A photo with a single line of print on the back... it isn't much, but it's all you've got to potentially lead you to your family. You've been in orphanages all your life and you jump at the chance to find out who you really are when the picture shows up on your doorstep anonymously, but the truth may be more gruesome than you wish. A creepy yet stunning hidden-object adventure with a heavy emphasis on story... and more than a little gore.

We've got some serious subject matter on the plate for this edition of Weekend Download. Grief, loss, religion, philosophy, government conspiracies, and probably a whole lot more hiding beneath the surface! Only venture forth if you've got a mind ready to do some serious digesting...

Remember Titus? Sure you do, he's that dummy who got himself trapped in a magic book his malevolent uncle left lying around. Then he called on you to help free a library from an evil genie who was ruining the classic stories contained within. It's been a few years, but Titus is back in the latest (and greatest) installment of the Azada series of adventure/hidden object hybrids, Azada in Libro. That darned evil uncle is trying to take over the magical land of Azada once again, and this time it's personal!

Imagine that you want to get some delicious jelly beans. However, when you attempt to get them, you set the floor beneath you on fire, and if you're not quick enough, you drop into the unfathomable ocean. That would pretty much suck, right? How about if there were also disturbingly cheerful creatures hanging around who seemed to take unseemly joy into bursting into flames and setting ablaze floor you hadn't even gotten to yet? Such is the unfortunate life of Firebug, star of his own puzzle platform game.

How shall I kill thee, zombie? Let me count the ways. Whether it's spinning blades of death, the classic fire, or a bazooka to the head, you can get your fill of both physics puzzling and zombie destruction in the new TurboNuke game Flaming Zombooka 3.

Just because things don't always go the way you expect doesn't mean they won't turn out the way you always hoped. From Small is Beautiful comes another short but cheery spot-the-difference game about a little caterpillar who doesn't let a setback stand in his way. Older gamers will find it too easy, but kids will love the cute artwork and simple, breezy, cheerful story.

The bad news is, the zombie apocalypse has returned. The good news is, so have the strangely charming, incoherently jabbering, self-sacrificing heroes who saved mankind the first time around. The team at Dreamgate Company brings us the sequel to their original, entertaining, and ruthlessly addictive action puzzle platformer with Mad Bombs 2, and it's chock full of as much zombie-exploding goodness as its predecessor. Bombs away!

Captain Beef is dead, but with monsters pouring out of the ruins and a mysterious masked man pulling their strings, the three town guardians on patrol can't stop to mourn. Stop an invasion in this short turn-based fantasy RPG that offers strategic gameplay and is the first chapter in a larger narrative.

If there's one thing all of us could use in life, it's a sense of perspective. At the very least, having one will certainly help you in Blueprint 3D, the new puzzle game from Zedarus . You must use the mouse to rotate an apparently incomprehensible mass of illustrations to find the point of view where the whole plan will come together. It's a game that certainly won't leave you blue.

It's always fascinating when a developer, having come up with an engaging idea for a puzzle game, tries to justify the premise after the fact with a storyline. Case in point: Mysterious Treasures by Sky Mill, which spins a simple grid-based strategy game of getting more coins than the CPU into a high-seas pirate adventure. It's a simple little game that makes for big fun.

Chuck's a sheep, but unlike the rest, he doesn't want to wait around for the farmer to shear him bald. He's hatched a daring escape plan, and it's up to you to help him soar to freedom in this adorable new launch game from jmtb02 and JIMP that features a unique upgrade system, tons of achievements, objectives, and more.

Ever wondered what happens when diminutive grey puffs stuffed with only personality and chutzpah have a hankering for a lip-licking, tummy-rubbing breakfast to start the day? In this point-and-click adventure, your goal is to guide them safely through their first expedition to the fruit and vegetable planet where they will gather the perfect ingredients for their favorite meal.

Welcome to the strange and somewhat twisted world of Tesshi-e, where the news of a friend opening a new restaurant means not only free food but a restaurant that is specifically set up as a room escape game as well. Escape from the Brick Room is a rather unimaginative title for a quite imaginative and tasty escaping experience. With gorgeous graphics, fun puzzles, and the usual twisted logic Escape from the Brick Room is a mid-week favorite for both escaping and a lovely snack, even if it is virtual. Time to visit your friend's new eatery and enjoy an escape from the everyday.

