. From Bugs to the waistcoat-wearing White Rabbit who's always late, you can pretty much bet each and every one of them is up to something nefarious. In Gamaga's new mobile puzzle game Follow the Rabbit, this is most certainly the case. As the action begins you watch as a cuboid bunny hops down the path, a sack of coins leaking gold with every bounce. Being the helpful villager that you are, you take it upon yourself to follow the rabbit, collecting coins and solving some fiendish puzzles along the way.

Everything starts out innocently enough with some simple exercises to teach you how the game works. Tap and slide your finger on the screen to move, sliding upwards to jump and occasionally interacting with elements on the screen with some well-placed taps. You can hop through blocks with a quick jump, shove blocks that are in your way, and use balloons to get a bit of a lift, but enemies are to be avoided at all costs. Eventually you'll make it to the exit door, but later in the game, you'll have to guide multiple characters to different exits, all while collecting as many coins as you can in the process.

Follow the Rabbit is expertly paced, and with well over 100 levels to work through, there's plenty of space to increase the challenge in a gradual manner, never overwhelming you but always keeping you motivated to play just one more level. Oh, and then there are those happy-fun visuals, a perfect fit for the mobile market, right alongside games like Cut the Rope and Pigs Will Fly. Find the Rabbit is a prime example of what a mobile game should be, as it grabs you immediately and refuses to let go until you both find the rabbit and obtain a perfect score on every level.

Follow the Rabbit

(iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch)

How would you like a nice slice of pie? You name the flavor, you can have a slice. All you have to do is cut it for yourself in Aaron Neugebauer's Fat Slice 2, an action puzzler where you've got to make some slick slices to get your just desserts.

Just like in the prequel, your task is to click and drag your mouse through each shape to slice it down to a more digestible size. You can make your slice between any two open edges, and your slice is allowed to curve, so you have more freedom with your cuts than before. You can't slice through white borders (though they can be cut off with a bit of planning), and you need to avoid letting the bouncing white balls hit an active slice, or else your progress may be knocked back. Cutting the size of the field to the specified quota unlocks the next level, while doing so in fewer slices gives you more slices of deeeeelicious pie. Just be careful, because later levels hold devious twists like flickering white borders and neverending pies! Grab another cup of coffee and don your best fork, since this pie-fest only ends when you conquer Fat Slice 2.

Play Fat Slice 2

Who can resist helping cute little creatures rid themselves of the monsters in their midst? No one, that's who. Which is why you should play Monster Must Die, a cute little physics puzzle game developed by Alex Orlyanskiy, Lex Lyan, and Aleksey Gulev.

There are four types of critters for you to control, each a different color. Each has its own ability that is activated when the creature is clicked, such as floating upward or exploding. You must use the abilities to eliminate the monster that is on each screen, most often by bopping the monster on the head with one of your creatures, all while collecting fruit. Collecting the fruit isn't necessary to pass the level, but adds an extra challenge for those who are looking for it. There are a few hidden achievements that will win you additonal creature artwork, which is accessed through the main menu. Between the lovable artwork, groovy soundtrack, and 24 levels to play, Monster Must Die will provide you with a fun-filled physics based break.

Play Monster Must Die

The following is a selection of favorite games compiled and reviewed by JIG community member, Wally. It is also one of the winning entries from our previous call for submissions for community favorites, for which Wally will receive some gifts from us of his choosing. Thanks to everyone who shared their favorites with us! Look for more community favorites in the coming weeks.

• Ib - With shades of Yume Nikki, this creepy RPG Maker adventure shows just how effective minimalist gameplay can be. You play as a 9-year-old girl visiting a museum with her parents, when suddenly you find yourself alone in a strange alternate environment. The museum's art is a central part of the journey, which works perfectly given the game's experiential nature. The cold, retro visuals along with the eerie music combine for a more compelling experience than most mainstream horror titles. Ib taps into the nightmarish undercurrents of youth in such a way that it feels familiar, or at least it did for me. The lack of challenge doesn't really detract from the game, instead helping to sustain the atmosphere. With well-written characters and an unsettling tone that knows how to pace itself, Ib is a surreal adventure that places high on my list of odd.
• Hydorah - Ever felt like punching the screen after losing for the 40th time? I have, but in the case of Hydorah, the frustration was worth it. Made by retro-gaming specialist Locomalito after 3+ years in development, this ambitious horizontal shooter hearkens back to the days of arcade quarter-munchers (Gradius, in particular.) Just like in the arcade, there is only one difficulty setting. I thought the first level was challenging enough--but then the second level came around, and I had to forget any notion of a gradual difficulty curve. The game plays smoothly, however, and there are a few save points scattered about which evens out the madness somewhat. The startling amount of polish kept me coming back for more--few, if any, indie shooters reach the standards set by Hydorah. The graphics are a brilliant homage to the late 80's/early 90's arcade, and the soundtrack is easily one of the best ever found in an indie game. Why this is freeware in the first place, I'll never know.
• Botanicula - Not many games can get by with sparse gameplay and practically no written words, but Amanita Design has somehow accomplished that very feat with Botanicula. Charming, beautiful, fantastic are just a few of the words one might use to describe it. Playing as five minuscule forest creatures, you're tasked with finding a way to save your tree from a group of dark, spider-like invaders. As a point-and-click adventure, the mechanics are not very deep, but that's hardly a problem when you're immersed in the incredible ambience of the game world. In virtually every screen, there's something to look at or fiddle with or listen to. The later stages are darker, but nonetheless very intriguing. There's a lot of quirky ideas scattered about in Botanicula, and while most events don't follow logic, it still makes sense in a dreamlike kind of way. I think I'll go back and get lost in it a second time.

If you would like to share your own favorites with us and the JIG community, choose 3 or 4 of your favorite games that have been previously reviewed here and write a short paragraph for each describing why each is on your all-time favorites list. When you're done, send it to our You Are Games mailbox, the address for which can be found on our Contact page. If chosen, we'll contact you and reward you with some nice gifts of your choosing.

While we welcome any comments about this particular selection of games, we do ask that if you need any help with individual games, or wish to comment on the games featured here, please post your questions and comments on the respective game's review page.

Dibbles are nothing if not self-sacrificial, especially when their pharaoh is in mortal distress. They'll lay down their lives in all manner of deaths to convenience their highness' salvation out here in the excruciating desert heat. If you enjoyed the previous incarnations of The Podge's puzzle series, you'll be glad to know that Dibbles 3: Desert Despair continues the fun while ramping up the challenge.

The premise is simple—order the demise of plucky red dibbles via command blocks in order to get the king to the goal—yet obstacles such as spiky cacti and quicksand make success anything but straight-forward. Luckily, you can "reset" as often as needed or, if you reset often enough, you'll be given the option to "skip," saving that level for another time. There's 44 levels all told, each replete with high production values and a user-friendly interface because we do like our luxuries and extras to make gameplay go smoothly. A new command, melt, adds an atmospherically appropriate new twist to go along with bridging, booming and bungeeing action but Desert Despair is still basically more of the same, which is great for fans of classic arcade lemmings games. For those who are itching to problem solve and will wait patiently as their directives are carried out, Dibbles 3: Desert Despair delivers enjoyment at your command.

Play Dibbles 3: Desert Despair

The Four Color Theorem states that for any separation of a plane into contiguous regions, producing a figure called a map, a maximum of four colors are required to color the regions of the map so that no two adjacent regions have the same color. This fact might seem of non-trivial interest only to geometricians and cartographers, but, fortunately for us, developer OneFifth noticed another interesting property: it makes for quite a nice basis for a simple idea puzzler! That game is Flood Fill, and there's no doubt it deserves a place on your browser gaming map.

In each level, click the mouse to fill in areas of the map with one of four colors: blue, green, orange, and pink. Switch between colors by clicking them, or using [1234] or [ASDF] as keyboard shortcuts. Each level is finished when all areas are filled in, with no two adjacent (which is to say, meeting at a side, rather than a corner) regions sharing the same color. All levels are proven a 1976 brute force proof to be doable in four colors, but a gold star can be earned by using fewer. Flood Fill isn't particularly complex, but it's surprisingly engaging. It's a premise that could probably be sustained for longer than the 20 included levels. We could probably quibble about the aesthetic value of neon, but hey, the background music is catchy. So few games offer you the chance to make like Piet Mondrian in the comfort of your desktop, and Flood Fill will fill a coffee break quite nicely.

Play Flood Fill

When it comes to getting stuck in need-to-escape situations, Cogito Ergo Sum's Wan and Nyan can always be counted on to be at it again. Not only that, they do it with so much effusive good cheer and winning personality that it never gets old. No one can fault them for their constant entrapment, either—the absence of opposable thumbs does put one at a disadvantage door-opening wise, especially when doors are insistent on being locked while dogs and cats are prone to forgetting their special skills. Which is why, in Balcony Escape 2, your assistance is needed anew.

