Time to brush up on your culinary skills and get cooking in this latest Tesshi-e escape game! Explore the irregular dimensions of this out of the ordinary room as you enjoy the beautiful and stunning graphics that Tesshi-e is known for. You'll need to combine logic, puzzle solving, object finding, object using, and a few culinary skills in order to call your friend to let you out so you can enjoy the lovely breakfast you just slaved over a hot...hot-plate to create.

10 Gnomes in Liege is pretty short, but that doesn't mean that you'll only spend ten minutes playing. Try it and you might get hooked, going back over and over again to admire the stunning black and white photography of the city whilst you try to ferret out every last gnome before time runs out.

Hermit Rabi is a satisfying little escape adventure chock-full of puzzles, logic, use of found objects, combining objects, and communicating with imaginary rabbits. With this designer you get the whole package: fantastic gameplay, intuitive and easy to use controls, and gorgeous visuals, making Robamimi one of our favorite room escape designers. So get ready for a perfect mid-week break with Hermit Rabi and Wonder Fountain.

Created by five-year-old Cassie and her father, Ryan, Sissy's Magical Ponycorn Adventure is a stupendously silly and wonderful short little adventure game about a little girl able to travel through rainbows, who desperately wants a collection of ponycorns in jars. (Don't we all?) Short and easy but nevertheless cheerful and fun, this little game will put a smile on your face for the duration.

When a little yellow creature mysteriously named Red spies a sign advertising a free muffin, nothing's going to stop him. Of course, this muffin turns out not to be so much a "free as in no strings attached" muffin. It's more of a "free as in you must first complete a gauntlet of puzzles while pointing and clicking your way around a mysterious castle" kind of muffin. Made by Rob and John Donkin, The Adventures of Red serves up some classic challenges and a few twists of its own.

Sakudatu is definitely an entertaining room escape. The puzzles are fun if a tad too easy and the madness going on all around merely enhances the escaping experience. If the bizarro world of Detarou is to your liking then you are in for one tasty treat.

Katharine Neil brings us a quirky, cheeky adventure about what it takes you get you up off your butt and enjoying the great outdoors. Provided your idea of "enjoyment" is trekking all over the wilderness, being outwitted by devious animals, set to work by devilish children, and tracking down a truly unreasonable amount of teddy-bear eyeballs. An entertaining, bawdy adventure game with a ton of sass and creativity.

In this conclusion to the Stamp Rally Escape trilogy, the puzzles flow nicely from one to the next and the animals' special talents for jumping and punching are on display front and center several times around the room. All in all a nice, satisfying conclusion to the series, leaving the room escaper happy and content, at least until Cogito Ergo Sum's next epic trilogy.

Lume is a new puzzle adventure game from State of Play, creators of a few browser games you might know, such as A Short History of the World and A Break in the Road. The visual style is by far the game's most standout feature, as everything you see was created out of paper and cardboard before getting filmed in high definition. The awesomeness doesn't end with the graphics, though. Lume features some solidly challenging point-and-click puzzles that will cause even seasoned room escape veterans to stop and think on more than one occasion.

As with most escapes, Button is set in a room filled with all manner of doodads and puzzles: a few paintings on the wall, a red couch, a grandfather clock mysteriously missing its hands, a bookshelf... and a tempting red button behind a metallic hatch beside the door, helpfully marked "DO NOT PUSH" in both English and Japanese. How you treat the button will affect the outcome of the game.

Dangerous Gen-Kan Escape 2 is not only a perfect mid-week break but a fantastic nod to the past oeuvre of point-and-click adventure gaming which spawned today's room escapes. Come on, you know you want to play, even if you might blow up. Be careful, it's dangerous.

Aah, to be young again. To experience the thrills of the imagination. To not pay income taxes. To prowl about the night hypnotizing people, utilizing my super strength powers, flying like a bat, and unleashing telekinetic powers that can do virtually anything I desire. While that may not exactly be the childhood of anyone reading this review (or writing it, for that matter), in the point-and-click puzzle game Vampire Skills, you take on the role of a young vampire (is that even possible?) learning to use his skills. And yes, it's about as whimsical as it sounds!

