Blink and you'll miss it, but this painfully short action adventure game by a talented indie studio is still worth checking out. Play as a young girl who wakes up in a surreal nightmare realm and must rely only on a strange voice, and a magical camera that can manipulate reality, to see her through to the end.

When Lilly finds an unusual pair of goggles, they open her eyes to a surreal world of mysterious magic and propels her on a journey that will change everything. In this animated point-and-click adventure from Geeta Games, you get to share in Lilly's fascination and curiosity, and innocently earnest explorations, solving playful puzzles in order to carry on this expedition into the fantastical.

Fight your way to the orc city to defeat the army of evil lurking there. In this turn-based strategy game, slide rows and columns to position yours and your enemy's troops to prepare for battle. While you start with just two characters, you'll eventually end up with eight, each with different abilities and strategies to bring to the playing field. The king needs your help--don't fail him!

It's baaaaaaaaaaaaack... aniwey's smash-hit original webtoy/wonder machine gets a sequel with even more content to discover. Allow this little game to run by itself in another tab or window and you'll quickly discover that there's a lot more to it than just a rising number of candies.

You play a young adventurer who may have wandered farther than considered reasonable, in Vagabond. In this classic style RPG, you'll enjoy exploring seven distinct areas with different monsters and music. As you venture in to every nook and cranny, you'll discover the secrets that will strengthen you enough to defeat the evil so you can head back home.

The first murder to hit the Fable community in a long time is hard enough to deal with if you aren't also universally mistrusted and reviled. Former Big Bad Wolf and current Sheriff of the Fable community Bigby must decide (or rather, you will) if it's worth it to fight against his past, or just give in and become the monster everyone thinks he is in this first installment of an action-packed adventure series based on the hit comics.

Olav and the Lute, a music-based puzzle adventure game by Shelly Alon, and Johann and Daniel Von Appen has you exploring a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, wielding the power of a magical stringed instrument. Gameplay will be familiar to players of LucasArts' Loom, but Olav and the Lute is an engagingly unique ride, despite its short length.

Waking up from a peaceful nap, King Trouserheart finds his trousers have been stolen. Where can they be? Venture out across the kingdoms, fighting blockolds, tentacles, derp kinghts, jelly cubes and other peculiar adversaries to find and reclaim the kidnapped pants. As you defeat foes, collect money and use it to upgrade your weapon, armor, shield and wallet in this hack'n'slash RPG adventure geared toward the casual player as well as the seasoned gamer.

Hexage delivers that rarest of beasts, the mobile action RPG that's as easy to pick up as it is hard to put down. With controls that are simple to learn and a myriad of attacks at your disposal, Reaper is a stunning game with addictive battling and a lot of gameplay to slash your way through.

Another short but gorgeous point-and-click adventure arrives from Hyptosis, as you struggle to maintain relations between your company and the prickly Templars after a Relic is discovered nearby. Adding to the already thick tension in the city and hot on the heels of your last adventure, it doesn't look like your life is showing any signs of slowing down... or getting any less dangerous.

Once in the cave, there was a cliff, a fire, and some shadow puppets... oh, wait. Wrong cave. Once in the cave, there was a wizard searching for the evil wizard in AnienaGames' new platformer. Earn achievements, unlock skills, and experiment to find the best way to defeat your enemies.

In the world of Shadowrun, magic and the digital age collide in a dangerous age where dealing with backstabbing dragons running drug cartels is every bit as likely as corporate espionage carried out by cybernetically enhanced trolls. Harebrained Schemes puts a fresh spin on the cult classic tabletop game and brings it into the digital era with this engrossing turn-based strategy RPG, including the tools to make and share your own campaigns for free.

Break out your inner tactician to rumble in Berzerk Studio's latest strategy game! Though your army battles automatically, behind the scenes you have an enormous amount to do, since everything from equipment to formation and character race can turn the tide of battle for better or worse. Play in single-player campaigns, or create an army to participate in ranked multiplayer battles, making it the perfect choice for a few skirmishes each day.

Arena Quest RPG is a demo of an upcoming action RPG hybrid by gfactoriser. It puts all the ingredients of an RPG into a big pot,then boils it until only the delicious concentrated broth remains. It's got combat, it's got characters, it's got experience points and equipment and skills. But it all takes place on an overworld map that lets you move from one battle arena to the next, cutting out everything except fighting and party management.

