What is the most romantic, and at the same time, most tragic story in Western literature? No doubt about it, the answer is the story of Romeo and Juliet which, since it was first staged in the 16th century, has spawned countless adaptations in theaters, movies, television, ballet, operas, and now casual games. Despite the ominous sounding title, Death Pages: Ghost Library, the latest adventure hybrid from Elephant Games, is less about ghosts and death and more about living vicariously through one of William Shakespeare's most well known works.

Join Yepi on Yepi planet as he attempts to rescue his Yepi girl from hostile aliens in BeGamers' delightful and whimsical point and click adventure. You just need to find the right combination of actions to get Yepi across the scene and on to the next. This is a short and sweet little time waster, packed with tons of personality, quirky characters and backgrounds, and more than a little rude humor.

A charming, sea-side salon seems (try saying that 5 times fast) like the kind of place you'd never want to leave... only this time you don't seem to have much of a choice! Libertechno returns with the seventh episode of Aries Escape, along with a whole new batch of dastardly puzzles to keep you locked inside. Navigate the room and explore your hint-laden surroundings by clicking key areas indicated by a changing cursor. Can you solve the hair-pullingly difficult riddles before you ruin your brand new 'do?

In order to repay a massive debt to the notorious Pike Club, you're given a chance to earn cash by competing in a series of matching games. Just clear the board by making pairs from memory, and you're golden. But with various beneficial and harmful effects, talent and skill cards to add to your debt, and the strange members themselves to deal with, that's easier said than done. A clever twist on a simple concept with a very unique style.

An after-school project traps five students in a nightmare wrapped up in an urban legend that turns out to be all too real in this free indie horror game. Will they be able to unravel the mystery and lay a spirit to rest? Or will they drown in blood in a bathroom stall? Maybe! A complete rebuild of the classic Japanese horror game released in English.

Mushrooms. It's all about mushrooms. And keys and crates and stuff, too, but really, mushrooms. In Corrypt, a puzzle game by Zaga-33 creator Michael Brough, your job is to work your way through maze-like screens as you hunt for the items you need to appease unsettled citizens. Using a slightly tweaked sokoban-style setup, be ready to sit and scratch your head as you wonder at the logic of carving a path through groups of wooden crates.

Getting into a science laboratory is much easier than it looks; just ask Dee Dee. Getting out of one, however, is another story. espcgm's clever little escaper drops you into what appears to be a chemistry lab, and tasks you with puzzling your way out. Don't let the MS Paint graphics throw you off; Escape from Mystery Science Room is not a bad game. The meat of an escaper is its gameplay, and this is a game that has it; the puzzles are logical and flow well, and although there's no changing cursor, the lack of pixel-hunting means you don't really need it. Overall, EfMSR is a game that's just difficult enough, and well worth the trip.

Uirdz isn't a word game, but you can use words to your advantage! In this high-difficulty puzzle platformer, you've not only got to find a way to reach the exit, but you've got to drop words in your path to make it possible. And some of those words come alive, so be careful how you wield them! No matter how you slice it, Uirdz is a tricky challenge that will give you plenty of opportunities to reunite with your favorite platforming nemesis, spikes.

Qoosh, like many protagonists before him (she? it?), is a lab experiment being guided through a series of tests by a narrator who seems less into actual science and more his own sadistic amusement. But despite the familiar premise, Qoosh wins with both charm and challenge to provide a fun and engaging experience that gives you a warm sense of satisfaction as you tackle its puzzles.

I can has cheezburger? How about sausage from Germany, cheese from Switzerland, and any and every food this kitty wants to sample in this easy-yet-thinky physics puzzle from the folks that brought us Cat Around the World. Just like last time, your goal is to send the round food to the hungry feline by removing blocks, pressing buttons and avoiding electrical hazards. It's 30 more levels of the same formula, but when same is so tasty, it's always a good thing.

How do you make a unique puzzle platformer? By breaking it! At least, that's what it looks like happened when you play this clever game. Your goal is to reunite the little boy with the probably-not-going-to-steal-his-soul pink ghost, but each level has been shattered and strewn about, so figuring out how to navigate your way through piece by piece is a trick for your hands and your eyes.

From the imagination of MyGames888, enter a dreamlike aquatic abode full of enigmas. If you want to escape—and avoid a permanent case of prune skin—you'll need to find the answer to many questions such what does that turtle have on its back and why is that fish behind bars? Put together clues and creative tools to solve puzzles and find your way out to one of the funnest "Congratulations!" screens in the genre.

