They called your grandpa a crazy inventor, and looking at his house, so chock full of tricks and puzzles, you might be inclined to agree. He might have gone missing, but he somehow still manages to send you a letter asking you to come visit... as long as you can uncover the Secret of Grisly Manor, of course! A simple but fun little point-and-click adventure players of all ages will enjoy, and packed with just the right amount of puzzles for a short break of mystery.

Try a position in the exciting, expanding field of neotechnology in this simple but gorgeous physics puzzler from HeadFizz. Just manipulate the environment to get the neopod safely to the neobot awaiting activation. At only 30 levels the game is a bit on the short side, but the fantastic presentation and enjoyable gameplay make this one an easy choice for a midday break when you just want to have a spot of fun.

What would you do if you were stuck in a locked room with a post filled with monitors? Find keys and solve puzzles to unlock the door, of course! Silly question, sure, but this is just the situation in store for you in Monitor Post, a short and sharp-looking escape game from Ninja Motion. With just enough keys and puzzles to keep you busy for a distraction break, the game will please all but the most hardcore of escapers out there who require a bit more challenge than this has to offer.

Is there a occupation cooler than Vampire Hunter? After seeing the exploits of Van Helsing, Buffy, Blade, Alucard and D, I'd be surprised if high-schoolers don't flock around the recruiting table at the yearly career day. However, not all of us have time for the years of intensive training that is required to spot vampires on sight. Thankfully, the University of Winconsin's Center for Game Science has developed an online training program that will focus your Vampire Vision through a combination of arcade puzzling and hidden object spotting... and it just might improve your regular vision too.

Welcome to yet another strange friend of Tesshi-e who loves nothing more than to lock hapless strangers into a puzzle room and make them solve their way out. Mr. K is back and better than ever in Escape from Mr. K's Room 3.

In this turn-based match-3 battling game, adorable little creatures are locked in combat (in space!) and need you to swap gems, upgrade, and earn rubies to help defeat their opponents. The only mystery is why these cuddly astro-pets feel the need to wail on each other anyway. If snuggly little kittens can't get along with giant squids, is there hope for the rest of us?

Geez, you win a few races and you think you can take on the world! robotJAM and longanimals have gone mad with power and are using their new theme park, Ninja World, to train deadly ninja assassins... your former competitors, in fact! Set out to stop them the only way you know how (namely, through stunts, minigames, and sweet, sweet air time) in this wonderfully silly racing game packed with secrets and unlockables.

Scuba is a 2D, side-scrolling game of exploration, diving, mining, and crafting in the tradition of Minecraft and Terraria. Control your diver-character as you collect 10 types of resources above ground and underwater. Combine items in your inventory to craft parts that will eventually help you make an engine to get home. Scuba's random world generation gives you a different game environment each time you play.

Here it comes, here comes the JiG Vault! It's a demon on wheels! It's a demon and it's going to be chasing after someone. It's gaining on you so you'd better look alive: with three of the best games we found in our archives! Go the JiG Vault! Go the JiG Vault! Go the JiG Vault, Goooooo! This week, be sure to keep a checkered flag at the ready, as we feature three racing games that leave the competition in the dust. Just watch out for those darn blue shells...

Imagine if the hit game Adverputt had all the advertising stripped out and replaced with pure, unadulterated wonder. Why, you'd have to call it Wonderputt, and that's exactly what you get in 18 holes of mini-golfing fun.

Battle 60 new levels of Sudoku in this next installment of the Conceptis Light series of puzzle games. Offering up the same mixture of Sudoku puzzles from Mix Sudoku Light Vol. 1, only harder, this set of puzzles is not for the Sudoku novice or easily frustrated. If you're looking for a decent challenge that's the perfect length for a little break, solve a puzzle from Mix Sudoku Light Vol. 2!

Play as white-eyed Pixle in Divine Games' sokoban-like, tile based puzzler. Collect letter blocks and move objects around to avoid being shot at by spike squares. Get them all and a portal opens to the next level. With 50 levels, this game will provide hours of fun and frustration!