Do you think that art and science enhance each other? That's the basic premise in Wondermind, a set of four mini-games that are not only fun to play, but also serve to illustrate the fascinating ways our brains work. The mini-games are all of classic type: a card matching game, a pipe connecting game, a path drawing game, and a light angling game. The game is aimed at kids, but while adults might find it a bit easy, it's certainly beautiful enough to reel anyone in, and the facts taught about the mind are, well, yes, wondrous.

Xenos is a new form of energy discovered in the 22nd century. It's being used for evil, however, and as our giant robot hero Asterus it's your job to make things right by destroying all the Xenos generators in this arcade action title from Oddity Games.

The Mother Tree is under attack from corrupted spirits and it's your job to tend the garden and weed out the baddies in this fun tower defense game from Juicy Beast. Plant trees based on their different specific powers in strategic locations along the enemy's path or call upon your own mastery of the elements in order to fight off wave after wave of spirits to restore peace and the natural order to the grove.

Bill is back and he's having a blast in this fast-paced side-scrolling arcade game. Guide one of Mario's oldest enemies on a side-scrolling journey through destructible levels, fight bosses, unlock new characters and powers, and maybe even invent some colourful new profanity in the process... or make use of the level editor to make your friends suffer instead.

Get your ommmm on with Hakim El Hattab's zen-like avoidance game that sends you soaring through a field of red dots to soothing ambient music, snagging power ups and soaking in the atmosphere as you pursue the high score.

Minute Hardcore is an arcade shooter with shades of the classic bullet-hell Ikaruga. The sparseness of instructions is the game's biggest flaw, but generally, you direct your ship with the mouse, automatically shooting at the spacey invaders. Your bullets come in red, green and blue varieties, and you switch between them by clicking. However, since your bullets do not affect enemies of the same color, it soon becomes a game of constant chromatic changes as you try to keep one step ahead of the clock. If you can spare 60 seconds, it'll be well worth your time.

A priest, a rabbi, and I forget who else all walk into a bar and order a pizza. Long story short, they eat three slices. And three slices is all you get in Gaz Thomas's newest physics puzzler, 3 Slices! You've got to rid the screen of as much of the red material as you can using three swipes of your mouse, so cut to the chase and see if you can tackle this elimination challenge.

If you're unfortunate enough to have the deserved nickname "Bluebeard", you'd better have a kickin' castle and a killer reputation to keep yourself from looking like a big lame-o. That's exactly the case with the antagonist in Bluebeard's Castle, a hidden object adventure release from Fanda Games. Focusing more on the adventure side of things, expect a full heaping of puzzles, unnerving settings, strange noises in the background, and ornate decorations that could use a serious tweaking from Dress My Nest.

In addition to having two games starring astronauts, this little piece of Weekend Download deliciousness happens to include some games that, in our humblest of opinions, display extraordinary amounts of creativity. Prepare to be intrigued! *spooky hand gestures*

Nine-ball is a unique form of pool in which players take turns pocketing balls, in order, beginning with the lowest numbered ball on the table and continuing until the last ball has been sunk. Turbonuke uses this premise as the basis of play in its latest game, Blueprint Billiards, a single-player, straightforward billiards game with some very nice features.

A frantic letter brings you to France to help look for your missing brother, but you don't exactly receive a warm welcome when someone in a full suit of armor knocks you unconscious in your hotel room. Things go from bad to worse when you wake up to find the town dark and deserted... except for the people who will do anything to keep you from finding out the truth. An imaginative though slightly convoluted story combines with lengthy, engrossing gameplay in this hidden-object adventure from Elephant Games!

As an engineer in Jazza Studios' new tower defense shooter, our hero can construct turrets, structures and bombs using scrap from defeated enemies and scrap piles found throughout each level. Your goal in the main story mode is typically to hack several consoles in each level, a task complicated by the armies of angry robots out for blood.

There is nothing gloomy or sad about this beautiful apartment, lavishly appointed in warm autumn colors and textures. Adding cohesiveness and a thematic element to the escape gameplay, Autumn Melancholy sends guests riffling through furnishing and around corners on the hunt for picture fragments that need to be reassembled by game's end. The pursuit is made pleasant by every helpful feature an escape game fan could want: a light up cursor to indicate interactive areas, textual reminders when more clues are needed before attempting a solution, and several diverse puzzles to stimulate the mind.