While the surroundings may look dull in this escape game from new-to-the-scene designer, Indice, the beauty in its clean design and simple lay-out soon becomes clear. Just a bit of wit and logic is all that's needed to solve the puzzles before you, making for a brief but satisfying excursion that will leave you looking forward to the next sticky situation you can be trapped in.

There's a new robot on the gaming scene! Help Sparkman navigate to the exit portal in this clever puzzle platformer. Use Sparkman's special ability to stop the screen from scrolling allowing you to maneuver through the sides of the screen to reach areas that you wouldn't be able to get to otherwise. Beware hazards and collect discs to get a perfect score in this creative twist of the platforming genre.

Magic and mystery, much to the displeasure of many, is not as ever-present as is should be. On one hand that fact makes reality seem far too dreary, but on the other, it might be for the best that power of that nature isn't lurking around every corner. In the newest installment of Elephant Games' Grim Tales series, Grim Tales: The Stone Queen, this is made very clear. In this hidden object puzzle adventure mystery game, it's easy to realize why magic and supernatural powers can be a grim alternative to the mundane normalcy of bill paying and chores.

Here's a deceptively simple point-and-click puzzle game from Emiel de Graaf in which you determine just how to lay out a series of stepping stones to reach the goal. Each stone has a limited number of spaces in which it will move; select the stone and choose the direction you want it to go, using strategy to determine just how to connect pathways and successfully complete the sixteen levels. It's both easy and thoughtful, the perfect way to chill while still steppin' up those brain cells.

Hide and seek can be a very serious past time, but it loses som`e of its appeal when bad things start to happen as a result of an innocent game. Escape: The Ruby of Judgment is a point and click escape game from the talented folks at IDAC, the mobile division of Gotmail. Featuring lovely stylized visuals and an impressive battery of puzzles, this somber but entertaining release proves you don't need a mouse to craft a good escape game!

The tired box is back in the fifth installment of the Wake Up The Box series. Once again use whatever means are at your disposal to prevent the little guy from getting his sleep. Get your physics puzzle fix as you draw various shapes to bounce, slide, or rocket the box out of dreamland.

Come build a snowman and enjoy the magic of a holiday night while treating yourself to one of TomaTea's most gorgeously atmospheric escape games to date. You will need to have a keen hidden object seeking eye to locate all essential parts but the neat design and helpful features will make puzzle solving much more pleasant. Anytime you're wistful for a wintery fiesta, ring in the season with this Golden Bell!

Escape from the same old habits and start a new resolution for wackiness with Detarou's discovery-filled escape game. This time you're locked inside a large, multi-roomed house with new things to discover around every corner. With so much to explore, and three endings to reach, the challenge lies in how to sort through the abundance of information to solve the puzzles that lead to your escape. So shape up those synapses, prepare for strangeness, and you're well on your way to a fresh new Detarou outlook.

Blizz is a mobile matching puzzle game from Hex3d set in a futuristic world where ice is a bit of a problem. Hexagon tiles on a hexagon grid form your playing field, and all you have to do is drag things around to make matches and shut down the reactor. It's familiar enough concept to rope you in from the start, but the shifted focus from making matches to freeing up frozen cells that need to be matched creates an endless cycle of preparing and setting off chain reactions, one of the most satisfying parts of any puzzle game. Do your job well and you just might save the world!

More mobile Conceptis puzzles, hooray! The team that practically invented the online presence of pen and paper logic puzzles has released an iOS conversion of one of its browser-based offerings. This time it's Conceptis Nurikabe, a touch screen friendly incarnation of Nurikabe Light. It has a very similar interface to the browser games, offering an easy way to work on hundreds of puzzles on the go without having to sharpen a single pencil.

Point-and-click your way to rescue your sister in this charming adventure game. You and your bee team together to get your sister back from the bad guys who whisked her away. Experiment on each level until you discover the secrets to continue on to the next. Short and sweet, Shapik: The Quest is a wonderful way to spend a little time.

From the creator of 100 Doors 2013, Gipnetix Games, comes 100 Escapers, a game that strides a little closer to traditional room escape territory than the usual lot of mobile escape games. You're still trapped in rooms, of course, but instead of having a single screen to bust out of, you've got a little big of wiggle room to walk around, open drawers, examine things, and fashion a way to get that door open so you can continue forwards.

