You might think that the combination of Boys' Life, the monthly Boy scouting magazine for ages 6-18, and retro-action-meister Hamumu make for an unexpected pairing. Heck, I was a cub scout and even I find it a little strange. However, I do know that when the creator of the Robot Wants series releases a pixel platformer based around a trio of differently-abilitied characters fighting their way through an alien landscape: I'm there. That game is Mad Planet, and it's got quality worthy of a merit badge.

Notebook Wars 2 returns you to the world of sketch-drawn ships and fighters in an epic vertical shooter by Francisco Ferreres and Dream Forge. Control one of ten hand-drawn ships across 13 levels that look like something out of a teenager's sketchbook. Blow away the bad guys to earn cash to upgrade your craft and fly to victory.

Would you like a jet-pack? Sure, we all do! However, I'm not so sure I'd be willing to volunteer for the strict testing procedures that would have to be completed before it's released to market: what with the dodging of missiles, the zapping of lasers, and having to deal with the inevitably-snarky AI running the whole thing. Omega Box, the new action game from Ironzilla, is the tale of a test-subject either much braver or much less lucky than I, who must fly around the experimentation room avoiding everything said snarky AI can throw at him.

The world is in your hands in Red Redemption's sequel to 2007's Climate Challenge. Assume control of the newly formed GEO in this complex and challenging strategy simulation game that forces you to cope with the needs of not only the environment but the people who live in it in order to change the future, dealing with the issues afflicting each country throughout the world as you try to bring about change. Real science and research guides your decisions, and Fate of the World offers up a challenging, complex experience that might get you thinking in more ways than one.

Dark Parables: The Exiled Prince is a hidden object game that focuses on finding fragments of items throughout a series of dark scenes. The game improves upon almost every aspect over its prequel, creating a fantastic hidden object gaming experience!

Lucid is a simple, colorful, matching-based puzzle game from YeaBoing. It ditches complexity in all its forms in favor of a pure puzzle experience, slowly ratcheting up the difficulty to keep your brain thinking as fast as you can match dreamy-colored tiles.

It's time to make with the games! Or, to play the games that have been made for playing! Several fun little diversions below, and if you ignore hyphens (which, let's face it, we all do), each one has a one-word title. Isn't that... neat?

Matches & Matrimony: A Pride And Prejudice Tale gives you the chance to simulate your own Austen-style romantic adventure. Pursue nine different endings in this clever visual novel. Will you throw caution to the wind for the passionate Colonel Brandon? Succumb to the temptation of the nefarious Mr. Wickleby? Manage to capture the heart of the elusive Mr. Darcy? Or will you end up alone? These and other results will all come from the choices you make.

Favimon, the new HTML/Javascript webtoy by Matthew Hollet, is a combination of the two topics the internet was founded on: Pokémon and "Who Would Win In A Fight?". You see, Favicons (the little graphical icons in your browser's address bar) have come to life, ready to attack all other pretenders to the internet throne RPG-style. And yes, you know it's your destiny to try and cache 'em all!

A kid-friendly point-and-click adventure game that sidles right up to that "interactive storybook" line, but doesn't quite cross over into it, thanks in part to a few mini-games, such as a stealth game where you must hide from a yeti-thing and a snowboarding game where you must avoid obstacles. This is a game that any six-year-old (or one just young at heart) with a mouse can play without getting frustrated.

You'd think it'd be clear by now that you shouldn't pick up a shiny gem when the statue holding it warns you of a curse. Sadly, Cactus McCoy, the titular protagonist of the new platformer from Flipline Studios, does just that, and the result is that he's been transformed into a walking, talking, punching Saguaro. So now, if he ever wants to make balloon animals again, he must return the gem to its proper location across the beautiful landscapes of the old west... all the way pursued by the mercenary gang that hired him to swipe the gem the first place. An excellent game for fans of westerns or beat-em-up adventures in general.

James was waiting. Waiting for someone to need his skills as a private eye. Or rather, he would have been if someone hadn't murdered the head of his five-person detective team. Radical Dog's quirky new noir-themed puzzle platformer offers a healthy dose of ridiculousness to go along with its mystery.