Tanooky Tracks is more or less a point-and-click adventure game with a pinch of hidden object seasoning and a surreal twist. Pick up or manipulate objects by clicking on them; a changing cursor alerts you of when you can do so. Click the top and bottom edges of the screen to explore all four levels of the slightly unusual house in search of useful items and clues. Solve the riddles in the hint book to find out what to use where; find and lure out all twelve tanookys and the game's won!

This summer vacation themed point-and-click game by Nekonote is perfectly sized for a leisurely sojourn. With savvy item usage and a careful inspection of small spots, you'll soon find ten new tiny friends to pal around the beach, go camping, sail on tropical waters, listen to beautiful, soothing music. So don't miss the boat, join your buddies at Find Dwarfs in Summer 2011!

A friendly warning to everyone enjoying this edition of Link Dump Friday: 40% of the facts stated below are blatantly false. In fact, that fact is untrue. Really, you should take everything you read with a grain of salt. Did you know that salt was invented by the natives of a frozen continent over 50 years ago? It's true!

After a long hiatus, Zack Livestone is back to take us deep within his chalky, imaginative world filled with perplexing puzzles and captivating characters. Enter the stark world of Deep Chalk 4, the latest installment in his Deep Chalk series and arguably the most elaborate and deep experience yet.

Bripitol, a sort of deliberately-paced matching game, continues Tonypa's run of designs for games that are simple, easy to grasp, yet unique and compelling. With appealing abstract design and soundtrack from Kevin Macleod, Bripitol is a fine edition to Tonypa's library of puzzlers.

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Raven Locks Smith. She lived in the city of Dull, and although she loved her motivational-speaker parents, she wished for something more. One night, as she considered her boredom, a dream came to her and told her of a life changing tome that could be found near the Mountains of Oddness. Soon she walked there, and found it to be a most interesting place... And so, in this new point and click adventure game by Jonas and Verena Kyratzes, set in the same universe as their earlier The Strange and Somewhat Sinister Tale of the House at Desert Bridge, you help Raven search through the quite unusual Land of Dreams in search of The Book of Living Magic, a point and click adventure. Highly recommended to all lovers of classic adventure games or fantasy worlds in general.

Do you ever think about death? Not just about dying, but about everything connected to it... the emotions, the concepts, the way people from all over the world look at it in vastly different ways? The End from Preloaded and Channel 4 is a bizarre puzzle platforming adventure through a series of realms that ask questions designed to make you think about life and what comes after.

Tower Defense games have cast you in many different roles as protector. Symphonic Tower Defense, the new music game by FrozenFire and Jon Sadness, however, is the first time that a band conductor has been tasked with guarding against nigh-unstoppable attack. I suppose it's justified though, as this time it's music itself that's out of control. And should it escape, terrible unspecified things will happen to us all. Get ready to take some notes and make your enemies treble with bass fear, as you orchestrate the sharpest defense possible! While a few hopefully-soon-to-be-fixed programming glitches make it a little discordant, overall Symphonic Tower Defense has a nice beat that's easy to dance to.

A classic one-room escape game with puzzles that are nicely varied with a lot of combination type and those that use found objects. What is nice to see with Escape from the Room 202 is a designer who seriously understands how an escape game should flow. Let's welcome Tsukisuna-sou to the ranks of promising game designers and have fun playing this wonderful new effort.

Immortal Souls: Dark Crusade is a browser version of the downloadable strategy-RPG by Comic Book RPG. You play John Turner, a reluctant vampire armed with guns, claws, a baseball bat, and a sense of vengeance. In this turn-based game, you form chains of multi-colored icons to attack hordes of richly-animated bad guys in a comic-book like world. A new class system and added features enhance the gameplay over the original.

How far are you willing to go for someone who doesn't even seem to know you're there? In this short, atmospheric artsy platformer, scour a grim world looking for bits of colour to return to a loved one, even at the cost of losing yourself in the process. Originally featured in a Link Dump Friday article, Grey's simple, repetitive gameplay may not win everyone over, but for others the changing environment and wordless message may deliver an intensely personal experience.

