Karma is a unique game of rebirth that features simple gameplay and yet offers a reflection upon certain aspects of life and philosophy. The authors should be lauded for making Karma not only a game that is fun to play, but one that reaches people on a more spiritual level and still manages to incorporate the "replay" competition theme nicely.

From developer Sam Horton of Funface Games comes Oroboros, an action title that borrows from games such as flOw and Snake. You control Oroboros (the serpent forming a circle by swallowing its own tail) as you absorb energy clusters to unlock portals to new dimensions. As you progress, your tail grows to give you new abilities that let you combat the increasingly tough foes.

The latest from prolific, UK-based Flash developer, Nitrome, Magic Touch is a "mini-game" that allows you to pop balloons by drawing corresponding symbols with your mouse. Why? Because you're a wizard, and your castle is under attack by robots.

The Sea of Glomp is an adventure-themed Flash game created by Paul Kramm that draws heavy inspiration from old-style adventure games such as ... Adventure! You play a young fish whose egg has been stolen by a creature that looks like a bat. An underwater bat. You set out on a quest to find the egg, a task that takes you through some of the strangest parts of the sea you could imagine.

Lonely House-Moving is the latest social metaphor driven arcade game from the folks behind everyone's favorite slapping game, Rose and Camellia. You play a lonely shmuck who, after watching his girlfriend leave him in a moving truck, suddenly gets the inspiration to act. Leap over moles, avoid crows and jump over stuff flying out of the truck and try to catch your girl!

Tower Bloxx is a captivating action/puzzle game originally created for mobile phones. Using the mouse button you must drop pieces of a skyscraper from a swinging crane at the top of the screen. Stack the blocks neatly or you'll be in for a tough time as the building reaches toward the sky and sways in the wind. A quest mode lets you build an entire city one building at a time and also adds a little strategy to appease the more hardcore gamer in you. It's a near-perfect blend of casual and serious gaming that everyone will enjoy.

Beethoven's Hair is a psychological vignette of a game. The piece is "part of a cross media project based on the true story of a lock of hair that was cut from Beethoven's head and the story of how it passed down through history." Unlock the keyhole and you'll discover a thoughtful and intriguing take on the escape-the-room genre that infuses the usual search dynamic with free-form exploration and historical fiction.

MuseLock is a good-looking, highly enjoyable point-and-click room escape game with creative, interesting puzzles that only occasionally venture into the illogical. Surprisingly enough, the player wakes up in a room with no recollection of how he/she got there and an odd collection of objects as clues. A true pleasure for any point-and-click aficionado, this one will have you puzzling for quite a while.

The Animator vs. Animation Game takes the fun, desktop battlefield antics of the Animator vs. Animation episodes and turns it into a fully interactive fighting game! Control the animator or stickman animation and wage war against your opponent, grabbing common drawing tools and turning them into deadly weapons.

Zeta Flow is a Flash-based shmup in which you control an innocent little turret gun ship as you fight off giant mechanical enemies. Each level pits you against one evil ship, getting progressively bigger and badder from level to level. It's a fun game that plays great, and there's even a level editor, too!

Timebot is an action puzzle game entered into our recent game design competition. It's a game in which you must guide a robot throughout several levels. The objective is to roll onto switches that open doors or materialize platforms and make it to the exit within the time given. The replay mechanic in Timebot turns what would otherwise be a simple platform puzzle game on its head and creates something truly outstanding.

Just released from Dofi blog, creator of the World of Sand games: Adventure of Cat, a spiritual successor to Cat with Bow Golf. In Adventure of Cat your goal is to guide a hapless gray kitten to the end of the stage. Your only mode of transportation is an extendible stick that you can use to push against the ground, propelling the cat forward.

We are big fans of the original Dolphin Olympics and this sequel does not disappoint. Although the mechanic and aim of the game are pretty much the same, this has a slightly different look to it, with significantly more detail added to the sea bed and background. Once again, the challenge is in chaining together strings of successive tricks to boost your multiplier and amass some impressive scores. And the trick to that is ensuring that your re-entry to the water is perfect every time. Now other sea creatures will interact with you. In fact, you can earn more points by getting other fish to follow your lead and jump out of the water. There are some new tricks and secrets to discover as you try to swim, leap and tail-slide yourself onto the high score board.