If you've not experienced Hashi before, Classic Hashi Light is ideal for getting familiar with the format. The goal of a hashi puzzle is to connect all of the numbered islands using a series of bridges so that every island is connected to each other in one system. Since this is Volume 1 in a periodically-released series, the difficulty might be a bit low for the experienced Hashi-head, but it's a great introduction to the puzzle for newcomers.

Gold Door Escape is a rollicking good escape the room game. Most of the fun is had in anticipating the bizarre, hilarious, or surreal scenes that await the player as they make their way through the strangest building in existence. Fun, slightly scandalous, and surprisingly logical, Gold Door is the perfect mid-week escape, especially for anyone who appreciates the outlandishness to be found within.

Everybody Edits is a bare-bones platform game played on the backs of the very people who build it! In this charming retro-looking game, you are given basic tools to place blocks, lay gravity-altering objects, and craft mazes and traps of your own design. All of this happens in real-time, meaning you can move and build at the same time, all while people from around the world run around in your world!

LightSpeeder is a modern day update of a classic light cycle survival racing game. This Unity title features impressive visuals, dynamic cameras, and the ability to jump over light walls as you face against three AI opponents. You can also play against a friend simultaneously in split-screen.

Card games turn deadly with Cardian, the strategy/defense/action hybrid that will keep you on your toes as you scrabble to summon enough soldiers to destroy your opponent's portal before they reach yours. Unlock new cards with unique creatures, abilities, or resources in your quest to defeat the six masters of the game.

The titular character in this kid-oriented, charming hidden-object/spot-the-difference title is a doll who is brought to life by the little girl who sews him herself. Adorableness ensues. Not too long, and probably best suited to a 15 to 20 minute break, if you're hankering for something sweet, skip the candy and try Bobblestitch. It's better for your teeth, at least.

Transmover: New Generation is the sequel to Polygon Gmen's Transmover, and it features as much great puzzle-platforming and laser-effected teleportation as the original. The original Transmover boasted a clever concept and fun puzzles, and if Transmover: New Generation is more of the same, it's more of the same good casual gaming.

Relics of Fate: A Penny Macey Mystery is a brand new hidden object adventure from Fuzzy Bug Interactive. It ditches the usual string of still scenes packed with items to find and lists to manage in favor of an adventure-style layout, freeing you up to solve interactive puzzles and stock your inventory with useful items. Top it off with a healthy dose of crime investigation and you've got a wholly enjoyable game on your hands!

In 2009, the first Serpent of Isis game had hidden object fans jetsetting Prague and London in a quest to recover the titular thingummy and fulfill the dream of the hero Robert's dead grandfather. It was an excellent game that soon had people clamoring for a sequel, and now your journey can finally continue in, well, The Serpent of Isis: Your Journey Continues. Gamgo Games have made the new game in much the same mold as the first, with the hidden object scenes being the main attraction and the adventure and puzzle elements only there for a little variety.

This edition of Weekend Download wants to look back to previous editions for inspiration. Problem is, can you really trust your hindsight? After Weekend Download played Hindsight, Weekend Download is not so sure! *bites nails*

When a vampire shows up unannounced at a wedding, it's big news. Not the fact that he's a vampire; everyone already knows about them. But it's the fact that he's out in broad daylight that's causing a stir. Under orders for her master, Dahlia travels to New Orleans to see if the rumours about a potion able to let vampires walk in sunlight are true... but she isn't the only one who will do anything to get her hands on it. A cheeky, quirky vampiric hidden-object adventure from author Charlaine Harris.

Friends, readers, puzzle-solvers... lend me your screwdrivers! The latest installment of the popular Dismantlement series by Gam.eBB.jp has arrived, and this time time isn't on your side. Metaphorically speaking, anyway; there's a bomb hidden inside this watch, and it's up to you to figure out how to crack it open and save us all from certain ka-blooey!

