November 2015 Archives

Has everyone pretty much had enough of physics puzzle games by now? Click to remove the geometric shapes, launch balls in the right trajectory to bash a structure, stack geometric shapes according to spec. It's all a bit... samey, right? Yeah, let's just put all these derivative games awaaaaitaminute waitaminute, what's this? untame brings us the weirdest gameplay formula we've encountered in a while. In Mushroom 11 you play an amorphous colony of intelligent regenerating fungus, and maneuver it through a jaw-droppingly exquisite post-apocalyptic environment to the atmospheric soundtrack provided by - appropriately enough - none other than trip-out chill room adepts The Future Sound of London.

I want you to imagine you're lying on the floor, struggling to go on, weakly crying, "If only I had a short, cute escape game... if only... if only!" Vitamin Hana might bust in through the window like one of the really dreamy masked crusaders, and bring you something like Escape Through the Bamboo to soothe your troubled brow. As the title implies, you're trapped in a room, and the way outside the door is barred by a wall of health green bamboo. There's no changing cursor to show what's interactive, so click on everything as you explore the room to find what you need to solve the puzzles and escape. Maybe next time you'll think twice before you underestimate that tricky greenery!

Play Escape Through the Bamboo

War. War never changes. But since its inception almost 20 years ago, the post-apocalyptic action-adventure RPG series Fallout sure has. When Fallout 3 was released in 2008, it dazzled players with its enormous, dangerous open world of mystery, mutants, and radiation poisoning, and in the years since, Vault Dwellers have been champing at the bit to get back into it, even after a very successful and engaging entry from Obsidian in the form of Fallout: New Vegas. And now? Fallout 4 has finally arrived, and despite some puzzling changes in design and new mechanics, it's still the same massive, post-apocalyptic open-world action RPG you remember, though I've already taken several mushrooms off its rating for refusing to let the decrepit detective robot be my husband.

In free indie horror adventure Chelsea by Yūrei Darling, In free indie horror adventure Chelsea by YureiDarling, Daniel's finally ready to propose to his girlfriend and childhood sweetheart... only he seems to have misplaced the ring. There's nowhere left to look but their hometown of Angel Grove, but things have changed since they moved away a few months ago. To play, just use the [arrow] keys to move, the [spacebar] to interact, and [ESC] to open the in-game menu. You can save whenever you come across a glowing pot of flowers, and you'll definitely want to, since it's very possible to get a fatal GAME OVER at certain points. What lies within this foggy, quiet town? How did Daniel's ring get lost? To answer that, you'll need to brave the unknown, and face the truth.

Awesome Happy Heroes, the new simulation game from Little Giant World, enjoys a refreshingly simple philosophy: heroically saving the day equals making people happy. When marauding villains threaten various scenic vistas in their fair town, the Awesome Happy Heroes decide it's pummeling time and emerge from their subterranean base underneath the local park to quell the menace. The citizenry are happy, and the citizenry then pay the Heroes so they're happy too, but the bad guys? Not so much. So presumably these heroes are out to save the day for everyone but the villains. Whatever you may think of the notion of improving your town by having themed costumed gang fights in public in broad daylight, and whatever history's great philosophers may have to say about using happiness as a substitute for righteousness, Awesome Happy Heroes is a superhero training and combat simulator with plenty of ZOOF!, KERPOW! and SPLAT! for anyone who's ever read comic books and thought, 'What if?' Or for those of you who've actually gone through with it professionally and could use some advice on designing your underground secret hideout.

[Mac user? Try freeware tool RPG Hub]

Craig is your average potions maker. This timid and fretful fellow overthinks most things, but when he wakes up one day to find that his door has been blocked by some hooligans, he can't overthink enough to find a way out. Craig by Pai is a free indie game that's more of an escape the room style game. Pai's game only encompasses two screens, but has enough witty remarks and clever adventuring it stands strong even with its shorter length. Moving with the [arrow] keys and examining items with the [spacebar], you are given a list of options on how to interact with said object. You can also double-click to move and right-click (or use [ESC]) to gain access to the menu where you can view the items you have picked up. Make sure you explore everything, not just for winning the game, but enjoying the humor that makes Craig the warm game it is.

Mystery Case Files is one of the oldest and most beloved hidden-object adventure series around, and fans know to expect one very highly anticipated new release a year... so it comes as a bit of a surprise that Eipix Interactive has released Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst Unlocked only one month after Key to Ravenhearst. Following directly on the heels of the previous game, in Ravenhearst Unlocked, you've been rescued from the waves of the ocean where you were found battered and delirious, and ultimately transferred to an asylum for care. But when you finally come back to yourself, you find this place is anything but up to code... and one of your oldest foes will stop at nothing to complete his plot no matter who gets in his way. Once you escape, the game is still just beginning! With a decidedly more morbid bent than its predecessor, Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst Unlocked is a gleefully bizarre game with a lot of content and entertainment, though perhaps not as well-plotted as the rest of the series. Be warned, if you haven't played the rest of the Mystery Case Files titles, Ravenhearst Unlocked will make very little sense to you.