Pillage The Village is the spiritual successor and prequel to Defend Your Castle, one of THE original web-game classics from back when there were only so many good web-games on the whole Internet. Made by XGen Studios, one of the first companies to dive into the Flash scene with gusto and not a look back. Now, years later, XGen is back with Pillage The Village, a smashmortion of click-tastic mayhem.

Begin locked in a vacation home and try to find a way out to meet a mysterious woman. Move around the room using the arrows on the side of the screen, and click on objects to examine them. Puzzles force you to look in every conceivable corner for items and clues, so keep your eyes peeled for suspicious spots in the distance and objects that beg to be moved.

Bloons Tower Defense takes the Bloons concept—popping balloons, preferably with monkeys involved—and spins it in a new and intriguing direction. It's your standard tower defense game but with monkeys popping balloons with darts and various other sharp instruments. It's a flawed but engaging title that is sure to please die-hard Bloons fans.

A Good Hunch! is a charmingly illustrated and animated platform game of teamwork starring Harvey and Tina, a pair of very colorful goats. In each level you play first as Harvey making your way to one of two available exits. Then switch to Tina to find your way to the 2nd exit while your actions for Harvey are replayed simultaneously. Only one exit may be used per goat, and you may have to jump on Harvey's back to reach higher areas.

One part shooter, one part visual/audio toy, Cubex by RoboJAM is a stunning Flash game reminiscent of the Dreamcast/PS2 musical shooter Rez. The first person view sends you flying through a futuristic corridor defending yourself against polygonal enemies that appear in the distance. With the mouse, simply move the target around the screen and pelt your foes with weapons fire. The throbbing techno beat in the background keeps things running right along, and each time you fire and destroy an enemy you add to the music.

Ok, so there's this ball. And then there's this square. You gotta get the ball to the square. How complicated could it get? Plenty complicated, it turns out, in this absurdly fun and addictive physics-based game from John Cooney and his prolific jmtb02 studios.

In Asteroids Revenge III, play the role of a blue-tinted asteroid up against all sorts of human enemies&8212;shooting ships, repelling fields, space mines, and many others. Your goal is to wipe out the treacherous human fleet by crashing into all the ships while avoiding getting hit by their fire. Apart from being a tad easy, this game is really fun to play!

Much interactive fiction requires a time commitment of an hour or two, and sometimes quite a bit more. Not so with the text adventure entries in the Commonplace Book project, in which each entrant took a line from a notebook by H. P. Lovecraft and spun it out into a game. This was an international competition, drawing entries in English, French, and Spanish, as well as a couple of graphical point-and-click adventures.

Intriguing, complex, well-planned, fascinating, and fun, Time Raider is a multifaceted game, part puzzle, part timing, and part reflex, where no one of these parts dominates over the other two. As a result, it has a broad appeal to fans of different types of games, and is one of the most creative entries to be submitted to our recent game design competition #3!

The numbers are falling! Fortunately, you've got the fundamental theorem of arithmetic on your side! In Prime Shooter, a math game of prime numbers created by Philip Dorrell, destroy prime numbers directly, or reduce composite numbers by dividing them by prime factors less than 20. Each number you destroy scores you one point, and the numbers get larger and fall faster as your score goes up.

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

JIGorbit is an action puzzle game that incorporates simple gravitational force as the basis of its gameplay. The objective is to reunite the scattered limbs of the JIGster logo by propelling the body around the gravitational field created by the JIGster's 'head' while avoiding any vortexes. It was created by DDams, of France, and is the winner of the "Best use of the JIG logo" prize from our 3rd competition.

A desperate man grips the detonator of the explosives belted around his waist, his thumb hovering ever so slightly above that little, harmless-looking red button. On the other side of the room a cop stands, gun drawn, his finger trembling over the trigger. You are the invisible observer, responsible for helping the cop find some way out of this seemingly impossible situation.

Weeks after the mega-release of Hot Air 2: All Blown Up, Nitrome has unveiled another slick Flash game titled Toxic. It combines your standard adventure platformer with ... bombs! Destructible environments! And ... more bombs! Imagine a roaming platformer game sprinkled with elements from Bomberman and you have a pretty good idea of what Toxic is all about.