You begin on the balcony, helping Nyan solve a few puzzles in order to phone Wan. From there, you'll switch into the house to guide Wan through even more code-breaking fun. Explore each area by using the arrow buttons to turn; click on (or double-click if it's in your inventory) any object you'd like to examine. In some cases, a clue or puzzle is only available after performing certain other steps, so don't give up too soon on something you thought was unattainable. There's no changing cursor to indicate hotspots but the design is simple enough to eschew pixel-hunting. The puzzles are usually easy to figure out, with some clues verging into spoiler territory, yet there's enough variety and discovery to remain interesting while providing a full serving of gameplay.

The scenario in Balcony Escape 2 is typical of what you'd find in the charming pair's other escapades, yet it stands out on its own in two regards. First, although still far from overly difficult, it contains a puzzle that's trickier than most. Cogito Ergo Sum knows it, too, since an additional hint is provided if you choose "Yes" when prompted. Even so, that extra clue won't simply be handed to you then and there; you'll have to do some extra work to get at it. The second notable feature can only be described as Detarou-esque—it seems a little out of place here and will leave you pondering the allusion but it's amusing all the same. As always, the pleasure of escaping with Wan and Nyan is as much about their interactions as solving affable-yet-clever puzzles. Which is another thing Wan and Nyan can always be counted on: leaving you with a smile on your face.

Play Balcony Escape 2

Pirates love water, villagers not so much... it tends to drown them. Luckily, you're there to bring some well needed balance to the situation in this charming new puzzle game, Flooded Village, by Yoeri Staal with art by Pixelchunk, that comes just in time to fill all your pirate-themed puzzle needs for the day.

To advance through each stage, you'll have to channel water past plants and through pirates, without drowning the poor village bystanders. This is easy enough early on, when all you need to do is click on sand blocks to destroy them and let water pass through. Later, when villagers appear in the game, you can click and hold to create sand blocks and protect villagers. Farther along, you'll get more fancy gear like pipes to play around with, and mother nature will makes things hard for you by freezing your pretty water channels unless you direct them just right to beat the frost.

Flooded Village manages to be a relaxing, yet complex game. You get points at the end of each stage based on how fast you were able to finish it, which is great for speed freaks who need a little extra thrill, but most players will be satisfied with just figuring out the most interesting channel layouts to make their little flooded kingdom thrive. With 30 levels to play around with, there are plenty of opportunities to play village engineer for an afternoon.

Play Flooded Village

Who are those small round creatures there? Bristlies are their name! Bouncing themselves to who knows where, physics is their game! Max Postnikov's cute furballs are back for another round of rope-cutting, cannon-shooting, force-field activating, glass-breaking, color-coded container puzzle fun in Bristlies Players Pack.

Gameplay is nearly identical to the original: by manipulating the environment with the mouse, guide each Bristlie to the crate of the proper color. After a few levels to reintroduce the concept, Bristlies Players Pack becomes quite the standard expansion-pack; which is to say, harder levels and more of them, 27 in all. Players will need quick clicking and proper timing to use all the tricks the engine will allow. Indeed, a few levels will appear nearly impossible before the "a-ha!" moment finally strikes. New players may want to start with Bristlies Classic, but those familiar with Cut The Rope-styled gameplay will be happy to play this varied and polished collection starring everyone's favorite Koosh Ball-like thingies... of the oollll' west.

Play Bristlies Players Pack

Silent sword-slingers, stoic space marines, and catsuit-clad spies already get a whole lot of attention in the gaming world, so in this week's Vault we're going to take a peek at some of the more... unusual protagonists to be found in our favourite games. From a blue pachyderm whose only goal is to cavort endlessly for your own sense of digital accomplishment to a dour hermit who can quite literally give himself a leg up on any obstacle, there are a whole lot of gaming stars out there you probably aren't going to cross paths with on the street anytime soon.

• Achievement Unlocked - Being forced to caper, leap, throw yourself on beds of spikes and perform other stunts all for a reward you'll never be able to touch might sound a bit crazy, but jmtb02 knows that for a lot of gamers achievements are next to godliness. Your task is to try to figure out how to unlock the game's whopping 100 achievements by controlling a little blue elephant and trying everything you can think of, from sitting idle to dying as many deaths as possible and much more. It might sound a bit mindless and silly, but in its way Achievement Unlocked is almost more of a puzzle than anything else, and wrapped up in jmtb02's signature glorious style for one addictive package. If you haven't already found out why players love it and its other installments, get ready to kiss your productivity goodbye for digital gratification.
• Little Wheel - You don't have to be big or challenging to make an impact, and One Click Dogs' point-and-click adventure is ample proof. As the sole functioning robot in a silent mechanical metropolis, our hero Little Wheel has his work cut out for him when he finds himself reactivated after a chance lighting strike and sets out to revive his civilization. While extremely short, and definitely easy owing to a hand-holding gameplay style, Little Wheel still succeeds and makes an enormous impact because of how thoroughly engrossing it is. Its sense of style and artful storytelling is superb, and the perfect sized "make you smile" adventure to set your day on the right track.
• The Company of Myself - Some people are party animals and social butterflies, while others prefer to hang out one on one or with a good book. Still, when most of us say we like our alone time, we don't hold a candle to the star of Eli Piilonen's puzzle-platformer. He says he doesn't need anyone, and maybe it's true, since he can create phantasmal copies of himself to help him get back obstacles. More than just a simple brain teaser, however, The Company of Myself manages to tell a thoughtful, creative story that may not be particularly cheerful, but is certainly impacting. It's the sort of thing that can make you a little introspective, and if you want to know even more, you can continue the story in its companion piece/prequel Fixation.

While we welcome any comments about this weekly feature here, we do ask that if you need any help with the individual games, please post your questions on that game's review page. Well, what are you waiting for? Get out there and rediscover some awesome!

Hanger, the browser release from A Small Game that's all about swinging ropes and broken body parts, has made its way to iPhone, and it's just as outrageously arcadey as ever. If you've played Hanger 2 or Hanger 2: Endless Level Pack, you'll know exactly what to expect in this wild romp through twisty terrain, as the mobile version takes the best from those releases, remixes it a little bit, and tosses you loose to see what you can do. Expect to see a lot of severed legs and game over screens before you get a decent score in this game!

Hanger's premise revolves around swinging on a rope to see how far you can travel through different caves or how efficiently you can make it to the exit. Using the arrows on the left to control your swing, get some momentum going, then tap the button the right to clear your rope, cutting you loose for a few moments. When you're ready, tap the button again to attach a new rope, timing it just right so your swing continues and you don't graze the ceiling or floor. If you smack into a solid object too hard, you're liable to lose a limb or two. You can swing as long as you've got an arm, torso and a head, which is quite a feat if you think about it, but in general it's always better to keep your body intact. Good advice for real life, too!

The iPhone version of Hanger is a true mixture of the browser releases, including endless levels and the traditional goal-based stages. The layouts often vary, though, and other new elements have been added as well, such as achievements and high scores via Game Center. It's an inexpensive and often wildly surreal game that will give you hours upon hours of enjoyment. And remember: if you don't play Hanger, it probably means you're one of those people who hates bubble baths and thinks ice cream should only be eaten on special occasions...

Hanger

(iPhone, iPod Touch)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on an iPad. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.

Life after the end of the world may be harsh, gray, and frequently involve eating unidentifiable meat or expired canned goods (mmm-mmm!), but at least you have a reason to smile because the next installment in Pastel Games' gloomy-but-great point-and-click adventure series has arrived. In The Fog Fall 4, your relief at seeing another person is shortlived when a blow to the back of the head knocks you unconscious before helping themselves to your gear. Turns out post-apocalyptia is as unfriendly as ever, and if you want to find your equipment and continue your journey you'll have to uncover some secrets and appease the locals. Click around to navigate and interact with things, dragging objects from your inventory to the play area to use them, or on top of one another to try to combine them.

Play the entire Fog Fall series:

Like its predecessors, the fourth installment in this eerie series serves up some of the best atmosphere around, believably painting an end-of-the-world scenario where everyone is out for themselves and rules don't apply any longer. Navigation can be a bit tricky since area transitions aren't always clearly indicated so that you can end up lost or going in circles. Fans of the series will know to scour every inch of areas for changing cursors to indicate an interactive zone, but it still feels somewhat clunky and a little disorienting... which, you could potentially argue, fits the mood and setting. Items you can grab onscreen or otherwise interact with are a lot more obvious this time around, and as a result, you won't need to strain your eyes or click around like a maniac. It feels like it fleshes out the setting quite a bit more thanks to the arrival of new author Daniel Gizicki, and The Fog Fall 4 is yet another engrossing and tricky adventure into the eerie world you love to visit, even if you wouldn't want to live in it.

Play The Fog Fall 4

Thanks to Cyberjar88 for sending this one in!

The year is 1937. It's a dark time in the city. Fade Haven has fallen prey to a rat burglar who is robbing the town of its precious diamonds. Is there anyone who can help? Time to call in Detective Pete! But of course, he needs your help. Team up with the super sleuth in Fade: Case of the Stolen Diamonds, a unique puzzle game for iPad by Treetop Games. Can you recover all the diamonds and bring the thief to justice?