The enemies are getting smarter and smarter these days. No longer are they following a set trail heading right for your kingdom. Oh no, they are much sneakier. This time they are coming from below. Thankfully, your kingdom is even sneakier, and has found out their plan ahead of time. Start digging downward, set up your towers, and and blow them back down into the earth in Mugshot Games' Digfender. This tower defense game, free for iOS and Android, is like a rebirth of Castlemine with better graphics and more enemies. The gameplay is still the same, however, as not only do you need to figure out which towers work best for the current level, but also dig up the path for the enemies to crawl along.

Qaibo's bad eggs are back, and this time they've got some superpowered help. In physics puzzle game Disaster Will Strike 6, they've used super sekrit lab techniques to make armored eggs, and now they're menacing the good yolks once more to boot! In each level, you'll need to use the power of natural disasters like meteorites and more to smash through defenses and crush the bad eggs, while leaving the good ones intact. Some of the new disasters can be a little finicky to use, but experiment with them and you'll figure out how to bust your eggs soon enough, and remember the armored eggs need extra firepower to crack! With new levels and mechanics and the same smashing gameplay fans enjoy, Disaster Will Strike 6 may be full of bad eggs, but that works in its favour!

Play Disaster Will Strike 6

Aquatic Rescue, also free on iOS and Android and available for a small fee on Windows Phones, is a cute game by OZDY that wants to show you when it comes to physics puzzles, darlin', it's betta down where it's wetta. Click and drop sea creatures to reunite them with their matching baby, though doing so usually involves manipulating the environment. There are a lot of things your creatures can touch that will change either them or the level itself, like switches that start or stop mechanisms, and even buttons that make them grow or shrink, and it's up to you to figure out how and where to drop them all to set off the proper chain reactions... and get all three stars on each level, of course! All sea creatures need to wind up safely on platforms, so if they fall, you'll need to try again. It's a familiar concept, but with a lot of neat mechanics and a sunny presentation (not to mention a soundtrack that makes you feel like you're in the starting village of a Final Fantasy game), Aquatic Rescue is light and sweet physics puzzle fun.

Play Aquatic Rescue

Aquatic Rescue (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)

Aquatic Rescue

Aquatic Rescue

Most Thanksgiving dinners go off without a hitch, give or take an extra toasty pie or some lumpy mashed potatoes, but in Pencil Kid's point-and-click puzzle game Monkey GO Happy Turkeys, the village is missing everything it needs for its Thanksgiving feast... including the bird! Click around the village to find items and solve puzzles, not to mention track down a whole mess of apples. I'd better get some cobbler out of this! With its very sparkly and serene soundtrack, not to mention its bright and cartoony visuals, Monkey GO Happy Turkeys is a cute, light game with just the right amount of puzzles and difficulties to keep kids happy, or any adults looking for some simple, festive fun.

Play Monkey GO Happy Turkeys

Randall Munroe's webcomic xkcd has been around for well over a decade, touching on everything from pop culture to science, love, and beyond, and it's garnered a pretty huge audience. To celebrate the launch of his new book, Thing Explainer, Randall Munroe has released Hoverboard, a very simple little platformer where you gather coins from a small playfield and drop them in a box. The end!... or is it?! Using the [WASD] or [arrow] keys to move and jump, you'll find your hoverboard can jump an infinite number of times and take you beyond the designated play area to explore a surprisingly huge black and white world with secrets aplenty. There's not much to do other than take in the sights and collect more coins, but with so much to find, all rendered in a simple but lovely black-and-white stickman style, Hoverboard is worth a romp as a great piece of interactive art full of secrets and references to everything under the sun.

Play Hoverboard

Pine Studio's escape game Rock 'n' Roll Escape, also free for iOS and Android, technically does not star Jack Black, but you also can't prove it doesn't. Your goal is to find your way out of this dimly lit little venue, presumably because you are at dangerous risk of rocking yourself to death with all the air guitaring and head-bobbing you're about to do to the funky soundtrack. Just click around to interact with things... the cursor will change when it passes over something you can click on, and it'll display some text at the top of the screen to tell you what it is. Don't forget to try combining items in your inventory if you get stuck, and remember you can pick up some items again to use them more than once. Think you can escape? Rock this way and prove it!