A while ago we asked Rob Allen to come up with a banner game for us, something reminiscent of his amazing Hapland series, with which visitors of the site could interact and have fun with while here. We wanted a goal-oriented game that involved lighting all of the letters of the Casual Gameplay logo, and he took the proverbial ball and ran with it. The result is what you see now at the top of this page.

Together with Sierra Online, we are pleased to announce our 4th Casual Gameplay Design Competition at Jayisgames.com! Up for grabs are more prizes than ever before: over $6000 in cash and prizes, including Adobe CS3 Professional licenses and a Nintendo Wii! Our thanks to Sierra Online, Free World Group, Armor Games, Arcade Town, Adobe and Nitrome for helping us bring to you our biggest competition yet! Update: Entries are all in!!!

Trapped is a series of 5 adventure puzzle, maze games that start with a minute long "training level" and progresses to 30 minute long (if you play it ten times and memorize the maze) high quality casual gameplay experiences. You are a lonely little arrow, trapped, as the title suggests, in a maze full of simply-shaped enemies set on keeping you there for eternity. Escape if you can.

ReMaze starts off easily enough, with only one corridor down which to guide the white squares. Then there is another, and another, and soon you are caught up trying to navigate several mazes at once, not just to reach the goals, but to reach them simultaneously. Then comes the red death. One misstep and you're toast!

Another simple idea executed almost perfectly, Andrew VanHeuklon's Rerun is a unique mouseplay game of collection and avoidance. And though we have seen this core gameplay mechanic in other games before, it is the creative implementations of the "replay" theme that elevate this title above others of its type.

It should come as no surprise to hear that great things often spring from the simplest of ideas. Gimme Friction Baby is one such simple idea turned into an award-winning arcade game of strategy and skill that will keep you coming back for more long after your first play. First place and audience prize winner from our 3rd game design competition, and now part of the elite selection of games to be called Best of 2007. Another exceptional game design by Wouter Visser.

Sick of all of this sudoku nonsense flying about the place? Need a break from all this one-of-each-in-every-row-column-and-square rubbish? I've got the perfect solution for you... sorta. Kakuro—or Cross Sums or Sum Totals, depending on what school of puzzling you were raised in—is another number puzzler that has gained popularity in recent months.

Cute pixelly monsters? Plucky soundtrack? Arcade-style gameplay? It must be the latest release from Nitrome! Hooray! In Square Meal, you play a cute boxy monster trying to escape from a sinister dungeon filled with monsters, floor spikes, exploding blocks, slippery patches, and other hazards. Luckily you're armed with a hearty appetite.

Bodilies combines beautiful graphics and animation, and haunting, melodic music with a story that actually works and feels right. Help Neil in his quest for freedom and self-actualization; it leads you through an interesting point-and-click adventure you won't soon forget!

Your plane goes down on a mysterious and seemingly deserted island somewhere off the radar charts, and it is up to you to find a way to 'Escape from Island' using only the resources available to you. Thought-provoking puzzles and a well-illustrated environment together create an atmosphere ripe for adventure and captivating gameplay.

DayMare Town is a strange and oddly deserted town that gives the unsettling feeling that eyes are peering from around corners. It is drab and dreary, not a very pleasant place to be. But now you're stuck, and you'll do anything you can to leave.

Gravity Pods is a physics-based vector shooting/puzzle title created by Wicked Pissah Games. The goal is to fire a projectile and hit a target across the screen. Barriers are usually in the way, but by using gravity pods you can bend the path your projectile takes to send it virtually anywhere on the screen.

A Flash version of the classic Denki Blocks originally made for the Game Boy Advance. The goal of each level is to maneuver blocks of the same color so that they touch. Use the arrow keys to move the entire set of blocks around the screen. Immovable black squares can be used to prevent certain blocks from moving, allowing you to separate adjacent blocks from each other. The twist here is that when blocks of the same color meet, they fuse into a single block. Although this is the ultimate goal of the game, you'll have to be careful, as you can easily render a level unsolvable through premature fusions. With 100 levels, Jelly Blocks contains more than enough puzzler goodness to satisfy the hunger of anyone.

