Boulders Never Die is a fantastic physics-based action puzzle game where you must build defenses around a red ball using a set of rubbery blocks. Boulders are constantly pelting your fort, and if the ball touches a block or a boulder it's game over. If you've got a couple hours free, or if you're looking for a game that you can play on your coffee break, you should definitely give it a try.

One passenger on a lonely road in the middle of the night is about to change your life forever. When a mysterious girl who you give a lift to a small town in the middle of nowhere leaves a relic from your childhood in the backseat, you go looking for answers, but might not make it back home safely. Artogon Games delivers a flawed but ultimately genuinely scary title that horror adventure fans will want to check out.

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.

Once in a while a game comes along that, well, you don't really know how to describe. Great Adventures: Lost in Mountains is one of those games. Designed by Fenomen Games, Great Adventures is advertised as a time management game. Actually, it's more like a casual sim. No, it's more like a point-and-click adventure with casual sim and time management elements. But really, it plays like a room escape game with RPG and hidden object elements. See? Difficult to describe. Basically, all of the above is incorporated to make one wildly fun, inventive game.

There's a new Wonderland in town, rounding out the 3D action-puzzle series by Midnight Synergy. Our last review in this series was the well-received Wonderland Secret Worlds, in which a storm rolled through and blew all the little Stinkers away. In the new Wonderland Adventures, you fill the shoes of a hero once more, this time trying to save entire Wonderland realm, which is being threatened by a dark, matter-destroying void.

You wake up, confused, unable to speak, naked, and threatened with a gun by a young man at the end of the world who seems surprised to find you're human in this free indie visual novel. Your choices determine the heroine's personality and feelings as you struggle to find out what happened to you in this romantic post-apocalyptic tale.

Ever wanted to combine a hidden object game with a riddle-centric room escape title? Like strawberries and bananas, the two genres go together remarkably well, as Elephant Games' Lost in the City eloquently showcases. Steeped in mystery, you travel from room to room finding items, solving puzzles, deciphering riddles and completing simple mini-games as you unravel a particularly intriguing storyline filled with strange plot twists.

For those who enjoy hybrid hidden object/adventure games PuppetShow: Mystery of Joyville is casual gameplay done right. If you want to kick off the Halloween season right, then sit back, relax, and make your way through Joyville before evil completely envelops the town. Just one word of advice: you might want to play with the lights on.

Winter Wolves serves up a huge visual novel adventure RPG with deep tactical combat. As a slave to the Amazon empire, you're sent out with your princess, Loren, in search of a missing queen. In short order, you discover Loren's problems are only a tiny symptom of a greater evil plaguing the world... but will she be able to overcome her own shallow world view and limited life experience to become the hero everyone needs her to be? And does she even want to?

Underhome is under attack... by red tape! In this big adventure game by storyteller Jonas Kyratzes, return once again to the surreal Lands of Dream when The Mysterious Druid calls you in to help with what he feels is an erroneous foreclosure attempt on the biotechnological dwelling. A sweeping, engrossing adventure about mystery, magic, money, and family, it's packed full of pop-culture references, intelligence, and unexpected heart.

Winter Voices: Avalanche is a quiet, slow-paced, and very different kind of tactical role playing game. You play a young girl living in a snowy village whose father has just passed away. Dealing with the emotions that follow is difficult, and the mysteries surrounding her father's past makes it even more challenging. Avalanche is the first in a series of episodes telling the story of Winter Voices, and if you're looking for a game that's heavy on emotion, character, and storytelling, this one won't disappoint.

In this compelling and grim indie simulation, you control a group of survivors struggling to get by day to day in an increasingly dangerous city that's turned into a war zone. As the days pass, you're forced to push the limits of what you're comfortable with in order to survive, and rather than glorifying war for heroics, This War of Mine humanizes it for its people.

In this time of over population, it's hard not to daydream about having a nice little town all to yourself. Sadly, 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!

Stealth? Hacking? Gizmos? Giant rampaging scientists? This freeform action roguelike has 'em all, gives you the missions and lets you decide how to complete them, and it's currently free while in its alpha stage.