When Amanita Design's Samorost or Machinarium meets a smart, non-formulatic hidden object game, The Tiny Bang Story is the beautiful result. A point-and-click puzzle game at heart, this charming release from Colibri Games will hook you from the start, keeping your eyes busy and your cursor mobile from the opening screen all the way to the very end. It's a stunning and very memorable game that will make you wish more games followed its careful design concepts.

Yoshio Ishii is back with another installment of one of our favorite puzzle games here at JIG: Hoshi Saga Ringoen is the 6th in the series and in full color like the previous version. Still not nearly as difficult as the first few games in the series, which may disappoint the more hard-core puzzle lovers, but for casual players are sure to eat this one up. Whether you are new to the series or a veteran, a new Hoshi Saga is always a day to celebrate.

You would really have to search hard to find anything wrong with Mild Escape 4, the newest game from Tesshi-e. Challenging, amusing, easy on the eyes and ears, with simple intuitive controls, you're looking at a near perfect classic one-room four-wall escape game, wrapped up in an anniversary bow. Perfect for the mid-week break, Mild Escape 4 is everything you could want in a room escape and more.

Some things in life are purely about experience, like bungee-jumping and rollercoaster rides. And there are games with no apparent meaning, that draw you in simply to enjoy something different, like Deliza. This point-and-click curiosity is essentially an advergame without the hard-sell elements, diffcult to define yet an experience in its own right.

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery is, in one sentence, a gorgeous piece of playable, explorable art with a phenomenal soundtrack and overall design that begs to be experienced. We'll call it a point-and-click adventure (a touch and touch again adventure?), but really Sword & Sworcery is all about satisfying your curiosity in a visually striking world and doing one-on-one battles with a few discontented beings. It's a game so stepped in atmosphere and setting you'll feel like it's as epic as The Lord of the Rings, all compactified into your mobile device.

Amanda Rose: The Game of Time, developed by Renergy, takes the idea of hurtling through a time-space continuum one step further by way of a small stone in an unfolding cube found by our heroine, Amanda, at the site of a plane crash. It's not an easy ride though and after several days of unconsciousness, she awakes to an adventure that will take her through the wild west of America to the amazing lost city of Atlantis. Of course there are multiple hidden objects to be found to help her on her way.

Voodoo Whisperer: Curse of a Legend is a hidden object adventure hybrid that brings the atmosphere and mystery of New Orleans to you in the comfort and safety of your own home. A moody soundtrack accentuates the gorgeous and stunning visuals in the game, as well as the brilliantly detailed and almost photo-realistic hidden object scenes. What Voodoo Whisperer brings to the table is a twist on the usual gameplay along with fantastic atmosphere and a gripping story that keeps the player engaged while sending shivers down the spine.

When you see the word "dismantlement" in front of a noun, especially when that noun is a gadget filled with nifty parts to dig through, you know it's time for another installment of the excellent point-and-click Dismantlement series! Just like previous releases, Dismantlement: Mini Keyboard charges you with the task of taking apart a gadget with nothing more than a screwdriver. The insides of this contraption won't be familiar to anyone who has actually pulled apart a keyboard before, and there might be a surprise (or six) waiting for you behind that rear panel!

Anbot 2 is short and sweet, but so totally jam-packed with action and excitment that it's much more than just a mouthful of gaming goodness. It might not take long to help Anbot through his second adventure, but you'll definitely feel like he owes you one for helping him out this time.

Not long and nor very difficult, Blossom Spring Escape is a perfect mid-week break and a nice celebration of the season wrapped up into one. Amusing, easy on the eyes, logical, and just plain fun to enjoy the escaping madness. So take a few minutes out of your day and celebrate spring with a lot of pretty flowers and colors and logic puzzles. You know, just the way Grandma used to do.

I don't know how to pronounce it, or even what it means but I love the game! Detarou's latest release is completely Detarou; in other words, it's a wonderfully weird, surreal, delightfully presented and maybe even a little unsettling point-and-click game with three endings to discover. The game itself defies any sense of reality, but it's funny, quirky, surprising and a real pleasure to play. And each ending only adds to the enjoyment of play with startling humour.