With a name like F.O.L.D. - Fantastic Olfactory Latrine Discoverer, you know something interesting has to be going on. This puzzle platform game by Cosine relies on just two mechanics to fuel its levels: picking up blocks, and folding the screen. By combining those in some seriously head-splitting ways, you get to figure out how to get from one side of the screen to the other, all in the name of making it to a single pristine bathroom fixture!

Although Soom 2013 isn't long at all, particularly compared to Place of Light's earlier works like Loom Dawn and Room Marine, it's good while it lasts. The room and its puzzles are very well designed, and although the lack of any sound can be a little disconcerting, it doesn't really get in the way. As someone born in the year of the snake myself (...er, not this year of the snake, the one 24 years ago), I consider myself qualified to recommend Soom 2013, and I do so eagerly.

Escape from the Room with Three Keys 8 is less of a full room escape and more of a serial, one of those five to ten minute "to be continued" shorts shown before the main event. Here's a perfect way to take a short yet entertaining break that will leave you wanting more.

Opposites attract. And, you know, it ain't fiction, just a natural fact that Char Studio integrates into their puzzle game, Electric Joint. Click through the charged particles of each level to create a loop of alternating charges. Remember not to cross the streams while dealing with the challenge of moving particles, electric barriers and whatever else the game feels like throwing at you. It's a simple and easy-to-learn game that any puzzling enthusiast can enjoy (even without being a Paula Abdul fan).

Mateusz Skutnik's dreamily surreal point-and-click treat will help you play your way into the new year. Feeling much like a mash-up of Garden Door, 10 Gnomes and Submachine, you're tasked with finding and replacing all the necessary objects to correct an electrical malfunction after a world-shattering crisis. It is up to you to restore the energy: are you up to the task?

The world is crumbling beneath everyone's feet, and there's only one hope for survival: rockets to the moon! In Handy Game's puzzle release Rocket Island, your job is to develop hexagons of land into functional rockets as quickly as you can. Start with the sea, build solid ground, prop up a platform, then make a rocket. All you have to do is keep everyone alive as you frantically swipe between meteors and volcanic eruptions!

This fourth installment of the alternative reality-bending series continues a milieu of pictorial parables set inside minutely detailed spot-the-difference scenes. Each level has two almost identical scenes side-by-side: your objective is to study both, looking for the subtle differences—such as a person's stance, a ruffle on a dress or the shape of a cloud—and clicking on them. As you search for differences, you're treated to entertaining and thought-inspiring artwork, making Music Box of Life 4 bound to please on multiple levels.

Created by Danny Yaroslavski, Cube Cube Cube is an entertaining 3D variation of Nurikabe that presents sets of mental blocks for you to quite satisfyingly smash. Though a way to access interior blocks would be appreciated, puzzle fans should be quite pleased to find this new Flash implementation of the popular logic brainteaser.

It's a good thing that TomaTea isn't changing because it's so nice to find all the characteristics you love a fine escape game: a welcoming, richly-decorated room in which clues are presented in a logical order, asking you to draw only a few lateral conclusions to be as free as a bird. No matter how easy or tricky, though, TomaTea always makes escaping feel as pleasant as an afternoon cup of tea and biscuits.

Once in a blue moon Tesshi-e gets mischevious and builds an escape around finding not one, not two, but whole lot of lucky coins in a room. These escapes make Tesshi-e fans very happy, thus the title, The Happy Escape. The Fourth time's the charm in this escape where the only objective, besides finding Santa Claus' sack of presents is finding the ten Happy Coins hidden in the room. Another Holiday treat from the mind of Tesshi-e!

Nekonote's diminutive cherubs are extremely shy and they're hidden about this winter landscape for you to find. Search around, solving puzzles and performing certain actions needed to gain a key, a helping hand or otherwise uncover the hiding spots of each of the ten dwarfs. Like the chirpy pip-squeaks you're after, this point-and-click game is short and simple but big on cheerful cuteness.

Enjoy the anticipation of Christmas Eve year-round with this amusing room escape packed with an astonishing number of puzzles for such a small room. The basic premise of the game is simple: it is Christmas Eve, your boyfriend is on his way over, the tree is not decorated, and you can't remember where you stored the ornaments. Can you decorate before your date arrives? Better hope so!

What's the last thing that happens before Christmas? You go to sleep! That is, you would if there weren't so much going on in your house. A follow-up to Quiet, Please!, Nostatic Software has released Quiet Christmas, a sidescrolling puzzle adventure game that's all about getting a bit of rest before Santa arrives. The sooner you get your brother to chill out, fix the tree, get rid of the neighbor's annoying decorations, and find a way to warm up the house, you're good to go!