Gam.eBB.jp proudly brings us a new toy to dismantle with the usual exploding surprise buried within. The puzzles are pretty simple but are nicely varied, and this is definitely a fun way to start the day. Just don't mute the sound, otherwise you'll be stuck from the beginning. Wake up and grab a screwdriver!

The Vault gets social this week with a look back at some of our favourite free MMORPGs that still manage to be addicting and engaging even today despite a lack of celebrity endorsements or high-falutin' graphics and whatnot.

Kids get the weirdest toys. Dinosaurs with wheels. Monster trucks that roar and eat cavemen. Toy robot bears with color-coded buttons that correspond to wallpaper trim with arms that can be positioned to write encoded messages to other playmates. You know, the usual stuff. Playroom, a brand new room escape game from Imagia creator Kayzerfish, takes place in just such a location, and in order to escape from this abode, you'll need to do some serious code breaking, map drawing, and item hunting in this colorful and challenging game.

To make a good platformer, you don't need new ideas. You just need to make fun of platformers. Lee-Lee's Quest is more of a platformer doing it at the expense of the genre. In fact, start it in style. When the game starts and Lee-Lee awaits your movement commands, just hold back and do nothing. He's got a few things to say.

In this time management game, you'll be serving sugary delights in the form of 'Freezer' sundaes to ever picky customers. It seems like it should be a breeze working for Papa at his new shop. After all, it's located on the tropical Calypso Island with a population of only twelve potential customers... oh, and I suppose that mob exiting the large cruise ship over there may decide to stop by too. You'll be fine, don't worry. Just in time to help you beat the heat of summer, sit back, grab a cold one (sundae, that is) and spend a few hours running Papa's Freezeria.

Hey! Orcs, skeletons, giants, mosquitoes, bunnies, and evil bees! Those acorns are mine! Armed with a bow and arrows and a few other more boom-inducing weapons, Elliot Pace's Defend Your Nuts is a fast-paced defense game that puts you in the furry shoes of a squirrel perched on a tree. As evil minions tromp in from the right side of the screen, take aim and fire to send them back to the flames of Hades where they belong, keeping your winter stash safe and secure from their muck-covered paws!

If you've ever wanted to reenact a summer blockbuster sequel in the comfort of your own Flash game screen, Exit Path 2 by jmtb02 will have you running and jumping and dodging lasers like your very own action hero. This time... it's personal. Uniplayer and multiplayer fast-paced jump-and-run action return with a vengeance in an addictive, flashy experience.

Be a fairy, a thief, a blockhead, a boyfriend, or a ghost hunter in this week's edition of Link Dump Friday! Never let it be said we don't help expand your horizons. It's like Dirty Jobs, but with less unspeakable stenches and charming, ruggedly handsome hosts.

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

When you look at Not to Scale, you may be thinking, "A tile swapping puzzle that looks like the final project for someone's Flash Programming 101 course? What could possibly be worth my time here?" And you'd end up missing a really enjoyable experience. By using slots for the tiles of varying sizes, and carefully selected photographs, the game gives you a unique spatial sense twisting puzzle challenge.

In Soul Tax, a new possession puzzle platformer from Jarod Long, the story centers on these two facts of... death. See, you're a ghost who's been haunting this extremely complex office complex, and one day the grim reaper shows up and lets you know that you owe tax on all the time you spent being an ethereal spirit. And how are you going to pay these taxes? Easy. Defenestration and pixellated murder.

Like to point and shoot? How about follow directions... or even figuring them out? In this puzzle shooter with just 21 levels, the goal is to find out what the goal is, and what the rules are in any given situation. With funky pop instrumentals, minimalistic style, and and clever approach to classic cannon action, it's the perfect tidbit of blasting for your day.