The Dark Hills of Cherai is beautiful, fun casual gameplay. Fantastically, it bucks the latest trend of the ever shrinking game time and will keep players busy for hours. This is not a game to speed through. Take your time, explore, and experience the wonders of India without ever leaving your home.

Flight to Freedom is the second in the series of Mission US educational point-and-click adventure game titles focusing on American History, created by Electric Funstuff under the auspices of New York PBS Station Channel 13. The year is 1848. The tenuous balance that had been struck concerning the issue of slavery wavers in the face of a nation expanding by conquest and treaty. Living in these tumultuous times is Lucy, a 14 year old slave of Kentucky's King Plantation. Lucy must balance her wishes for freedom with the risk of recapture, but an incident on the farm will force the issue sooner than she'd ever thought. What can a slave do? An intelligent and thought-provoking game that should appeal to both its student audience, and anyone with a passing interest in history.

In the mood for a seriously intense turn-based strategy game? Solium Infernum is about as non-casual as you can get, featuring no in-game tutorial and a 30+ page instruction manual. But it rewards players with superb open-ended gameplay that has as many paths to victory as you can conjure.

When Sam Hunt disappears without a trace one rainy night following a knock at the door, his wife Danielle is frantic and has no idea where to turn for help. At least, not until help appears from an unlikely source. In this horror hidden-object adventure from Alawar Games, Danielle will travel back to the town her husband grew up in and uncover the bizarre truth about his past.

Cling to the shadows and assassinate those in your way as you attempt to steal the heart of the World-Tree, the giver of all magic. But your journey will not be easy as you travel through the tower, designed by a crazed architect and filled to the brim with guards, trolls, and other nasties.

Miranda and her clockwork companion Sprocket are back in Total Eclipse's hidden object adventure game, The Clockwork Man 2: The Hidden World! Featuring elegant hand-drawn visuals, twice the content of the original game, and the series' standard scrolling and zoomable levels, it's exactly what you would expect from a follow-up and delivers a solid, well-balanced hidden object experience from beginning to end.

Caster is a third-person action-shooter with distinct influences from the glory days of console gaming; it cooks up some of the most-enticing features of high-energy, super-powered shooter action and serves it up on a silver platter.

What happens when a game's mechanics are affected by, well, themselves? That's what Mark Essen of Messhof Games might have been wondering when he devised the idea for Flywrench, a downloadable freeware game in which you must guide your bat-like ship through a maze of obstacles to the exit.

You have entered the realm of Entombed, an amazing and surreal, first-person, point-and-click adventure game filled with puzzles, mazes, traps, acid moats, tunnels and a glimmering crystal cathedral. There is even a room carved from ice. These puzzles will tease your brain and give your grey matter a work out for sure.

Currently available in Steam's Early Access, Layers of Fear is a disturbing and inventive indie horror adventure that has you exploring a house and one man's descent into obsessive madness. With gorgeous visuals, top-notch atmosphere, and a surreal and otherworldly world that changes as you explore, it's full of masterfully executed scares, but may be too on-rails and uninteractive for some.

Available for a number of gaming platforms, Max and the Magic Marker is a creative platform game that utilizes drawing to complement its collectathon-style physics gameplay. You play the role of Max, an orange-haired kid whose drawing has come to life thanks to a magical marker he received in the mail. Now Max is running through three unique worlds trying to put a stop to this eggplant menace. It's a game that's as much creative thinking as it is platforming, and it'll tickle your inner child to watch it in action!

Poker. You're either hopelessly addicted to it, or you can't tell a flush from a straight. The word itself conjures up high-stakes games in Vegas, dusty saloon matches between cowboys, and crummy online games played with real money. Fortunately for us, Youda Games has brought back its casual poker-meets-simulation game in the delightfully accessible Governor of Poker 2. No matter if poker scares you or excites you, this game's got something great in store for you.

An engaging mix of Fishy and Katamari Damacy, Dingo Games' Tasty Blue, the latest in their Tasty Planet series, has you chomping your way up the food chain from krill to continents. It's the kind of mindful destruction that's best in short bursts, but definitely something worth sinking your teeth into.