'Tis the season for pixels in this holly jolly twisted simple hidden-object game starring roughly every character ever from all of pop culture. From video game heroes to 80s cartoon stars, they're all here participating in some winter wonderland carnage, and it's up to you to track them down in the chaotic scene... all 173 of them.

Hottategoya presents a math lover's dream escape: a room full of ten safes, nine of which remain locked until you arrange the proper algebraic equation to get them open. One by one, you'll gain the buttons needed to solve each numbers puzzle until, likely in a matter of mere minutes, you've earned the key to the exit door. Whatever your attitude toward algebra, you should feel happily liberated once you succeed.

This iPad-only puzzle is a mystery wrapped in a conundrum wrapped in an enigma. And jump scares. Claiming to be a faithful digital recreation of an actual, physical puzzle box with an unsettling history, the game is a series of mechanized puzzles where figuring out the goals and controls for each one is part of the challenge. And it's definitely a big challenge at that. Unlock more of the Box's history as you proceed, and play somewhere nice and dark with the sound turned up.

They say it's all in how you look at things... and they might be right! Perspective, by the fine students of Digipen, is a unique game that combines two-dimensional platforming with three-dimensional worlds to explore. As you switch back and forth between the two modes, you'll see that there's more to this well-crafted challenge than first meets the eye.

Short but sweet, this point-and-click puzzle departs from the original Monkey GO Happy formula by providing a brief diversion as you scour the countryside for all the decorations our sad simian needs to make his Christmas complete. Don't expect much of a challenge, but DO expect some Christmas cheer!

A platform game that presents a world where the Yeti spends his days outrunning an angry anthropomorphic snowball. One of the few platform games where action and puzzle elements are split right down the middle, Oh Snow can be occasionally frustrating, but always fun.

I don't know about you, but every now and then I get bored with all the paranormal mysteries and long for something smothered in fairy dust and happily ever afters. Luckily for anyone with the same desires Elephant Games has found that star we all wished on and made Detective Quest: The Crystal Slipper, an enchanting hidden object puzzle adventure game that will bring that Disney themed twinkle to your eye. Sadly, you won't be the princess in this tale, but instead a Detective trying to help that silly Prince Charming get his lady love.

You're lost in some archaic remnants of an ancient civilization, verdant jungle surrounding an ancient structure peppered with archeological enigmas. Find the clues and useful tools, solve the puzzles blocking your path, and you will soon uncover untold secrets and escape from these mysterious Ruins.

Swampy still needs a bath, and Perry is still trying to solve a mystery. Who has time for celebrations? These guys do, apparently, as they've managed to squeeze in a little Christmas cheer in Where's My Holiday?, a free release from Disney Mobile that turns the Where's My Water? and Where's My Perry? games into something special for the holidays.

Get ready for a gruesome discovery or two in the latest freaky escape game from horror master Psionic. Waking up in a basement cell is bad enough, but when you find out you've become imprisoned by one seriously twisted killer, all you have to escape are the clues left behind by the victims who came before you.

Tumble Towers 2 is a fun and engaging physics puzzle by Team Omni, in which you must keep totems from tumbling and dropping from wobbly towers of blocks. It doesn't really try to hide the elements it swipes from the Totem Destroyer games, but, even if a clone, it's made with a lot of love for the concept.

The Puddings need your help! Without legs or traction, they're helpless against the selfish humans willing to ignore their pleading eyes and chow down on them, so they need you to help them slide around and combine into more formidable monsters! With different flavours of Puddings with different abilities and a whole bunch of levels, ZeptoLabs brings another gorgeously high-quality puzzle game to your iOS.

This sleepless young prince is a puckish, mischievous sort who wants to play pranks on everyone in the castle. You can join in by exploring every room using keyboard commands, to find and use objects until you've racked up every trophy and achievement to be had in this point-and-click puzzle adventure from Black Square. What to do and where can be arbitrary at times, but for those who love the artwork and the searching about, The Prince Edwards proves to be charming and handsome indeed.

Graduation time at Spellwood Academy! Biggles the bespectacled bunny wizard is ready for finals, but unlike most school exams, these happen to be quite entertaining. Spellwood from Three Rings (creator of Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates) drops you in a cheery fantasy world of one-on-one word battles, allowing you to face off against opponents in turn-based tile combat. Think of it as Scrabble meets Puzzle Quest with wands and anthropomorphic animals and you'll have a good idea what to expect!