Rock 'n' Roll Escape

Rock 'n' Roll Escape (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)

Android:
Rock 'n' Roll Escape

Happy Wednesday, everybody! The it's all downhill from here... which, of course, is a good thing, because that means it's an easy coast into the weekend, where you can do weekend-like things! But to get you to that glorious promised land of extra sleep and pajama daywear, let's ease the way with a few escape games. This week! Vitamin Hana wants you spinning in circles, but at least you've got a hula hoop. MayMay has some garden pests that need to be taken care of, plus a few puzzles. And no1game takes an unorthodox approach to gameplay that's going to involve some clever computer tricks.

With great power, comes great responsibility. Most of the time. However, when a super hero is off the clock, and wants nothing more than to get back home and booze it up for the night, an alien space pig blasting their bottle of wine can really make him forget the words of his deceased uncle, or whatever. Suddenly, all the fragile civilians he spent the entire day protecting look so... flingable. And it's all for the greater good, y'know? Or, at least for the personal greater good of Supermuzhik. Supermuzhik (which the internet tells me roughly translates as "Super Strong Russian Peasant Guy") is an arcade-action sorta-shooter game by Aimar where the titular hero proves to be much better at "defeating evil" than "protecting the innocent."

Galaxy Siege first got a sequel, and now it has turned into a trilogy. Galaxy Siege 3 is here with more planets to clear from the evil alien scum, more gems to collect, and another ship to build in some of the most unflattering shapes yet. Denis Vasilev's arcade game has some minor improvements on the first but is still the upgrade filled, action packed game. With over 100 levels you'll have plenty of chances to gather gems to buy your weapons and other supplies needed to make it to the boss and send it flying out into the great abyss. Galaxy Siege 3 keeps the core elements of the game, but some alterations that build on this scifi series. Now less of a rail shooter, you move your ship at the speed you want to go using the [arrow] keys, [WASD], or even the mouse, making it easier to collect gems and crystals which help your scientist build bigger and better guns so you can keep your onslaught going.

[Note: This game is available in Pay What You Want format, including free. If you enjoy this game, please support the developer who made it by paying them what you think is fair!]

For centuries Taoists have been telling us all how a harmonious dynamic between universal forces is fundamentally important, but the full extent of this hasn't always been appreciated. In Kid Kozmik, the new platform puzzle game created by Ian Sundstrom in under ten days for the 2015 Procedural Generation Game Jam, the stability of all space and time absolutely depends upon maintaining proper color balance. It's up to you to warp through various sub-realms collecting color crystals to restore the color alignment of the universe! This of course is just the sort of thing career counselors typically describe as 'a worthwhile and meaningful career choice'. Push platforms, flip switches, toggle blocks, and find the color crystal in each sub-realm and make it back through the warp pipes back to the main realm, but don't take too long! Each realm is rapidly destabilizing for want of a proper color balance, and as the hourglass at the lower-left of the screen ticks down the world's colors begin to distort, the music starts to go wonky, your environment fills up with particle effect shapes and when your time's up you'll have to start that world over again!

Also free for iOS and Android, laFunkhh's idle RPG Idle Sword lets your fingers do the walking. And the stabbing. You're loosely in control of a hero who will move, fight, and gather treasure on his own, while you can click on enemies to help slay them, or on your hero to heal him a little. The treasure he gathers can be equipped on your party (what, you didn't think you'd be stuck on a solo dungeon delve did you?), or sold for more cash to unlock additional dungeons and upgrade your clicking power. Everything is randomly generated, and if you die, well, you'll just start from the top with all your cash, levels, and equipment intact. If you're playing in your browser, make sure to put the game in a new window (NOT a new tab) if you want it to run by itself! Idle Sword is heavy on the grind and on the simple side, but if you like hands-sorta-off dungeon crawling, load it up and loot away.

Play Idle Sword

Idle Sword (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)

Android:
Get Idle Sword

A great person once said, "When a man is tired of pandas, he is tired of life." It may have been Samuel Johnson, or it may have been me, but that's irrelevant. The point is that pandas are the best, and now you can play with three of them! 3 Pandas in Fantasy is a cute-as-a-button point-and-click game by FlashTeam with a fairy tale plot. You've got your dragons, wizards, faeries and, um, a house with wings, and our three furry friends have to traverse the fantasy land and defeat a bunch of villainous goblins. The pandas even have some special abilities to help them along the way, as if they weren't awesome enough.

Down, down, down into the depths of the earth you have fallen. The landing was hard but your bones were able to withstand the impact and put themselves back together again. And seeing that is all you're made of, your only worry now is to find your way back up. You'll have to go deeper in this Metroidvania-style game to find the special powers that will help you flip, dive, and jump your way back to the top. What lies in your path is perils as you've never seen before, but death isn't permanent for someone with no skin. There are helpful frogs to guide you through all 192 rooms and secrets to be found in Benal's adventure game, Skelemania. With its retro pixel graphics and its 8-bit music you'll have no problem hunting down all 6 abilities and unlocking the buried story that only adds to this fantastic free indie platformer.