On each level, Pete the mouse continuously walks in one direction, turning (or dying) when he hits an obstacle. It is up to you to get him safely to the exit while recovering diamonds the thief has dropped. On each level, anything that is bright white can be faded to gray by touching the screen. When an object is faded, it's just as if it's not there. Pete can walk right through brick walls and bullets and spikes become harmless. When you collect enough diamonds, bonus levels are unlocked, and if you pass all of them you gain access to different game modes.

New mechanics are seamlessly introduced as you progress, and the fade mechanism alone allows for all sorts of interesting puzzles. If you stop fading when Pete is still in a wall, he will be stuck until you fade again. This is great for adjusting your timing to avoid bullets, for example. Or fade the bricks underneath Pete, and he can walk under obstacles. In later levels you get a bunny buddy who you can send to push buttons for you, or drop him into a pit and walk on his head to get across!

Fade is one of those games that takes a simple concept and develops it into an increasingly complex experience. And it does it very well. Many levels take a steady hand and precise timing, and it can be frustrating to know in your head how to solve a puzzle but not be able to translate it to the screen. Thankfully, levels can be skipped and returned to later. The noir style art and music add a depth by giving the game a setting, if not a deep storyline. With it's innovative gameplay and clever puzzles, Fade: Case of the Stolen Diamonds blows a breath of fresh air into the puzzle genre. What are you waiting for? You've got a burglar to catch!

Fade: Case of the Stolen Diamonds Lite

(iPad)

Fade: Case of the Stolen Diamonds

(iPad)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on an iPad 2. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.

Your frontier lass is being kidnapped! Get your revolver and head out the door! Gunman Clive is a sidescrolling action/shooting game by Bertil Hörberg, starring you versus a bunch of bad guys. Utilizing some fantastic 3D visuals in a two dimensional world, you will have the pleasure of shooting your way through the strangest old west town you've ever seen, complete with moving platforms and loads of enemies. Oh, and watch out for ducks, those things can be deadly!

The on-screen controls allow Clive to move left and right, but you'll also need to duck under bullets and climb ladders, not to mention basic jumping and shooting actions. Enemies are usually marked by their blue color, though expect to see a few surprises as you work your way through the town and beyond. The bad guys play it smart and like to duck behind crates, take refuge on high platforms, and just generally make your day a difficult one. Fortunately, you get to eat cake (which replenishes your health) and collect pistol power-ups to diversify your shots, allowing you to reach enemies without putting yourself in harm's way.

Gunman Clive is a very simple sort of game, and it sticks to its arcade roots unapologetically. The unique sketch-like visuals that scroll across the screen really turn the experience into something cinematic, and the action is surprisingly intense, especially for a game controlled with virtual buttons. It's a short but wild action game that's a smart purchase no matter which mobile device you own!

Gunman Clive

(iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch)

Gunman Clive

(Android)

Gunman Clive

(Kindle Fire/Android)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on an HTC Incredible. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.

Hackers and thieves dominate the mobile news this week, but if you think it's all doom and gloom, perhaps a rumor about some mistreated pigs getting their revenge will brighten your spirits?

An Angry Birds spin-off? - According to the mobile news site Pocket Lint, Rovio is planning on releasing a new game later this year that turns the Angry Birds franchise inside-out. This time around you get to play as the pigs, protecting the eggs they've taken from the still-upset fowl. The news could just be a rumor at this point, as Rovio doesn't seem to have confirmed or denied it, but continuing the franchise that made the studio so successful would be a natural choice. In the meantime, there's still Angry Birds Space and Amazing Alex to enjoy!

iOS thievery continues - A little game called Armed Heroes was recently set free on the Canadian iTunes App Store, and Travis Baldree of Runic Games immediately noticed something looked a bit familiar. Mostly that every one of the game's assets was lifted from Torchlight, the studio's independently created RPG. That's not a cool thing to do, obviously, and Runic has contacted Apple and requested a takedown. Only the game's visuals were lifted, not any of the underlying code or game mechanics, but it's still a blatant misuse of intellectual property, and hopefully Apple will handle the situation before too much damage is done. Read more about how cloned mobile games hurt indie developers.

Hacker hacks iOS IAPs - Do you get annoyed with all those in-app purchases? Well, one hacker finally got fed up and decided to do something about it! In brief, the IAP hack tricks apps into thinking they're communicating with Apple's servers, but in reality, it's transmitting the data elsewhere, handing over the keys to your iTunes account in the process. So, even if your ethics allowed some wiggle room, seeking out this little hack is a very bad idea. Best to stick with the old fashioned (and non-thieving!) methods!

Got some delicious info on an upcoming mobile release, current event, or other tasty news tidbit? We want to know! Send an e-mail with "Mobile Monday" in the subject line to johnb AT casualgameplay DOT com. We'll sift through the submissions and feature our favorites on a Mobile Monday article! Keen!

Back in 2005, Takumi Naramura released a retro-styled exploration game called La-Mulana. Starring an archaeologist professor named Lemeza, it introduced modern players to an aesthetic not seen since the days of the MSX home computer, bringing with it all the convoluted puzzles, items, and high level of difficulty retro gamers love. Fast forward to 2012 for the worldwide release of a graphically enhanced update to La-Mulana that carefully reworks the look and feel of the old game to spruce it up for a new audience. Nigoro has done a fantastic job with the new La-Mulana, and the translation to the slightly-less-retro modern version is almost flawless!

As with all platform games, Professor Lemeza has a small set of standard moves useful for getting around La-Mulana's world. You'll mainly be concerned with simple walking and jumping actions, not to mention Lemeza's trusty (but short) whip. Soon, you learn how to use computer programs for your laptop, a device that allows you to load helpful apps a few at a time. Watch your memory, though, as you can't have everything equipped at all times. You also gain access to items like the hand scanner, new weapons, weights for holding down pedestals, and other, more creative objects later in the game. Finding and gathering items is just one of your many pleasures in this lengthy and challenging game. But first, you have to find them!

La-Mulana is a special breed of exploration platformer (a.k.a. metroidvania) that deals in heavy-handed puzzles and unusual item conventions that most players take for granted. For example, in La-Mulana, you have to buy a special item before you can read signs. You are also denied health restoration drops, save points are far away from each other, enemies respawn as soon as you leave the current screen, and your weapons are very limited. You have to keep your wits about you and look before you leap, both figuratively and literally. There's no room for error in this dangerous world.

Analysis: We mentioned the release of the original La-Mulana game back on an early Weekend Download feature, and to be honest, we're still very much in love with the game. This updated version is a textbook example of how a "remake" should be handled. The core game isn't changed (apart from one or two minor alterations), and the presentation is bumped up only marginally, the equivalent of taking an Atari game and sprucing up the sound and visuals for a SNES release. The translation is off in some areas, but you probably won't notice unless you're the kind of person that looks for those things.

In some ways, La-Mulana feels like it throws too many elements into one bag and leaves you to sort out the mess. There's the platforming element, the crazy puzzles, the trial-by-death method for solving riddles, the multi-step process for locating, reading, decoding and understand glyphs on the wall... Then there's shops, equippable items, the computer and its inventory of programs, and NPCs to talk to. It's almost like a platform adventure game trying to be something of an RPG, but it stops well short of adopting too many peripheral gimmicks. Yes, La-Mulana is a lot to digest at first, but once you figure out what's going on in the game, you wouldn't want to give any of it back, especially not after you see how challenging these ruins can be.

That brings us to another major point: La-Mulana's difficulty. This isn't a game for the faint at heart, but the danger of death doesn't come from tricky jumps or cheap kills. Instead, the challenge is rooted squarely in the game's stark simplicity and its refusal to spell everything out for you. Why send a warning message that pulling a lever might drop the conspicuously looming statue from overhead when it can just deal the damage and turn you into a more observant, cautious player? In effect, La-Mulana trains you to be a different sort of gamer, a much less cavalier and invincible warrior, but a much smarter explorer.

La-Mulana takes a bit of time to grow accustomed to, but once you do, it's one of the best exploration games around. Featuring over 20 hours of play time, this game has the ability to completely overtake your week, immersing you in a world of traps and treasures, hissing snakes and perfectly timed whip lashes.

Note: The 2012 update of La-Mulana is available through Playism, a Japanese download service that recently launched in English, and Good Old Games. The classic version of La-Mulana, without the remade visuals and music, is still available from AGTP. Simply download both the game and the patch and follow the installation instructions.

Windows:
Get the full version (via Good Old Games) Get the free classic version (via AGTP)

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

Greetings, NEW EMPLOYEE! Welcome to Uplink Corporation, the world's foremost "Computer Security Professional"-For-Hire service. Now, in this, the technologically-integrated futuristic world of 2010, there are all manner of data retrieval and investigative missions that need accomplishing, and we are certain the gateway hardware we sold you is up to the task. Of course, someone might find that system useful in wreaking all manner of havoc. But we at Uplink have full faith in both the morality of our employees, and our legal team's proven success at disavowing any knowledge of those who get caught. Oh. And one last word of warning: Watch out for Andromeda Research. We can't prove anything, but hackers who cross them tend to end up disconnected. Permanently. Good luck!