It's a snowy December evening and these landlocked pirates need your help! In as few moves as possible, remove blocks to send them a flood of water so they can be happily at sea—yet don't drown the village elves while you're at it! Earn extra points by figuring out how to get ice to Christmas trees without turning people into frozen chunks, in this eighteen-level holiday-themed expansion pack of Staal Media's original puzzle game.

Take a break to enjoy Tesshi-e's very unseasonal Christmas present to all room escape fans! Featuring some familiar things (it just wouldn't be Tesshi-e without Mr. Birdy and a wobbly picture puzzle, would it?) and some new, Tesshi-e is in fine form with a host of amusing and challenging puzzles dealing with logic, math, color, and a little intuition. With its lush tropical backgrounds (time for a beach vacation!), zippy music, and thought-provoking puzzles, Santa in the Southern Islands is a welcome room escape any time of the year.

October 25, 1888. The Wyoming Territories. The scientist has returned from his first excursion through the Worldgate, and brought with him a strange hexagonal component. But there are still worlds to explore and answers to be found. Worldgate 2: Contact continues the story of William Buchanan's well-received point-and-click adventure. Its puzzles are satisfying and its twists are proving ever more intriguing.

Bart Bonte delivers a deliciously swank yet simple sliding block puzzle with a holiday spin. Push, pull, stack, and stick using the incredible powers granted to you as a magnetic star in order to assemble the shape in each stage. A stylish exercise in clever, clean design and gameplay no matter what time of year it is.

An HTML5 retro puzzle game in which golf plays in reverse as you put together the friendliest fairways possible. With puzzles that effectively mix programming and physics, FLOG captures the feel of an 8-bit classic that never was, and its high-but-not-frustrating challenge level is just par for the course.

It's hide-and-puzzle time with Ubooly and Friends! All twelve of Ubooly's friends are hiding somewhere on the nine-screen map, and the only way to reveal them is to point and click around and solve puzzles relating the the clues they give. If this premise sounds familiar, it should— its author, BenRadish of BeardShaker Games, was also the one behind Tanooky Tracks, which is very similar both in art style and in gameplay, and there's no reason to complain about that. The puzzles are logical and well-designed, the tropical environment is well implemented, and the graphics and audio have a charm all their own.

There's no need to bother with crazy cryptic clues when you solve a Gryptics puzzle, because they're all about finding the twelve words that fit perfectly in each mini-crossword. There's only one perfect solution, but there may be plenty of red herrings waiting to trip you up. Fire up your vocabulary box and see what words you can come up with in this intriguing minimalist word puzzle.

Neutral's latest holiday gift is a charming and challenging mini escape set in a child's room full of toys, decorations and presents. Explore everywhere and make connections between the clues you find to solve puzzles and make your way out. Either because of or despite a cute platform style minigame obstacle, Christmas Escape Toy presents a rewarding experience for your escaping merriment—and it's all wrapped up with that special Neutral touch.

Santa Claus is stuck in a precarious position. Fortunately, he has some pointy-toed shoe-wearing back-up to assist him, as Santa's Rescue Elf is comes to the rescue. A point-and-click puzzle game by The Gamer Stop, Santa's Rescue Elf is a holly-jolly bit of Christmas fun, albeit with a few obtuse solutions.

It's been a while since we've seen serious activity from Kloonigames' Crayon Physics games. From its debut as an experimental project in 2007 to the release of Crayon Physics Deluxe a few years later, the crayon-drawing physics/puzzle game went from being a neat-o toy to OMG WANT MORE. And now, not too long after its initial mobile release, the game has fully grown up and is ready for its HD iPad debut, sporting a few nice extras along with the visual upgrade.

Some might call this Haretoki creation one of the best escape games this year in terms of brain busting scenarios and enjoyable gameplay but that's up to you to decide. It isn't the prettiest room we've spent time in nor is it the friendliest, if you can stick it out through some head-desk-thump moments, it will reverse those escaping tummy growls into a plump full feeling of satisfaction.

Somehow our slimy friend Bob has landed himself in another predicament, this time in ancient Egypt with its sun glare, caravans of camels and oodles of sand. Trust me, you don't want to be a gastropod in conditions like this. Bob is a trooper and is going to just keep head held high, inching his way forward toward his goal. So it's on your shoulders to clear the path and keep him safe.