Gamezhero's Sequence is the sort of puzzle game where a simple premise and clean and sparkling execution make for easygoing fun. All you need to do to play is drag and drop the tiles at the top of the screen to the proper order at the bottom. Each level has its own unique pattern on the tiles that you need to decipher in order to figure out how to properly place them. You can shuffle tiles around as much as you like, and there's no penalties for wrong answers, so Sequence might be a little easy for some. Still, once more tiles are added, things get a little trickier, and Sequence's easy to pick up and play style makes it fun for just about anybody across its 40 levels, and something we'd love to see expanded on in the future.

Play Sequence

In the ancient days of yore as our great forefathers carved the first rough-hewn computer games from massive slabs of granite, blocks of marble and the depths of the pixel mines they learned that if only you had a worthwhile play dynamic, you didn't actually need a lot of impressive graphics or sound effects to make a game enjoyable or endearing — which is incidentally how they managed to play ASCII-based roguelike games like NetHack and Omega. The moral of course is that substance beats style, and Time of Exploration, androdan's new resource management simulation game for Android, demonstrates this. Despite the whole game being much less than a megabyte in size and two-tone hand-scrawled icons being the closest you'll encounter to graphics, androdan nevertheless presents a darn good village building sim where you start out gathering stones and lumber and eventually end up managing an international empire complete with wonders.

It's a story as old as time itself: Boy finds sword. Boy stabs monster with sword. Boy rescues girl. Boy and girl go out for coffee or something. But what if things happen in the wrong order? What if the boy accidentally stabs the girl, or trips on the sword while walking hand-in-hand together? What if the monster reaches the girl first, accidentally scorching her in the process? What if the boy tries to stab the monster, but finds he has no sword? (Hint: scorching?) Such are the scenarios considered by Tiled Quest, an HTML5 sliding block puzzle game developed by Team Doa Ibu, made up of Alif, Rosanqodrian, Novel Apriaji, Rino Adi, and Anto Febian! Visit the creator's site at Tempa Labs!

Wakey wakey eggs and escape-y! Weekday Escape has been gently simmering all night long with the finest of spices, and it's finally here to start your day with a hearty dose of your favourite developers! Esklavos is going to make sure you get some sea air, though scurvy is a possibility. Vitamin Hana didn't bring any breakfast for you, but there's these dogs you need to worry about first anyway. And Funkyland is almost dressed to impress and needs you to help get just one hand ready for a day on the town.

There's a quiet little town in the desert you might like to visit. A place where the dog park allows neither dogs nor humans, not that you should look at or think about it, where the weather is all-seeing and all-knowing (as well as kinda glowy), and a certain radio station helps those lonely, interminable hours we call being awake pass more pleasantly. For a lot of us, Astrid Dalmady's Twine-based text adventure Investigative Journalism is about as close as we'll ever get to visiting Night Vale... but maybe it's better this way. In this fan-game, you play an intern at the local radio station who's gone looking for The News, which has escaped from its bonds. You'll need to explore the station and the surrounding town to track it down, but of course in Night Vale, nothing is ever easy. Or, well. Sane.

If you're looking for rapid-fire, cute, point-and-click puzzle goodness, Ninjadoodle's name should be on your short list, and they're serving up another helping with Lightybulb 2, where, just like the original game, you're trying to figure out how to make the lightbulb in each level light up. Click on things to interact, but also try to drag objects around... you never know what might happen. The levels may look similar, but you'll have to solve them in a variety of different ways... math, deciphering codes, or even just good ol' process of elimination. If you like your puzzle games aggressively cute with a bouncy soundtrack, then Lightybulb 2 is probably a bright idea. Zing!

Play Lightybulb 2

Mission US: City of Immigrants (Note: Site registration is required to play.) is the fourth in the series of educational point-and-click adventure titles focusing on American History created by Electric Funstuff under the auspices of New York PBS Station Channel 13. It is 1907. You are Lena Brodsky, a 14-year-old Jewish Immigrant from Russia. In your hometown of Minsk, the forces of the Tsar have pushed your family off their lands, and the violence of the pogroms looms large. Your brother Issac was the first to cross the Atlantic to seek a new life in the land of America, and you have followed in turn: a fourteen day trip across the entire world. You hope that you will prove yourself worthy of entering America. You hope that you can earn enough to send for your mother and father. You hope for a better future. There will be many obstacles in America, and many choices to be made. But it is, they say, the land of opportunity...