Hambo is a physics-based projectile shooter puzzle where you control a bandana-wearing pig with a mission - to rescue his friend Bacon from the enemy! Use your mouse to aim your grenades, guns, C4, knives, and explosive-tipped arrows to dispatch the bad guys across 36 tricky levels. You can also create your own levels in the editor or play user-created levels for more variety.

The winner of the 2011 Stanford Hackathon represents the theme of benevolence by putting you behind the wheel of a truck making deliveries for the local food bank. Stop in as many green areas as you can before time runs out to earn cash to upgrade your vehicle in simple ways. It's a simple but solid step in the right direction for new developer JacobG, and as his prize included a review by us, we talk about what was done right, and what could be improved.

Certainly we know about the immediate dangers of the undead: the biting and the clawing and the infecting and the whatnot. What about the larger environmental concerns? I mean, a zombie claws his way out of a shallow grave... who's going to be re-sodding that ground? A vampire explodes in a fiery cloud of dust... someone needs to sweep that up. And don't even get me started on what can happen when a werewolf gets in your flower bed. 3kggames's new action looper Dirt of the Dead shows that the clean-up can get just as intense as the confrontation.

Imagine a bunch of magnetic blocks that you can stick to your refrigerator. If you put them in the right spots on the fridge door, you can drop a marble from the top of the fridge and have it bounce and fly about until it reaches the target at the bottom. That's the basic idea behind this webtoy that won the Mozilla Labs Game On open Web game development competition. And yes, it's cooperative, because you're building just one part of a gigantic, continuous marble run with thousands of other players, like refrigerators stacked from here to the moon.

Test Subject Blue is the latest platform puzzle game from Nitrome. Jump platforms to reach the food pill that unlocks the exit capsule for each level. You will have to jump through force fields that transport you to different locations throughout the level. Navigate through each level in the shortest time possible.

I think that everyone, if only for a second, has considered the possibilities of traveling through time. Sadly, we don't have the budget for a DeLorean. So it's up to State Of Play to offer us the next best thing: the fast-paced reflex-testing microgame-fest that is A Short History of the World, a beautiful game with finicky mechanics.

Escape from the Lodge is Tesshi-e's best effort to date. Complex, amusing, gorgeous to look at, and with easy to understand and use controls this is one fantastic room escape, perfect for the mid-week break. Join Tesshi-e on their vacation from escaping and be prepared for...more escaping fun than ever before.

Ten HUT! Are you prepared to go out there into the colorful floating void, soldier? Are you ready to calculate angles on the fly in order to line up chain shots? Spreading smiles to shapes is serious business! I want you to get behind that cannon and cheer up the ever-lovin' crap out of those shapes, soldier! It doesn't hurt that the game boasts a marvelous soundtrack and adorable art, either. Arcade fans should give this one a try. At least it's cheaper than Vegas.

It goes by many titles: sucrose, lactose, dextrose, fructose, glucose. By any other name though, it would taste just as sweet. It's sugar. Perhaps seeing a solid stream of it pour into his morning coffee tickled something in Bart Bonte's mind. Perhaps he's a designer who can find inspiration in anything. In any case, his new simple idea physics game Sugar, Sugar is all about directing those tiny delicious crystals into a multitude of mugs... and oh, honey, honey, I'm so happy I'm not a diabetic

Ninjadoodle's Bustabrain 2 features 30 new levels of minigame puzzles to solve and 30 hidden Dice of Doom to find. Use the mouse to click or drag various items on each level. Try to beat the game in as few mouse clicks as possible. Up for another round? Then put those running shorts on your head and start exercising your brain once again!

Grab your shovel, sharpen your sword and get ready to have your debilitating case of gold fever cured, because it's time to do some treasure hunting. You won't even have to experience the back breaking labor or the legal and moral grey areas that come with excavating artifacts. Hunt for treasure, go adventuring, do battle and more in this fun, addictive RPG!

Despite its shortcomings, Duplicator provides some challenging puzzles and an hour or more of ambient diversion. The appealing presentation combined with fluid platforming override the difficulties of the game, and the puzzles will get you thinking and may even test your patience.