Game Balance's series of sliding-puzzles is back with a shiny new coat of sparkles in Orbox C! This installment may be a little heavy on the glitz and techno music, but the intelligent challenges should appeal to fans both new and old.

Gracing the Weekday Escape stage this week is a touch of color therapy in a mellowly studious room from 10 Color Dots. Although the way may be bumpy in spots for those who do not read Japanese, this pleasant little escape utilizes its environment well to present clues and puzzles needing just the right amount of inference and deductive reasoning to solve. It's as enjoyable to spend time here as to earn your way out.

Smart Code Games is back with another puzzling brainteaser that will test your plumbing mettle. You can leave the overalls and the wrenches at home, however, because your tools here as you seek to fill up pots with just enough water are everything from magical mathematical multipliers to teleporters to freakin' bombs. Plumbers lead a much more interesting career than we ever imagined!

It's been a rough day for CP6, the pixelly titular star of Gametron Studios' new platform game. His game has been deleted, so he needs to travel through the innards of the computer to the land of back-up, and, worse yet, he has no knees for jumping! A tough but fair retro game with interesting art, and gobs of addictiveness to balance out its frustrations.

Ahoy there! Pirate Pat wants to loot Atlantis! Guide his pirate submarine beneath the waves. Avoid jellyfish, collect treasures, and find the Crown of Atlantis in this enjoyable action game. Explore a wonderful undersea world while solving the mysteries of Atlantis!

Color Alchemy is a sparsely-styled mobile puzzle game from Element Modulus that challenges your ability to mix, split and alter beams of color. By dragging paths and adding special tiles to manipulate colors, you'll create some complex scenes that look like a truck carrying rainbows crashed into a Skittles factory. Just, you know, not as tragic. And with loads of levels and some painfully mind-bending puzzles, you've definitely got your work cut out for you.

James Newcombe's massive sliding-block puzzle game makes a return in this huge sequel. Your goal is to get your four Cyads to the exit in each stage, but with lasers, bombs, glue, switches, and much, much more in the way the farther you progress, it quickly becomes clear this deceptively simple looking puzzle game is playing for keeps. With no timer or turn limit, it's just you, your brain, and some of the most cleverly designed and fiendishly huge levels around that will keep you busy for a long, long time.

Looking for a little extra adventure in your mobile gaming life? 3D Methods has released another casual point and click title that follows the layout of Forever Lost, The Haunt, and the game's own spiritual companion, Cryptic Kingdoms. Instead of rattling about in a surreal fantasy world, though, Cryptic Caverns drops you in a dark and dreary island filled with an intriguing backstory and more than a few ancient mysteries to stumble across.

In the land of Paint World the paint blobs live a carefree life. Unfortunately their world is being attacked and the blobs are being torn apart. It's up to you to help reunite the blobs with their similarly colored brethren. Make good use of your brains and show those paint blobs the proper way to tuck and roll.

Want a simple game with simple graphics that will twist your head in a dozen different directions? Try Vertigo, a tough puzzle platformer from Ketone Games that utilizes just about every gravity and screen-altering element you can think of to bend your brain out of shape. You're limited to walking and jumping in this minimalist game, and your only goal is to make it to the exclamation mark exit. And how do you get there, seeing as it's glued to the ceiling far higher than you could ever hope to jump? Easy, you just mess with physics and screen scrolling!

The classic Nutcracker story has always been a thrill for the young and old so it's no surprise that Elephant Games would decide to give it some attention. In this hidden object puzzle adventure you won't be watching Clara and the Nutcracker spinning their way into the humble domain of the sugar plum fairies. Instead you'll be helping the Nutcracker battle his foe, the dreaded Rat King, who has decided to do more than merely wage war on a battalion of red jacketed nutcrackers. With your wits and some help from companions you'll fall in love with this re-imagined story and the beautiful game it has become.

Detarou, Detarou, what can I make of you? There's no sense in trying to analyze the entirely inappropriate weirdness involved in a Detarou escape-the-room game. All that's needed to be known are the puzzles are cunning, the interface is well-designed, it has three endings and there are scenes that only Detarou could pull off to such surreal hilarity. Be forewarned: you may never be able to look at the color green again!

And if you're looking for some colorful pixelated picross art as paraphernalia for your personal party celebrating a new Conceptis puzzle game? Then look no further than Color Pic-A-Pix Light Volume 2. There's only ten new puzzles to solve, but they're high-quality stumpers with polished presentations.