A cinematic simulation of hacking that owes more to Wargames and Sneakers than Kevin Mitnick and Adrian Lamo, Uplink: Hacker Elite is a quality and influential bit of cyberpunk intrigue. Originally released by Introversion Software in 2001, and streamlined into the Hacker Elite version for the US market, the latter is now available for purchase from the lovely indie and retro game outlet GOG, and it's a worthy addition to any gamers library.

The interface of Uplink is uniquely stylized one. Largely textual and utilitarian, it's reminiscent of a cross between the Jurassic Park computer system and a 1980s BBS. Expect a whole lot of shiny progress bars, random phone animations and password hackers that will lock in one letter at a time. Along the top you will find the in-game date and time controls (generally, the game takes place in real time unless sped up by you), a series of bars that will let you allocate CPU to various programs you run, and a world map that shows the bouncing route your connections take. Along the bottom are buttons that will display your software, hardware, memory, and financial details, and on the lower left there are the e-mails you receive. Generally, gameplay will consist of dialing the Uplink Internal Server to accept missions, hack into the proper server, bypassing the security, accomplishing the designated task, deleting all evidence that you've ever been there, then disconnecting to collect your reward. Of course, the computers of the world are protected, and if you take too long or fail to cover your tracks well enough, the FBI or worse may soon be knocking at your door. Money can be spent on upgrades and new programs which will allow you to hack higher levels of security. As time goes on, a dangerous conspiracy is slowly revealed, and you'll have to decide whether the color of your hat is white, black, or somewhere in between.

Analysis: As mentioned above, Uplink has had massive influence on the hacking sim sub-genre. Classics of casual gaming like Exploit, SlaveHack and Digital: A Love Story owe Uplink a great debt, as does, for that matter, any game which sets the player in front of a fictional interface to crack. Make no mistake: the sandbox-world of Uplink is vast, and might be quite imposing to those who find non-fictional computing enough of a hassle. However, Uplink should appeal greatly to that certain kind of techie mind that loves exploring and playing with unfamiliar systems to unlock their secrets. Certainly Uplink has a lot of in-game documentation prepared for players who find themselves lost, but the game will be most enjoyed by those who don't mind diving in before learning how to swim. Quick thinking is a requirement, as is some patience: the story is a measured tale of technological intrigue with little action not taking place on a computer screen. But its complexities grow to match those of the mechanics, making for a singular gaming experience.

Conceptually, Uplink is nearly perfect. The question, then, becomes how well the implementation has fared since 2001. The premise intentionally defies any attempts at graphic superiority, making for a timeless kind of HUD. Menu navigating feels a little kludgey, particularly when you have a number of windows on the screen that you must left-click to move, and right-click to place, when every instinct in you is expecting to be able to drag-and-drop. Also, while Uplink is a single-player game that only uses a network connection to use in-game ICQ, it's not hard to see how the stylized realism confused by someone peeking over your shoulder (and if you think that's paranoid, just ask Steve Jackson.)

A few other things worth mentioning: Uplink: Hacker Elite only allows one save file per character, and it will be deleted should your game end. In practice, you are usually given ample opportunity to cover your tracks so that will never happens, and it adds to the supposed realism, but it still feels like gimmicky. (Of course, as fans have noted, there's nothing to prevent you from backing up your save file yourself, which seems apropos in a meta kind of way.) Finally, why don't there seem to be any females in this game? There were girls on the internet, even in 2001, right? Where's Acid Burn? She once hacked the freakin' Gibson!

Overall, Uplink is a true classic, and the package offered by GOG is an excellent deal. Sure, you won't be getting the original obsolete-even-at-the-time copy-protection code-wheel or the piece of paper that could only be found by cracking open the back of the jewel case, but the downloadable Bonus CD is packed with extras (some only TRUE hackers will figure how to unlock), and the awesome soundtrack is probably worth the price of purchase by itself. Highly recommended, especially for those who like their games immersive.

From now until July 19, get several great indie games for 50% off at GOG.com, including Uplink and Gemini Rue! See the full sale list.

Windows:
Get the full version
Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

Uplink

(iPad)

The darling little arcade flying game for iOS, Tiny Wings, has just gone through a metamorphosis, turning itself into twice the game it used to be and spawning a native iPad version in the process! Tiny Wings 2.0 is sort of a sequel to the original, but creator Andreas Illiger decided to release it as a free update instead of a standalone app, allowing owners of Tiny Wings to grab it for free. And like mama always said, free is better than fooling around with in-app purchases.

The basics of Tiny Wings are easy to grasp. Our feathered pal wants to fly as far and high as possible, but with such a big tummy and such small wings, all the flapping in the world isn't going to get him very far. That's where the gently rolling hills come into play. Sliding along the landscape, the bird can launch into the air using the conveniently-sculpted ramps. While in the sky, tap and hold the screen to quickly descend, timing your fall to hit a downward sloping section with extra momentum. That speed translates into a higher and longer flight the next time you launch, so the more jumps you nail, the better off you'll be.

Using the same basic gameplay setup, Flight School is the main draw for Tiny Wings 2.0. Instead of flapping solo, you'll compete with three of your siblings to see who can reach your mama at the end of the island. The fastest bird gets the fattest fish! You'll also run across the new rubber flowers, watering holes, and 15 hand-designed levels. On the more technical side of things, Tiny Wings 2.0 now supports Retina Displays and iCloud synchronization. And don't forget the separate iPad-native Tiny Wings HD app, which happens to include single-device multiplayer where you can compete for a high score with a friend!

Tiny Wings 2.0 is a great update to an already great game. The basic setup is similar to games like Wavespark and Dillo Hills, but the oh-so cute visuals will easily win you over. Best of all, if you already own the original game, all you have to do is update it in the app store to experience all the new content!

Tiny Wings 2.0

(iPhone, iPod Touch)

Tiny Wings HD

(iPad)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on an iPad. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.

When one wakes up in a featureless white room, apparently at the whims of a malevolent steam-punk artificial intelligence, the first instinct is to escape. But... why? What's your argument? Can you justify your actions? Such is the question posed by ir/rational Redux, a puzzle adventure game by Tom Jubert, of Penumbra story-telling fame. Propositional logic has never felt so intense!

Though it has the apparent trappings of a graphical adventure game, the real meat of ir/rational Redux is in its unique language-based argument system. Click to progress the story, until you come to a bit of propositional calculus you must pass. Don't worry, it's easier than it sounds! Choose the correct statement from the drop-down menus to fill in the missing lines and complete the argument logically. (It has been noted that some systems may not display all options automatically, so you may need to scroll these lists with the [arrow] keys.) If you need assistance, you can ask your brain for a hint by clicking in the upper-right corner. No doubt the central premise of ir/rational Redux could have come off as incredibly dry, but overall this is a supremely engaging work. A unique brand of dark philosophical humor is present throughout, and the puzzles manage the right balance of posing a challenge to advanced logicians, while remaining welcoming to the novice. One nitpick: The somewhat-crude mid-game tangent about Australian gaming politics feels out of place, more suited to one of Yahtzee's rants rather than an ontological mystery. That said, while playing ir/rational Redux, you truly get the feeling that you're playing a game that's something different and something special. It may not be for everyone, but it's hard to argue against giving it a try.

Play ir/rational Redux

What happened, Marina? Where is everyone? Is this the facility's drainage tunnel you're in? Why won't the lights come on? If it's a primary power failure, they're going to enact Protocol 13. If you don't make it to the shelter before that happens... well, it's best not to think about that. Or those sounds of wet slithering you hear emanating down the pipe... The Wages of Darkness is a horror adventure game developed by Baron for April's Month of AGS Competition. It was given the top prize (presumably because the judges were too scared not to), and has since been streamlined and polished into this wider release.

The theme of the competition was "Distorted Senses", and The Wages of Darkness certainly has those. Controls will be familiar to most adventure gamers, but since much of the game takes place in utter darkness, you will rely heavily on the dynamic label that shows you what each surface feels like as you mouse over it. Right-click with the mouse to examine items, and left click to interact with them or add them to your inventory. Once there, they can be clicked to be used on something in the main game window, or combined with other inventory items. Right clicking will deselect an item. Players should appreciate that Wages of Darkness has several difficulty modes: Easy (where it is impossible to die), Difficult (where taking too long at critical points will lead to your death), and Intense (where the time limits are even more stringent, if you're in to that kind of thing).

Tactile sense is difficult to convey in a video game setting, but The Wages of Darkness makes a decent stab at it, and it makes for some surprisingly effective horror. The atmosphere builds as you grope around in the darkness, looking for something, anything that will help you fend off those gurgling creatures you hear clawing their way after you. Horror is often at its best when the monstrosities are left unseen. Of course, the sort of blind object-finding the game relies on probably couldn't sustain a much longer game: even if the frustrating dread of being unable to find an object as the wet gnashing of teeth get ever closer is one of the most nerve-wracking kinds of Adventure Game situation, we can probably all agree that pixel-hunting gets old fast. However, Wages of Darkness takes only about ten minutes, which is just the right length for this stomach-punch of horror (even if it's ending is undercut by some questionable voice-acting). If its goal was to make players uneasy about turning the lights off, well then, mission accomplished.