If you've played the iOS hit 1000000, you'll find a lot to like in Undefined's addictive match-3 arcade game that puts a JRPG spin on it. To rescue a princess you'll have to raise funds by scrounging in dungeons, swapping and matching gems and other tokens to find treasure, defeat monsters, and level up your party for a familiar but addictive and charming experience.

Two childhood friends would never expect their destinies would grow to be so great... or to pull them in opposite directions. This iOS port of the beloved turn-based tactical RPG classic may suffer from some user interface problems, but with the challenging battles and deep narrative intact, it still remains a formidable, engrossing experience that deserves a place in any fan's library.

Puzzle meets roguelike in this challenging little retro game created for Ludum Dare's minimalism theme. Four heroes sounds like more than enough to find all four magical scepters, but with random dungeons filled with unique monsters, tricks, and permadeath, you've got your strategizing cut out for you.

The Yawhg is coming... but nobody knows it yet, and in the six weeks leading up to its arrival to your cheerfully oblivious town, you'll guide up to four people in their daily lives. The choices you make and the skills you have them learn will come into play when the time comes, but more than anything else, this gorgeous and surreal fantasy visual novel/choose-your-own-adventure indie game is a fantastical piece of narrative work with tons of replayability.

The realm needs a hero skilled in the works of dream magic to stop Lord Nightmare! Too bad all they have is you, and you just crawled out of the bushes after a night of hard partying. Kingdom of Loathing creators Asymmetric Productions deliver a fun and dangerously addictive hybrid of word puzzle and RPG adventure in this indie hit.

It used to be, a girl would dream of her first ball, dancing with princes and wearing a beautiful gown, a gift from her fairy godmother. Now The Godmother is turning maidens to glass and you, as the detective, need to search the gorgeous color-saturated surroundings for emblems, tokens, and magic items to unlock doors to new areas and stop this world from being destroyed. Cursed ball gowns, armies of puppets and a morbidly dysfunctional family are just some of the dangers you'll face in this hidden object adventure that is always entertaining and fun to play.

Kingdom of Liars is the second in the series of dark fantasy point-and-click adventures and the plot is only getting thicker in the city of Ashbane. Kingdom of Liars 2 features what Hyptosis is best known for: world-building, colorful characters, humorous descriptions, intriguing twists... and smacking players with a "To Be Continued" just as things are getting good. For a short trip, though, it's an excellent one.

Everyone in town knows to stay out of the forest, but what do you do when the forest won't stay out of the town? Enter this surreal fantasy in Mad Head Game's next hidden object adventure, where only you can save the town—as soon as you can find the pieces to your magic amulet and piece it back together again. Explore gorgeous environments, customize your game settings, and encounter many uniquely logical search scenes and puzzles in an engaging story that is much more than what words can describe.

aniwey's Candy Box may seem simple, but this unexpectedly delightful webtoy packs way more surprises than you'd ever think. All you seem to have is a simple counter of candies that slowly accumulates with each second, and the option to gobble them all up, or throw them on the ground. But give it some time, and Candy Box! may just be one of the weirdest, most wonderful webtoys you've ever encountered.

Made in just 48 hours for the minimalist themed Ludum Dare, this itty-bitty adventure starts off as a quest to get a grisly trophy... and then to break a curse! The laws of the world might not make much sense to you anymore, but you won't let that stand in the way of a little destructionI MEAN heroism.

Evil never rests, so neither can you in the latest installment of realtime strategy from Booblyc! You'll lead Targa Wrathbringer and his army against a marauding demon horde, this time upgrading not only your units, but the heroes you'll recruit to your cause as well, and learn to master powerful new spells and abilities in the process.

Months after the tournament that decided Kurestal Kingdom's next ruler, one of the knights sacrifices his life to save the new king. In The King's League: Odyssey, the sequel to Kurechii's popular game from 2011, you manage a team of fighters who are looking to fill the job opening.

A kingdom stands poised to be torn apart as two of its would-be champions can't agree on a course of action... which is where you come in. In Axis Games' action-RPG adventure, choose a side and develop your character to be the hero the land needs and strike down all those who would come against you. Preferably with fireballs.

It's a monster's life for you in this casual yet engaging indie simulation from Dejobaan Games! Going from a lowly morsel swimming in a vat of goop to (potentially) a respected elder that can influence the course of history, it's a whimsical, weird, and occasionally gross cross between a choose-your-own-adventure story and a visual novel that offers lots of replay value and laughs.