Life in the Gemini galaxy isn't easy; war has left its mark on the lives of the people within it, but most of them are more concerned with the all-seeing eyes of the Boryokuden, a crime syndicate that seems to operate outside the law and swiftly deals with any opposition. In this top-notch adventure game, you play as Azriel Odin, a detective on the streets of New Pittsburgh, and Delta-Six, an amnesiac test subject stuck in a sinister training facility, and attempt to stay alive while you uncover a conspiracy that might hit closer to home than you suspect.

Here's a novel idea: do something with the match-3 genre that's fun and interesting! Cave Quest from MD Studio combines a number of familiar puzzle concepts with a smattering of hidden object and adventure scenes. It's all laced together with a shoestring storyline that keeps you moving from one area to the next, solving simple inventory puzzles and swapping tiles like nobody's business. It's something fresh and interesting to try out, especially if you've been around the match-3 block a few times!

A most unusual plague sweeps an isolated town on the outskirts of Paris. Anyone else would be keen to stay away, but they don't have your experience and skills. You've been called in to investigate, and track down one woman's little girl... a little girl who may be wrapped up in something very dangerous. Scour the town for clues and try to pull the evil out by its roots in this dark hidden-object adventure.

From life sims to indie music to painfully difficult 3D games, we've got your weekend in gaming covered! Covered like your morning piece of toast! Covered like the wagon you rode in to reach Oregon! Covered like... something else that's covered!

So, yeah, the 1980s. Slap bracelets. Synth bands. Big hair. Neon-colored clothing. If you remember the 80s, you probably want to forget, and if you don't, here's a good way to get started. Fix-it-Up Eighties: Meet Kate's Parents is the latest time management game from World Loom continuing the car-centric Fix-it-Up. This time around, Kate plays a backseat role as she visits her dad who begins to reminisce about the days of old, meeting Kate's mother and running a car repair business together as they fought with the owner, Richard.

Shoot and jump your way through this interesting hybrid of action, platform, physics and one-button games. This duality might put some off Cuboy Quest, but it honestly is a nice idea that has been executed well. Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, but that's because not everyone likes tea.

Survive for 30 seconds. Sounds simple, right? But you're just sitting there in your chair, reading this excerpt. You're not the hapless protagonist of styxtwo's challenging survival platform game, where the goal is to stay afloat as the island slowly shrinks beneath you.

The dead walk! Fortunately, they also blow up pretty good, too. Break Point Studios delivers a fun if somewhat repetitive experience in this beautifully made RPG/turn-based strategy title about everyone's favourite target practice. Play one of three different characters and embark on a search to learn the source of the outbreak, finding powerful weapons and armor and learning to work the battlefield to your best advantage along the way.

I think that we've all experienced the terror of waking up from a strange dream, not being quite certain for a moment where we are. Fortunately, we usually find ourselves in our own bed, rather than a mysterious town that seems a cross between Hyrule and Silent Hill. For Amea, titular star of Godlimation's new action horror RPG, sadly this is the case. Like so many other protagonists, she has amnesia... and if a look outside is any indication, there may be a few things she'd be happy not remembering. Those who don't mind a little glitchiness in pursuance of effective horror shouldn't forget to check it out.

A physics puzzle... in 3D!... wait, no. A better one sentence summary would be "a carnival milk bottle game... only better and on your computer... and starring adorable monsters!" If only beating the game earned you an inflatable turtle or some oversized novelty sunglasses.

Give Bird Escape a spin. Try out something new, something that is not "just like every other room escape" and enjoy the surreal and unique experience that is Otousan's world. A world with a lot of birds. And grapes. And some amusing escaping as well.

Play a grim, roided-out minotaur in spandex briefs, kidnapped by the fascist oligarchs of Candyland to fight in their gladatorial combats, and resolved to launch himself with the combat ring's elastic ropes and propel himself to freedom, via grit, rocket shorts, and the gummi, pliable sproinginess of Candyland's fleeing citizenry. Top that, future launch game developers and purveyors of the bizarre!