Windows:
Download the free full version

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

When almost everyone is a superhero, it can be hard to get a chance to shine, even if you're packing some powers yourself. As a nobody struggling to make ends meet in Millennia City, you've always dreamed of flying with the Legends, but you've never really been given the opportunity to make a name for yourself... until now. In Heroes Rise: The Prodigy, a new text-based RPG from Choice of Games and writer Zachary Sergi, control the actions and fate of an up-and-coming superhero... yourself! Claw your way to the top by harnessing your abilities and making a name for yourself, become embroiled in bitter rivalries with other heroes and villains, find romance, mentor a side-kick, and a whole lot more.

As you play, the game presents you with multiple choices for everything from combat scenarios to social interactions... just pick the one that best suits the character you're trying to play. The decisions you make alter not only the course of the narrative and how people perceive you, but your stats as well, which can be viewed at any time by hitting the "show stats" button above the text. Once you make a choice, there's no going back since you can only choose to restart the entire game rather than skip back to an earlier chapter, so give a little thought to each situation before you take the plunge. If you run out of either Health or Power, you'll die, and you might want to keep an eye on your funds as well as your friends... and enemies.

Analysis: If you love high camp plot twists, corny superhero names, and have always wished it were socially acceptable to run around the city at night in spandex that leaves little to the imagination, then Heroes Rise: The Prodigy will be right up your alley. Complete with Aunt May style maternal figurehead, it delivers a lengthy and surprisingly action-packed tale with memorable characters, dramatic moments, and some very cool scenes to play your part in. Some of the scenes can be a little eye-rollingly corny, which is kind of par for the course in, y'know, comics, but the game still manages to tell a very cool story in a unique universe. There are even a few unexpected plot twists you'll have to contend with where you might have to make some choices that sting a little if you want to uphold your personal values.

The downside is that the choices you're given often feel extremely limited, which is kind of ironic when you consider the outfit publishing the game. You're often only given two or three options for a situation, and sometimes not enough information to ever really feel like you're making an informed decision, which is great news for those of you wishing to role play as Cross Your Fingers and Hope For the Best Man. Which, by the way, The Prodigy has a very "on rails" feel to it that might feel too constrictive for some players, but also allows it to tell a more focused, interesting story that a narrative that needed to account for more variables might not have been able to deliver.

For all these minor quibbles, however, Heroes Rise: The Prodigy is still really impressive. It's a long, hefty heroe's arc with a ton of replayability that is heavy on storytelling and flashy drama. There's even some fairly big hinting for an inevitable sequel down the line where you can hopefully continue to claw your way to the top of the Powered Pack. Action-packed, engrossing, and just plain fun, The Prodigy is a great piece of choose-your-own-adventure style gaming that is well worth making a date with.

Play Heroes Rise: The Prodigy (free browser demo)

Heroes Rise: The Prodigy

(Android)

Heroes Rise: The Prodigy

(Kindle/Kindle Touch)

Created in 72 hours for a recent game jam, Disillusion by True Valhalla is a short, somewhat abstract platform adventure that focuses heavily on atmosphere and exploration. You begin with a sword and a vague goal in the back of your mind: go to the end of the world and find the Holy Artifact. If you don't, your people won't survive. Sounds like motivation to us! You quickly head out into the hazy world, ready to tread down branching non-linear paths, defeat enemies both small and gargantuan, and pull off some tricky jumps with the greatest of ease.

Disillusion borrows a lot from the metroidvania genre, though don't expect fancy upgrades that let you bend the laws of physics or anything. The gameplay is squarely focused on allowing you to roam freely. There are usually multiple paths you can follow, each with its own set of dangers and rewards. It's a short adventure, but a very high quality one for a game created in such a short amount of time. The jumping mechanics might be a little too "floaty" for some players, but once you get the rhythm down, you'll settle in for a fine lunch break-sized game.

Windows:
Get the free full version

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

Grim Tales: The Wishes is the third in the series of Grim Tales hidden object adventure releases from Elephant Games. Featuring an absolutely chilling storyline, Grim Tales 3 plays like an epic tale filled with puzzles that are sprawled out across the detailed landscape. Items and points of interest are practically in every corner, and while you search for the pieces you need to continue through the game, a surprisingly terrifying plot is unfolding right before your eyes.

Brandon is having a rough time, what with the demons and witches and all. His mother notices he's been acting strangely lately, mumbling something about paying for his sins, setting wrongs right, and, oh, there's the whole looking like a pale-faced centuries old corpse thing, too. That's when you witness the chilling scene where a shadow creature erupts from the closet and takes Brandon away. You rush to inform Brandon's mother, your sister Luisa, but she's vanished, too. Now that your blood is flowing, get ready for an intense storytelling ride.

Grim Tales: The Wishes shares some basic design points, story elements, and characters with both Grim Tales: The Legacy and Grim Tales: The Bride, and the similarities are all very welcomed. The game is structured like a casual adventure with a dozen or more rooms to explore at a time, each littered with puzzles, mini-games, and a hidden object scene or two. To gain access to certain areas or solve certain riddles, you'll need to pick up items and carry them around in your inventory, often hunting for most of a chapter before you get to solve a puzzle you saw early on. It's a bit overwhelming at first to see all of these unsolved mysteries and have no clue how to complete them, but the plot of Grim Tales grabs you from the start, so while you're feeling a bit lost, you'll also feel a bit intrigued as well.

Analysis: Grim Tales: The Wishes is the perfect way to do a sequel. Elephant Games kept only the most desirable elements from the previous games while bumping up the immersion and puzzle challenge, two things you rarely see done so well in the casual hidden object genre. If you have a high definition monitor, you'll also get treated to some fantastic visual effects along with a few surreal animations. When you first lay eyes on the living puppet, you'll know exactly what we mean!

One thing Grim Tales: The Wishes mercifully offers: three levels of difficulty. As with many hidden object games, you're often presented a choice between casual and expert modes, adjusting the hint timer, cursor changes, and those telltale "sparklies". With Grim Tales, you get three modes, the easiest of which offers loads of hints and suggestions, while the hardest takes away the hint feature altogether, doesn't allow you to skip mini-games, and gives you absolutely no clues during play. You may not think much of this at first, but when you see that Grim Tales is a difficult game even on casual mode, you'll realize this game actually has the ability to challenge you!

Its name may not carry the weight of bigger franchises like Drawn or Mystery Case Files, but Grim Tales: Three Wishes deserves a spot on the top shelf. You know, if your computer had shelves and if the location of those virtual shelves had any meaning. It's an outstanding casual adventure experience with balanced gameplay, excellent visuals, and a story that just keeps twisting and turning as you play.

A Collector's Edition is also available. It contains a bonus chapter, art gallery, strategy guide, and more. Remember that Big Fish Game Club Members pay only $13.99 for Collector's Editions (or 2 club credits), and collector's editions count 3 card punches of 6 total needed for a free game.

Windows:
Download the demo Get the full version Also available: Collector's Edition

Mac OS X:
Download the demo Get the full version Collector's Edition

The developers we feature here don't tend to ask a lot from us in return for the content they put out. They're like magical internet elves, cobbling games rather than shoes while we sleep. Black Box, the latest puzzle from On of Eyezmaze, is the first title from the much loved developer that will cost you a little something if you want to play it all the way through. Donate a dollar or more by clicking on the appropriate button within the game, and you'll be given a password that unlocks the whole thing, since only the first half is available to play for free. Please do not post the password in the comments. After all, wouldn't you consider a dollar a more than fair payment for someone who has given you over eight years of entertainment for free? If you don't want to donate, you can still play through the first chunk, but trust us when we say you'll definitely want to know where this one is going... it's just that odd.

The actual game is what you've come to expect from Eyezmaze... a surreal little gem full of strangeness, wonder, and an almost unhealthy level of cuteness. Just click to interact, and try to figure out what to click on and when in order to advance through the game. Some objects can be dragged around the screen as well. Like all of the developer's games, Black Box is more than a little weird, and will success will depend on experimentation rather than logic unless you hail from some bizarre robot dimension. The game itself is actually a bit longer than most other titles from On, and unfolds like some crazy Rubik's Cube crossed with a Rube Goldberg device. If you want to help fund the next series of Grow games, or just give a little thank you to someone who has made you smile for free so many times, then you surely won't mind the small entrance fee to yet another beautiful, silly, and imaginative puzzle from our friend Eyezmaze.

Play Black Box

Thanks to Cynthia for sending this one in.

Strap on your physics shoes (moon boots?), it's time for some quirky Rube Goldberg-like contraptions! Amazing Alex is the latest offering from Rovio, the well-known creator of the Angry Birds series. This new offering is a physics-based puzzle building game not unlike Crazy Machines or The Incredible Machine, though everything has been greatly scaled down to make it more fitting for a casual audience.