In our world, there's a detective struggling to find meaning in his life and the world around him. But when he finds himself pulled into another world where magic is both colour and life, he may find a purpose as he sets out to stop the grey from draining the land. A whimsical, engrossing fairy-tale of a point-and-click adventure perfect for reminding yourself that magic is everywhere.

The tower-defense smash hit behemoth is back and better than ever. As a Dark Lord with an awesome trove of treasure, you're forced to continually beat back the heroes after your gems. Luckily for you you have the forces of darkness on your hands. And luckily for us this sequel is every bit as addictive as the original with a great new look and some challenging new features.

Madeleine has been the valette to Prince Oscar for years, ever since they were both children. She's been his guardian and his guide, but also his confidant, and as he approaches adulthood she hopes to help him find a bride in the princess of a neighbouring kingdom... at least, right up until they become embroiled in a dangerous mess of political intrigue and secrets that threaten their lives and their hearts in this gorgeous, fascinating indie visual novel from Hanako Games.

When you find your village turned to stone and your father abducted for a strange gem in his possession, you have no choice but to set out and save the world. Provided Mittens the disembodied hand doesn't stop you. And you team up with a plucky firefly with a code of honour. And... well, you get the idea. A gorgeously creative and immersive light-hearted indie action-RPG with a built-in mod creation toolset, Driftmoon is an effortlessly fun and funny adventure that anyone can, and probably will, enjoy.

The good, kindly Elven Queen Isandra has been possessed by the Phoenix Spirit, a coldhearted, conceited mystical spirit who wants to purify the land by burning it all to ashes. You are the Destined One and, using your Skybird magic, must stop the Phoenix Queen's wrath before all is destroyed in this fantasy epic story/hidden object adventure game. Explore intricately detailed scenes and find fragments of ornate objects, complete quests given to you by Enchantia's Human, Elven and Dwarven inhabitants, and feast your eyes in this remarkable adventure from the creators of the Dark Parables series.

Last spring, you thought you stopped the nasty Shade for good, rescuing the innocent yet magically-gifted young Fiona to boot. Now you must again stop the dark creatures with the help of Fiona's magic and some visits to a pernicious pixie, baleful banshee and unforgiving nyx. In this next installment of BoomZap's dark fairy tale series, adventure through gorgeous color-saturated environments, solving puzzles, completing minigames and searching uniquely rendered hidden object scenes for magical artifacts to put a stop to the Shade once more.

Available for the first time in a bundle pack, the Avernum series is one of the crown jewels of classic-styled indie RPGs. Created by Spiderweb Software, this seven-game ensemble takes you from the beginning to the end of an adventure spanning decades that changes the world. Avernum begins as an underground prison for the people the Empire wishes to get rid of, but over time you'll see the land evolve, lead an expedition to the surface, start a rebellion, and much, much more in these huge adventures.

The babies of fairyland have been nabbed! What kind of monster would do such a thing?!... well, um. You. Command a demon army trying to shepherd a group of babies back to their evil leader in this real-time strategy/tower defense hybrid. With upgrades, spells, fake demon babies, and more, it's a seriously cute, challenging, and quirky game where you get to be the bad guy.

All you need is a sword on your back and revenge in your heart to be a hero in this combat-centric RPG from JIMP and Grindhead Games. Venturing outside the city walls in search of the monster that killed your father, you'll slice, dice, and magic-fisherize your way through a series of colourful battles in this simple but fun title.

The pixel is mightier than the sword, if only because a sword can only be used for stabbin' and the pixels in Social Titans' addictive iOS match-3 defense game can be used to summon vampires. Create matches on a battlefield to summon and merge new warriors and classes in order to protect your VIP, who is SUCH a VIP that they can afford to wander around said battlefield without actually lifting a finger to do anything useful. Sigh.

In this direct sequel to the original dark fantasy title, Kathleen and her daughter Emily thought they'd escape the bizarre otherworld and mysterious legacy left to Emily by her dead father. But a letter ten years later as Emily is preparing to go off on her own forces the family to realise they must confront and uncover the dark truth behind dreams and nightmares in this stunning hidden-object adventure.

Here's a tip. When it comes to ancient demons, send the most qualified person for the job to do it right. Not the person nearest at hand to slap a bandaid on the problem. Jordan, a powerful but lazy and opportunistic warrior, manages to mess up his quest to put an ancient evil back into slumber in the worst way, and suddenly finds himself facing the unwelcome task of saving the world through actual hard work and adventure in this enormous, vibrant, and frequently funny indie RPG.