Wooly the Mammoth has stolen your hat, and in order to get it back, you're going to need to get some epic questing going on, exploring a huge, non-linear environment, completing side-quests, collecting keys, and shooting cute but evil monsters in the face with your laser. Whimsical and with wide-appeal, this is certain to be another major hit from jmtb02!

Hammers are jerks. We've known it all along, as our swollen thumbs can attest, and don't think we haven't heard them sniggering each time they "accidentally" slip on us either. Enter Neil (he's a nail) who, together with Mr Magnet and the lovely Drew (she's a screw) are here to help the resistance put a stop to the hammers and their bullying in this short but oh-so-sweet little point-and-click puzzle adventure.

It's a simple idea wrapped up in one great presentation for Interlocked, the 3D puzzle from We Create Stuff. Figure out how to take apart increasingly elaborate sliding block arrangements; the pieces are locked together, and it should be easy for you to puzzle out how to pull them all apart... right? The perfect treat to start your week off right.

You Don't Know Jack, the "irreverent party trivia game", features hundreds of hilarious questions in a fast-paced game show format, complete with cash and prizes, a wise-cracking host, and ample carpentry hardware. While released on multiple platforms last week, we're taking a look at the Steam release.

A fourth and much-improved entry in the logic puzzle series, World Mosaics IV weaves storytelling in with an excellent (and extensive) set of picross puzzles that are perfect for casual players to enjoy!

Test your speed management skills while you try and stay one step ahead of the mob! Garage Inc. is a frantic but not hectic time management game with a superb visual style and plenty of variety to keep you engaged for hours on end.

A definite "physics" theme for this edition of Weekend Download, featuring two games that bank their entire existence on force, momentum, gravity, friction, and all that sciencey stuff. Do they have what it takes to impress you, master of real world physics? Find out below!

As a series of murders and disappearances rock a small town, you are called in to the thick of it to help unravel the mystery. But when all signs point to something of supernatural origin, can you bring yourself to believe the truth? Or will you wind up another victim before you can rescue anyone else? A beautifully done hidden-object adventure from ERS Game Studio.

Shoot the pearls and save your ammo in this creative twist on the Peggle genre. What starts off as a simple, cheery arcade game gradually ramps up the challenge by introducing new elements to contend with on the playing field that do a lot to both make it stand out and steal your time.

GemCraft returns with this latest installment in the popular series that blends RPG elements with strategy and classic addictive tower defense. Descend into the labyrinth for your greatest test, with more skills, more achievements, more abilities, and more of the classic action that GameInABottle has perfected.

Nice to see you, old sport! In just four levels, this gloriously retro platformer parody of the classic story will capture your heart, make you raise an eyebrow more than once, and have you striking down ghosts with a boomerang hat. Despite its length and ease of play, this is one weird and silly little title you shouldn't miss checking out.

Simulation hits home in this advergame meant to raise awareness about poverty. Even though you don't have a job, the bills keep piling up, and you have insurance, a student loan, and a child to think of. You're down to your last thousand dollars... can you make it through the month? A sobering if a little ham-handed look at the lives of some people who aren't quite as lucky.

Tiles! Tiles! My kingdom for a set of appropriately matched takes! IriySoft puts a strange new spin on the defense genre in this match-3 hybrid as you take control of a set of three heroes attempting to fend off hordes of approaching enemies by creating matches on a board that summons reinforcement, heals, or even unleashes special abilities.

Seeds can do a lot of things in casual gaming land. Yep, when you plant a seed, it seems that anything can happen. Never has that idea been better expressed then in Mitoza, a surreal point-and-click webtoy by Baboon. Once you start making choices for your little embryonic pod, there's no telling what the result will be.

Room Perfection 2 isn't what you'd call a complete room escape, more of a two walls and out type of scenario. However, packed within those two walls are a lot of tricky puzzles and games worthy of gam.ebb.jp's reputation. Visual puzzles, letter puzzles, just about everything you can think of makes an appearance, including a tricky bit of point and shoot.