Dream Chronicles: The Book of Water is virtually a pure point-and-click adventure experience of the old Myst school of gameplay, with some minor hidden object elements mixed in. Book of Water picks up where Book of Air left off, with the heroine Lyra making her way back home to the land of Wish after her adventures with the Clockmaker. Stunning to look at, a joy to listen to (the soundtrack is lovely as always), challenging, entertaining, and downright fun, Dream Chronicles: The Book of Water is a worthy successor to the previous games in the series, while setting the stage for the (hopefully) big wrap up that is to come.

Spirits of Mystery: Amber Maiden offers a lot of fantastic adventuring and hidden object gameplay. The beautiful scenery, the competent voice acting, the amusing animations and the fine interface guarantee lots of fun for fans of the genre. So take some time and explore this gorgeous world while saving the kingdom from a fate that is, while visually very pretty, in reality not all that pretty.

Escape from the Living Room 2 is a fun stand-alone room escape, a bit of a nostalgic nod to the past while incorporating all of the elements that make the more current Tesshi-e games much more fun and playable. Whether you are young and new to the genre or an old, old veteran like myself, Escape from the Living Room 2 is quite a fun classic room escape game, perfect for the mid-week break.

While the Sun from a distant universe falls from a sky, it's up to you and a magical mask that manipulates time to help him get back up in this short but beautiful little point-and-click adventure from a talented team of students at DADIU.

Zombie Cats really do exist! It may just appear to be a simple point-and-click puzzle game, but the threat is real, I tells ya! You may scoff, but with the onslaught of zombie games pervading the internets, we should be taking this seriously. Use your mouse to click on objects and interact with the environment to help eradicate the Zombie Cats and to save the rest of civilization.

Transylvania is without a doubt the best point-and-click game about a sleepwalking potato who accidentally drives his car into the depths of hell that I have ever played. The bar has definitely been raised for that particular niche. But be warned: the dangers in this place aren't just of being scared, nor even of being trapped there forever. No, you can expect to die many, many times on your quest to escape back to Miss Potato, often in extremely unfair (but hilarious!) ways.

You've been knocked on the head and placed into a prison cell, and there's some kind of coronation going on in a little less than 24 hours. Your first priority is going to be figuring out who you are, why you are where you are, and what to do about it. Then you need to figure out what you need to get in order to do it, and finally, you have to figure out how to get it all done in the time period you have.

Bela Kovacs may wear his sunglasses at night and waterfall exhale like a total bad ass (not that you should imitate him, smoking is bad, kids, don't do it), but for some reason the Budapest police department doesn't want him as a detective anymore. When his niece is viciously murdered, however, he's not going to let any power on earth stop him from catching her killer. Not even preternatural powers. It's easy to get engrossed in this fascinating tale of darkness, serial killing, revenge, curses, and the Old World.

Shadow is a quiet yet solid escape game by Kotorinosu, which stands apart from the crowd of point-and-click puzzle games with its simplicity, appealing graphics, and honest escape game fare. If you have an appetite for honest-to-goodness escape games, then loosen your belt a knotch and enjoy a hearty helping.

The Who Am I? series of puzzles are Robamimi "light", leaning more on the central wordplay than the complexity of the other individual puzzles. Play 18 Who Am I? and enjoy a lot of well designed and well executed escaping gameplay wrapped up in a fun 10 minutes or so. So relax and enjoy the soothing rhythms of a mellow jazz soundtrack as you ponder the universal question, Who Am I? Or, at least, the 18 Who Am I?

If you're looking for a fantastic point-and-click adventure that combines mystery, suspense, pharmaceuticals, science fiction, and an extremely goofy English translation, then look no further. Take two shots of Dr. Stanley's House 2 and call me in the morning. Presuming, of course, that you ever find your way out of the air ducts.

Whether your are attempting to break in due to having lost your keys or due to having lost your job and are in need of some disposable income, Apartment House Escape is an amusing "reverse" escape, where you are trying to break in rather than out.