It's playtime for Alex, which loosely translates into "contraption building time"! This kid's got a grand imagination, and his room's absolutely packed with gadgets, gizmos and toys. Maybe this is where the world's hidden object games get their items from? By dragging and dropping pieces from your inventory, you can help solve each level's puzzle, with goals ranging from moving bouncing balls to a target to popping balloons with scissors, funnelling things through pipes, and using retractable boxing gloves to cause more widespread kinds of destruction.

Seasoned mobile gamers may have noticed that Amazing Alex bears some resemblance to Casey's Contraptions, a game released earlier in the iTunes App Store's life cycle. The resemblance isn't accidental, as Rovio purchased the rights to the game and reskinned it to create Alex's world. While Amazing Alex might not be a new game, per se, it's still packed with things to do, featuring over 100 levels, starting off with a lengthy tutorial and slowly increasing the complexity and difficulty of puzzles. Even better, you can unlock a level editor to create your own stages to share with friends or to use to taunt your enemies.

Physics games like this have been done before, and they've been done better and more creatively. But with the power of Rovio behind it, Amazing Alex is going to get a big push into the mobile gaming scene. And thanks to its ease of use and somewhat hand-holdey gameplay, it's easily accessible by even the most casual of gamers, young and old alike.

Amazing Alex

(iPhone, iPod Touch)

Amazing Alex HD

(iPad)

Amazing Alex Free

(Android)

Amazing Alex

(Android)

Amazing Alex

(NOOK Color/NOOK Tablet)

Amazing Alex

(Kindle Fire)

NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on an iPad. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.

"Get your motor running, head out on the highway, lookin' for adventure, and whatever comes our way..." Visions of scenery flying past in a smooth ribbon, wind whipping through the hair, the gentle purr and throb of the engine, motorcycles have long been associated with a sort of wild freedom and adventure, so it's rather poetic that they have become the central theme to Bianco-Bianco's newest room escape, Rich Rich Lip, which features several bad-boy, tricked out motorcycles that could have come straight out of Neo-Tokyo.

Rich Rich Lip features a nicely rendered three dimensional space in which to explore along with the aforementioned road hogs and some tricky and amusing puzzles, all accompanied by a throbbing, kick-ass soundtrack that makes the gamer feel as if they were flying down a highway to nowhere while actually being stuck in a rather small room. A changing cursor indicates hot-spots and cuts down on the pixel hunting, while easy navigation bars allow for smooth movement about the neon-decorated space. There's even an homage (read: rip-off) of Tesshi-e's customary happy coin, two escape scenario endings. Unfortunately, there's not a visible save feature, so to get both escape scenarios you have to play through twice.

Bianco-Bianco, author of the Dr. Ichie series of escapes, and of First Love (a collaboration with Robamimi), has jettisoned their usual themes of either sentiment or horror and just gone with simple, stripped down room escaping with no theme other than the pretty, pretty bikes. Rich Rich Lip is not a long escape, but one that is an amusing break that will get the heart thumping along with the road-rage music that would fit in beautifully with a capsules/clowns rumble. Let's roll!

Play Rich Rich Lip

You don't remember your master getting so old. Of course, even when she found you, abandoned by the side of the road, she wasn't young, but the years seem to weigh heavier than before. But today is a special day, and you both have special plans. And to make them happen, all you'll need is a little change of Perspective. An artistic puzzle platformer by NFyre, Perspective is a short but challenging game about forcing yourself to look at the world in a new way.

Move with the [arrow] keys and jumping with [Z], your goal is to move your canine self to the doorway at the other side of the level, and enter it with the [spacebar]. The central puzzle mechanic is the "Perspective Flip", activated with [X]. When triggered, safe objects will turn into harmful ones and harmful objects into safe ones: coins transform into spikes, angered birds transform into floating stationary blocks, pushable crates transform into snakes, and vice versa. Completing each level, then, requires careful timing of perspective changes, let alone your jumps. Later levels will have you unlocking doors with collectible keys, and controlling two canines at once, Tealy and Orangey-style. At times, Perspective can get quite challenging, even punishing. The somewhat-slippery controls means there's not a whole lot of room for error in your movements, and those prone to rage-quitting after dying a half dozen times on a level should probably stay away. Those with that particular streak of platform masochism, though, will find a lot to like. The text plays upon just the right note of melancholy sweetness, and the soothing retro visuals and music should prevent the player's blood pressure from getting too high. Some will love it, some will find it frustrating. It all depends on your... well, you know.

Play Perspective

I'm sure you're all busy ticky-tacking away at your magical developmental tools for our 10th Casual Gameplay Design Competition, but let's take a moment to appreciate everything that's coming our way. Like prizes. And airships. And pyromania. (No, not that kind.) And ponies. And freeware. You guys. You guys. You're so talented and creative, I just wanna pinch your little cheeks and lock you in my basement and force you to toil for my enjoyment! It renders the frames and releases the game or else it gets the hose again... kidding! I'm kidding. I would never kidnap a developer! At least, not while I was still in the public eye.

CONTEST: Sports and Heart and Soul You look like you could use a little motivation. Fortunately, that's where Michael Molinari's surreal sports odyssey BasketBelle comes in. The game follows a young boy and the relationships he has with his family, documented in strange style as he squares off on the court against a series of beasts and platform puzzles in his quest to bring home something precious. To enter for your chance to win one of five free copies, just leave a comment on this entry telling us what your most inspiring video game moment was. Rules: Entries must be submitted by July 20th, 11:59 p.m. EST (GMT-5). Winners will be notified by e-mail shortly thereafter. Winners are selected randomly. One entry per person only. You must be at least 13 years of age or older to enter. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. Update: Congratulations to these winners: wakamo, Shudog, rockydennis, AlbinWesley, limivu! Thanks for playing with us. :)

Playing With Fire is A-OK Get ready to be intrigued yet creeped out when you watch the trailer for the upcoming title Little Inferno from the newly formed Tomorrow Corporation. Due out this winter for PC, Mac, and Linux (as well as Wii U!), the game is about... well... burning things. Details are sketchy on gameplay at the moment, though the site promises "an adventure that takes place almost entirely in front of a fireplace", and seems to be about burning things to stay warm in a world where the snow hasn't stopped falling in years. It definitely has a strange vibe to it, and if you're a fan of World of Goo you might recognise Kyle Gabler's influence, since he along with Allan Blomquist and Kyle Gray have combined their Planeteer powers for this one. If you're a PC user and you'd like to have access to an early beta, you can purchase the game now for 15.00 USD and learn its secrets, as well as gain access to the final build when its released. Fire, kids, and creepy implied dystopian futures? Sounds like a winner to me!

Lucy in the Sky With Monster Jellyfish Freeware, you say? Sounds good to me... and even better when coupled with airships, gods, monsters, and floating islands! In Jameson Wilkins' shooter/real-time strategy game, A Nation of Wind you'll set sail for unfamiliar skies as you commandeer an airship and attempt to both establish and defend colonies in the sky, appeasing deities and battling enormous monsters that will rise up to challenge you. It looks absolutely gorgeous, and digging through the archives of screenshots should definitely serve to get you excited, especially if you're a fan of big monster battles... don't you think this one looks and sounds like it has a sort of Skies of Arcadia vibe to it? The game is currently playable, and is nearing a public release now while it's being worked on in closed alpha, but hopefully we won't have to wait too much longer before we get to explore and unit this strange new realm.

Green With Indie If you're an indie developer, getting the bigger digital distribution platforms to pick up your game can be frustrating and difficult, but Steam is aiming to put the decision in the hands of consumers with the upcoming Steam Greenlight. Soon, developers will be able to post screenshots and other information to the service, which customers will then vote on, allowing Steam to, theoretically, use their community to decide what gets released based on the positive response. Scheduled to launch at the end of August of this year, this could be a great thing for indie developers struggling to get noticed by the company, as well as allow us, the players and loud mouth reviewers, to see and support some awesome content we might not otherwise get to. The details are still being hammered out, but Greenlight could mean some very good things for us.

The Console is Dead, Long Live the Console! It's easy to regard Kickstarter projects with a certain degree of jaded skepticism, especially ever since, after Double Fine's smash success, gaming projects pleading for funding have been cropping up left and right. Well, now it's time for hardware to take the plunge, and it seems like for one company it's succeeding beyond their wildest dreams. The upcoming Android-powered Ouya Console has made a whopping $4,000,000.00 USD at the time of this writing... in under 48 hours. The Ouya console could potentially change the way gaming works for your television, allowing developers to create for it as they see fit as long as some portion of whatever they are making is free. This means that you could eventually be playing all sorts of indie games you already love in your living room on a big screen. To say that people are excited is a bit of an understatement, though Ben Kuchera has offered this cautionary editorial. What do you think? Are you excited or wary for the Ouya? Or, like me, are you just disappointed upon finding out that Ouya isn't a new Hatoful Boyfriend?