After more than five years, it's time to fall back into Johnathan May's The Dark Room all over again with a new set of rooms to explore and puzzles to unlock. In fact, just figuring out what you're supposed to do is a puzzle all its own in each room you encounter. While not as big as the Dark Complex, this third installment is every bit as engrossing and tricky as the original, and an absolute blast to get lost in.

When a seed meteors into the ground, it finds itself in hostile terrain. Nasty-looking plants sit nearby, easy to provoke by the slightest bit of resource gathering. Defend your plant from the invading species in this fun take on tower defence games. You might even learn a thing or two...

If there's one sci-fi rank that has the highest level of awesome associated with it, it's "commander". Some of the greatest protagonists of all space-time have it appended to their name: Riker, Sisko, Adama... Keen. So it's only fitting that when puzzle-master Johnathan May chooses to surprise us with rocking a vertical-side-scrolling space shooter, that he should dub it Cosmic Commander. And let me tell you, it has a challenge more than worthy of its station.

There's something inherently soothing about sliding puzzles. No wait, hear me out. You're just thinking they're frustrating because so frequently they're the obstacle in your escape or hidden object game, the puzzle that rears its ugly mug when you just want to open up the safe or fix the breaker system. But if you distill it down to its essence and give it a relaxing ambiance, there's something pure and satisfying about sliding some blocks around, and that's just what this game from Ateta Games delivers.

Who says Valentines have to be romantic? Join Emma and Lilith, two little girls with a few differences that don't outweigh their similarities, in this simple but charming and kid-friendly set of spot-the-difference titles. It's proof that friendship is something to remember between all the hearts and roses on February 14th too.

It's more than an action game meeting a role playing game. It's more than an amazing co-op experience. It's more than a collection of hilarious dialogue and geek culture references. It's Magicka, and it's the next game that will claim hours of your life. From Arrowhead Game Studios comes a hybrid title that emphasizes teamwork, alchemy-like spellcasting, and gaining an invincible knowledge of how elements work in relation to each other and the environment. Oh, and there are moose. Lots of moose.

Ready for more buildings, contraptions, machines, and inventions? Crazy Machines: New from the Lab is another resurrected hit from German game developers FAKT Software. Featuring gameplay very similar to The Incredible Machine, Crazy Machines features over 100 new levels, each one more complex (and zany) as the last.

Muse is a brightly creative hidden object game from Big Blue Bubble that ditches the conventions of the genre to focus on pure, amazingly-crafted hidden object entertainment. The artwork could practically come from a museum, the story is unique, and even the voice acting is top-notch, creating one of those rare games that aims to do nothing more than enchant each and every player.

Hello there, weekend gamer! Tired of the rest of the week sapping time that could be spent playing games? We know how you feel! Make the most of your weekend by playing a few free games. They won't demand your entire afternoon, leaving you free to kick back and play even more games!!!

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.

Fire off your green kamikaze dude towards a series of colored blocks in Kamikaze Blocks, a multi-level physics puzzle game. Watch as green om-nom monsters devour your geometric offerings in the clouds below. Earn achievements and challenge yourself in Puzzle or Arcade mode.

Tonypa has once again given us cunningly executed casual gameplay exquisite in concept, design, and execution. Despite the difficulty Jorinapeka is a game that just begs you to play it over and over, striving to reach that ever elusive "end".

Hospitals are full of all sorts of hazards, like paper robes that don't close all the way, doctors with cold hands, and... zombies? HM! Lynnea Dally's undead apocalypse begins with you waking from a rather impromptu bout of unconsciousness in the hospital radiation room, but you have more things than a rather impressive headache to worry about in this horror interactive fiction game.

Think you've got what it takes to succeed in trading? What if you were trading to appease the British thirst for tea? By selling opium? "Not for all the tea in China!" I hear you say. Actually, that's probably something your Grandma would say. Aaanyway... in High Tea, you'll be trading opium for just that, all the tea in China.