The world has gone insane, but Pencil Kids is here to set it right with another installment of primate point-and-click puzzling with Monkey Go Happy Mini Monkeys 3. This time, the adventure is on a boat, on a boat, on a monkey-loving boat, and tracking down all 15 of those mischievous mini-monkeys is going to be no cup of grog. The series may be starting to get a little formulaic, but no less charming for it.

Alma Games presents another chapter of the great struggle of Sleeping Parent Vs. Energetic Child in Monsterland 2: Junior's Revenge, a tumble-drop physics puzzler. A bit derivative of other Box2D engine-based games, but still a colorful medium-challenge mental work out.

With a room full of clock-centric puzzles, SuzumeDr's characteristic style of themed escape-the-room games works exceedingly well. Although some of the clues have the potential to stump players, keeping in mind the motif should help you out. The clever contraptions and cunning creatively add up to a peppy and fun escape that's well worth your time.

MoonMana's chilled-out physics puzzler gets another massive installment of zen-like goodness. Direct glowing streams of particles to the proper containers by altering the flow and gravity with various objects in each level, from reflective mirrors to teleporters and more. Gorgeously designed, if not colour-blind friendly, it's the perfect way to remind yourself to relax once in a while.

Three determined monsters are doing what they can to make a break for it from the laboratory they reside in. Help these adorable little terrors out of the lab by making use of their special abilities when confronted by the chaos of science! With the option to use either your mouse or keyboard to control the mechanics this entertaining game is waiting for you to liberate poor creatures that are tested on against their will.

Protobotic offers 18 levels of photonic goodness for your laser-blasting pleasure. These range from block-pushing fare to an interesting experiment in traffic control using switches. There's a nice mental workout here without much risk of banging your head against a desk, so dive in!

In this fifth single-scene escape-the-room game, Robamimi knows how to turn a single wall into a place so House Beautiful gorgeous it probably makes all those bare-walled, minimalist games envious. Yet the puzzles are enticing, requiring thought and careful observation (even a bit of diligent hunting for a required tool), so you can't help but want to solve them all. You'll leave there satisfied from the enjoyment of a well-tuned escape even if a bit disappointed to go.

Everyone remember Boulder Dash? Back in 1984, a little developer called First Star Software released a puzzle game for Atari 8-bit computers that featured a treasure-hungry character named Rockford who spent his time digging through dirt looking for gems the size of himself. Turns out that activity worked out quite well for him, and it worked out well for us players, too, as the game thrived over the decades with a number of sequels and ports to other systems. Now, almost 30 years later, the hunt goes in in Boulder Dash-XL, a re-imagined and updated version of the classic game that has finally made its way to mobile devices. And you know what? It's still a pretty good time!

Being trapped inside Nekonote's basement isn't as scary as it sounds; it's actually a pleasant experience in a cleanly designed, brightly lit room full of cleverly-construed puzzles. The challenge is just enough to exercise your cranial parts without keeping you locked up longer than you'd care to be. This escape-the-room game proves that Nekonote has some happy tricks up the sleeve and may leave you wondering if we'll get to explore the rest of house someday.

Ozzle wants to deceive you. Ozzle is bright and colorful, its fonts look like balloons, two big googley eyes watch you while you play, there's pink everywhere. But it's a puzzle game that will make you think and plan and execute only to realize you made a boneheaded move and could have done things much better. So, you try again, knowing you're smart enough to slide some bubbles around to match a stupid little pattern. All of this happens on the first or second set of puzzles, meaning they're easy. Easy! How on Earth are you going to make it through 60 of these things? By summoning the spirit of the relentless bear (that solves puzzles), that's how!

It's a little town with a big secret, and you've been called in to investigate a disappearance. Except when you get there, you discover the place doesn't exactly have a great track record for its citizens not vanishing under suspicious circumstances. Don your fedora and hunt for clues in this creepy and gorgeously atmospheric point-and-click adventure from Pastel Games.

Our true loves over at The Podge have given one heck of a gift to us: Dibbles 4: A Christmas Crisis. When a Christmas version of an established series is released, it often turns out to be a level-pack except there with more bells on the soundtrack and sprites modified to include floppy red hats. But with new levels, new commands, and new animated ways to kill off your squad of helpers, Dibbles 4 is slightly-sadistic holiday fun for the whole family.