In the mood for more beach-themed Virtual Villagers-style simulation gaming? Escape from Paradise 2: A Kingdom's Quest is now available, and it delivers exactly what its predecessor did and quite a bit more. Instead of straightforward village management, Escape from Paradise 2 blends in mini-games to break up the action, and combined with a little hidden object finding and character stat upgrading, you have a game that will quickly sink its hooks in you.

The days drag by, each one the same as the one before, but in this chilling horror game by Ryuuchi Tachibana, translated by Vgperson, not everything is as it seems. Stuck in a rut in your dreary apartment, you barely notice the changes at first, but soon they'll be impossible to ignore. With almost 40 different endings and a unique approach to gameplay and storytelling, it may require some trial-and-error, but it's definitely worth a look.

Time Gentlemen, Please!, a direct sequel to Zombie Cow's Ben There, Dan That, is a playground for just about every type of humor that is likely to get you ousted from civil society. It's old-school adventuring at its best and manages to both parody and canonize classic Lucasarts games while providing a stiff set of puzzles to solve.

Serve the Pact, serve Avadon, serve Redbeard. So it goes for you, a new recruit to the fabled Black Fortress, eager to make a name for yourself and help uphold the ideals of your land. But all is not as it seems; Redbeard, Avadon's commander, seems to inspire as much fear as he does loyalty in his followers, and murmurs of dissent ripple through the ranks while rumours of traitors both unnerve and intrigue you. Decide for yourself what path you will follow in this massive, engrossing turn-based fantasy RPG from Spiderweb Software. Just remember to watch your back so someone doesn't stick a dagger into it. Who can you trust?

When the ghost of Nathaniel Hawthorne appears to you and asks you to solve the mysteries surrounding his untimely death, the last thing you expected was to get caught up in a centuries old mystery where you'll have to race to prove one woman's innocence. Hunt for clues and discover secrets in this challenging but beautiful hidden-object/point-and-click hybrid.

Gish is a 12 pound ball of tar. Gish is also a cult-classic indie platformer released by Cryptic Sea. In this game you control of a heavy, squishy, sticky glob of goo. Balls of tar would normally be rather inert, but this particular one has had his girlfriend taken away, thus inspiring him to get up off his lazy sack of goop and slosh into action. By becoming sticky, slippery, heavy, or using tar-like ball physics to bounce high in the air, its your job to squeeze through each level and solve puzzles with little more than your own gooey body.

Mayo's father goes missing looking for help one dark and stormy night after their car breaks down, and together with her foul-mouthed, fanged teddy-bear Masper, she finds herself in a bizarre mansion filled with tricks, traps, and secrets in this puzzle adventure game translated by vgperson.

Ben Leffler continues his popular horror point-and-click series in Exmortis 3, when your time for revenge may come too late to do mankind any good. Introducing new abilities, new locations, and dripping with atmosphere, Exmortis 3 is exceptionally well made, but may be over too soon for some players.

Department 42: The Mystery of the Nine is a hidden object adventure game from Frogwares, creator of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened and Secret Missions: Mata Hari and the Kaiser's Submarines. Take the role of an agent working for Department 42, a secret organization that investigates paranormal events. Yes, kind of like X-Files! Nine malevolent artifacts that were sealed away in Grimstone mansion have gone missing, and it's your job to find them before their evil influence spreads chaos around the world.

Ricardo Chellini's unexpected inheritance of a private island should have been a dream, but when he arrives to find the estate falling apart and discovers something wants him dead, he must unravel the mystery surrounding his family's violent, sad past if he wants to survive. A stunning and wonderfully creepy hidden-object adventure from Artogon Games.

Pew Pew Pew Thwak. Thwap Thwup Splat, Wheeee! The review of Platypus could end there, but in the interest of, you know, explaining things, I'll continue. Platypus is a wonderfully unique side scrolling shooter created by Anthony Flack. Everything in the game — from the enemies to the backgrounds and even the weapons fire — is made from plasticine. This playable claymation shooter is filled with action and quirky design choices that have made it an instant cult-classic.