My Little Platformer Comic Con is in the air, and the fine folks over at the Hub, generous purveyor of colourful cartoon equines that they are, have a little something special for you. Unlocked by inputting the code HUBMLP8BIT, Adventure Ponies is a retro action platformer where you control each of the six stars of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in turn while they track down the Elements of Harmony one at a time. Gameplay is pretty simplistic and consists of bouncing through levels until you find the element you're looking for, and then doing tiny 8-bit battle with a baddie from the show. The controls and jumping feel sort of fiddly and unresponsive at times, and it's definitely repetitive, but as a special thank you to the fans who helped make the series the massive success it is and turned my bookshelf into a tiny pony playground, it's a pretty nifty thing. Though of course I'm forced to ask... WHERE'S MY LYRA?! (And which one of you folks is sending me the Comic Con wall-eyed, muffin-loving pegasus you know I need?)

Do you know an upcoming indie project or some community gaming related news you think deserves some attention? Send me an e-mail with LINK DUMP FRIDAY in the subject line at dora AT casualgameplay DOT com with the info, and we'll judge it with the all-seeing glare of our own self-importance for inclusion in a future Link Dump Friday article!

In Connor Ullmann's action adventure Seedling, you come from... unusual beginnings when the wind itself breathes life into you. What follows is a quest for self discovery and shiny things as you soon discover you were created with purpose. Solve puzzles, journey across the land, delve deep into dungeons, battle huge bosses, and more in this homage to classic Zelda and other classic 2D adventure games.

Use the [arrow] keys to move, and tap [X] to interact, or to swing your sword when you get one. Double-tapping [X] quickly while you're moving will also cause you to sprint in that direction, which can be handy in avoiding certain enemies. Your health is represented by the green blocks in the upper-right corner of the screen, and they turn red as you take damage, but regenerates whenever you enter a room. If all the blocks turn red, the room you're in will reset and you'll be teleported back to its entrance. You won't have much when you start out, but as you search dungeons, you'll begin to find useful items befitting a true hero. Later on in the game, opening your inventory with [I] or [V] will let you choose which two weapons you want to lock to the [X] and [C] keys from your growing arsenal. Of course, you'll also find danger and puzzles as well, since no hero's journey is complete without a whole lot of peril.

Analysis: If you've been a gamer since classic NES or even just original Gameboy era, chances are Seedling is going to hit you right in the nostalgia without pulling its punch in the slightest. I'm not even necessarily talking about the obvious retro style, which looks and sounds great thanks to some classic tunes from Rekcahdam, but in the way it plays and feels. From the simple, easy to grasp gameplay to the designs and layouts of the dungeons and monsters inside them, Seedling is a love letter to the golden age of gaming. Of course, this means you can expect golden age annoyances to pop up as well. Figuring out exactly what you're looking at can sometimes be difficult, and even with the light treasure night cycles and some dungeons dim enough to be hard on the eyes for some players.

Trundling around the many different areas and dungeons as they become available to you as your inventory grows is definitely satisfying, especially given the way the difficulty scale on puzzles and the scope of your environments grow the further you progress. Combat can feel a little clunky in a distinctly old-fashioned way, mainly due to how simple the controls are, though for the most part you'll find patience and patterns are the key to victory. Games like Seedling tend to come under intense scrutiny for their nostalgic concepts and presentation just as much as some people embrace it for them, but even if you weren't more than a sparkle in your momma's eye when games like this ruled the plains, Seedling is still worth checking out. It's beautifully made and surprisingly engrossing, with a world you'll definitely want to know more about and an adventure well worth taking. You might see some of the plot twists coming, but Seedling succeeds more than it fails and might just make you feel like a kid again. You know... a magically constructed, destined-for-greatness-or-ruin kid like we all used to be once. Memories.

Play Seedling

The following is a reader review submitted by Dsrtrosy: Game Over Gopher by the edugame makers at the New Mexico State University Learning Games Lab is a seriously cute, seriously fun tower defense game. Your job is to defend the garden's one and only carrot from marauding gophers... not by killing them, but by feeding them until they explode into rainbows! Yep, rainbows.

At the start of most levels, you'll need to use basic graphing skills and coordinates to click and figure out where the gophers will be coming from. You'll be given a graph and a pair of coordinates that reveal a location on it, and clicking on the proper spot will plot your path. Drag towers and launchers to points along the path where they'll be able to reach the gophers that will trundle towards the carrot. Towers cost rubies, however, which you'll need to mouse over when they drop from a rainbow'd enemy. Of course, if you need more rubies faster, you can place special Ruby Drills at certain points on the graph and they'll periodically spit out a gem if you've placed them correctly... just look at the numbers below the drill icon before you place, and use the graph to figure out where they belong. Keep an eye on the action, since an un-munched carrot is the best kind of carrot.

As you progress, you get more and more goodies, from carrot launchers to iceberg lettuce (which, you guessed it, freezes gophers as they eat). The towers are minimally upgradable, but what makes this game special is the truly fun way in which junior high graphing skills are brought to bear on gameplay. An important aspect of your strategy is having enough rubies to pay for new towers, upgrades, bombs and more. Ruby drills are free, but have to be placed on specific coordinates on the graph. If you don't keep track of the next available drill, you might find yourself out of rubies, and once an area has been mined completely, the drills disappear.

The strategy in the game isn't difficult, but the cuteness plays a major role. Despite the inability to speed the gophers up, you can send a new wave early and increase the challenge in that way. And it has a nice difficulty curve, with more and tougher waves in each level, as well as some pretty funny boss gophers. While this might be a better game for kids, I admit it quenched my thirst for something new in the TD genre. It's easily worth a lunchtime game break.

Play Game Over Gopher

The following is a selection of favorite games compiled and reviewed by JIG community member, Cornelius. It is also one of the winning entries from our previous call for submissions for community favorites, for which Cornelius will receive some fabulous prizes of his choosing. Thanks to everyone who shared their favorites with us! Look for more community favorites in the coming weeks.

• Z-Type - Nothing blends the fast-paced world of blowing up invading ships with typing like Z-Type, a shooter from Dominic Szablewski. Wave after wave of enemies approach you while you attempt to keep them at bay using nothing more than your WPM. Also, this game quite possibly could have the simplest instructions ever: "Type to Shoot!" Average ships require average words, larger ships are dispatched using a much broader vernacular and incoming missiles are destroyed with merely a single letter. Making your way through the standard game is fairly simple, especially for the skilled typist. For a real challenge, try the "Expert" mode and see just how long you can survive!
• Fantastic Contraption - Move a ball. Using wheels and sticks. That's all you need to do. Oh, did I mention you need to get it up a hill, over a wall, and across a gap with limited space to build your "contraption?" If you've ever had one of those moments where you thought it would be fun and cool to build a complex machine to perform a simple job (and honestly, who hasn't?), then this is for you. Play through 21 brain-straining levels and see just how far your imagination can go!
• Treasure Adventure Game - Treasure hunters beware! Prepare to be immersed into a massive platformer filled with nearly endless discovery. Robit Studios gives us Treasure Adventure, an epic open-world side-scroller where you travel from land to land in search of wonder and hats. Explore hazardous caves. Journey high into the trees. Uncover secret passageways. Talk to your grandma. This quest-based adventure game is filled to the brim with prizes and pitfalls alike, guaranteed to keep you glued to your keyboard for hours.
• Hapland - Hapland. Nothing much more can be said. It is quite possibly the ultimate culmination of the point-and-click and puzzle game. A series so awesome that it even spawned an exclusive JIG banner game. You are a stick figure. An entire land of interaction surrounds you. Your goal is simple: open a portal. To where? No one knows. But getting there is not easy. Nearly every notable item on the screen is clickable, and the results of each click can vastly vary depending on the order in which they're clicked. Even not getting the proper solution gives you a sense of satisfaction, as changing the way you do things can give you a completely different outcome. Even after completing the game you feel the need to start over and see what else you can do. The entire Hapland series is simply a must-play for both completionists and/or anyone that considers themselves a "casual" gamer.

While we welcome any comments about this particular selection of games, we do ask that if you need any help with individual games, or wish to comment on the games featured here, please post your questions and comments on the respective game's review page.

The original Lee-Lee's Quest left players with a lot of unanswered questions. Will Lee Lee make peace with his cubey neighbors? Will Loo Loo manage to ditch that blue psychopath who keeps barging in to the neighborhood castle to "rescue" "her"? Will developer Marcus Richert run out of snarky fourth-wall breaking dialogue? Answer: NEVER!. Everyone's favorite awesomely delusional platform hero type guy is back to go on another adventure/mook killing spree in Lee-Lee's Quest 2!

Use the [WASD] or [arrow] keys to move, jump, or duck. You have the ability to wall-grip and jump, and you'll probably need to use it. Gather shovels, fruits, and power-ups to collect points. Bop on enemy's heads to kill them, or, when in possession of a bomb power-up, press [S] or [down] to drop an explosive, then get out of the way! Oh, and make sure your sound is on. There's some dialogue you're going to want to hear.