Bicicletas Hoy isn't the first interactive music video on the web, but it's definitely one of the most charming. Developed by Argentinian design team Videogamo, this pixelated piece of interactive art features the musical stylings of rock band Bicicletas and their infectious song Hoy. It's short and not much for challenging, but makes for an engaging two minute romp.

Danger Dungeon is a fun little exploration-based action RPG from InsaneHero. There's a huge world to explore, with some cool pre-rendered 3D graphics to look at and a ton of ways to customize your character to your play-style. Some aspects feel a little rushed: particularly noticeable is how your CPU allies have the kind of AI that flits back and forth between "useless" and "suicidal". Overall, though, it makes for a fun love letter to old-school dungeon crawlers and should satisfy anyone looking for a little fantasy action during their coffee break

Click and drag to launch a ball and knock blocks off a platform. It's a simple premise, but IGrek Productions has used it to steal the time of many an online gamer. Now the popular series of physics shooters is back with Blosics 3. The blocks and bullets are anthropomorphized this time around, which probably has something to do with the popularity of those enraged avians everyone is talking about these days. Still, whether or not the sprites have eyes on them make no difference when it comes to gameplay.

Antony Lavalle's pirates are back with a vengeance. Using more than a pin, you'll be shooting down plenty of blobs and their kin in this tower defense, strategy game. Arm the pirates, set cannons on the ship and position many other weapons on the ground. But you'll also have to make room for the oil rigs, which fund your defenses. Fire away to earn as much grog as you can drink!

If you're big on frustration games (it's okay, you can admit it) then Bullet Maze is here to be your next Everest. Use the mouse to steer your orb around through bullets and click to shift polarities. Each level becomes a sort of puzzle; there's almost always a way to get through that involves carefully recognizing the pattern of bullets and working with it.

Ninjas have all the cool gadgets and powers. They have a seemingly limitless array of grapple hooks, shuriken, and the physical strength to use them. They even have an inner strength that rivals that of their outer strength, with some able to control the Qi that surrounds all things. Such is the life of the little Ninja in the point-and-click puzzle game, Ninja Delivery.

Fans of physics puzzles could do a lot worse than Swift Turn 2. It dodges a lot of the frustration that puzzle games tend to run into which is a great breath of fresh air. Your goal is to collect all the stars and then hit a goalpost, but naturally this isn't as easy as it might sound. There's a variety of mechanisms around each stage that do wacky things to physics.

A fantastic escape game designed within the constraints of a single room puzzle scenario and packed with tons of logical and tricky puzzles. Robamimi makes the escaping chore entertaining with elegant puzzles and solutions, along with top-notch controls that include the easy to use inventory and fantastic hint feature. Resembling the Japanese omelet this game is named for, Tamago is a wonderful, sweet, multi-layered joy to consume. Dive in and take a bite!

In the latest installment of Launching Pad's magical puzzle platformer series, you, a desperate stage magician, are still trying to track down all the souls of your audience and escape from the alternate world you accidentally teleported everyone to. (It's a long story.) Can you master the new elemental powers at your command to find your way home through new tricky environments, or will the crotchety old sorcerer chasing you and your assistant, Eliza, prove more powerful than you expected?

Think you've got what it takes to be an Olympic pole-vaulting champion? You might think twice after you play this two-player versus game from the creator of QWOP and GIRP. Try to score against your buddy's goal by mastering the surprisingly tricky intricacies of pole-vaulting in this hilarious and challenging little physics action game.

Fun, frantic, and addictive, Mushroom Madness 3 is a kicking tower defense game and a great way to vent all of your inner pent up rage and frustration on a wide variety of animals, insects, and birds. Mushroom Madness 3 has added new levels, new scenarios, and best of all many new weapons and upgrades to the mix, including a fantastic "auto-click" feature that saves the gamers' mouse finger from the muscle cramps that ensue when rapidly clicking to annihilate all of the cute and cuddly yet annoying fauna of the forest.

In this sequel to the original strategic tower defense hybrid, the titular dark lord you controlled in the original is back! It's your job to show him what happens to dark lords (hint: it's not tea and cookies.) Your goal is to claim the enemy's castle at the opposite side of each stage from your own, getting cash and building units, while casting spells of your own to help out directly.