Admit it: you've wanted to slap someone silly at least once today. Just haul-off and give them a good hard smack across the cheek. In Rose & Camellia you can do just that while taking part in a unique new game with high production values from Japan. Reiko has married into a noble family, but shortly afterwards her husband Siyunsuke dies. The women of the house do not respect Reiko, and she must beat them all in successive slap fights.

Kicking off a brand new series of point-and-click adventures, Mateusz Skutnik, creator of the Submachine series, has just launched Covert Front Episode 1: All Quiet on the Covert Front. In Covert Front you are a secret agent code-named Kara in an alternate history version of World War I. Assigned to infiltrate the mansion of a german scientist, Karl von Toten, you must discover the secrets that lie within and escape with your life.

After months of waiting, it's finally here! Nitrome has just rolled out Hot Air 2, the highly anticipated sequel to the balloon physics game Hot Air. The new incarnation is bigger, better, more intricate and more stylish than the original, proving it's possible to take an already polished game idea and turn it into something even better. Plus, you get to make your own balloons!

Game-Pure has already pumped out a pseudo-sequel to Bound Bears with more levels and an updated presentation. Bound Bear Quest Mode features the same Bloons-meets-Breakout gameplay along with the ultra-cute square bears, but now the music and backgrounds have been jazzed up and the levels are much more challenging.

Temple of Zoom is a great platformer that manages to use the features of the product it promotes (the Panasonic Lumix TZ3 digital camera) as integral elements of the game rather than as tacked-on graphics and splash advertisements. The shutter is the exit to each level, the zoom lens is a rising platform, and the hot lava is... well, I guess the hot lava doesn't come from the camera, does it?

The Calamity Game is a web toy that combines the complex, physics-based building of Armadillo Run with the free-form creativity of Line Rider. The app lets you craft solid structures, draw, use anchor points, add directed force and connect everything up with springs. Calamity is forming a community of users who are creating and sharing some enormously creative scenes.

Sound Energy mixes a simple color-matching game of collection/avoidance with a little bit of musical interaction to create a superb multimedia experience. You control a transparent orb that can change color from purple to blue to gray. By clicking the mouse you can switch colors and absorb pieces that match your color. Build up combos to earn a high score and keep the background music shifting as you play!

The Four Color Problem is a simple turn-based game in which the goal is to color in as much space on a map as you can, while a computer opponent tries to do the same. The catch is that no two adjacent areas can be filled with the same color. Can you dominate the majority of the map with your color?

Game-Pure continues to amaze us with the rate at which they can release new games. Bound Bear is a simple action projectile game that combines elements from Breakout and Bloons to create something wholly unique and enjoyable to play.The objective is to reunite baby bear with mama bear, and to do so you'll have to avoid the black bears that can block your path.

From the creator of Hot Air and Skywire comes Dangle, a physics-based action game where you control a spider hanging from a neon pink line of webbing. By swinging back and forth you must work your way down each stage, avoiding enemies and collecting coins along the way.

Detective Grimoire is a point-and-click carnival murder mystery in which you play the title character, a hatless (but not hapless) crime-solver assigned to track down the murderer of Hugh Everton, ineffective caretaker of the carnival funhouse. It contains a higher-than-average level of cheese, but what good cheesy mystery doesn't?

Luke Whittaker's Baseball is easily one of the best online baseball games I've ever played. The gameplay mechanics do a perfect job of capturing what it feels like to be several runs behind in the final innings of a ball game, and have only three outs to fashion a miraculous come-from-behind victory.

In Nuclear Eagle, a brand new release from Brad Borne and Armor Games, you play a mutant eagle—apparently a victim of the nuclear waste from a nearby power plant—with a nest of "babies" to feed. Fortunately, there are plenty of townsfolk from a nearby city milling about, and so the objective becomes a task of grabbing them in your claws and dropping them down or tossing them up into the nest.

A new puzzle game with a distinct ARG smell recently popped on the scene without much known about what it is or who is behind it. Ethan Haas Was Right is a mysterious Flash-based website that presents a series of 5 unique puzzles, some original and some rehashed versions of classic puzzle games. Even if you don't care for alternate reality games in general, there's enough here for a few sessions of casual gameplay.