The first Lee-Lee's Quest mined most of the jokes that could be used to parody a generic platforming world, so the sequel takes the route of direct commentary on specific overused elements and situations. It makes for much sharper humor, and, indeed, the incisiveness may just cross the line from parody to true satire. Whether Lee Lee is questioning who in the audience is really surprised by the appearance an Atari-esque section, or complaining that the random camera zooms just make the background look bad, or just going off on a tangent about whether an Anime-styled power-up is pandering and/or racist, he has a comment for just about everything.

This constant lampshading of tropes could have gotten old fast, but Lee-Lee's Quest 2 has a couple of things working in its favor. First of all, there's Joshua Tomar doing the voice work. This reviewer's admitted fanboyism notwithstanding, he does as stellar a job as in the first installment, giving Lee Lee just enough self-awareness to be snarky, but just enough obliviousness to make his macho bathos hilarious, and likewise giving all the enemy polyhedrons just the right tinge of world-weary anger. Secondly, there's the fact that, all humor aside, Lee-Lee's Quest 2, perhaps entirely by accident, turns out to be a solid, challenging, way above average platform game. It's almost a paradox: For a game to mock, say, meaningless power-ups, or ultra-difficult platform paths that lead to underwhelming hidden rewards, the game must therefore include them. But the mere fact that exploring everywhere and doing everything will lead to genuinely hilarious dialogue, makes such elements meaningful and rewarding. Of course, that's probably giving too much analysis to a game where grabbing a pineapple is as likely to give you a gimp suit as points. On the downside, certain later parts of the game rely a tad much on Unfair Platformer-styled tricks, but they are never belabored, and, in any case, are just funny enough to be forgiven. In short, Lee-Lee's Quest 2 is everything fans of the first could have wanted in a sequel. One can only hope that a bloated, unneccesary trilogy-completing third installment is on the way

Play Lee-Lee's Quest 2

In this age of over population, it's hard not to daydream about having a nice little town all to yourself. But unless you're a billionaire, chances are the only way to experience the feel of colonization is through the gracious world of casual gaming. The Promised Land from Boolat Games is a pleasant simulation building and strategy game similar to Virtual Villagers that hands you a piece of uncharted land ready to be plundered. As an adventurer, you're off to find the elusive spring of eternal happiness and build yourself a town that could rival even the most advanced of civilizations!

Just after you land in this new, uncharted world, you get to work utilizing your four little helpers to do all of your bidding. Simply click, drag and drop villagers to assign tasks, bumping against the edge of the screen with your cursor to scroll across the map. There are a number of different professions to specialize in, including farmer, worker, builder, artisan, and scientist. A farmer will always be more productive when farming, for example, whereas a scientist will fumble a bit when set to a task like mining. Specializing in one area means your people will get more work done at a faster pace, so naturally it's a good idea to keep workers as focused as you can.

While watching over your minions, keep track of their hunger, happiness, and health, three stats that slowly decrease over time. Villagers are pretty smart and will take care of most major problems as they arise, but you can always click and drag them around to speed things up a little. As your colony expands, you must build houses to make sure each and every person has a place to call home. Homeless villagers will stand around listlessly, which not only gets in the way, but it doesn't help you obtain your goals, either!

Buildings are also a part of The Promised Land, and over the course of the game, you'll work with a number of different types of structures. Most require you study a topic at the laboratory before you can build them, and even when you have the technology, it always costs a certain amount of resources to get something built. Fortunately, earning resources is far from a boring affair. You can either complete the tasks listed at the bottom of the screen, or send out your ships to barter for goods with other colonies. But beware: pirates are all over the place, and they'd love nothing better than to get a hand or two on your stuff! Using your ship's cannons, you can fight them off using an Angry Birds style mini-game, pulling back the fuse to knock pirates from their perches.

Analysis: Much like the Virtual Villagers series or the more overlooked Floating Kingdoms, The Promised Land is a game that will have you looking at the clock and thinking, "Where in the world did my day go?" There's so much going on that there's never really a time when you can sit back and feel like you're adequately stockpiled on supplies. There's always this item or that item that needs to be made or collected, this building or that building that needs to be built or upgraded. But, you know, since you're low on resources, you'll have to do a few trading trips first, and we all know what that means: pirate cannoning time!

As with most casual sims, The Promised Land is all about managing the small details as you work towards a greater whole. The trading aspect is a notable departure from the usual formula, and it really sets this game out from the other offerings in the crowded genre. Combine that with a colorful visual presentation, characters that are filled with personality, and a poppy sort of active soundtrack and you've got one of the most fulfilling and varied sims on the market.

Clearly, any fan of resource management games will be squealing with glee at this new (and highly addictive) addition to the genre. Even if you're new to sims, you can easily pick up the basic ideas and quickly tackle that pesky quarry or garden. Here's to celebrating your summer right and having a little piece of a world to call your own!

Windows:
Download the demo Get the full version

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

Hello Sir. That's a super big gun you're carrying. And right over there are some super Big Bad Guys. Why not do me a favor and take them out... oh, look at the recoil on that thing! You've fallen right into the lava. Well, who hasn't that ever happened to? Dry yourself off and try again.

In nfyre's physics-based platform shooter Super Big Gun Adventure, you are a pariah of the Gentlemen's Council, who became jealous of the length of your gun immediately after giving you said weapon. It is super big, after all. Now the Council is out to kill you as you try to navigate their headquarters, a building inexplicably filled with deadly lava and spikes. Move and jump with [WASD] or the [arrow] keys as you make your way to the door at the end of each level, and click your mouse to fire your gun at any enemies along the way. Rather than bullets, the gun fires a spray of noxious black liquid, and the recoil propels you around at such speed it can also be used to lift yourself into the air, useful for getting past those huge lava pits. The game centers around this mechanic, setting it apart from most shooters, and it's a similarly fun change from the pixel perfect jumping some retro platformer games require.

Super Big Gun Adventure is quite short, with only 12 stages, but regardless of what the Gentlemen's Council think, size doesn't always matter. Although cheap and possibly off-putting innuendo is plastered on during the ending, the smooth gameplay, solid physics, and responsive controls make for an enjoyable time waster and perhaps leave the way open for a lengthier sequel. Bravo!

Play Super Big Gun Adventure

Astronaut Spacewalk by Jorge Hernandez is the closest most of us will ever get to taking a no-tether trot in outer space. The delightfully complex and detailed simulation game gives you a screen filled with controls and a few simple missions to complete, then sits back and watches while you climb the impossibly high learning curve. It will take hours, not minutes, to learn how to maneuver your lone astronaut, and until you do, you'll probably feel confusion, bewilderment, and possibly a touch of anger. If you stick with it, though, you'll discover a game that shares the joys and wonders of space exploration tempered by the realism of science, and it's a wonderful experience indeed.

The first step to understanding this game is to take a look at the screenshot. See that green grid overlaying the action? Those are the controls. Two dozen grid spaces that fill the entire screen allow you to move about freely in space, control the camera, and perform a few other actions. The in-game manual gives you a quick overview, but since most of your time with the game will be spent learning what these spaces do, it's helpful to draw out a paper map and keep it next to you for quick reference.

Your suit takes care of which jets to fire to move in different directions, all you need to do is tell it which way you want to go. To move forward, backwards, left, right, up and down, use the modules on the left side of the screen. Pitch, roll, and yaw controls are on the right, allowing you to roll side to side, tip yourself head up or head down, and rotate around a central horizontal axis. The central panels control the camera, and you'll find the all-important "null" command in the top left corner of the screen. This useful button fires your jets so you come to a standstill, allowing you to get your bearings. Using it really drains your suit's electricity, though, so make it an absolute last resort.

Missions in Astronaut Spacewalk range from simple "head to the waypoint" drills to repair missions and inspection outings. Simple things in concept, but getting the job done means you have to pilot yourself around complex machinery, hold yourself at awkward positions, and do everything in a timely manner before your suit's oxygen, fuel or electrics run out. Tense? Yes. Challenging? You bet. Totally worth every moment spent memorizing and practicing? Absolutely!

Analysis: Astronaut Spacewalk is beautiful but complex, frustrating but relaxing. It's a grand collection of opposites smacked together so they work as one, condensing the experience of a space walk into a mobile simulation. It's also quite a beautiful game to behold. You'll get to see some great views of Earth and our moon, as well as space shuttles, artificial satellites, solar arrays, and a host of other perfectly-rendered orbital devices. Jorge Hernandez really went all out working on the visual detail in this game, and that level of immersion makes the game feel like a real journey through space.

The downside, as you probably already guessed, is the learning curve. This isn't a game you can pick up and beat in just a few minutes. In fact, all you'll probably be able to complete in a few minutes is how to properly orient yourself to your next waypoint. The missions are long and numerous, and they're unrelenting, as well. This isn't a game that makes things easier for you. It's a game that challenges you to learn and put that knowledge to use as quickly as possible.

Astronaut Spacewalk is absolutely mesmerizing. It has the ability to completely surround you with its environment, making you almost believe you're the lucky scientist floating around in the EVA suit. It's an intense game on its own, and if you have even the slightest love of anything space-related, it's pretty much your training simulation dream come true.