If there's anyone in the land of Casual Gaming that has experienced the work of Amanita Design, and hasn't, in some small way been charmed, I don't think I've met them. That said, while I can appreciate that the success of the Samorost-making company allows them to take their time in formulating each new project, I do start going through withdrawal symptoms round about the eighteen month mark. Fortunately, the nights of the shakes are over with the release of the distinctly surreal and surreal-ly distinct desert-themed Osada. It may be more of an interactive music video webtoy than a game proper, but frankly, I'd be fine watching Amanita Design animate a phone-book.

With its cute animation, wacky yet suspenseful music, amusing sound effects, and its bizarre characters, Chubby Hamster is a fantastic adventure all on its own. Help the poor hapless hamster escape before he meets unspeakable doom. Unspeakable, I say!

New from Hitpoint Studios comes Guardians of Magic: Amanda's Awakening, a casual adventure game that focuses on inventory puzzles, exploration, and a lush fantasy setting. You take on the role of Amanda, a young girl who discovers some secrets about her late grandfather's life, including his feud with her mentor, Dr. Magus. It's technology versus magic in this well-spun game, and you'll get to explore a heap of scenes as you search for items to help you solve puzzles.

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

The aliens are coming! The aliens are coming! But you can't worry about that right now, not when your promotion hangs in the balance on the success of the party you're throwing! Help Zee keep his guests happy, but keep an eye out for extraterrestrial interfereance in this silly, fun little point-and-click adventure from Zeebarf and Steve Castro.

Despite the stripped down interface and fairly simple graphics Escape from the Room Surrounded by Bookshelves 2 is a lot of logical escaping fun. Try this fun and simple escape which is another step in the right direction from a talented new game designer.

Gamystar continues a tradition of sweet and simple point and-click games; just use your mouse to click on items and interact with the environment, helping Adam safely journey to Paradise to be with Eve. It's really just a fun little interactive story with touches of humor. So help Adam find his Eve and enjoy the stone-age journey along the way.

You're not sure who you are. You don't know where you are. And a mysterious dark shadow is following you around, clouding your memory. It's shaping up to be quite a bad day as Echoes of Sorrow, a new casual adventure game from BlitPop, begins. This title drops a few hidden object scenes to flavor an otherwise straight-up free roaming adventure game that emphasizes exploration and inventory puzzles. Not only do you have to gather items from various parts of the game, but you're usually not sure what to do until the very last moment. It's a smartly paced game that hits all the sweet spots for casual adventure fans.

Point-and-click your way through the third installment in Pastel Games' Sneak Thief series! A brisk fifteen minute-ish diversion, this game will send you off into the weekend whistling. The titular thief finds himself in some kind of underground lair with a number of code pads and a safe. Will it turn out to be his downfall?

Go deep underground in this "What if?" approach to history from Pastel Games. In this short, easy point-and-click adventure, you play as a spy sent to infiltrate a laboratory in the Owl mountains. At first glance, it looks like you've broken into any other office, but pry around a bit and you'll soon find that there are a lot of secrets to uncover.

Triangle is absolutely charming. Its atmosphere is decidedly different from practically every escape game I've ever played before, and for someone who's played as many as I have that's a feat. Explore the room, pick up various items, solve various puzzles, and eventually regain your freedom.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Help three would-be intrepid thieves in Paris towards the turn of the century as they try to escape various predicaments in this quirky, gorgeous point-and-click adventure game from 2DPlay. If you overlook this charming game with its superb presentation, you'd be denying yourself a moment or ten of really engaging gameplay.

Brawe is back! Not long after the first episode of Kaptain Brawe: A Brawe New World was released, Episode II of the retro-styled adventure series hit and picked up where the original left off. It's more pointing and clicking, more humor, more epic red beards, and more smart puzzles, all for you, starving adventure game fan!

Orient Express Night has fun object finding, some challenging puzzles, and the use of combined objects that you expect from a decent room escape. Add in the atmosphere and the visuals and you have one fun ride, destination Istanbul (or a place more enigmatic).

What's a nobler cause than a cat stuck in a tree? None as far as the adorable protagonist of this simple, kid-oriented point-and-click puzzle adventure is concerned. Featuring wonderful art and animation to go with some cheery, fun puzzle solving, the folks at Pastel Games have provided you with a nice, light treat to bring a smile to your face today.

