Lonely, stuck on a unknown planet, and trapped in a underground cavern with no foreseeable way of escaping sounds like a pretty bleak situation, doesn't it? Unfortunately, that is the station in life that a little blue space creature is stuck with, and it is your job to rescue him, and return him safely back to his ship in ConmerGame's physics puzzler, Help Me. Luckily, you aren't totally without any resources; you can use three of the alien's friends to help you along the way, each one of them having their own unique powers. All you need to do is figure out where they can be best utilized in each level.
Mr. Y is back with more room escaping goodness in Tesshi-e's 75th escaping effort, Escape from Mr. Y's Room 3. It features all that is good about Tesshi-e room escape design from the beautiful backgrounds to the easy-to-handle inventory. Welcome to Tesshi-e's world where random friends and strangers spend days creating puzzle-filled rooms for you to solve your way out of.
Atom-Soft's mellow and oddly engrossing little physics puzzler makes a comeback with this simple yet engaging sequel. Place badges to influence your eye-ball buddy as he rolls along a path to collect stars and mingle with his friends. It's the perfect, chilled-out soft of gaming to enjoy whenever you need a break in your day.
In games, you want to win. After all, isn't that the whole point of playing them? But what if you don't know where you're going, or why? Is it worth it to keep moving on, even if you have to make sacrifices and lose people along the way? Chelsea Howe and Michael Molinari combine their talents once more for this simple, evocative platformer/interactive art piece made in just 48 hours for the Global Game Jam.
From the east coast of the United States to the Land of the Rising Sun, this tiny wonder of an iOS app gets you solving grid-based puzzles and get a little more cultured. From its online connectivity for multiplayer and player created maps to its rich, simple level editor, the fun keeps on coming long after you finish with the 200 single player puzzles. A set area fo plug in the pieces makes the puzzles a little more challenging, but gives an air of the Picross games most people tend to enjoy.Pick it up for a long trip or just to have whenever you need to stretch that grey matter out.
Role playing games aren't an uncommon sight, and neither are fling-based arcade games. But if you combine the two, throw in a dash of strategy, dozens of fish/cephalopod puns, and layer on some gorgeous artwork, you've got something truly rare. SQUIDS Wild West is the follow-up to the original SQUIDS game, combining a number of gameplay elements into a casual game that can ride two seahorses at the same time!
Where's My Perry? is a brand new physics puzzle game from Disney Mobile. Utilizing the same set-up as Where's My Water?, this updated and expanded version sets things in the Phineas and Ferb universe where Perry the platypus has to work his way through underground tubes to investigate a series of mysteries (some of which may or may not involve moustaches). The catch is that the power doesn't work for these tubes, trapping Perry in booths until you can guide water to the intake valve. It's a very similar experience to Swampy wanting his bath water, but with new gameplay elements and puzzles, you'll be happy to join in on the much-improved fun!
On the surface, it's easy to put Thomas Was Alone in the puzzle platform genre, citing games like The Lost Vikings when you discuss the gameplay mechanics and mentioning VVVVVV as another possible source of lo-fi indie inspiration. But after you've spent some time with the game, you suddenly realize it's much more than just a platformer. Thomas Was Alone is an interactive, character-driven puzzle experience with a beautiful audio visual presentation and gameplay controls/physics that were no doubt fine-tuned with fastidious precision.
Here's a fun, quick escape-the-room game with all the classic characteristics we've come to expect from TomaTea—enjoyable puzzles, a beautiful design, user-friendly features, and a creative theme. Gameplay is the right balance of relaxation and mental stimulation. Just point-and-click your way around, finding clues and puzzling together the codes needed to find your way out.
Chunkadelic, developed by Noel Berry and Chevy Ray Johnson for the Full-Indie 48-hour Game Jam is one third Atari, one third WarioWare, and one third discotheque. That adds up to a work that's 100% a love letter to arcade retro-gaming. Ephemeral, and a little heavy on the strobe-lighting, but overall an amazing spectacle.