In this short text adventure from Hyptosis, lead a party of mercenaries from the esteemed guild, the Children of Brinn, on a job to solve the supernatural problems plaguing a tiny town. The choices you make determine who lives and dies and gets a face full of acid, and provides a brief but solid little diversion brimming with potential for future installments.

Choose your hero and embark upon a dungeon crawl in Dungelot. In this roguelike you'll face a myriad of monsters as you fight your way deeper into the dungeon. Collect items to increase your stats as you find the key needed to exit each level. How deep can you delve?

The forces of darkness are at it again in this tower defense game. They'll send wave after wave against you as you use your soldiers, mages, and archers to hold them back. Place towers in the designated spots to start training your troops. Upgrade your units in multiple ways to find the best strategy for each level. Evil won't know what hit it.

Overhaul Games releases a remastering of a Dungeon and Dragons RPG classic, containing over 400 tweaks and improvement in addition to hours of extra gameplay and new party members. (Re)Discover the tale of a hero (you!) who had no idea they were destined for greatness when a violent murder turns their sleepy life upside-down and they suddenly find themselves the target of sinister forces as they race to uncover the secrets of their own destiny in time to save themselves AND the world.

Magical Time Bean delivers a tower-defense game with a twist, as you play a wizard with the ability to summon the souls of warriors while searching a massive, ancient ruin full of danger. Summon and recall heroes to defend you while making use of their strengths and weaknesses against increasingly more powerful and varied monsters, visiting the Merchant to purchase upgrades. Challenging and surprisingly strategic, this is a clever, lengthy game that can keep you occupied for quite some time.

Undefined delivers another engrossing, addictive installment in the casual turn-based RPG series full of new races, treasure, streamlined battling, and more. Search for four fragments of a key throughout dungeons that are never the same twice in your quest to become a hero and enter the fortress of a legendary archmage.

Step into the unknown to adventure in a secret world of unusual flora and fauna. Here, you follow in the footsteps of your father, "The Crazy Dr. Wright," while helping a village which is struggling against its oppressive queen and joining forces with Ian, a scientist who is also trapped in this strange land along with you. Throughout your adventure, you'll enjoy an extremely diverse assortment of minigames and fresh twists on hidden object scenes that will make you rethink the genre. As multifarious as the unusual flora and fauna of its verdant environment, Botanica: Into the Unknown is fresh and full of new discoveries.

Join Jack and his friend Scout on the trail of the dastardly wizard who nabbed the princess, learning to forge increasingly more powerful weapons for the soldiers who are willing to pick up arms for you, and gather new, more powerful blueprints and materials along the way. Despite there being nary a fast food item in sight, gameplay is pretty similar to Flipline's Papa's series of games... only with steel and pigmen.

Though not particularly deep, this top-down arcade action game is definitely polished. Unleash devastating magical spells and blast your way up through a tower filled with tons of monsters and massive bosses, snatching coins to purchase upgrades and new abilities with along the way.

Save the world in this retro-fashioned Zelda-like adventure game with tons of enemies, weapons, quests, level up system, and a huge world to explore! Customize the keyboard commands as well as your character's stats to suit your playing style and hack-and-slash your way through the nostalgically detailed, 16-bit environment.

Nitrome sends you on a tiny, puzzling adventure in this 50x50 turnbased game. Plot a course through a dangerous dungeon filled with tricks, traps, and baddies, nabbing coins along the way. It's a small (literally!) and thoughtful little game that will deliver a clever, bite-sized dose of puzzle action.

Love roguelikes but wish all that permadeath would lighten up a little? This fabulously retro and witty game might just be for you. Venture deep into dungeons and other areas populated by bizarre monsters and strange people as you quest towards one of four different endings and unlock a total of 20 classes. Offering a surprising amount of depth, laughs, and addictiveness, it's a great casual introduction to the roguelike genre, and a lot of fun for fans.

Bigger, badder, and altogether better than the original, Runic Games' brings their action RPG back to life in this fantastically fun sequel. When old heroes fall and turn against the land as a sickness spreads across it, it falls to one lone wanderer to take up the mantle of hero. With multiplayer support, huge boss battles, sprawling environments, and new classes unrestricted by gender, Torchlight 2 is a sequel that delivers everything it promised and more.

In this fourth installment of Blue Tea Games' darkly dramatic adventure hybrid series, you join a band of femme fatales, once victims in other fairytales, to fight against a power-warped villainess and her plague of mist wolves. Fragmented object search scenes, side quests for cursed items, and a nice offering of gently-challenging puzzles add to your immersion in this action-filled, and oft times violent, adventure.