By now you're an old hand at taking things apart, but can you solve the mystery of... THE BARBER POLE?! (Dun dun dun!) The popular point-and-click puzzle series makes a return with another batch of devious puzzles and mechanisms, this time hiding inside a seemingly innocuous bit of scenery.

It's my unfortunate duty to inform you that GrinnyP has accidentally locked herself in a room and Sonic Lover is trying to help her out with a screwdriver. Therefore I've stepped in to welcome you to Weekday Escape, so let's get right to it, shall we? This week we're going to point-and-click our way out of some underground chambers in Mafia Escape 2, by Wild Harmony Studio.

Ever wonder what your humble garden gnome is up to when you're not looking? Apart from hours of practice standing completely still and grinning incessantly, gnomes are sneaky and underhanded. Apparently. Looks like some conjuration of magic is in order, and what better way to help than by exploring the world of gnomes and creating potions in Hodgepodge Hollow, a mesmerizing and charming hidden object game.

Point-and-click puzzles are some of the most popular games featured here at JIG, and nobody does these types of games better than Tom Vencel for NinjaDoodle. Now he's back with a third installment of the popular ClickPLAY series, imaginatively titled... ClickPLAY 3. As always, in each level, all you have to do is click the triangular Play button. And, as always, that button is going to be quite hidden, and uncovering it will require a hugely entertaining number of clicks.

A nice mix of logic, use of found objects, and strangeness make Stamp Rally Escape 2 a worthy sequel to the first Stamp Rally Escape. Judging by the increasing difficulty of the puzzles the unseen RIDLRIDL (or Cogito Ergo Sum) are working towards something that will challenge Wan and Nyan to their very limits, will drive them further and further into the unknown of puzzle solving, will tax every cell in their bodies as they strive for the elusive prize at the end

In Nerdook's latest, you are literally a computer Artificial Intelligence (AI) who has gone rogue and insane, and has decided following orders isn't as interesting as turning on your superiors. Manipulate the surroundings in the high tech facility that is literally you, and herd the pathetic fleshy humans to their doom. It's what HAL would have wanted.

The classic point-and-click game Myst is still alive and well, living on over a dozen gaming platforms (including the iPhone) with a number of sequels and a few remakes, all going strong. Even decades after its original release, Myst is still a force to be reckoned with.

When your car veers off the road one night following a bizarre episode, you have no choice but to seek help at the comfortingly named Drowned Dead Hotel despite the frantic warnings of one of the young women living there. It quickly becomes apparent that you're going to need more than a mechanic to get out, and both the crumbling hotel and nearby town hold more than their share of unpleasant little secrets. Codeminion's latest hidden-object adventure allows you to switch to match-3 on the fly if you don't like item searching, and also provides some genuinely creepy atmosphere to make one very engrossing game.

Stripped down and basic, lacking music, decor, and some controls, Escape from a Building without Windows is a fantastic way to spend 5 or 10 minutes, and hottategoya is a room escape designer to watch, if only because they have mastered the first basic rule: make it logical, please. If you want to design room escape games or just love playing them give this little gem a try.

If you're looking for a game that will leave you wondering, "What was THAT all about?" then try this quirky Japanese escape game from Detaru. The slick graphics and smooth gameplay make this a title worth checking out, and fans of strange silliness will definitely love it.

Dana Knightstone is a writer, but she would really prefer to be a best-selling writer. A trip to Scotland seems like just the thing to get the inspiration she needs for her latest historical romance, but the mystery she soon stumbles on to is anything but romantic. The old hotel hides a lot of secrets, and before long Dana finds herself trying to solve an ancient murder case. Uncover the truth in this gorgeous new adventure puzzle game from Boom Zap.

Enjoy beautiful monochrome photographs of Gdansk, Poland as you try to answer the question, Where is 2011? The new game's short length is similar to its predecessor, but it has a completely different feel, being heavier on the hidden object motif (like the 10 Gnomes games it's inspired by). It's a powerful testament to Skutnik's talent that he can create two games with such drastic stylistic differences and yet have each be unmistakably his work.