Cairn, the new point and click puzzle adventure by Aaron Price, takes place in a land that is cursed. For centuries, countless have tried to explore it. To discover its secrets. None have returned. Some claim it's coincidence. Others say something keeps them from leaving, but you've never been one to take them at their word... The intro goes on like this for a while, but let's speed ahead to the point: You're in a meadow. It's eerie. There are puzzles. Get to it, dude.

A delightfully logical and quick to solve room escape game, this one from Petithima. It's a simple room design with simple, easy to understand controls and simple puzzles. And when added together these make for a wonderful experience that is not too heavy on the palate. Fortunately we have games like Room 9 to fall back on, secure in the knowledge that the escaping fun will be logical, amusing, and flow easily from one challenge to the next.

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

Robots. The bane of our existence! It's time to get rid of those immobile, block-like things that do nothing but sit there, mocking us with their smug, yellow-eyed looks of supremacy! In the unassuming little puzzle game Pusher, you play a little guy who takes hairstyling tips from The Beatles and has the power to rid the world of robots, one sliding block at a time!

Since my computer room tends to have people in it, most of the time my speakers have to stay muted. Still, when I get the urge to be a heroic guitarist, a revolutionary dancer, or an elite agent of beat, no one can stop me from having the volume go up to 11. To quote Dire Straits: I want my JiG! This week in The Vault, lets give a round of sound for three games whose awesome audio is music to my ears.

Mr. Runner looks so sleek, there's no reason why he shouldn't run quickly. You have three worlds with over a dozen levels each in which to jump, slide, float through the air and die and die and die. Whether you're searching for the five chests hidden in each world or racing to the finish to unlock the next level, you're bound to have 'a few' deaths while figuring out how to get to the end.

Muse Quest is an entry in the Project Eden Music Game Contest that combines platforming elements with unique musical gameplay. In it, you are a character that can control the behavior of other potato-like characters by playing different songs acquired across ten levels. With its cooperative elements, a stark graphical appearance and some nifty music, Muse Quest stands out from standard platformers.

It's a zombie railshooter cheese-stravaganza in Xplored's fast-paced first-person shooter starring Joe, the guy with a machine gun for a hand, and scores of squishy zombies just waiting to be burst. Save the world on rails, gain powerups, and blast bosses in this fast, frantic homage to classic arcade action.

This is one of the best, most elaborate adventure hybrids to come out this year. With the emphasis squarely on the point-and-click adventuring, Sacra Terra: Angelic Night is a mind-blowing throwback to the days of yore in adventure gaming with its engrossing story, stunning visuals, and, most importantly, depth of gameplay. Alawar has created a world which is fascinating to explore and difficult to leave, and the combination of beautiful, otherworldly scenes juxtaposed with the grim, haunting asylum proper makes the entire experience surreal.

Just how good are you at spotting differences? So good that you can find miniscule discrepancies between moving objects that, by all cursory glances, look and act identically? It's time to activate your visual cortex in a serious way with A Very Simple Game 2, a game that's so simple, it will stump you time and time again.

Ready for some brawling? Superfighters from MythoLogic Interactive is a single-screen single-player or 2-player versus fighting game replete with weapons, tactical maneuvers, and chunky pixel art your eyes will adore. It's a game where little dudes shoot, stab, burn, kick, shoot (again) and trick each other until they pass out from non-livingness, and once that round is over, you get to do it all over again!

Kingdom Rush has itty-bitty visuals but an ogre's worth of style and strategy. In this fantastic tower defense game, protect your kingdom's roads and countrysides against incoming hordes of goblins, bandits, wulves, and other nasties. Build towers, upgrade your army in and out of battle, take on challenges, and enjoy all the POW SOK SHUNT battling you can handle while you're at it.

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

Arcade, puzzle, RPG, and escape combine to form the savoury, heady brew that is your Link Dump Friday! Guide an intrepid lad with a hunger for raw fish through a minefield, help a whale find true love, make or break your new ice-cream business, and spend some time in a cell with the world's least talkative roommate.