KintoGames serves up some challenging roguelike retro action in this squishy, slashy dungeon crawler. Battle your way through hordes of enemies, gain powerful weapons and armor, find power-ups, and try to stay alive... all with the click of a mouse. Some awkward controls keep it from really feeling as sleek as you'd like, but with a great sense of style and tons of baddies and bosses, it delivers a solid dose of arcade-style hack-and-slash action.

Auria Edith died, but for her it was just the beginning. When she finds herself resurrected and stranded on the other side of the world following a bargain she may regret making, things go from bad to worse. In this short but polished first installment of the free modern fantasy RPG by Project BC, Auria sets out to find her way home, but she might not be prepared for what comes looking for her instead.

Your best friend Mary has gone missing for a few days and you take it upon yourself to search for her. Your hunt for her leads to a mysterious floating island inhabited by the remnants of an extraterrestrial race that needs your help to get back home. In this visually decadent casual adventure game, solve puzzles and piece together fragments in hidden object scenes in order to help not only your friend, but the earth bound aliens who want to finally go home.

Short but incredibly stylish, this first installment in a new dark fantasy point-and-click series from Hyptosis puts you, a green recruit into the guardsmen of the charmingly titled "City of Rats", right into a deadly mystery. More cleanly designed that the developer's previous titles and boasting some gorgeous artwork, it's shorter than a coffee break but fascinating nonetheless.

In the medieval fantasy world of Trouble With Robots, robotic lifeforms from outer space have come to turn the world of Middle Turf upside down, destroying old villages and replacing them with futuristic highways and strip malls. You'll have to build your best deck full of spells, powerful trolls, dwarves, and elves (not to mention angry pitchfork wielding peasants!) to stop the invasion and bring peace back to the land in this lean little card battle game, that picks a few elements and does them right, rather than trying to juggle more than it can handle, leaving you with a satisfying experience that you can come back to and improve, even if you are a gamer on a time-budget.

It may be One Epic Knight, but it's several hundred different runs. From Simutronics, the creator of the inverted defense game Tiny Heroes, this tongue-in-cheek third person running game puts you in the golden greaves of a knight destined to run through a dangerous dungeon time and time again. The place is filled with dangerous spikey things, broken floors, tricky stairs, cuboid blobs, and much more. It's an absolute riot to play, so taking a jog or two through the halls is definitely a good idea.

Need some hack-and-slash action that makes you feel like a hero? Then turn on this free iOS titled stuffed to the gills with strange locations, magical abilities, ferocious monsters, and fast-paced challenges. Spend rupees to unlock more equipment or upgrade your skills as you slash and spellsling your way through a ton of stages with requirements that sound simple but will need a whole lot of reflexes to pull off.

In this captivating and addicting match-3/RPG fantasy hybrid for iOS and Android, you time as a new student at a school for witches and wizards should be filled with studies. Unfortunately for you, you've been partnered with the brash and bossy Alicia, and her short attention span and hunger for power means you and your new friends might stir up some trouble in your cauldrons. A simplified version of Puzzle Quest with stunning visual designs and easy to master gameplay you may find hard to put down.

Siela's family restaurant is having trouble staying afloat, and her sister is considering selling the whole thing to someone else. With no choice but to seize management herself in a last-ditch effort to turn the business into a success, Siela and her friends must cook and serve food made using ingredients they hunt for in the wild in this simple but addictive blend of RPG and simulation for iOS and Android.

Originally released in 1983 by Tim and Chris Stamper's Ultimate Play The Game, Atic Atac was one of the most heralded games for the ZX Spectrum. A top-down action-adventure game, it was the deceptively simple looking tale of an adventurer trapped in a haunted house, who must battle his way from basement to "atic" to find the keys that would let him escape. Now remade by Retrospec, it is now available to frustrate and addict a whole new generation of gamers.

Your iOS becomes a gateway to arcade addiction in this oh-so-simple but endlessly enjoyable little dungeon-crawling hybrid. Swap tiles to gain treasure, supplies, and battle monsters as you try to keep running for as long as you can, hoping to amass a score large enough that our hero can escape the dirty castle he wakes up in. But with upgrades, achievements, endless enemies and more, why would you ever want to go?