Hold on to your loose change, kiddos, because Kupo Games' Bullet Heaven 2 has arrived with all the snarky, dazzling, arcade-style shooter action a body could hope for, lovingly tarted up with the cast of Epic Battle Fantasy. Soar through levels filled with enemies, bullets, and cash for upgrades, as one of several different characters with their own special attacks and strengths, and go up against enormous bosses. If you want to support the developer, you can also choose to pick up an optional expansion pack for about $10.00USD on Kongregate, which includes more characters, stages, and other goodies!

[Mac user? Try freeware tool RPG Hub]

vgperson has been translating free indie horror adventures for years, but did you know they make games, too?Libretta follows a quiet girl names Libra, whose regular visit to her local library takes a turn for the strange when she discovers a book she's never seen before. Suddenly the familiar halls have changed, and Libra is lost, and to find a way out, she'll need your guidance to hunt for clues and solve creative puzzles using unique abilities and mechanics along the way in this creepy, surreal game.

If you're a longtime escape game fan, here's a little treat... Aries Escape's latest, Aries Escape No. 19, comes with an option to play in English instead of the former Japanese-only! As the game opens, you learn you've gotten invited to a favourite cafe you haven't visited in a while, which the owner promises has been renovated... into an escape situation, that is! To play, just click the arrows at the edges of the screen to move around, and watch for your cursor to change if it passes over something else you can interact with. That's right... Aries Escape is really pulling out the stops to make their game more user-friendly! Not that you won't need to wake up your brain to play, since with numbers and clues hidden everywhere, this is one cafe where puzzles are definitely on the menu... and then some!

Play Aries Escape No. 19

I don't like hotels at the best of times, largely because I'm neurotic about toilets and beds that are not my own. (So many butts!) Add in some vengeful spirits, and, well... look, how uncomfortable can sleeping in your car really be? In Elephant Games' creepy hidden-object adventure Haunted Hotel: The X, your sister Samantha has gone missing while looking into the legends surrounding the derelict old Lexington Hotel, whose amenities include shuddering ghostly terrors and an isolated forest where nobody can hear you scream. Look, I'm just saying when a hotel's history contains a "brutal butchering", maybe stay elsewhere? But if you want to find your sister, you'll have to brave the mysteries within, and hopefully survive long enough to get out of the 1970s. A tape player? VHS? Now that's scary!

If you like your point-and-click adventure games with a lot of campy horror and an old-school vibe, Arif Games' Dark Fear, available on iOS and Android, just coyly dropped its handkerchief at your feet and is pretending not to notice. You wake up, confused and alone, in a strange locked shed with an unsettling portrait on the wall. Venturing outside, you find yourself lost in a dark and dangerous valley filled with monstrous creatures and black magic. Solve puzzles, help the locals, and fight a shrieking horror or two to find out who you are and what happened in this clever and engaging adventure that will appeal to fans of classic horror.

He's escaped the prison, stolen the diamond, and even infiltrated the airship. Now PuffballsUnited's devious stickman is back for more point-and-click adventuring that may or may not (... probably will...) end in repeated, hilarious failure as he's Fleeing the Complex. See, you play the notorious thief Henry Stick, and you've finally been captured and imprisoned in the Wall, the most ruthless (and chilly!) prison there is. But if you can choose the right actions, these walls won't be able to hold you... but that's easier said than done, of course, since you're frequently presented with a myriad of options each leg of your escape attempt, and many of them, uh... don't work out. Luckily for you, that's part of the game's charm, since it's all voice-acted and animated!

Myeh! You dirty rat! You think you got what it takes to play Cover Orange Journey: Gangsters? We'll see about that. It's another chapter of the popular physics puzzle series where you drop pieces to make structures to keep the orange beneath them safe from those no-good clouds dropping lethal rain. (If you have an Android or iOS device, the series is also available on them!) With fans, safes, bowling balls and more, keep those oranges from getting so much as bruised... or else!

Play Cover Orange Journey: Gangsters

Cover Orange Journey 2 (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)

Android:
Get Cover Orange Journey 2

Get up, get up, you sleepy heads. It's time, it's time, to get out of bed! Not because, like, you need to be productive members of society or anything. But rather... the game is afoot! Several, in fact! Vitamin Hana plies you with toy trains to keep you captive. Detarame Factory offers rodents and sweet treats. And Primera, well, they just need you to watch their cat and fix their laptop.

Here's a llama! There's a llama! And another little llama! What do they all have in common? They've all been captured! All of them! Happy llama! Sad llama! Mentally-disturbed llama! All of them are just gone! Only one llama remains. Fortunately for every-llama involved, though, it happens to be Gravity-Shifting Llama. And that means we definitely have a chance at rescuing all of those Llamas In Distress. Llamas In Distress (AKA Vertigo: Gravity Llama 2) is a physics-platform game by Jindo where everyone's favorite species of camelid will be flipping all over the place to find his friends and stop all the drama.