Cat God vs. Sun King is an interesting volley into the defense genre: the enemy is sending waves upon waves in an attempt to build a tower, and you're purely and simply trying to destroy them all. Plus you're a cute little cat. The more you use abilities, the cheaper, quicker and more powerful they will get, up to a max of three levels per skill. Once you kill every enemy, you win the level.

Nitrome's destructive physics puzzle goes overseas in this follow up to 2010's hit Rubble Trouble! With giant mechanical laser lizards, air strikes, grabbing choppas and more at your disposal, you should be able to meet your monetary goal quicker than ever and satisfy your boss. But can you keep your workers and the surrounding civilians safe without endangering your bottom dollar?

We get you. You're too cool for regular platformers, right? They're so boring. So easy. Then why don't you bring your swagger on over to this tricky puzzle platformer and help one cool cat reach his goal. Can you make it to the exit? How about while only moving left? Without jumping? Within a time limit? You'll need quick reflexes, a cool head, and a dose of patience to proceed.

Blipzkrieg is a graphically simple but tactically rich real-time strategy game. In it, you command a blue circle and troops of yellow circles versus hordes of gray squares and their forces. Can you reach the portal on each level by overcoming the enemy? The game features 29 progressively-difficult stages and straight-forward mouse control.

These monsters aren't monstrous at all! Look how soft and trusting they are, how they make innocent eye contact with you as if to say, "Please don't electrocute me and all my friends and family!" Too bad that's the aim of the game in this negative space puzzler that has loads of charm and black humour, not to mention style, to carry you through the day.

When a car accident on a lonely road strands you on the outskirts on thriving metropolis Union City all you can think about is getting home to your significant other. You quickly discover, unfortunately, that the metropolis isn't so thriving after all, but is is practically heaving with zombies. Will you be able to survive the outbreak and find your beloved? Scavenge for food, weapons, ammunition, and more while trying to stave off endless hordes of flesh-hungry monsters in this enormous side-scrolling action RPG.

There's barely any faulting the Conceptis Light series of games, and Dot-a-Pix is consistent with their light, fun and diversional qualities. Whether you call it connect-the-dots or dot-to-dot, Dot-a-Pix Light is what it sounds; light, logical and fun. So put away the pens and paper and enjoy a trip down the lane where your inner child plays.

Escape from the Restroom is a pretty easy game, befitting something that is there to amuse a restaurant patron for a few minutes while awaiting a dinner guest. The puzzles are fun and challenging but not overly difficult, creating a nice, light, easy escape to whet your appetite and leave you wanting more.

Don't you just hate when you wake up and find out that the sun is exploding? Yeah, me too. What with the shock waves of the supernova and the imminent threat of incineration, it just about ruins your whole day. Then you have to pack up everything into the family rocket ship and blast from world to world in your solar system, and because of the ever-approaching wall of flame, there's no time for sight-seeing. All you can do is try to stay one step ahead of the heat-death. Such is the premise of Run from the Sun, by FreakyZoid. And considering the title, it's kind of ironic that it's a game you'll want to run towards as quickly as possible.

Have you Nyan'd yet? If you haven't you will when you try the bizarre endless game that is Nyan Cat FLY! Pilot a flying oddly shaped cat through the expanse of space to catchy music, collecting yummies and avoiding veggies until... until someone stages an intervention. As if you needed another excuse to Nyan even harder, Krang Games' addictive arcade experience gets sneaky with a bunch of new cheats that do a variety of things to your beloved pop-tart space cat and the playing field.

Tree of Life is an inventory-based puzzle game from Target Detected. Throughout the game's set of nearly 30 levels, you'll place arrows, element changers, teleporters, etc. on the pathways, guiding your element to collect all of the stars before heading to the exit. It can be tricky navigating some of the game's more sprawling levels, but you didn't expect restoring life to an ancient tree would be an easy affair, did you?

I tried to do the cryptic crossword in this morning's paper, but sadly I couldn't even figure out 1-Across: Dancing Leap Mixes a Vital Jug (3, 5). Thankfully, when I need to recharge my active vocabulary, I never forget the JiG Vault. So what are we featuring this week, my lord? Words, Words, Words! Be sure to have your thesaurus at the ready for some language games that are worth at least a thousand pictures.