Divine Divinity is a classic action RPG that borrows a few style points from the Diablo series. Despite its appearance, this isn't a game for "serious" role playing fans, though it still tells a fun story and features a lot of engaging gameplay.

From building neighborhoods to buying movie-star houses, from constructing railway stations to buying a lion for the zoo, Be Richer! is even more engaging than the original. Perfect for casual gameplay, beautiful, addictive, and just downright fun, Be Richer! once again delivers (as do the new pizza parlors)!

From the same group that brought us Agatha Christie: Peril at End House and Women's Murder Club: Death in Scarlet comes an equally alluring hidden object game, Dr. Lynch: Grave Secrets. This entry veers away from the more adventure-oriented direction and hugs the item finding wall fairly close, but the same high production values and great storyline remain intact.

It's just a day like any other when Libra visits the library, but after finding a strange blank book, the familiar building takes a bizarre turn and she discovers she'll need to rewrite reality to escape in this creative and imaginative creepy adventure from vgperson.

More Treasure Seekers! The latest installment in the hidden object series, Treasure Seekers: The Time Has Come, preserves the story and layout of previous games and features a slightly older Nelly and Tom. Not only have the characters grown up, but Artogon seems to have matured bits of the gameplay as well, featuring a better-crafted series of puzzles and more interesting locations to search through.

Lights... camera... URK. Lottie's got a problem the night of her big stage audition, and she's not willing to go down without a fight. Sarah Morayati's snappily written interactive fiction piece about teenage girls under the limelight suffers slightly from some unintuitive puzzle design, but is easily carried by a memorable cast of characters and some genuinely funny storytelling. Broken Legs is an over-the-top and snarky adventure worth a look from anyone who has at any point ever been a teenager, stereotypes aside.

Faerie Solitaire is, at its core, a version of the classic golf-style card game found in Fairway Solitaire. Take cards off the pile or pull cards from the play area that are either one above or one below the target, the ultimate goal being to clear the screen. The usual suit of numbered cards (two through ten, jacks, queens, kings and aces) are at your disposal. It may seem a simplistic set-up, but if you throw in power-ups and a Pokemon-esque pet raising game, something magical is created!

One of the most surreal RPGs you'll ever encounter has finally been translated into English. Play as the mysterious companion to the even more enigmatic Batter, who has arrived to rid the world of spectres through violent purification. Packed with memorable characters, strange locations, and a seriously engrossing storyline that at times manages to be a bit unsettling too, it's one of the strangest, swankiest free titles around that won't be for everyone, but is definitely worth a look.

The first installment into the expanded world of Roope Tamminen's macabre mayhem sandbox horror adventure has arrived! A group of teens are at a lakeside camp trying to get everything ready for it to open, but there's just one small murderous problem, and a whole host of things to interact with in a dynamic environment full of surprises.

Out of the capable hands of Youda Games comes a time management game that will have you hooked for days on in. Youda Survivor combines some of the best elements from Youda Games' previous efforts with some stylistic influences from games like Farm Frenzy. Not only are you gathering items and converting them to better products, you're also boiling them into new and exciting potions to make you look more impressive in the eyes of the island chief!

Enlightenment is a snack-sized text adventure set in the general neighborhood of the Zork universe, with Infocom-esque humor, sly quotes and footnotes, and a wealth of entertaining but unnecessary actions. It doesn't play like an 80s game, though: it is short, polished, and focused, with lots of clues and guidance, and probably won't take more than an hour to play.

Dead Like Ants is a sublime piece of interactive fiction by C.E.J. Pacian. You are an unnamed female ant, a simple worker. You and your thousands of sisters labor ceaselessly in the service of your colony; an unexciting, if productive, existence. Today, however, is very different. Your mother, the Queen has requested your presence Every spring, it seems, five dangerous creatures come to the colony and threaten the safety of all therein. When this occurs, the Queen sends one of her daughters to negotiate with these monsters, thereby averting trouble for another year. This spring, you are the chosen emissary.