Hello everyone! This is just a quick note to say that the version of our site is now finally responsive. It detects when your resolution is below a certain size and automatically displays the version to best respond to your device. This does, unfortunately, mean that "Request Desktop Version" will not function on mobile browser, as there are not two distinct versions of the site(well as any responsive site should work!). Obviously we are still working and tweaking on this, and we would appreciate any feedback and bugs you have, so if you want to report a problem, please be as specific as possible when posting! Let us know what device you were viewing the site on, what browser you might be using, and so forth, so we can pinpoint any problems as quickly as possible. We are also going to be looking into hosting and reviewing more HTML5 games, which are playable on devices that don't support platforms like Flash. We are doing our best to continue to make our site the best we can for all our readers, and we appreciate, as always, your time, feedback, and patience.

In Carmel Games' totally spooky point-and-click adventure David and Keithan: The Haunted Lighthouse, our two titular heroes are looking for something adventurous one dark and stormy night, and the mysteries surrounding the so-called "ghost of the lighthouse" sounds right up their alley. Before they can even set foot inside, of course, they'll need to scour the town for clues, and solve a puzzle or three. To play, just click to interact with people or objects when your cursor changes as it passes over them, and make sure to try combining items in your inventory when you get stuck! As you might expect, getting past obstacles requires you to think outside the box, so if you're stuck, don't be afraid to experiment with your inventory... and make sure you've clicked on everything, everywhere, since some clickable hotspots aren't always obvious. Of course, it's still a snack-sized game, and if spooks make you cringe, well, don't worry, because David and Keithan: The Haunted Lighthouse is more cheerfully goofy than actually scary in a sort of zoinks-jinkies-ruh-roh way. It's a short but satisfying little adventure, with Carmel Games' usual clean and cartoonish style, and we'd love to see more tales from David and Keithan one day.

Play David and Keithan: The Haunted Lighthouse

A luxurious stay at the top floor of the Skyhill hotel turns your suite into a cage when biological warfare strikes the city. With the world in the grip of war, everyone knew it might happen, but right here, you're the only one who sprung for the hotel's state-of-the-art biological defense capabilities, and everyone else has turned into a flesh-hungry beast, which has to be the worst attempt at a hotel amenity upsell in history, right after those little candy bars in the in-room fridge. Your goal in this turn-based indie RPG from Mandragora is to make it all the way to the bottom floor, but it won't be easy, not least because roguelike elements mean a random experience whenever you step out your door. Skyhill is a fun twist on the classic survival horror game formula, with an appealing aesthetic, though repetition may set in too early for some.

Always looking for the lighthouse to give him peace, our little hero is distraught one night to find the peaceful wave of light is gone. Then the next night shares the same darkness. Not only is his a death sentence to the ships sailing at night, but the one who is supposed to keep the lighthouse running is his beloved grandfather. Sailing out to the island, our hero finds two things... his grandfather's hat and a deep hole in the ground which he promptly falls into. When your head is bigger than your body and more round than a bowling ball, there's more use to it than just making you look adorable, and soon our hero is rolling around trying to find what is Beneath the Lighthouse. This new puzzle platform game from Nitrome, free for iOS and Android, has you spinning the room to keep this fighter rolling around, dodging spikes and falling deeper and deeper into this unknown cliff that is the lighthouse's home.

Dark, mysterious, and very, very weird, Ice-Pick Lodge's surreal and theatrical indie action adventure has gotten a new coat of paint with Pathologic Classic HD. It's not a full remake of the cult hit (though one was successfully crowd-funded and is in the works), but with a brand new English translation that makes it considerably easier to take in, along with crisp, retooled graphics, new voice-overs, and more, the original game is back and better than ever. In it, you'll visit a very strange town, far removed from other civilization, that has grown up with its own bizarre isolated society and rules. This isolation has fostered more than just a few eccentricities, however, and now a plague is ripping through its people. You play one of three unique characters, each with their own distinct but overlapping storylines, motives, and personalities, trying to accomplish your goal over twelve days. Time is always passing, and your actions will determine whether people live or die, especially since some quests need to be completed within a specific time frame. Though at times it may read (and look) like a fever dream and the mechanics may take some getting used to, Pathologic remains one of the most unique, unnerving, and striking adventure games ever made.

Sometimes the world just knows when a person is in need of just the right mixture of point-and-click adventure, Dr. Seuss, Salad Fingers, Liquid Television, and the dreams you get after eating too many tacos. And when that happens, the world provides. Or at least DrawManEater does, with the release of the objectively-surreal Nekra Psaria 4. At the end of Nekra Psaria 3, Johnny-Boy had just returned home to his humble abode after a long and winding adventure. Unfortunately, it seems that there is no rest for the weary, even when it seems that the whole world has hunkered down for a long nap. After all: you've got a roach problem to solve.