Cling, swing, bounce and jump kick your way to the head of the class in Sticky Ninja Academy, an addictively unique take on the classic puzzle platformer genre from LongAnimals. Careless speed and reckless abandon won't get you far here; true mastery of the art of the sticky ninja depends primarily on patience, timing, precision, and, apparently, lots and lots of Velcro. Deftly maneuver though each stage in as few jumps as possible to achieve a perfect score, avoiding environmental hazards, collecting treasure, and defeating rival students along the way.

A puzzle game about a thief who steals his loot by solving block pushing puzzles. Get rid of all the blocks on the screen by pushing like colored blocks adjacent to one another. This game offers a great introduction to the experience at 25 levels with more to available as a mobile app for iOS and Android devices.

Death Under Tuscan Skies: A Dana Knightstone Novel is the latest hidden-object adventure hybrid in the Dana Knightstone series, and it explores the pitfalls of the life of a famous professional writer. Dana has decided to take a break from writing and accepts a gig as a guest lecturer at a University in Tuscany. Things start to take a turn for the mysterious when a handsome professor and a melancholy ghost make their appearances. Pretty soon Dana is blowing off research for the lecture to solve a mystery involving a girl that died young of a mysterious disease and her missing love, Giovanni. Those looking for a relaxed, non-scary adventure that still features ghosts should give this amusing and entertaining hybrid a try.

In this action-puzzle, simulation game from Edit Undo, sit at the railway control desk, routing trains through color-coded stations, carefully changing directions on the appropriate junctions. Send locomotives along the correct tracks toward their destinations, all the while avoiding an epic fail: screams, explosions and carnage!

It's not Halloween, but there's always an open space for abandoned theme parks, midget jesters, and overweight clown ghosts in your gaming schedule! Weird Park: Broken Tune fits you in the fedora of a detective set on the case of John Flatter, a journalist who went missing in the town of Fairy Gate. You end up in an old theme park, complete with derelict equipment and dusty attractions that look like they're about to eat you. A journalist's work is never done, however, and the more you poke your nose around, the stranger things get.

Once upon a time there were three bears... and some football gear... and some weightlifting... and some domesticated ants... hmm, sounds like one of Minoto's signature silly point-and-click puzzle games to us!

You know what needs to make a comeback? Black-light posters. Have those ever not been fascinating to look at? Anyways, Waterfalls 3, a physics puzzler by MoonMana, might not be as easy to hang on the wall, but it definitely has the ethereal prettiness.

Storylines in the adventure/hidden object hybrid genre of casual games contain a massive range of scenarios. Some are set in the past, some feature magic and curses, some feature an orphan on a quest to find their family, some feature time travel, etc. But what do you think about a game having all of the above? And more? Check out Time Mysteries: The Ancient Spectres by Artifex Mundi to see how that's possible!

MMORPGs a little dull? Then fire up this fast, frantic, and fun multiplayer co-op RPG shooter that pits you and other players against endless enemies in the search for fame, treasure, and the chance to ultimately tackle a god. Best enjoyed in short bursts and with a bunch of like-minded buddies, it's a chaotic, exciting experience that's also completely free.

Have you ever dreamt of being the expert curator of an art museum, studying the works of Miró, Kandinsky, or Picasso? You may want to rethink that dream after playing Stolen Art, a spot-the-difference game by Small is Beautiful where blubbering art collectors and obtrusive detectives are constantly knocking on your door to help them uncover some clever forgeries. Study two near-identical paintings to find and then click any slight differences as speedily as you can.

Trapped in a cave. Laser things shooting at you. Buttons everywhere. Spikes even more everywhere. It's a normal day for our featureless friend in Focus, a puzzle platform game originally by Karoshi author Jesse Venbrux. Ported to the browser world by Joseph Ivie, Focus features over 50 levels of extra difficult action, sticking you in enclosed rooms with all manner of dangers and challenging you to use your platforming skills to make it out alive.

Nani-Quest, the newest of the many not-so-typical escape games that Detarou is so famous for, dumps you into the middle of what looks like a Dungeons & Dragons dungeon raid gone awry. Detarou has a knack for combining surreal elements with surprisingly logical puzzles, and such is the case in Nani-Quest as well... albeit this one's a little easier on the surreal than, say, Dayori or Office.

It's a popular misconception that cats have nine lives. In reality they've actually got infinite lives and are forced to restart at checkpoints every time they lose one. Katwalk is a short, fairly easy platforming metroidvania game, so aside from one tricky section involving swimming you won't need catlike reflexes to succeed.