Jill's back in a sequel to one of the most popular casual games of last year, Cake Mania. In Cake Mania 2 you reprise the role of the baker extraordinare with the task of helping one of two friends: Jack, who is looking for a bakery in his underwater theme park, or Risha and her bakery in the big city. Serve cranky customers piping hot cakes as quickly as you can to rake in the cash and expand your business!

Currently playable in Alpha, this indie stealth game has you searching for fragments needed to rebuild your portal back home after you accidentally end up in another world. Sound simple? Not quite. With dapper armed robots hunting you across the countryside and surrounding islands for sport, you're outgunned and outnumbered, and all you have is what you can scavenge. It's not looking good for you...

The Treasure Seekers series are some of the loveliest, most entertaining hybrids out there and Treasure Seekers: Follow the Ghosts seeks to expand and enhance the formula. With a choice of modes (casual and advanced), and such a variety of problem solving, hidden objects, and mini-games, Artogon has created casual gameplay that will satisfy folks on all areas of the spectrum, with fun and challenging puzzles that will appeal to a wide variety of gamers.

In this first chapter of Miwashiba's free indie RPG adventure, shut-in but all around good guy Nanashi's lazy life is turned upside down when he discovers a girl with no memories... but she'd rather he make friends before focusing on her! With a surprising and intriguing mystery at its core and stunning high-quality presentation with a custom soundtrack, 1bitHeart is shaping up to be something huge.

Dustforce is a speed-centric acrobatic platform game from Hitbox Team. A demo first appeared back in 2010, showing off the concept and basic design. Since then, the game has undergone some silent but effective changes, improving upon the controls and adding loads of content to sweep through. It's a fast, combo-centric arcade experience that emphasizes speed and perfection, and thanks to the online highscore boards and per-level badges, you'll be strangely compelled to keep playing until everything is just right.

Dragon Keeper is an amusing and fun little time management diversion in which you need to raise baby dragons to help win back the princess and the kingdom. The animations are hilarious and the action can become fast and frantic, but not so much that this game is out of reach of the young or old, making Dragon Keeper literally fun for everyone. Dragon Keeper offers hours upon hours of addictive fun for the whole family, wrapped up in a cute little bow.

You didn't really think it was over, did you? The Mystery of the Crystal Portal has returned with a brand new installment: The Mystery of the Crystal Portal: Beyond the Horizon! No more cliffhanger-like endings, either, as this game picks the story up right where the original left off. Not only that, but the gameplay and high-quality visuals also return, crafting another hidden object adventure hybrid game that will be your pleasure to dive in to!

A whimsical time management game from Youda Games, Youda Fairy puts you in the role of an overworked wizard who must lure, capture, store, release and protect fairies, all in the name of fighting evil! There's lots of time management fun to be had. Fast, frantic, cute, and satisfying to play, while a bit of a departure from the Youda norm, it is still grand fun.

While it may be built upon the same time management foundation we're already familiar with, Everything Nice skirts the perimeter of the genre with a recipe-based setup reminiscent of Miriel the Magical Merchant. Fed up with all the violent toys flooding the market, Abby has the idea to create classic, "happy" toys such as teddy bears and jack-in-the-boxes. A local businessman rejects her idea, but then she stumbles across the Wondermachine9000, a magical device that can create anything her imagination conjures. Just the thing she needs to start her own factory!

Quick, the patient needs a heart transplant, and a doctor! Too bad all they have is you in this hysterical, gory, and very challenging simulation where you control each finger of your hand individually as you attempt to perform life-saving surgery... without dropping a bonesaw into his chest cavity!

A girl, a guy, and an after-school get together that could turn into something more. Sounds familiar, right? Wrong! Made in just two days, this short and silly but also surprisingly earnest little visual novel dating sim is weird in all the best possible ways.

Help guide Spewer, an adorable pink blob, through a series of diabolical tests put forth by a watchful scientist in this physics-based platformer. It's a journey of adventure, excitement, and child-like wonder. Also, vomit.