What if instead of a tragic and misguided romance, Romeo and Juliet had a monstrous twist? As it happens, Romeo's drunk the poison from the iconic tale, but he's chosen a demon's castle to do so, y'know, as one does, and Juliet is willing to strike a deal to save him. In Elven Games' hack-and-slash title and Juliet is Zombie and Juliet, Juliet agrees to take down a rival demon lord in exchange for Romeo's life (and three years of servitude after), so it's up to you to guide her and help her stab her way to true love... after a bunch of grinding and upgrades, of course. Use [WASD] or the [arrow] keys to move and jump, click to attack, and use the [spacebar] to unleash your special ability when available, while keeping an eye on Juliet's health. You need to break down the doors between each area to advance, but the monsters guarding the place won't take that lying down. When/if she dies, you'll get booted back to Balthazar's castle, where you can buy better equipment, or learn and enhance spells. The souls you collect from enemies can be used to buy better equipment, while the blue flames represent experience towards leveling up so you can get farther in your next assault. As you might imagine, Zombie and Juliet is a very tongue-in-cheek little game, and it's itty-bitty characters and monsters look great, while the premise is a lot of fun. The downside is that the movement just feels a little clunky, especially when trying to attack flying enemies, and the whole thing is extremely heavy on the grind... do we really need to start all the way from the beginning each time? But, well, if you're willing to endure demonic servitude for your true love, presumably those are no obstacles, and Zombie and Juliet is still a fun and quirky twist on the source material with some stabby flair.

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Denis Sokolov and Igor Sotsky know Buffy needed one more thing in her arsenal... a little bit of explosive firepower. After all, when it comes to dealing with vampires, stakes are so two centuries ago. In physics puzzle game Dracula Boom, also free for iOS and Android, you're fed up with the vampires in the area, so it's a good thing you're such a deft hand with explosives in your workshop! The goal of each level is to get rid of the vampires by clicking on and thus detonating (after a short fuse) the bombs next to them to turn them into ash. Of course, sometimes you'll need to manipulate the environment a little to get the bomb where you want it, so you'll be slicing ropes, breaking blocks, and even using special fire bombs to remove wood to get your blast where it needs to be, hopefully picking up the three optional bonus skulls in each level along the way. Sometimes you'll need to take advantage of your bomb's fuse and time when you click on it juuust right, so it's a good thing the physics are fairly reliable. Dracula Boom looks and plays solidly, and while the mechanics aren't really anything new, they work well together to provide a fun and fanged experience with a satisfying amount of new elements introduced to help you slay the day (or night) away.

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Dracula Boom (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)

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David Tzur's SpinIn, also available for a fee on iOS with extra levels, is a familiar sort of puzzle game where you drag pieces around a board to try to clear a path to remove one specific piece... in this case, a diamond. The catch, however, is that when you move, all the pieces on the board not locked down move at the same time in the same direction, and they don't stop moving until they hit something. You can take as many moves as you like to complete a stage, though obviously if you do it in as few as possible, you'll get that all-important perfect rating. Use [R] to restart, and [U] to undo your last move. Chances are you've seen variations on this puzzle before, and while SpinIn doesn't break the mould, it gives it a little twist that keeps you thinking as you puzzle and slide your way through the stages. The levels are rarely elaborate and usually have just a few pieces at a time, so they always look easy, but are trickier than you think. Though it doesn't have any real bells and whistles to speak of, SpinIn is a simply satisfying little puzzle game for on the go or in your browser.

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SpinIn (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)

Can you believe it? It's the 100th edition of Weekday Escape!... at least, since we started numbering them for clarity in our search results. BUT STILL. 100! That means 100 Wednesdays have been filled with free online games by developers who spend their time making escape games for people without asking anything in return, so before you congratulate us, send them a thank you, because we're just the messengers. This week! Funkyland has gone all red in the face, so maybe an apple or seven will help? no1game is throwing a party of their own, but nobody else has arrived. And Vitamin Hana is all about those numbers, 'bout those numbers, and puzzles!

State of Play brings us another gorgeous puzzle adventure game crafted lovingly out of cardboard and paper called Lumino City. In this sequel to Lume, you play as heroine Lumi, who is about to have a chat with her grandfather. But he's abducted as she's making tea! Who would want to kidnap the town handyman? It's up to you to find out as you set out to traverse the city looking for him. Climb all around town to solve puzzles, fix machines, and help townspeople as you search for anyone with information on where your grandad might be. Along the way, you will explore a wonderful mechanical city, and learn some interesting things about the town and your grandpa. In the scuffle he dropped a book, his handyman reference guide, which will end up coming in very useful on your journey.