You may know a saying about laying down with dogs and getting up with fleas. Well, adventurers have their own saying: "Get into a fight with a demon, die or become horribly cursed." The hero of this dungeon crawler from Awoker Games clearly didn't get that memo, and thus he's forced to journey into the Cursed Dungeon in search of a cure.

The title of Melee Man, a flixel action platformer by The Village Blacksmith and David Vs. Goliath, seems like it was decided on before the game was developed. After all, the guy has a gun and sucks at melee. Onomastic incongruity aside though, it's a really nice game. It's designed to the 160x144 specifications of the Gameboy Color, and, along with the kicking chiptune soundtrack, truly feels like an unreleased prototype for what would have been a really cool cartridge.

An escape-the-room game that contains some winks at science-fiction cult favorites giving Metropolis Amnesia its heart. The design is well-planned and easy to navigate, quickly completed in or near the 15 minute mark. In that span of time spent exploring this mod- designed apartment, you will need to be observant, jot down a few notes, do a little deductive reasoning, and make sense of a jumbled picture—yet it's easy—not so much as to insult your intelligence, but easy enough to make it an engaging moment of repose.

Few things are as exciting as a well-made casual solitaire game. Well, few things that aren't cake, hugs from puppies, or driving up to a traffic light just as it turns green and starts dispensing candy. In the absence of that miracle, though, the latest game from Big Fish Games Studios will certainly fill that fun-shaped void in your life. Fairway is an enormously well-polished game of golf-themed tri-peaks solitaire. Take cards from the pile, pair them with the face-up card below, uncover a few neat power-ups, and try to clear the screen without breaking par!

It must be rough to be so fragile that even a bump against a ceiling will remove precious body parts. And yet that's the situation before you in Hanger 2, a small yet fun and addictive physics game. Swing from rope to rope, as with a grappling hook, to reach the exit of each level without losing too many body parts.

Expert diplomat Mr. Snoozleberg has a busy schedule: bullet-train inaugurations, movie awards, alien invasions, theme park visits. He can handle everything, though, as long as he's gets a good night rest... and his sleepwalking makes that difficult. Good think he has you to point and click all the obstacles out of his platforming path! Good Night Mr. Snoozleberg's first chapter was released back in 1999: practically ancient in internet gaming terms. It may be an oldie, but it's definitely a goodie.

We hold a truth to be self-evident that all squishy bouncy blob thingies are born with certain inalienable rights, including those of life, liberty and the pursuit of hat-iness. The hero of Pursuit of Hat, a puzzle platformer from Anton Rogov, is willing to risk all manner of life and limb for his head-covering... mainly limb though, since his are detachable. Literally tearing ones self apart over a head-covering may seem a little extreme. In all fairness... it's a pretty sweet hat.

Once again we are faced with the classic Tesshi-e escape-the-room scenario, to wit: We have been invited by "him" to a cabin somewhere (and what a great invite that is, let's go to an isolated cabin somewhere in an unspecified place with a guy we only know as "him"). Unfortunately, he's already gone and once again we are locked into a gorgeous space, looking for a way out. Everything you expect is there, navigation bars at the sides of the screen to move around, lots of interesting items to examine or pick up, clues and puzzles at every turn.

A year ago, Blockage was released with twenty levels of block-moving puzzle joy, but the game had a few rough edges. Now Blockage 2 is here with all those rough edges smoothed out and fixed, 30 brand new levels, and even a level editor to make your own. It's a big improvement on an already fun puzzle concept.

In this one-button, simple-idea, action game of skill, you control a sleepwalker moving from the left edge to the right edge of the screen. Your only recourse to help save him from an untimely death from spikes and moving platforms is to press either [space] or click the left mouse button to stop him in his tracks. Your decisions involve when to stop him and for how long, so it's key to observe the level and plan accordingly. The music and graphics create a fitting atmosphere, setting you in this dreamland that could be a nightmare.

Pigs will fly when you're tasked with helping some loveable porkers grab a quick and not-so-easy lunch in this entertaining physics puzzler. The piggies of Piggy Wiggy are daredevils, willing to soar through the air, bounce off walls, and tumble over deadly spike pits just to get their hooves on some delicious free-floating acorns. Create links between these nimble oinkers and their surroundings, cause explosions and chain reactions to launch them across the screen, and master some precise timing across 25 increasingly complex levels to ensure our adorable little piggy friends aren't forced to cry "wee wee wee" all the way home.