Ever wonder how the Space Invaders feel, or even why they're invading from space to begin with? This retro arcade game allows you to experience the classic action from the other side of the fence for a unique concept with some challenging play.

Created by Michael Molinari and Chelsea Howe for the San Francisco 2011 48 Hour Global Game Jam, The End Of Us is a surprisingly evocative game about two meteors meeting and playing amidst the strangeness and charm of deep space. As much a piece of wordlessly lyrical interactive art as an action game, The End Of Us matches its play to an engaging soundtrack and offers a short but satisfying experience.

Not terribly difficult but with a lot of entertainment value, R20 Who Am I? is a great addition to the Robamimi catalogue and an amusing way to break up the week. Nowhere near as difficult as, say, Smile For Me and without the sentiment of Dad or First Love, R20 Who Am I? is relaxing, mind-stretching escaping goodness wrapped up in a really well designed bow.

Save the galaxy one block (and battery!) at a time in this deceptively adorable but challenging sokoban puzzler. When the galaxy is under attack, as Cube Droid you'll spring into action and visit different worlds to collect all the batteries you need, facing off against not only challenging level puzzles but lasers, cannons, saw blades, and other enemies that want to stand in your way.

First Sudoku, then Picross, then Battleship... and now Link-A-Pix. Is there any pencil-and-paper puzzle Conceptis can't expertly translate to the flash medium? Painting by Pairs might be a little more obscure than the previous puzzles collected, but B&W Link-A-Pix Light Vol. 1 continues the streak of high-quality logical mind-benders and is filled with nonograms you'll not want to miss.

The randomly-generated protagonist of Void's new semi-roguelike semi-RPG Hack Slash Crawl, is often an engine: a perfect monster killing machine. All this machine can do is hack, slash and dungeon-crawl. But when you do only three things, you better bet that you can do them well. Likewise, while Hack Slash Crawl is kind of shallow, and could stand some polish, it makes for a fun little click-fest.

In the original, he met his true love; in the level pack, he had to defend their honeymoon from various tropical mishaps. Now, in Sushi Cat 2, Joey Betz presents another thrilling chapter in this epic romance: rescuing the pink kitty from her diabolical bacon-snarfing puppy kidnapper!

A zombie apocalypse thoughtlessly interrupts your filming in this tongue-in-cheek retro shooter that has you blasting away scores of the undead, upgrading weapons and abilities, as you attempt to break yourself out of a cycle of days that just won't end. Silly, snarky, and definitely challenging, it's definitely going to bring out the zombie slayer in all of us.

Playing God has a bit of a poor reputation: the kind of reputation that leads to torch and pitchfork wielding villagers smoking you out of a burning windmill. However, Alxemy, the new Doodle God-esque puzzler by Hyptod, reminds us that sometimes combining elements to make new life feels more like toying with a new Lego set, rather than a crime against nature.

Atom Zombie Smasher is a game about zombies. It is not, however, your typical game about zombies. Where other games about zombies might have you playing as the heroic survivor who somehow escaped infection via genetic anomaly or dumb luck, Blendo Games' latest release does not. Instead, this ridiculously innovative tower defense-like real-time strategy game will put you in the role of faceless commander charged with the evacuation of his fellow citizens. This time, you get to be the one who orders the orbital nukes!

Following in the tradition of the classic sandbox games (Sand Sand Sand and Powder Game), The Powder Toy by HardWIRED is a small download which stretches the boundaries of what is possible with a few simple elements. In fact, you can do almost anything with it, the only limit is your imagination.

Contrary to what you might think, police work has been made to look more glamorous than it is long before CSI and Law & Order stepped into popular culture. Yes, we shouldn't forget the profound contributions of Miami Vice. But the most realistic of the Sierra adventure games did not stoop to such base entertainment. Instead, all four games were grim thrillers with a penchant for making you walk through all kinds of police procedure (sometimes to a pedantic degree), all while hunting down drug lords, serial killers and satanic cults. Forget Space, Heroes, Kings, or Larry. This is Police Quest.