Bart Bonte's entry into the second Casual Gameplay Design Contest, Chicken Grow, once again showcases the mosaic-like artwork we have come to love from his games. The game centers around one impatient-looking chicken, waiting for you to feed and water it. Doing so requires you to solve two puzzles—one to turn on the water and the other to release chicken feed from a machine.

A throw back to the graphic adventures of days gone by, Phantasy Quest is a welcome and refreshing alternative to the myriad room escape games that plague the Web these days. Using only the items you discover as you make your way around the island, solve the puzzles and the mystery of what lies before you. Can you find the girl and escape?

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

Most everyone has probably played an avoidance game before. They are generally based on a very simple gameplay mechanic. Orb Avoidance is a simple game of mouse avoidance with the added bonus of a combo system. It's a little mindless fun to get your gears turning, and it won't take more than 10-15 minutes of your time.

Flashxed manages to breathe a little life into the familiar block-matching puzzle theme with a new mechanic: block dragging. You're presented with a set of bricks with colored orbs sparkling inside. Drag blocks left or right one at a time, and if two or more blocks of the same color touch, they smash and crumble away. It's extraordinarily perplexing at times, but that challenge is what makes it so fun.

A lecturer at The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University in Software Development for Games, Jeff Wofford has been working in the games industry for over 10 years. He has also just released this addictive little Flash puzzle game that plays like a cross between a tangram and a sliding block puzzle.

In Red White Yellow, the objective is to create groups of the same color in quantities of 6 or more by dropping the falling blocks into place. However, like its name suggests, Red White Yellow is also the order in which you must clear groups from play. It's a unique new twist to the new generation of falling block puzzle games popularized by Lumines. The selectable soundtracks make this game really special.

Protect your precious desktop from the invading enemies by placing towers throughout the screen. Choose fast-firing but weak turrets or slow-but-powerful ones to ensure no creeps cross your borders. Desktop TD features charming hand-drawn graphics and freeform gameplay that make it a winner in the tower defense genre. New in version 1.5 are new towers, enemies, challenge modes, and upgrades sounds and visuals!

From Hero Interactive comes a physics-based game Light Sprites. It also happens to be the happiest, most rainbowiest game ever made. Light Sprites is a hit the target game where you toss colored orbs to hit matching targets on the landscape below. The music and visuals are extraordinary and make this simple game so fun you might just crack a smile.

In Rat Maze 2, you are a mouse in a maze and you must collect all the pieces of cheese in the shortest time possible. Use the arrow keys for movement to zip around the maze. Running over a cheese is as good as eating it, so no time is wasted collecting them all. Simple retro fun from the highly talented developers at PixelJam.

Bloxorz is a simple idea for a puzzle game that is beautifully executed. The objective is to tumble a rectangular block through each stage and deposit it into the square hole at the end. Using a series of bridge-opening switches, teleporters, and block-splitting switches, solve the puzzle each stage presents to move on to the next of the game's 33 levels.

Puzzle fans rejoice! A sequel to the critically acclaimed action puzzler, Professor Fizzwizzle, is here and it's HOT! Just released by Grubby games, Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery picks up where the first game leaves off and presents over 200 fresh new levels to sink your puzzle-loving teeth into.

Countdown is based on one of the longest running game shows in the world, and this Flash game does a good job of staying true to the original game on TV. The game features two contestants battling it out in a game of letters, numbers, and "the crucial Countdown Conundrum." Each round is played against a giant 30-second clock, while the famous Countdown music plays. If you're a game show fan, don't miss this one.

Ring Pass Not is an original new puzzle game by indie developer, Sandhill Games. The objective: fill the magic circle with tiles by matching adjacent tiles by their color or symbol. Score bonus tools and power-ups by completing special combos of tiles, which will help you advance further in the game with its 30 unique and increasingly more difficult levels.

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

Ricochet shooting stars across the sky to light the heavens and unlock levels in this dazzling new action puzzler by Hero Interactive. Starshine is a game of rays and angles in which the objective is to light all of the stars to advance to the next level. You have but a single shooting star in your arsenal to fire from anywhere along the outer edge of the circular field of play. The path your shooting star will take depends on the type of stars it comes in contact with.