The series that made farming less of a "wake up at the crack of dawn, work 'til nightfall" chore and more of a "yay let's farm woo hoo!" form of entertainment is back! Farm Frenzy 3 doesn't mess with the proven formula from the first games, but it does bring a lot of variety into the series by moving you across five locations around the globe. Watch penguins eat fish in the arctic and fend off lions in Africa, all while harvesting eggs and turning them into a succession of better, more profitable products. And, as always, watch out for predators falling from the sky!

You've just inherited your grandfather's run-down farm... it'll take a lot to get it running again, but locals and a whole lot of elbow grease just may help you reach your dreams. A massive and engrossing indie simulation made by a single person, Stardew Valley is packed with farming, relationships, dungeons, crafting, and much, much more.

Korski has one last trip to deliver the goods from his labor camp before he is free. But when his ship crashes Korski must venture back to his camp to try and find some help. Mystery abounds in this free indie point-and-click adventure

It's your job to take down the legendary hero in this quirky fantasy puzzle game. Who are you? Why, the lord of all Mimics, of course, those sneaky monster treasure chests! You'll need to gobble your way through people from all over the world, luring them in with the items others drop, in order to finally find the sword the hero is looking for to snare him in your trap!

In each level of Robot Unlock, your goal is to program a path for your Executor robot to travel around a series of command tiles that alter the robot's stored memory. It's very much like SpaceChem and similar logic/programming puzzle games, only in this little game, you'll be using math more than you'd expect!

Crayon Physics is one part Armadillo Run, one part Line Rider and tasks you with guiding a ball through a handful of stages by drawing shapes with a crayon-like cursor. Because of its rapid development time (five days), Crayon Physics is a bit rough around the edges. But this downloadable title is stuffed with creativity and shows that with a good idea, anything is possible.

When you come across a little girl on the side of the road and agree to escort her home, you couldn't imagine the bizarre adventure you're about to set out on in this surreal and unsettling indie horror adventure game. Though short and with some frustrating puzzles, Stray Cat Crossing's gorgeous, creative presentation and heartbreaking story are top notch.

Deadly Rooms of Death is a turn-based puzzle game; one turn being the amount of time it takes Beethro, the central character, to move one square or to swing his sword by 45 degrees. DROD is very much a puzzle game, but unlike any other you may have played before. It is actually the sequel to the critically acclaimed DROD: King Dugan's Dungeon, and both were created by Caravel Games.

Holly's family has a secret, and it's a whole lot weirder and scarier than she could ever dream. Following a letter from her estranged sister, she strikes off on a bizarre journey into her past that uncovers the disturbing truth behind her birth as a shadow dogs her every step in this fantastically freaky hidden-object adventure.

The dead are restless, but lucky for you they want your help and not your juicy, juicy brains. After a car accident, you wake up to find yourself in a cemetery; very much alive, but still unable to leave. If you help the anguished souls lingering around their graves complete their unfinished business, you may be able to escape, and set some wrongs right in the process in this stylish point-and-click/hidden-object hybrid from the makers of the PuppetShow series.

What if Hamlet wasn't? Hamlet, I mean. When a curious time-traveler accidentally lands his heavy spaceship atop the iconic literary protagonist, the show must go on. Point-and-click your way through a quirky and decidedly non-cannon interpretation of the classic Shakespearean tale in this short but fun and original title from Alawar Games.

Farming used to seem like a chore, then the casual game market took hold and turned caring for crops into a resource management experience. Farm Mania is the latest of those games, following a similar path as Farm Frenzy 2 but keeping things fresh and interesting. Yes, it's yet another game with "mania" in the title, but the experience underneath is subtly different and twice as rewarding. And much cuter, I have to admit.

FBI Agent Nelson Tethers works for the Department of Puzzle Research... yes, that's a thing, and he's quite happy with his job, until the day he's assigned to Scoggins, Minnesota, to find out why the local eraser factory has stopped working. What starts out as a simple missing persons case takes a drastic turn for the bizarre, and soon Nelson finds himself wrapped up in the weirdest, creepiest small town mystery he's ever seen. Take a trip to Scoggins in this clever duo of point-and-click adventure game that doesn't skip on the charm, the creeps, or the chuckles.