FrozenFire and Jon Sandness are back with a spookified expansion pack to their popular Symphonic Tower Defense. Once again it is time for the master conductor to dust the cobwebs from his baton and take a stand against the awesome power of awesome music in Symphonic Tower Defense Halloween. While the soundtrack is a tad more scary and the aesthetics a bit more orangey, gameplay pretty much the same as the previous installment. That's not a bad thing: those who liked the original will love to have more of it, and those new to the series will find this a perfect place to jump in.

After a long night of haunting and spooking, there's nothing that your average vampire/mummy/witch likes more than going home to the comfort of their own coffin/sarcophagus/cauldron. In Halloween Shooter, a physics puzzler by GameShot, it's your job to blast them all home for a good day's sleep. Very polished in presentation, with some excellently designed set pieces, Halloween Shooter has a cool retro aesthetic and bouncy sound effects.

Spiders. Why did it have to be a top-hatted, web-slinging, physics puzzling spider? Because it's Halloween, sillies, and a fun way to honor the holiday is by playing this whimsically macabre game. But beware! The difficulty curve might just scare you! Definitely a game to tingle the spines of the physics puzzle pro, but even the less adept should give a few levels a try for some spooky fun.

Most people would pay money to use a matter-absorbing gun to run through a gamut of puzzles, yet evil scientists still feel the need to kidnap people to do it. In this platform puzzler from Peregrimm you'll need to absorb and rearrange various objects to solve puzzles and reach the exit of each level. You're given unlimited shots to play and an efficiency rating at the end of the level so you can replay each to find a better solution. It's a novel and unique game that is a lot of fun to play.

The Latest Work of Dai Hyakka is not a terribly difficult escape; seasoned players will probably be out in five to ten minutes. Considering all of the puzzles (many color-based) that have to be solved to view this precious piece of art, it had better be worth it.

Looking for something Halloween-y but not ghoulish for the little boil or ghoul in your life? Fire up this cute and colourful spot-the-difference game that's big on bright charm and lacking in the spooks department.

Aliens, floating goldfish, happy obelisks... it's got to be a Minoto game! Point-and-click your way through a series of wonderfully surreal puzzles packed with strange logic and charm.

Space Invaders, Missile Command and Breakout are like the venerable elder statesmen of the video gaming world. But what if hundreds or thousands of years in the future, scientists are picking through a then-ancient landfill of Atari 2600 cartridges and have to try to piece together what they mean? They might come up with something very much like the arcade mash-up Missilebreak Outvaders. A classic example where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, with three classic arcade games rolled up into one awesome experience that is exceptionally fun to play.

This is the third Halloween in a row that we've been treated to a Pumpkin Remover game, and it's the third time we've seen those deadly pumpkins arrive. Once again the objective remains to simply remove them with a click of the mouse. Well, sort of. Pumpkins can fall in different directions, and you still need to clear all of the bad pumpkins without losing the good ones.

Just when you thought all monkeys had gone happy, Robin Vencel drops another series of point-and-click puzzle challenges on us and calls it Monkey GO Happy Marathon! Choose your favorite monkey, select a cute little hat for it to wear, and then embark on a marathon of simple puzzles and mini-games all designed to delight the little critter. All you need to do is figure out what must be done in each stage.

Straight from the ghastly hallows of Nitrome comes the hobbling horror of a humdinger, Stumped! As a hopping foot that can only make right turns, can you bounce your way to the exit while dodging piercing spikes, frightening firepits, and eerie eyeballs?

In Kidnapped for Life, a short new escape game by Abroy, your ransom is a small but diverse smattering of puzzles such as kakuro, code-breaking and a jigsaw puzzle. You'll enjoy finding all the pieces so you can assemble your kidnapper's evil visage at the end. On the flip side, your abductor probably takes delight in tormenting you by surreptitiously concealing essential tools from your view. You can almost hear his hollow laughter as you scrutinize every secret recess and puzzle over the gathered clues. When you get right down to it, being held captive in a locked room, forced to decipher arcane clues lest you be stuck there forever, is quite akin to kidnapping, ain't it?