100 Doors 2013 is a new point and click escape game for mobile devices created by Gipnetix Games. Like the handful of similarly titled games before it (100 Lights, Doors & Rooms, DOOORS), 100 Doors 2013 puts you in a series of single-room stages with one goal: open the elevator and get to the next floor. Sure, you'll be trapped as soon as you step out, but you never know, there might be something cool waiting for you at the end. We hear test subjects are often promised cake in these situations.

Doors: Out of Office is a puzzle platformer by Arctic Arcade, where every threshold promises to turn reality upside-down. Help Dave get out of his office's forbidden door of mystery and home for a well-earned weekend. While it could use a better sense of perspective, the game has intelligence and quirkiness to spare.

Oh, now, where'd that smiling stump with the spectacles go? It was just there but now... Anyway, you've got three other weirdo creatures to find, and Hidden Doodles isn't going to slow down so you can take in the scenery. A hidden object game without all the story or adventure elements, Hidden Doodles from Invedars is similar to Little Things Forever releases, dropping you into level after level of crowded scenes filled with some amazingly creative drawings. Take your entire comic book collection, tear it up (please don't, not really), put it in a blender (don't!), then arrange everything on the table and try to find Superman with Bart Simpson's head. That's Hidden Doodles in a nutshell, and you're going to love it.

When it comes to Tesshi-e, some things never change—because "he" is rearranging his room and has taken out all the furniture, he's found the perfect opportunity to revamp it for a new escape-the-room. And, of course, you can't resist the challenge. Although there is no furniture, there's no shortage of puzzles and fun, even without the fancy get ups.

The evergreen bandit is back! Swindler 2 picks up right where the Nitrome original left off with another batch of treasure chests to be stolen. As before, you always fall with gravity, so the trick to this physics puzzle is to rotate the world around you as you dangle. However, Swindler's not satisfied sticking to his power cord, so you're going to have to cut loose to make it past the traps and enemies to reach the loot!

QatQi is like Scrabble with fewer letters and a much more pressing size constraint. The unique word puzzle game from ZWorkBench gives you a small handful of letters, each with its own value, and sets you in front of a small board and tells you "Go forth! Spell!" The catch is you must use all of the letters in order to pass the stage (some children don't have the luxury of wasting letters, you know), forcing frequent use of the undo button when you can't seem to get it just right. If you're both lucky and possess an unusually lush vocabulary, you might just find yourself on QatQi's high score board!

Scribblenauts Unlimited is a new and improved release in the Scribblenauts line from 5th Cell Media. Giving you the power to create objects at will, you embark on a quest to bring happiness to the world, helping people in need by granting them objects from your magic notebook. That's all fine and good and such, but the fact of the matter is you can create just about anything you want, so while that pedestrian is in dire need of a glass of water, wouldn't it be so much more fun to give her a gigantic angry flying shark instead?

Presumably, when TurboNuke was developing its recently released physics puzzle sequel, Soccer Balls 2, they tried to determine what would appeal to non-association football fans. Things like cannons on the turf and bopping refs in the head being an encouraged, nay, required part of gameplay. And it worked, since the game is a lot of fun, even if the "soccer" bits seems occasionally tacked on.

Feel like an inexpensive trip to Austria? Maybe you're craving a tragic mystery that needs unraveling? Boomzap has returned with a new installment in the hidden object puzzle mystery adventure Dana Knightstone series: Death Upon an Austrian Sonata: A Dana Knightstone Novel! With a sprinkling of romance gone wrong thrown in, this is already shaping up to be a great romp into the European countryside.

The third installment of the popular Humbug series is out and ready for you to take control of that loot obsessed criminal Ziggy. This time he's trying to snag a shiny crown and he'll cheat death itself in order to obtain it. Guide Ziggy through treacherous levels with foes, cannonballs, and confusing puzzles to get that most glorious of prizes. Pixelcontinuous doesn't disappoint in the third puzzle platform game of the series.

Fleas aren't something you think could be endearing. Strangely enough, The Odd Gentleman has made them not only endearing but capable of musical talent. With your assistance of course. In Flea Symphony, a bizarrely delightful physics puzzle game, you must help the fleas save the music store they live in by playing a variety of instruments.

Liz's life is quiet and ordinary until a mysterious stranger appears to whisk her away to a colorful fantasy world where nothing is ever at all dull or mundane. Now you need to collect fragments and other objects to solve puzzles and find your way home in this gameplay stuffed adventure hybrid which is sort of like the Wizard of Oz. Except steampunk. And with a sarcastic, more cynical Dorothy.