Found unconscious and unresponsive on the side of a road, unhurt despite the bloody knife lying beside her, Jane Doe has been lying silently in a hospital bed ever since. It's up to you to enter her mind in this creepy, surreal hidden-object adventure, and find out the truth about who she is and where she comes from, but with her mind and a sinister presence working against you, neither of you may survive the effort.

Claret Spenser doesn't care much for the outside world. She's happiest working in her airship repair shop, where machines are much easier to deal with than the aristocracy of her floating city, or the winged Skyborn race that conquered the humans generations ago. But her life is about to change... A gorgeous retro RPG from Dancing Dragon Games, Skyborn takes place in an engaging and fully-realized fantasy-steampunk world that begs to be explored. Highly recommend for fans with even the slightest love of the genre.

You can't keep a bad witch down, and the shadowy old crone in Orneon's hidden-object adventure series is back for another round. This time, she's used her spells to ensnare an entire kingdom with her shadowy minions, rendering the court magician helpless and turning inanimate objects against you. Together with your sassy talking magic mirror, you'll need to search for ten magical MacGuffins to power an ancient staff before it's too late.

Connor Ullmann fires up the Wayback Machine for those gorgeous little retro action adventure inspired by classic 2D games like Zelda. As a little boy who was apparently born from a breath of wind, your quest for self-discovery and the wishes of your maker will take you across a huge world teeming with enemies, secrets, treasure, puzzles, and more. A beautiful little gem with classic gameplay and a satisfying adventure that is well worth checking out even if you weren't born when games like this were in their heyday.

Born is a mindless creature of the Void. At least, that's how it was supposed to be. When Born dares to escape into a world that seems to have no place for it, however, you'll need to utilize all the puzzle platforming abilities at your disposal and learn to master colour in order to find Born a place to belong and help it escape from the Void once and for all. A challenging but evocative platforming adventure that's heavy on narrative and atmosphere for your iOS.

In case you wanted your roguelike fix on the go, Seramy Games has developed Dungeon Ascendance for the Android mobile device of your liking. Play one dungeon level at a time, being able to choose a different class for each one. Unlock new classes and dungeons as you delve deeper and fight your way to collecting all the achievements. Your turn-based fighting arm awaits your command!

Hey there strategy and tower defense fans! Just a little note to announce a bit of good news for iPhone and iPod Touch owners. Kingdom Rush, the so-awesome-it's-mega-awesome tower defense game from Ironhide Games, has finally made its way to small-screened iOS devices, following Kingdom Rush HD for iPad and the browser version of Kingdom Rush last year. The game stands out as one of the best defense/strategy game on the planet, capturing two awards in our Best of 2011 feature, including Best Browser Defense or Strategy game along with Game of the Year! If you haven't tried it in one of its incarnations, you owe it to yourself to correct that mistake immediately!

What makes a hero? Is it someone who keeps fighting, even when everyone around them insists there's no point? Or is it someone who is willing to give the most precious thing they can just for the promise of a better tomorrow? Made in just under a month as a half hour lunch break game, Sailerius and Hirei have crafted a short but remarkably atmospheric action adventure release with Finding Eden, a thoughtful game about friendship, the end of the world, and sacrifice. The story follows two young girls struggling to stay alive after an unspecified disaster befell the world and left it stripped of Mana, with virtually everyone left sleeping husks littering the street... except for the sinister Harvesters who are always on the girls' heels. With their own Mana, their life force, constantly dwindling and scraps being harder and harder to come across, is it worth carving out an existence in this bleak world... or can they find something worth giving everything they have for?

The Empires of Arkeia are under attack and the king needs your help defending them. In this game knowing have to effectively use your forces is imperative for success against some less than friendly foes. From a casual infantry man to a trained warrior, every person counts and with experience you can help upgrade their fighting and survivability!

Children are disappearing from the quiet little town of Everlake; police and parents are their wits end but you're not about to give up. Enter a surreal world that is rather like a David Lynch version of the Drawn series. Superior graphics and added interactivity make the hidden object searches a delight, a diverse and plentiful assortment of minigames will keep you thinking, and the immense number of settings and locales to explore will make this feel like an epic journey. Forget about pragmatic realism and let yourself be won over by the strange magic of Rite of Passage: The Perfect Show.

Defense games are as common as smudged screens on the iOS mobile platform, but developer Simutronics has done something creatively different with Tiny Heroes, a game that has as much personality as it has evil minions at your disposal. Putting you in the role of castle owner, you must place traps and send out baddies to thwart the deluge of heroes who are after your gold. You'd think a few sawblades and a Gork or two would be enough, wouldn't you?