As with other tower defense games, you earn cash by obliterating the attackers that creep their way around any one of several maps available to play. With the cash you can purchase additional turrets or upgrade existing ones. But it is the Combos in Onslaught 2 that add a level of depth to this tower defense game not present in other games like it. The combinations are many, and the resulting strategy becomes deep.

Bada Boing is based on a very simple idea: Bounce a ball off a trampoline to hit targets and score points. Using the mouse just click, drag, and release a ball from the unlimited supply to 'throw' it. It's really quite intuitive to play. Included are 4 different game modes incorporating the same addictive gameplay mechanic.

Deadtree Defender is a wonderfully silhouetted and gorgeous Flash game in a castle defense style. Take control of a single archer whom, joined by two automated team-mates, is set to the seemingly impossible task of defending a withered, leafless old tree against an increasingly large opposition.

A missile is launched and it is up to you to solve the mysteries and rituals of The Shrine and save the world. In this amazing and well-produced point-and-click adventure by Aztec, you will encounter lots of items to find, hidden rooms, and various contraptions to activate and control. Cut scene animations reward you at various stages along the way.

Generic Defense Game takes a few select elements from tower defense titles and shooters, and then slaps on a thick coat of parody paint. Instead of fending off hordes of ghastly beasts from far-off fantasy lands, you'll protect Pac-Man from ghosts, keep your lunch safe from insects, and defend ramen noodles with a machine gun. It's a very basic game with swappable elements that make the core gameplay ripe with entertainment.

Momentum Missile Mayhem plays like a combination of a tower defense game and a physics-based strategy game such as Bowmaster Prelude. Waves of enemies come piling in from the side of the screen. Your weapon works like a slingshot: grab the missile and pull it back, then release to send the projectile flying. There's a lot of strategy and customization built into this game, so be prepared to sink your teeth into a deep and immensely rewarding casual online game.

Blobular is a free online clone of the PSP physics game Loco Roco. Tilt the game world left and right to guide the gooey blob around each stage, collecting fruit along the way. It's a fantastic way to experience the quirky style and gameplay of the PSP game without spending a single cent.

We have gone and done it again! After rounding up support from Adobe, Arcade Town, and Nitrome, we are pleased to announce our 3rd Flash Game Design Competition at Jayisgames.com, and you are invited to participate! Up for grabs is over $3000 in cash and prizes, including Adobe CS3 Professional licenses! We look forward to seeing more creative and original entries as we have seen with our past competitions. Update: Entries are all in!!!

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

The latest tower defense game from David Scott, creator of the unbelievably addictive Flash Element TD and Flash Circle TD, has just been released and this one follows a more abstract design for its creeps (called "vectoids"). Vector TD combines vector-styled graphics (remember the original Asteroids?) with the tried-and-true gameplay of David's other successful games to deliver one of the most polished TD games yet.

Shuffle is a combination of curling, marbles and billiards played with two rows of colored balls. You take control of the red team and must knock the yellows off the screen before the computer does the same to you. Grab a marble and drag the mouse to choose your throwing angle and power, then let it fly and watch the yellow marbles tumble off the screen.

Just when you thought you had seen the last of the Submachines for a while, Mateusz Skutnik comes around full circle and delivers another installment in one of the best point-and-click room escape game series on the Web. Submachine: Future Loop Foundation features music from a band of the same name (Future Loop Foundation) and it sets the mood very nicely for another enjoyable adventure.

Castlewars is a Flash turn-based card battle against either a computer or live opponent where you try to build your castle up to 100 or blast your opponent's to rubble. The game is quick and easy to learn, and can be played against a friend anywhere in the world.

Gravity: beneficial force of nature or oppressor of humankind? In the world of Amberial, it is both. In this unique platform game, you play the part of a bouncing ball, free to move about your world wherever you wish... horizontally. Unfortunately, you are not endowed with the ability to jump, so you must rely (primarily) on gravity and inertia to navigate vertically.