Revisit a small town in the middle of nowhere teeming with mystery and secrets to uncover in Hood: Episode 2, the second installment in the point-and-click adventure series by Alice is Dead co-creator, Hyptosis. Hood: Episode 2 is story-driven and atmospheric, continuing where Hood: Episode 1 left off. While searching the woods for a lost girl (auburn hair, 17-ish, red cloak), you come across a peculiar metal ship. Like something the cat dragged in from a murky swamp. And that's not the only strange encounter in store for you.

Everyone wants to get into this plummeting into the bowels of the earth business: robots, ninjas, skeletons, pirates, even Santa is jumping over ledges and rolling down slopes. What's down there? Cake and ice cream? Play Plumet 2, a simple but addictive action game from Person333 to find out.

Discount Mayonnaise, an action run and gun platformer by Etienne Bergeron Paquet and Samuel St-Germain, is one of those games that blurs the line between genre tribute and satire. The art style is a strange mix of Jhonen Vasquez and Salad Fingers, and is so exquisitely ghoulish that it almost makes up for the stickiness of the controls. Strange as it is to say, this is exactly what you'd think a game called Discount Mayonnaise would be.

Aliens everywhere, and Sigourney Weaver is nowhere to be found! Looks like it's up to you and a few of your power-suited buddies to stop them in this good-looking turn-based strategy game. Deal with hostile and increasingly intelligent beasts while commanding a squad of soldiers you can level up and customise to your liking.

A point-and-click adventure disguised as an escape, Spooky Night Escape evokes the look and feel of the Halloween season with its nighttime setting, pale moon, and eerie trees. You have run out of gas somewhere on a dark, deserted road and must search the area, find some clues, solve some puzzles, and get the heck away before the inhabitants of the ominous nearby shack return. Don't go into Spooky Night Escape expecting ghosts, ghouls, or jump-scares, because there's none of those to be found. The game merely evokes the feel of the season with its look and unearthly music clip.

In the beginning, there was the void, and unless you put your puzzling skills to work in this little experimental game, that's all there will ever be. Use a series of powers, unlocked as you play and experiment, to shape the world around you and turn it from an empty void into a space teeming with life and drama.

The bunnies are back, and so are the thumbs! In this sequel to 2010's popular defense shooter hybrid, it's your goal to help these harsh hares defend their flags and territory against incoming disembodied thumbs who are covered in snot and drive jeeps and throw hadokens... as thumbs often do, naturally. Place defenses, spend upgrade points, and earn higher rankings across a variety of stages in this wildly silly but creative game.

Only the best trained monsters can make it through LittleGiantWorld's Monster Arena, a turn-based rpg, adventure, and sim game all bundled into one neat package. Whether you'd love a fire-breathing companion or a game of rock-paper-scissors, Monster Arena has something for everyone to enjoy

In this puzzle platformer by Arctic Arcade, control both heroes Sir Valiant and... err... Steve on their heroic quest to save the princess before they wind up killing each other. The 8-bit graphics, spot on music by Rayne Leafe, and the homage paid to classic console games are sure to please retro fans, while the snarky humor and challenging gameplay can make it a fun experience for any gamer

If you weren't satisfied with your previous victory over You Have to Burn the Rope's Grinning Colossus, then try Gama11's shmup, Grinning Cobossus. You'll be taken through several stages toward defeating the titular bad guy, and along the way will earn skill points to upgrade your ship. So hop to it and get to work. There's bound to be a tune you can find to hum along the way...

The name of Hashi, the Japanese logic puzzle, is short for Hashiwokakero, literally "Building Bridges". This is entirely appropriate for the game of lines and connections that it is. It's interesting however, that "Hashi" can also be translated as "chopsticks", which also would be a perfectly applicable title. Of course, the appeal of the game goes far beyond linguistic trivia. That should be clear from the success Conceptis found in its previous browser collection of the puzzle. Classic Hashi Light is back in a second volume, and, with a palpable boost in difficulty, your logical reasoning will be tested like never before.

A Day in the Woods is a sliding puzzle adventure from Retro Epic that stars none other than Little Red Riding Hood. It's a simple game built around simple, classic puzzle ideas, but it's lengthy and challenging enough to provide an afternoon of brilliant entertainment. Also, one look at the game and you'll absolutely fall in love with the visual style!

A remarkable sequel to one of the most engaging match-3 games ever, 4 Elements. Once again the elements are out of whack in the Magic Kingdom and it's up to you to make things right before all life ceases to exist. Prepare for tons of elemental delights!