Waking up on the floor of a mysterious temple without any memories of who you are or what you're doing might sound scary, but in Buzz Monkey Software's adorable and addictive sokoban puzzler there's no time for tears! Choose Story Mode and play up to 325 levels to find out the truth of your predicament, or play forever with the option for endless randomised puzzles! It's a perfect example of a simple and compelling little mobile title you'll want to take with you wherever you go.

Tiny world, tiny problems, right? More like "not right". Er, yeah. Anyway, Mini Quests is a pint-sized adventure/puzzle game by dishmoth available for Android devices and as a Java Applet for browsers. The chunky-pixeled isometric game puts you in control of a little guy out on an adventure, trudging through the fantasy lands as he hunts for treasure and fights/puzzles his way out of various scrapes, like you do!

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

When someone tries to block, show them that you ROCK! Tempa Labs brings a unique spin to the turn-based RPG genre in this bouncy strategy game where you shoot your heroes around the field, pinball style, dealing damage to monsters and earning levels. Simple but colourful and a lot of fun, it's a creative little title that's well worth a few minutes of your time.

Have you met your orc slaughtering quotient for the day? No? Good, because In Battle Panic, a new strategy defense game by Kaiparasoft, your kingdom has been overrun by the orcish horde and it's up to you to take back what's yours and bring the fight to the enemy's homeland. Nothing new here, of course, but what makes Battle Panic stand out is its controls. To build, heal, destroy, and mine, just place your cursor over the object you want to interact with, no clicking required. Finally a strategy game for the truly casual!

The kingdom is under attack!... not that Questy cares, of course. At least... not until his funds run out and he can't keep himself in the fat and complacent lifestyle he's become accustomed to. In this gorgeous upgrade of Sean Gailey's quirky, colourful fantasy puzzler, place loot bags and other helpful items to guide Our Hero Questy away from hazards and through mazes to ultimately defeat the evil wizard Boneyard.

Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim from HeroCraft is a mobile port of the fantasy strategy game first published in 2000, with a sequel following almost a decade later. Fans of the original will immediately fall in love with the mobile release, and anyone new to the series will find plenty to like about this portable-friendly title!

Ages ago, a mighty wizard built a castle to guard his secret treasures. Then... he vanished, leaving all that booty just sitting around. Monsters noticed the unguarded treasure, too, and started out to nab it. If only they knew of the force they would have to reckon with when they got there: your fingers. Treasure Swipe is a frantic mobile arcade game laced with unlockables and coated in a slick presentation worthy of your best touch screen device!

Looking for a lovely way to relax or a unique way to get the kids to bed? Difference Games brings their Twisted Fairytales series to Nook and Kindle Fire in this stunning matching game based on the classic story of Snow White, though it isn't really so twisted as you might think. Light on gameplay but heavy on beautiful artwork, it's the perfect way to kick back and sink into a fantasy world for a while.

When your beloved Edward vanishes for the remote town of Rosemont, you're worried, especially since the few inhabitants who haven't fled from the terrible blizzard that claimed the village have all entered a sort of magical frozen slumber. The police have given up, but if you're willing to brave some dangerous and chilly ancient magic, you may yet save Edward and the world in this familiar but beautiful hidden-object adventure.

It's been years since the king has sat on the throne of Kurestal Kingdom. His heirs are no longer living, though, so to find the next leader, the king has issued a challenge. Whoever wins The King's League will challenge the king himself and emerge with a shiny new throne to call their own! The mobile version of the 2011 browser game works quite well on touch screen devices, and it still provides serious challenge while looking just as cute as a button!

When a fantasy village is floundering and doesn't have any adventurers to deal with the monsters and dungeons at its borders, who ya gonna call?!... well... you! In Kairosoft's latest simulation, take control of a fledgling town and design it to attract heroes who will not only feed your growing economy, but go on quests to deal with the dangers outside your gates. Colourful, addictive, and packed full of the developer's signature quirky humour, it's the perfect casual time waster you'll be hard pressed to keep your hands off of.

The emphasis is on exploration, discovery and puzzle-solving in this Jules Verne-worthy hidden-object/adventure hybrid from GameInvest. An eccentric inventor thinks he's found a way to live forever by building a House of Brass, sealed off from the rest of the world, fully-mechanical and powered by steam. After your curiosity and amazement results in being trapped inside, you're tasked with fixing contraptions and making your way back outside. Your steps are dogged by an adversarial robot as well as the overly-complicated contraptions of the house's builder.