Snark Busters: Welcome to the Club is a new hidden object game from Alawar. If you're tired of dime novel-quality storylines, cheesy settings that go from haunted mansion to haunted castle and back, and protagonists whose missing family members you couldn't care less about, this game is your savior. Snark Busters doesn't pretend to be anything new and original, but by doing that, it succeeds at both. It's a hidden object game with wide appeal, enticing fans of the genre and encouraging everyone else to hop in and give the genre a try!

Orphaned and amnesiac, young Allen finds himself at a strange school watched over by an eccentric Teacher, where the other children are just as odd. In this surreal adventure game by Miwashiba, translated by vgperson, horror meets psychological fairy-tale for a compelling experience that's a little rough around the edges.

Taking a page out of the popular village management book, the downloadable Westward (Windows) drops casual strategy elements into the mix for a game that's both interesting and a bit different. Westward pushes you across the unexplored old west setting up towns and hunting for riches. There's a surprising amount of depth in this game, yet very little was sacrificed to keep it user-friendly.

Developed in just one month, a2 is a remarkable achievement of a visual novel that packs a serious punch in its narrative. Sona's just going through the motions trying to run the orchestra her deceased estranged father left her, and Hao has just arrived from China to help conduct and doesn't speak a lick of English. But between these two very different people lies some unexpected common ground, and the end result is a story with real heart, honesty, and humour.

Ready for another game of ambiance and intrigue from Nifflas? NightSky is the latest release from the designer/artist known for creating enchanting atmospheric settings in his games, and this one certainly doesn't disappoint. It's simpler and more streamlined than Knytt Stories, but there's no shortage of challenge or variety to be had!

Musiac Box is a unique combination of a puzzle game and a musical toy that will challenge your brain and delight your ears all at the same time. Using tiles that represent individual musician's portions of a song, arrange the Tetris-like pieces on the grid and listen to the results. It's an extraordinarily simple premise for a game and the "match the tiles to the melody" puzzle solving is surprisingly enjoyable, even for non-music lovers.

Based on the James Patterson novels (and the subsequent television spin-off), Women's Murder Club: Death in Scarlet is a murder mystery wrapped in an adventure game spiced with light hidden object scenes and a few simple minigames. Investigating crimes is the central focus of gameplay, with heaping doses of clue sniffing, murder scene scrutinizing, and some light labwork here and there to keep the story moving along. You don't need to be a fan of the series to enjoy the game, and even if you are, Women's Murder Club: Death in Scarlet weaves a completely new tale (penned by Patterson) that stays faithful to the original characters' personalities. This time, however, you're in charge.

Nelly and Tom are at it again! Yes, the kids from the original Treasure Seekers: Visions of Gold have returned, and this time they're all grown up! Just like the original game, Treasure Seekers 2: The Enchanted Canvases a unique hybrid of adventure and hidden object gaming that makes use of context-sensitive actions rather than laundry lists of items to find. Add to that some much-improved visuals (which is saying a lot!) and you have another potential hit on your hands.

There's something in Kraven Manor. The old house provides rest from the storm raging outside, and you soon discover it holds an incredible secret... by assembling a model, you can shift and shape the building's layout to your desire. But you're not alone, and you're not wanted... and it won't let you leave alive. A chilling and masterfully atmospheric free indie horror adventure.

Originally released in mid-2011 by indie game creator E. Hashimoto (Buster), Hydra Castle Labyrinth is an old school-styled platform adventure that was previously only available in Japanese. A brave soul recently translated the game to English, and now the cute metroidvania title is available for a much wider audience to enjoy. And enjoy it ye shall!

Far to the north in an ancient tower a paladin may have gone astray and awoken something dangerous deep beneath the ice. It's up to you to investigate... provided you have the stones for it. The smash-hit rpg/match-3 puzzle hybrid returns with all the addictive adventurous gameplay you remember plus some significant additions. Clear your agenda for the next week and turn off the phone... adventure awaits.