Similar to the Mystery Case Files series, Hidden Expedition: Everest takes the tried-and-true object hunting formula and whisks it away to exotic locations. You play one of several teams of explorers racing to be the first to climb the snowy mountain peak. The path is blocked, however, and the only way up is to locate a mysterious adventurer who knows of a hidden passage. Head off to South America and search the land for clues leading to this strange traveler.

The Gotmail team of Japan has just released their latest point-and-click adventure, and I am pleased to report this one has an English version available. The Shochu Bar takes place in a familiar setting for anyone who has played the other gotmail games, but the story here is a different one. This is the story of a woman who was considering leaving her boyfriend for good.

Ha55ii, creator of the previously reviewed Liquid Webtoy, has put forth another addictive webtoy: Powder Game. It bears a similarity in essence to the Falling Sand games, but takes it a step further with the introduction of wind and air pressure.

Lucky Coins is the latest release from Donut Games and it is a quick and chaotic game reminiscent of pinball or pachinko. The goal is simple: rack up as many points as possible by collecting stars, horseshoes, clovers and sevens, as well as hitting bumpers and moving platforms.

Crazy Mammoths is a racing title where your only action is to jump over other players and try to stay at the front of the line. Physics play a huge part in the game, as the slope you're on tilts as you slide, forcing you to tope with changing gravity and direction. Do your best to stay in the front!

Loose the Moose is the latest point-and-click, escape-the-room game from Bart Bonte. As with most other games like it, the premise is a simple one: you're in a room, you need to get out. You will have to be observant and think logically to solve puzzles that lead you to your escape.

Each time Ferry Halim of Orisinal.com releases a new game, I think I've seen the most beautiful and elegant combination of music and artwork in casual gaming history. With the latest release of The Crossing, Ferry has outdone himself once again. Control a platform to help leaping deer cross a stream. Go for the highest score possible while eyeing the gorgeous scenery and listening to a soothing piano tune.

Friend Chase is a simple arcade style game in which you run around a courtyard using only the mouse for movement and left button to jump. Your goal is always to collect friends by touching other people of the same color, though how many and in what combination differs from level to level.The gameplay is simple and delightful, and it managed to suck me in for quite a while.

Interactive Flash pieces have generally been designed as either games to be played or art to be interpreted. However, the line between game and art has been steadily diffusing, and there are now many offerings where it's not clear whether the author's intended focus was engaging the user in gameplay or immersing them in artful ponderings. One particularly beautiful example is Choice.

ElectroCity is fun little Flash game intended "to spark an interest and lay an unbiased foundation for later learning" about the issues involved in power generation, cost, and environmental impact. It is obviously a very simplistic look at those issues, intended to give a broad overview and invite further research on the part of the player. It's also not a bad little town sim game to boot.

The hand drawn animations and old-school Jazz music soundtrack of Miestas and Menulis set the tone for an experience that is just this side of cool. The simplicity in controls leaves you wishing for something more polished until you realize the environments more than make up for it. Both games create a surreal world interactive art adventure to point-and-click through.

Juggler is a neat little diversion that I would categorize as a gravity-based game of mouse dexterity. The goal is simple: You control one paddle (ala breakout) while multiple balls bounce in sequence. You must maintain the balls in the air like a crazy one armed juggler.

A new release from Sean Gleeson is this original, online solitaire, 10-handed poker game of chance. Incorporating a uniquely animated, 10-armed gold statue called the Dashabooja, this new and unusual take on poker can even serve as an introduction to poker hands for those unfamiliar with the game.

Designed for our recent "grow" themed competition, Rob Allen of Foon.co.uk sent word today that he has finally finished his entry, and we have been scrambling ever since receiving his note to come up with a prize to award him for the latest entry ever. Eye Defence is an action puzzle game with elements of both Grow and Hapland rolled into one.

Hoshi Saga is a simple game of discovery. One part point-and-click and one part puzzle game, the objective in each of the game's 36 stages is to find the star. How you go about doing that is different for every stage. The task is up to you to figure out how. Just right to get those brain cells jumping with inspiration and excitement on a Monday.

The latest offering from the folks down at NinjaKiwi. The objective is to protect yourself from a 30-round onslaught of enemies. Your chief weapons are flasks of potions that you lob at your enemies. You can control the potency of the weapon and the type of damage inflicted by altering the composition of your potion flask.