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

Who knew that a bunch of simians could create a game that depicts one of their number being cruelly experimented upon, forced to use a reality-bending helmet to manipulate his environment to avoid being killed? You'll just have to set aside a chunk of time to focus on this game. Get some infinite monkeys to do your other work. How do you think I manage to create such great reviews for JIG?

Make ready thine lance, young knight! And then make ready to hand it off to thine children, because thou art about to get thine hind end kicked. Joust for the ultimate price (the fabled "the lance") against powerful knights and the king's own Champion in this adorable action game that's a snap to play and a joy to behold.

While we at JayIsGames pride ourselves on featuring the best and latest in casual gaming, we always have time to feature quality works that fell through the cracks. Case in point: Soap Bubble, a, if not the, prototypical avoidance game, was originally released in 2002 and became one of the earliest games featured on the site. The charming and devilishly difficult tale of an ultra-delicate bubble trying to make his way through a cave back to his friends was the start of great things for Anders Gustafsson including the Audience Award winning Gateway series and the coolly claymated The Dream Machine. So it seems that the 2006 sequel which continued the story of the iridescent sphere that could passed us by... until today! Soap Bubble 2 keeps what was best about the original while still feeling fresh.

This week's Link Dump Friday stirs up zombies, chickens, robots, balloons, and a whole spectrum of colours. We're an equal opportunity website for all sorts of bizarre games!

Curvy is a satisfyingly simple HTML5-based game where you twist a board full of hexagons in order to make each hex's lines and curves connect properly. You can customize the board layout and complexity, and take your time as you solve each Zen-like puzzle, making each piece fit as you bring order out of chaos.

You know, somewhere deep in the blackness of infinite space, there have to be all sorts of life forms bouncing around the void. Space clowns, for example, could exist here, living off of stray particles or digesting dark matter itself. With these life forms comes the inevitable life forms that feed off of them. In the case of Space Parasite, an arcade/action game by Kale Kramlack and Andy Wolff, you are that life form, infecting every piece of space life that floats your way!

Ragdoll Cannon 4 will have you propelling hapless stick-like ragdolls at "HERE" targets across 50 new levels. This physics-based projectile puzzles now features 3 different ragdoll types, including explosive and sticky ragdolls. Clever level design and a stylized approach makes this one a worthy addition to the Ragdoll Cannon series.

Mega Miner is a mining game that's all about repeated trips to the underground that challenge you to balance your fuel levels and item capacity for maximum efficiency, all so you can make your drill-bot the best it can be. There's something wildly addictive about unearthing gems, and let me tell you, one hip cat to another, I dig it. Can you dig it?

Ruby Loft Escape is a wonderful and bracing mid-week treat, a visual and logical delight from a relative newcomer, one we're looking forward to seeing more of. So have fun robbing some poor rich person blind.

The sequel to 2010's text adventure RPG Choice of Romance has arrived, and picks up right where the original left off. Will you be able to hold onto your new power in the court, or have you just painted a very large target on your back... and who can you trust to watch out for a dagger pointed at you when everyone has their own agenda?

Ever think about the high cost of the clothes you wear? No, not just the price you pay at the register, but the people on the other end you never see or even consider? Littleloud brings us a strategy simulation that tasks you with running a factory overseas struggling to meet demands for the most popular items. Will you be able to keep your boss happy without sacrificing the well being of your workers? Or will the need for speed and money trump health and safety?

A local 2-player versus game in which one player plays the man who builds barricades and finds elixirs during the day and the other plays the wolf who tears down barricades and eats people. It's a race for points over 3 days and nights, and then the roles switch. The player with the most points after 2 rounds wins. Grab a friend, or another personality, to play a game.

Welcome to Vault-o-mania! Not actually a Vault article, but an incredible simulation! Wait... I'm sorry, I've mixed up my notes. What I meant to say is that this is a Vault article about the mania I have over these incredible simulations. This week, we look into the JayIsGames archives to highlight three games perfect for those of us who like to escape reality by showing how much better it could be if they were in charge of running it.