A somewhat steep difficulty curve can't hide the polish and enchantment of this interactive art/hidden-object adventure. Young Sellar Dore runs away from home and the constant fighting of her parents, but years later, news of a devastating earthquake prompts her to return home... as long as she can earn the money for her ticket by tracking down the important items other people have lost in this surreal fantasy world.

If you've played a spot-the-difference game, either in your browser or on a mobile device, chances are you've seen one or more releases from Difference Games, a studio dedicated to visually stunning, easy to play spot the difference games. Twisted Fairytales: Pinnochio is one such release, incorporating graphic novel-style storyboards and three levels of difficulty to make your pixel hunting as challenging or as casual as you please!

The Fabulous Screech has a traveling show, and you have one very expensive ticket to see it, given to you by someone you love. Jonas Kyratzes returns to the Lands of Dream in this short but extremely potent little narrative/point-and-click adventure about love, loss, and perspective.

Arche is worried about fitting in. Her family has just moved to the little hamlet of Tonkiness to open an item shop, and it turns out her dreams of learning magic may be short lived once she discovers she needs an expensive elemental stone to even practice at her new school. But a simple rumour might lead her on to a much bigger adventure than she ever imagined in this beautiful but difficult action platforming RPG.

The fairytales you heard when you were young, the ones you thought stuffed with nonsense and meant only as cautionary allegories to frighten children into behaving properly, are not so far from the truth. So, as curious as Alice in Wonderland, you peek behind the veneer, following clues left by Fiona, a little girl trapped in another dimension, and become caught up in Otherworld: Spring of Shadows, a sumptuously-detailed fantasy adventurehybrid from Boomzap.

The Kingdom of Fredicus is a place that loves its heroes. Unfortunately, Reemus, exterminator extraordinaire and overshadowed brother to the local dragon slayer, is having trouble convincing that populace that he deserves a little undying adulation. Sure, later in life he'll have Several Journeys to prove his bravery against invading death slugs. Right now, though, it's early in his adventure gaming career, and even after his first minimal-property-damaging bug slaying, he's have trouble getting people listen to the glorifying ballads written by his faithful bear companion, Liam. So a-questing he goes, in search of glory, gratitude, and, most importantly, a soft bed. It's The Ballads of Reemus: When the Bed Bites, the first premium downloadable adventure game in the popular series, produced by the newly minted Click Shake Games! And while the anticipation may have driven us all a little buggy, it was totally worth it.

It's rough getting thrown in the Pit. Mainly because everyone there has the Plague, and nobody ever comes out... at least, not until you. Instead of dying, you, a mild castle librarian, unlock a hidden power within yourself that lets you and your friends battle monsters on another plane... and grants you the chance to save the world. A fantastic and engaging indie game from Level Up Labs that blends strategy, tower defense, fantasy, comedy, and even RPG elements for one wildly addictive game.

The time has come for adventure!... well, a little one, anyway! This simplified roguelike from Ido Yeheili offers three different heroes ready to delve into a dangerous dungeon in search of an evil Minotaur what needs slayin'. While definitely not quite as complex as other titles in the genre, Cardinal Quest offers an ease of use and engaging gameplay that's hard to beat and harder to put down.

A crazy, multiplayer romp through a visually lush game featuring three moderately-mad fantasy characters with their own unique abilities? Show us where to sign and we'll be there! Actually, now that you mention it, Trine 2 happens to be all of the things described above, plus a whole lot more. It's got action, it's got physics puzzles, it's got both single- and online multiplayer modes, and it's got a sense of humor that will probably remind you of Magicka. It's a modern-day version of The Lost Vikings, and any gamer will be proud to experience the world Trine 2 has to offer!

This sequel to Lucas Paakh's William and Sly is a vast, richly layered feast for the eyes. While gameplay remains much the same, there are also marked changes (improvements as far as most players will be concerned): no more darklings or boss battles yet plenty of exploration, item gathering, and questing. Gaining helpful abilities involves your platforming and puzzle-solving skills to add just the right amount of gameplay into what is a sumptuous work of interactive art.

New to the iPad world is the tower defense game we all love to love, Kingdom Rush HD from Ironhide Games, a port of Kingdom Rush for browsers released not too long ago. The team had a bit of a problem when an unauthorized clone appeared on the iTunes App Store weeks before release. The knockoff was spotted and eventually removed (whew), leaving space for this excellent port of an already excellent game to wow and surprise gamers in the iOS device realm!