Available on Adult Swim, "grown up" cartoon Rick and Morty follows the adventures of a young, perpetually flustered teenage boy named Morty and his formerly estranged genius grandfather Rick, whose ability to travel to other dimensions and craft wondrous inventions is matched only by his tolerance for alcohol and borderline contempt for everyone around them. Together, they've dealt with everything from giant heads from beyond the stars that demand Earth take place in an intergalactic music competition, to the concept of self and mortality via dimension-hopping after the end of the world. It's violent, crude, and most likely offensive, but it's also incredibly, uncomfortably smart and thoughtful at times in addition to being really, really funny... and now it has its own campy point-and-click adventure with Rick and Morty's Rushed Licensed Adventure by Starburns Industries. The game is broken up into four short episodes, each with its own loose plot, and, as the title implies, things are going to get very ri(ck)diculous very quickly, with problems ranging from an alien on the couch to Morty's sister Summer's horrifying new condition, and the premises and solutions are anything but mundane. Use [WASD] or the [arrow] keys to move, and click on things to interact by either looking at or using them, while remembering some items in your inventory can be combined. Each episode is short, and will likely only take you around fifteen minutes or so, but with voice acting by the show's cast and all the bizarre humour fans have come to expect, Rick and Morty's Rushed Licensed Adventure is a fun, snarky, point-and-click romp, albeit one with some frustrating adventure game logic, and more toned down content than you might expect. (And, P.S., if you're reading this review in the painful, scary gap between seasons two and three, do yourself a favour and pick up the comics... I promise they're worth it.)

Emma was there at the source of the tragedy: Aramond Hospital. It was located smack-dab in the center of the city, and yet its reputation kept it isolated from the traffic of everyday life. Rumors of undead creatures wandering the grounds and a secret research lab run by individuals with a rather loose policy when it came to acquiring human subjects were enough to steer the curious away. But whatever experimentation went on within its walls has seemed to bear fruit. Emma's source has told her that the Immortality Serum could be found within, and find it, she must. But she had no idea what she would encounter... Pillow City Zero is a horror adventure game by Little Giant World and Small Farm Studio that serves as a semi-prequel to 2014's Pillow City Revelation.

He saw the zombie virus come. It's slowly taking his daughter. His research might someday save the world, but it won't save her. Not with what he has now. Not in time. If there is a future though, it's one that should belong to her. And so he travels to the future, hoping to steal a dose of the vaccine they must have made. It is a faint hope, he knows. But he has no other to cling to. But what will he find when he takes the time to reflect? RETSNOM is a puzzle-platform game by SOMI that has you reversing the world around you in order to move on.

Save the world from a zombie head invasion in this turn based match-3 defense game mash up from Shovelware games. In Zombie Match Defense swipe any brain left, right, up, or down (but not diagonal) to match three of the same type. In most cases you can even move a brain with a zombie on it. When you make a match with a zombie included, the monster dies its final death and humanity lives to see another day. If a zombie reaches one of your scientists, she or he goes out fighting and humanity is basically done for because if another zombie makes it through the empty door it's game over.

In aptly named puzzle game Stacko, you're making stacks of colored disks to match the target shown each level. But things aren't as simple as just dropping these blocks on top of each other. Instead, they rest on a setup that matches Q*bert's home turf. Clicking on a level lower than the block will hop down to it. If the tile you click on has two blocks above it on either side, then the colored blocks will then stack, with the one on the left going first. All this has to be done within a certain number of moves. There is a tutorial that will help you understand... and then some. Despite the tutorial being a little on the long side, Kings Kollege's easy puzzle game will keep you entertained with 40 levels and 20 more only available on the free android app. Stacko may not have you burning your brain fuel dry but you'll sure to enjoy the easygoing feel of it all.

Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector is now available in English!

In Hit-Point's super simple sim, Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector, free for iOS and Android, is all about cats. You put food out in your backyard, along with some toys (and since they're cats, "toys" can also mean "boxes and bags"), and cats come to play with them. You watch the cats relaxing or playing. You take photos of the cats. The cats, when they leave, leave you some fish in return for their fun and food, which can be then spent on buying more enhancements for the play area. If you're lucky, they'll leave golden fish, which can be spent on expanding the area or even better items, though if you're impatient you can buy more golden fish for optional in-app purchases. And that's it. It's essentially Sea Monkeys, only, you know, better because it's cats, and they have cute little cat bums. There are different types and colours of cats, some who parody pop culture, and your goal is simply to see and entice as many as you can. All you need to do is check back in with the app periodically to refill their food dish, which is free, although different food types can be bought with fish, and snap new photos if you like, and after a cat has visited you enough to take a liking to you, they may leave you a special item trophy as an achievement. Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector isn't really something you "play" so much as it is a simple pocketful of virtual pets you check in on once in a while, and if you want something absolutely adorable and low key to put a smile on your face, this is definitely it.

Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)


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