Reincarnations: Awakening is a fun, if not completely fulfilling hidden object adventure experience. Join Jane as she travels into her past lives via hypnosis, solving problems and puzzles for each of her past selves so she can gain a more thorough understanding of reincarnation.

It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye... or their daughter. When a little girl runs afoul of a mechanical monstrosity inside the newly excavated caves outside a remote town, you find yourself called in to rescue her in this stunning continuation of the popular hidden-object adventure series of PuppetShow titles.

Natalie's got big problems. Or at least, to her they're big. With her parents threatening to cut her off unless she gets her priorities straight, the college student has no choice but to take a job over winter break in the sleepy little burg of Fairbrook. Will Natalie emerge at the end of 12 weeks just as aimless and self-absorbed as when she started? Or will the people she meets and the things she experiences drag her kicking and screaming into emotional maturity? A sweet and sentimental little visual novel simulation from Winter Wolves packed with charm and likable characters.

Being born to a destiny of studying at the local Aztec temple isn't the most exciting of fates. But when a sacred artifact is stolen, a grand adventure quickly ensues. Our hero Huitzilo is up for the job in Aztaka, an indie action/RPG platform game from Citeremis.

In a universe torn asunder by a near cataclysmic event known as the Shine, there are those who fight to keep the peace and others who fight to steal whatever peace there could have been. You wake up on a space station surrounded by people who make you realize that you have no memory and absolutely no idea why they're so interested in you. Through exploration and space battles you'll find that not everyone has the best intents for you and that somehow you must make it out alive. In this beautiful prequel to The Reconstruction made by Deltree it's all up to you to be a hero for the universe.

Immortal Souls puts you in the role of John Turner, a street racer-turned vampire who out to protect New Haven from the forces of darkness. This comic-book like, turn-based RPG has detailed art and animation to go with its numerous epic battles. Can you help the forces of light overcome the forces of darkness?

If large file adventures are not your thing, here is a special freebie treat for Windows users today: the colored light puzzle game, Prism, can be yours absolutely free.

Now here's a new genre-crossing idea: a hidden object game and mahjong-style tile matching. Bet even your strangest of late night dreams wouldn't have paired those two, would they? Liong: The Lost Amulet dares to try something different with the Chinese-themed item finding/tile matching game. The visual presentation and soundtrack are nothing short of exotic, and the gameplay mashes some interesting ideas into an unfamiliar frame that works better than you might imagine.

Developed back in 2003 by Moonpod Games, Starscape may be considered an "oldie" by the gamer crowd, but it's a goodie. Launched as a shareware game without the distribution support that it has today, Starscape flew under the radar, gathering a respectable following slowly but surely. Today, it's been finally starting to hit the major distro sites and people are either discovering or taking a second glance at this little space shooter/strategy game created half a decade ago.

Fans of Samantha Swift's previous caper have cause to rejoice. Samantha Swift and the Golden Touch, the newest hidden object adventure in the franchise, offers a compelling combination of well-integrated mini-games and adventure-style item puzzles that do an excellent job of keeping the game feeling fresh throughout.

Dracula 3: The Path of the Dragon exists within that journey from the reality of Vlad the Impaler, the madman the Count was based upon, to the myth of the best-known vampire, Dracula. It's a long, deep and satisfying adventure game laden with volumes of text, and a pleasantly eerie setting that's brilliantly illustrated.

You'll either love it or hate it, but Ice-Pick Lodge's unique indie horror game is one of the most surreal and striking games the genre has seen in a long time. As a mysterious Lodger who's been having trouble sleeping, dawn seems to be taking forever... and it might never come if you can't figure out the rules to the chilling game of hide and seek you're playing with some uninvited guests, and unravel the mystery of your own past.

To celebrate Earth Day (April 22), National Geographic has sponsored Plan It Green, a casual building sim in the style of Build-a-lot that joins the sparsely populated ranks of "green" games. True to its name, Plan It Green focuses on boosting your energy credits by designing green buildings and communities using four types of structures. It also manages to have an environmentally friendly message that doesn't smack you over the head at every turn.