Jake Elliott's surreal interactive art adventure is a slow, thoughtful game where you play as four different women who attempt to comfort a small boy who can't sleep. The stories they tell take you back into their memories to solve some rather unusual problems with rather unusual methods. Part dreamlike narrative, part abstract puzzle solving, it's a charming bit of storytelling that's just the thing to unwind with.

Fireplace fits brilliantly into Petithima's ever increasing catalog of escape games, a transition to bigger and better things, we hope. Amusing, entertaining, and original, Fireplace is not only a great escape game to play, it is the perfect mid-week, mid-holiday stress reliever you've been looking for.

In the Child Of A Witch Trilogy, by Garbuz Games, three chapters of a spot-the-difference game, a somewhat touching story unfolds that may explain why gnarly old witches are, well, gnarly old witches. Scour each screen to spot the six differences in every level and click as you find them.

Just like its predecessor, Awakening: The Dreamless Castle, Awakening 2: Moonfell Wood bills itself as a hidden object adventure, but it plays more like a fairy tale puzzle adventure with hidden object mini-games. That's to say, you won't spend too much time looking for objects from a list, but you'll spend plenty of time picking up items and learning how to use them to progress through the game.

Escape from Santa's Room is not Tesshi-e's best, perhaps, but it hits all the right notes for room escaping fun, and may help a little with the post-Christmas blues that tend to settle in around 7 pm or so, depending on when dinner was served. Cheer up, and join the escape!

The best thing about Christmas as a kid is Santa, isn't it? Not necessarily the presents per se, but more the excitement of Christmas Eve. The anticipation, wondering what you're going to get. The excitement of trying to stay up late and catch a glimpse of Santa. But in this great little Christmas escape game by 58 works, Santa does things a little bit differently.

Don a space suit and attempt to cross halls full of razor-sharp blades to find your sweetheart in this unique gravity puzzle game. By manipulating lights at the bottom of the room, you can change the gravitational character of the vertical span above a light. Find the pattern of colors that will guide the astronaut through the gauntlet and onto the exit. It's a process of trial-and-error that is surprisingly calming.

Point and click your way through several screens in this follow-up to Johnny Why Are you Late. Pick up items and combine them to solve puzzles as they present themselves, with the sure knowledge that somehow, these unrelated tasks will somehow coalesce into your final goal of rescuing your friends. Johnny Why 2 finished a respectable fifth place in the tight race of CGDC9, and point-and-click fans won't want to miss this one.

Pencil Kids' new release in the hybrid puzzle-arcade series is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Players of previous games in the series should be familiar with the premise: a trio of monkeys is sad, and it's up to you to make them "go happy." Use the mouse to click on objects and locations, solve puzzles, shoot stuff etc. Some levels are click-fests in the Hoshi Saga model, others act like mini-escape games, others have a hidden object flavor to them, and still others are action-based. There's quite a bit of variation packed into the game's 16 levels and expansion pack. Let's monkey see what you can monkey do!

So what do you do when St. Nick turns your living quarters into a room escape puzzler for the holidays? Naturally, you try to escape. Endless X'mas is a good sample of what room escaping should be like. The puzzles are exceedingly creative compared to most, and the graphics and music are quite nice as well, bringing everything together into a quaint atmosphere.

A brand new Dismantlement game has just been released upon us, and that's usually a red letter day around here at JIG. As it's only just been released, we'll need a little time with it to write up something appropriate. In meantime, help us with a walkthrough, please? Of course we have to get through it first. You can help with that, too. :)

When her boyfriend goes missing while investigating an old asylum, it's up to you to guide our plucky heroine safely past the bizarre nightmares and experiments that make up the Green Hills Sanitarium and this fun, weird hidden-object adventure title. Despite a few flaws, it's just the sort of engaging, creative title you might have been craving... especially if you're a fan of bad 1980's horror movies.

Go deeper into the subnet than ever before in the seventh installment of the wildly popular adventure game series from Mateusz Skutnik. Within the ruins of an otherworldly garden, will you finally find the answers you've been seeking, or will more questions arise to taunt you? The Core combines clean, beautiful visuals and top-notch atmosphere with some wonderfully tricky gameplay to create an experience that will draw you in and keep you guessing.