Helios Minor is under attack, and you're the only one close enough to respond to the distress signal! Fortunately, it's nothing you can't handle... just hundred and hundreds of vicious, fast, resilient enemy fighters and thousands and thousands of space bullets! Upgrade your ship and go up against the tide of foes in this vertical scrolling shooter!

Scrape Scraperteeth actually has you start out the game by reading and acknowledging a satirical "warning", pointing out its flaws before the critics can do so: it's easy (you can't die or fail), it's ugly (well... just look at the screencap), it's strange, it's even wanky. Platforming enjoyment is not what you're signing up for when you play this game. Slow down and take the time to watch all that happens as you move around the levels, to read the text, and to figure out the subtext.

In The Legend of Mulida, you are the brave, retro-style hero called upon to save the pricess. Can you get the powerups? Can you avoid the falling swords? Can you handle the mouse controls? Play this ode to classic 8-bit Zelda (complete with a robust second quest!) and find out.

You can put down your mallet; you won't be crushing any castles yourself this time! In fact, in Joey Betz and Toge Production's latest joint effort, you'll be (gasp!) protecting them! Take up the mantle of Siege Master once more in this challenging and well made tower defense game as you work with the leaders of the realm to repel troops of dangerous, numerous invaders who want nothing better than to crush your castle... hey... YOU'RE the only one who gets to do that!

This week's Link Dump features magic, mayhem, racing, physics, platforming, and definitely no cookie related criminal activity whatsoever! I mean it! Stop looking at me that way!

An excellent metroidvania style puzzle platformer that's easy enough to jump straight in, but has a ton of hidden secrets for experts to find (especially if you want the best ending)... along with a few locked doors that just beg for further expansion. Legend of Kalevala has that perfect mix of old and new, alien and human, story and action.

In this latest escape-the-room game by TomaTea, you are whisked away to an enchanting little café in Paris, France. Each brain-teaser in Golden Heart is just complex enough to require thought without being overly perplexing. Although, one puzzle will be much easier to those who know how to read and play music, our review provides all the necessary information to elucidate even the tone deaf.

Totally Odd packs together a great bundle of clever thinking and creative presentation. Don't let those three little words "trial-and-error" dissuade you from the thoroughly enjoyable gameplay. With a bit of persistence and patience, that "Ah-ha!" moment when you finally solve a tricky puzzle becomes all the more gratifying. If you're hungry for mental stimulation in a cute little wrapper with an unusual dash of spice, Totally Odd is the perfect brainfood.

Most shooters not physics-sy enough for you? Then fire up Ant Karlov's creative spin on the genre! Start with sprawling levels, mix in some highly destructible scenery, and sprinkle liberally with zombies, machines, skeletons, and explosive barrels, and you've got a recipe for success. (... success... tastes funny... )

You start off on ice, which is rather natural for penguins, but soon enough you'll be sending your rampaging army into the jungle and beyond. This is a game where turtles are evil. And can hide under the ground sometimes. And also carry military-grade weapons on the backs of their shells. Look, turtles bad, penguins good, alright? You've got to upgrade la resistance manchot if you're going to stand a chance. Say by hacking off the beak and replacing it with a zombie beak.

The puzzles in Ancient Scripts are not necessarily the hardest we've ever seen. What Ancient Scripts has that many other games don't have though is that indefinable elegance of design, in the controls, in the backgrounds, and most especially in the puzzles.

There's a tremendous amount of brainbusting to be found in such a tiny puzzle game as this. The shortest distance between two points certainly isn't a straight line here, as you'll end up making circles around yourself to find the correct path to the exit. You only have thirty spots to move to, but you'll be trekking around the grid for a good long time. It'll be pretty hard to pass up this Impasse.