One of the best-looking and most thoroughly engaging time management games is back with a brand new installment! Delicious: Emily's Childhood Memories follows the gameplay outlined in previous games, such as the winter-themed Delicious: Emily's Holiday Season, but offers players a peek into Emily's past, taking you through a tour of different sections of her life. As before, story is a big part of the experience, and the way the Delicious series weaves fun diversions into the time management portions is perfectly balanced to keep your brain entangled for the entirety of the game.

Time to invent a new word! Or, phrase, rather. Ready? "Platform Adventure Paloozathonvania"! You like? Hope so. It took hours of intense research to come up with that particular combination of letters, not to mention the trademark hoops we had to jump through to print it. But now it's there, and it describes the bulk of this week's downloadable games quite accurately.

Trapped near an old mansion, car broken down and useless, old man saying spooky things, and a little ghost girl trying to convince you of her story. Nothing is quite what it seems in Spirit Seasons: Little Ghost Story, a hidden object adventure game from Tiki's Lab that utilizes some interesting puzzles, dynamic scenery, and a classic mystery setting of deceit.

Cactus takes weirdness to a whole new level in this game about car racing without any actual cars. Play as a naked man who just thinks he's a car, racing against other like-minded fellows, through this retro game that's weird, funny, and just plain weirdly funny from Adult Swim and the developer who brought you Stallions in America.

Pardon my americentrism, but, for my money, when this time of the year rolls around there's only one football worth caring about, and it ain't the one with a goalie. With Da Big Game™ just around the corner, I went online to satisfy my yearn for helmet-crunching sports action... and in igamebank's Shockwave Two Minute Football 3D, I think I've scored a touchdown and the 2-point conversion to boot.

Icy Gifts has you freeing frozen presents using chain reaction explosions. It doesn't have a huge challenge or innovate in the genre, but it is a solid package. The visuals are slick and the soundtrack is pleasant. There's enough variety and objectives to keep a completionist busy and a causal gamer entertained. Consider this a late Christmas present.

How often do you find yourself playing a game and cackling: "Fools! You've only made me stronger now!"? Not often enough I'd say, but developer Dingo Games has set out to rectify this problem with its game, Tasty Planet. In this preview version of Tasty Planet you take control of a microscopic ball of grey goo. Designed by scientists to clean toilets, it soon becomes apparent that this goo can absorb anything and grow without stop.

There's something deliciously ironic about Canary. Set in space, Nitrome's "Best of 2011" award-winning game puts players in the role of a stalwart canary in the employment of the Canary Mining Colony. With rocks falling everywhere, hostile yet adorable aliens and a panoply of other things to worry about, the game really does give new meaning to the phrase 'canary in a coal mine'.

Shooter fans! Has this ever happened to you? You're trying to enjoy blasting the latest wave of Galaga-inspired retro-baddies, but find that the old-school chiptune music and sound effects are drowned out by the relentless sounds of mouse clicking and space-bar tapping. There has to be a better way to launch a space bullet, right? Well, Devilish Games has heard your concerns, and the result is Tag Attack: a shooter that focuses more on the aiming than the clicking, while not sacrificing the intensity of the genre.

Escape from the Tatami Room 2 is one of Tesshi-e's more middle of the road efforts. There are some unique puzzles alongside old chestnuts like the wobbly corner picture. Not, perhaps, their most innovative, but still a nice combination of puzzles and construction make Tatami Room 2 an entertaining way to while away a few minutes.

First impressions count for a lot. In the case of Soul Redeemer, the new top down zombie action shooter by the Bekho Team, it introduces itself with a plot-explaining narration that cracked me up, though I don't think it was supposed to. Still, whenever a game starts by expounding on how, every couple centuries or so, the alignment of constellations somehow release demonic forces to eat our souls, and the only thing standing in their way is a warrior dude in asymmetrical armor shooting stuff... I'm going to stay around. And I'm glad I did! While Soul Redeemer is not the most original of games, it has a charm to it that fans of the genre should enjoy.