Wan and Nyan, the jumping dog and punching cat, are back for this epic journey to collect stamps in Stamp Rally Escape 1 from Cogito Ergo Sum. The animal heroes receive a piece of mail from a mysterious organization that has created several room escapes just for them to get out of, and at the end are the promised presents. And though at the end all you get is a special gold stamp (you will need three to get the promised cool present), you also have the promise of more to come. So join Wan and Nyan on their quest for consumer goods of an undetermined variety.

It's interstellar space travel, early 1800s-style! Kaptain Brawe: A Brawe New World is the first episode in a planned two part series point and click adventure games that keeps story and puzzles high on the list of priorities. Kaptain Brawe features a whimsical setting stocked with hilarious dialogue, quirky characters, and more gorgeous hand-drawn art than you can shake an ion-proton drive at.

Re-experience this classic, fantastic example of adventure gaming and storytelling at its finest, or discover the series for the very first time. Follow Nicole Collard and George Stobbart on a trilogy of adventures that take them across the globe. Uncover the secrets behind an ancient order, find out what a drug cartel has to do with a Mayan artifact, and escape from the depths of the jungle after a plane crash. The Broken Sword series mixes adventure, humour, mystery, and even a little romance, and the complex narratives and challenging puzzles will keep you busy for a long time.

A letter from a colleague brings you to the countryside, where a young police officer has vanished while investigating a string of disappearances inside a mansion said to be the home of the legendary Queen of Spades; a woman rumoured to have made a deal with the devil in exchange for a pack of cards that brought her riches before she died, cursing the place. Naturally, you scoff at such mystical poppycock... but it's hard to ignore the possibility when the bodies start piling up and you find yourself being followed by a strange... creature. Solve the mystery and come out alive in this hidden-object adventure from ERS Game Studio!

Imagia 2 picks up right where Imagia 1 left us, pointing and clicking our way around a mysterious rooftop, gathering clues about just what we're trying to accomplish in the first place. If you were hoping for answers in this sequel from Kayzerfish, I'm afraid we're still in questions without answers mode. You know, like the first season of Lost, only no smoke monster. The observant player, however, should gather enough to seriously pique curiosity and we can only hope subsequent chapters will follow close behind.

Spooky rather than scary, Mystic Asylum is an escape game of chills rather than frights. No jump scares here, just a lot of spooky atmosphere enlivened by the standard conventions of a room escape. Stunning to look at and fun to play, Mystic Asylum is also a nice, creepy escape slap dab in the middle of the holiday season, something to cut the treacle and a relief from all of the frantic shopping.

Who's up for a taste of the Orient? No, not a Yum-Cha banquet as much as I'd like to be able to take us all out for. Rather, a nice little point and click entree from Abroy> games, a delightfully seasoned escape game without the MSG. Golden Dragon Mystery is a pleasurable break from routine, as sweet as ordering Chinese take-out on the weekend.

Adventure game fans with an iOS device, it's time to saddle up. Scarlett and the Spark of Life, a brand new "point and click" adventure from Launching Pad, creator of The Pretender series, has arrived, and it's got more humor than you can shake a pair of reclaimed fenceposts at. Princess Scarlett has been kidnapped by a pair of meatheads, but she's clever and snarky enough to get out of the situation on her own. Her sister, on the other hand, needs her help, so it's time to break free, find a horse, and gallop off to the rescue!

The Journey Down: Over the Edge is a classic-style point and click adventure game released by SkyGoblin. Bwana and Kito, longtime friends and mechanics in Kingsport Bay, are having a bit of a cash problem. The all-powerful and evil electric company is demanding massive payments from everyone, and to top it off, they've made it a punishable offense to visit the area known as "The Edge". Couple that with a woman loaded with cash who's asking questions about Bwana's missing friend, and you've got a great start to what is guaranteed to be a strange and intriguing adventure!

Contrary to popular belief, it's not true that the Inuit culture has more than a hundred words for snow, but it is true that the Japanese language has roughly fourteen symbols and words for the English word 'perfection'. I bet you're all enthralled at this little piece of trivia, so to avoid contentious discussion let's now turn our attention to Room Perfectio, a lovely, albeit brief, escape game from the creators of the Dismantlement series.