Breaking Banks can be nice, and Escaping from Prison can be satisfying, but diamonds are a stickman's best friend. And, wouldn't ya know it, the Tunisian Diamond is on display at Stickville Museum. It's night, so the usual rabble has gone home. So it's just a couple of guards standing in your way. With all your technology on-hand, they should prove no problem... Right? Ha. Ha. WRONG! Puffballs is back with Stealing the Diamond. And remember, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

As I sit here drinking a cool refreshing Dr. Pepper™, typing on a Dell™ computer with an Intel™ Pentium™ Processor, I check my Omega™ sports watch and realize it's time for another edition of the JayIsGames™ Vault™. This week, we feature three of the best advergames from our archives. If only all commercials could be this fun!

Drop is a fine physics-puzzle game with a musical theme that shows a little clever attention to detail can liven up an otherwise ordinary game. Offering both Sandbox and Puzzle modes, the goal of Puzzle mode is to fill all the end pipes with bouncy white projectiles. Draw lines across the screen to maneuver those projectiles around obstacles and to their goal.

Presented in crispy pixel graphics and a soundtrack reminiscent of truly old console gaming, Froggish Swimmer is a fiendish little offering where you guide your frog towards a whirlpool. In his way are various obstacles, some to be avoided, others to be bombed away. Sounds simple? This is not your average one button game...

Through pure coincidence all of the games on this week's Link Dump Friday feature little adorable heroes! Also contained herein are point-and-click puzzles, stunt-tastic doggies, rats in peril, heavy weaponry, and more! It's like a rainbow of wonderment in your browser.

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

Maybe I'm expecting crime syndicates to have a unreasonable level of precognition, but I gotta say... I really can't see a situation in which killing the family of a guy named Mr. Vengeance is going to end positively. I mean, you have to think that with that name might get a little ticked off and have access to revenge-friendly weaponry. But hey, you have to kick off a rail shooter somehow, and you can't argue with what works. It's Mr. Vengeance: Act One by Russian developer TxGames. He'll roar. He'll rampage. He'll get bloody satisfaction.

Hop into the Wayback Machine with Taro Ito's dungeon crawling RPG that hearkens back to a simpler time in gaming. How simple? Well, there's an evil witch, a magic orb, a tiny village, and a big, sprawling set of ruins full of monsters just waiting for you to hack and slash your way through. A loving homage to the earlier days of RPGs, The Haunted Ruins has a few surprises and is a simple but enjoyable romp with a lot of classic flair.

Every scene in 58 Works' On Sen is picturesque, beguiling, and very peaceful, so it makes sense that the puzzles would be equally affable, not too strenuous or taxing. With logical puzzles, intuitive navigation and a beautiful atmosphere, On Sen is a pleasure to experience, even if it is only a quick dip rather than a long soak.

Escape from the Kid's Room is the perfect mid-week break, challenging but not too difficult, and a nostalgic look back for one of our most popular room escape designers. Pretty to look at and fun to play, Escape from the Kid's Room is definitely the perfect escape for those not wanting to spend too much time locked into a strange kid's room.

Simple does not mean that there's any less action, it just means there's more bullets and less to think about. No grenades, one weapon at a time, simple weapon shop and upgrades, it all means nothing but twitchy shooting action, one hundred percent of the time. Some might call it shallow, but I'd call it pure.

It's a long way to the top, baby, and if you want to keep your job in Nitrome's latest action arcade platformer, you'll have to survive the Office of Doom! Make your way to the helicopters at the end of each level, running and jumping through floors stocked with all manner of traps, tricks, and hazards. It's just a fact of life, kids; if you want that promotion, you have to be willing to dodge a few zombies and let your resolution get downgraded once in a while.

I recently checked out my ol' arcade at the hometown mall... Have to tell ya, things were pretty dire. It was once an Aladdin's Castle, but nowadays it's more of an Aladdin's Shack or, perhaps, an Aladdin's Hovel. Needless to say, the $5 in my pocket ended up going to a pretzel instead. At least the JiG Vault is here to make up for what reality lacks. This week we have three awesome arcade=styled games that deserve your tokens and your attention.