Expendable robot Nuts and his fairly useless robot dog Bolts have been picked to test a construction system in this path-drawing puzzle game. Rearrange beams to get to the exit, but you can only hold one beam at a time. A clean isometric interface and levels that unlock two at a time keep the challenge of this game from getting pull-out-your-sockets difficult.

Detective Marco is having a rough week. There's a serial killer on the loose, the professor he wished to consult has run off to the spooky town of Kraig Rock, and there's all these friggin' dire wolves on the prowl. Even as a typically hard-boiled Visual Novel action-RPG protagonist, he'll need all of his skills and the support of all of Kraig Rock's mysterious inhabitants if he hopes to unravel all the mysteries of the Town of Fears.

Normally you might want to avoid chasing maniacal tentacled Doctors into hellish nether-realms, but in this case you've got someone you need to rescue... several someones, as it turns out. In this imaginative hidden-object adventure, you'll need to delve into the nightmares of children whose fear is being extracted for... well, to find out why, you'll need to play yourself.

Wiu wiu! You're under arrest! And by "under arrest" we mean "about to get rammed off the edge of a cliff for parking in the wrong place"! Take that, evil-doer! Dmitriy Fyudorov and Dmitriy Zaletov's popular adorable physics puzzler gets another batch of clever, funny stages and a level editor besides in this cute sequel.

A re-imagining of the classic and original Lemmings game by DMA Design from 1991 using draw and erase tools for controlling the little critters instead of assigning skills to individual lemmings. For anyone who enjoyed the original classic, this reworked version provides just enough differences to make playing Lemmings again a lot of fun.

Zombies Ate My Phone, a Phones4U advergame developed by Koko Games, isn't the first top-down zombie action shooter we've ever featured on JIG. It's probably not even the first top-down zombie action shooter we've featured that's set in a mall. However, it is, in all probability, the first top-down zombie action shooter wherein you can chuck vintage LPs at a mummy. And you know what? Sometimes that's enough.

Damian Sommer created this short, no-frills little puzzle platformer to throw the player into a series of one-screen, "extremely distilled metroidvanias." He accomplishes this by first teaching the player some rudimentary game mechanics and then builds upon those rules incrementally while increasing the difficulty and complexity of each level's design. And it works quite nicely for a game made in just a day and a half.

Drawn has returned. The third game in the series, Drawn: Trail of Shadows, dares to outdo its predecessors in what simply must be the most enchanting hidden object adventure game to date. The visuals have improved (if you can believe it!), the storytelling is even more intriguing, and the puzzles are as rich as before. Good hidden object games are hard to come by, so when you find a game this great, you'd best dive right in.

The Honeymoon Is Over. The honeymoon suite is deserted. There's still a little wine left over, and you can see a few balloons are scattered, but clearly celebration time has come and gone, and it's time to leave. Of course, here on JayIsGames, escaping a room is never that easy.

Quick! Solve this bomb! Now find this password! Now break these bricks! Now blow up this bomb! Phew, what a workout... and it's only just begun! Must be another set of minigame puzzles from Ninjadoodle!

Are all zombies all bad? Maybe they just need a little tender loving care... or, uh, a baseball bat to the head if you so choose. In this surprisingly engrossing simulation from Evil Dog, you are a scientist struggling to study the living dead after civilization has ground to a halt, and how you treat your subjects can mean the difference between one reconnecting with the remnants of its humanity, or becoming even more aggressive than ever... and maybe even whether you discover the truth about the outbreak.

Sure everyone's played a fighter, mage or thief, but few have had experience with the bard. Sapient Games has created a whole world revolving around this character in their text-based RPG, The Bard's Journey. Using your mouse, choose the options below the text to either take an action in that area or to move on to the next area (which can also be done with the compass). You can compose your own music to play in battle, but balance is the key in order to get the set of bonuses you desire. Even without the music writing, this RPG is fun and the story is interesting, so feel free to pack up your lute and use the default songs for a quick dive into a melodic, mystical world.

Hamumu's latest creation for Boy's Life is a nightmare... literally! Help Pee Wee escape from his elaborate platforming bad dreams before he has to get up for school... OR ELSE. Run, jump, ninja-roll and soar your way past all manner of dangerous traps and obstacles through three stages of difficulty.