Nitrome seriously overhauls their balloon-centric action avoidance adventure series with this latest installment! When the family pooch is stolen by a malicious spiky baddie, it's up to the son of a hero to venture out into the hostile wild blue yonder and explore stages packed with wild hazards and enemies. With a complete engine revamp, checkpoints, and more responsive controls, it's still a challenge, but not an impossible one!
It's not clear how the scenario of Magic Island Escape 3, an atmospheric escape by Kamikaze Worm, came to be. Whatever the case, you're here now and you need to escape, and to do so you need to activate the magical portal arch by finding and using four colored keys. Got fifteen minutes to kill? Put them to use escaping an island, by all means.
In this escape-the-room game by Fuwayura, help the little girl find her raincoat and boots so she can go outside and play. With its simple pastel design, affable puzzles, cheerful music and an overall motif of cuteness, Raincoat Escape provides a perfect intermission whenever you need on a bright ray of happiness to shine on your day.
Blue Sunset is a 5 minute escape from TomaTea, this one featuring a variety of tricky puzzles wrapped up in the usual gorgeous TomaTea scenery. With a nicely balanced mix of logic problems, use of found objects, and at least one color-based puzzle, Blue Sunset is a perfectly delectable mini-escape treat. It's a perfect challenge for a break from work, school, or just life in general.
Mobile developer Orangepixel has made a name for itself by crafting unique action arcade games that go to great lengths to tickle that nostalgic gaming bone of yours. With the team's latest release, Chrono&Cash, a single-screen loot gathering game that challenges you to grab the gold while avoiding the baddies that constantly stream from the doors. It's a bit like the original Mario Bros. (not Super Mario Bros., mind you) mixed with a little Super Crate Box, and it's a great fit for an on-the-go arcade fix.
Drawing has never been so fun as it is in this physics puzzle. With so many smiley faces cheering you on to give them a nice comfy line to hang out on it's hard to not want to play. Luckily Fun Instinct has made this game just for the softie in you wishing to make smiley faces exist everywhere! Oh and for those who like to draw too.
Deep within the spaceship, a lowly garbage worker tosses clumps of trash into the incinerator. Outside, asteroids begin pelting the hull, eventually causing the ship to crash on an uncharted planet filled with strange creatures. And now you, lone survivor, must explore and fight your way through an intricate maze-like world as you gather power-ups, fight bosses, and collect every little green square you see. In Wade McGillis's downloadable and mobile game Astronot, you get a good strong dose of pure retro metroidvania-style platform adventuring, and you'll love every minute of stranded torture it brings you.
Long has it been dictated that a woman in a fairy tale had better be either beautiful, meek, humble as apple pie, or a mix thereof. Someone hates her, a prince wants to save her, and some sparkly fairy dust is going to cause some type of dilemma. Throughout it all, this princess is going to hmmm and sigh but ultimately go along with the ride because, hey, she's a damsel in distress and you best not forget it! Fortunately for us, Moacube didn't just forget it, they threw it out of the proverbial tower turret to the alligator infested moat below. In the team's dazzling visual novel Cinders, they charge headfirst into the outdated and come out the other side with brand spanking shiny and new.
Are they conveyor belts? Are they fallen trees? To be completely honest, we can't figure out what those strange laser-emitting bricks in increpare's aptly-named Puzzles are supposed to be. All we know is that they cause trouble if you touch them, but yet that danger might be the key to solving the eight enigmas in this game.
Think fast! No, faster than that!... no, even faster! NinjaDoodle serves up another gorgeous set of clever little puzzles where you'll have to be ready for anything and willing to work under pressure. Short, sweet, and a great exercise for your lazy brain if you can handle robots, zombies, cows, aliens, and... toilets?
With this latest installment in the 10 Gnomes series, Mateusz Skutnik has provided an addictive and gorgeous little puzzler with the standard lovely black and white visuals set against a creepy soundtrack as you race to find all of those vacationing little gnomes before time runs out
If you want to join the club, then the titular hat is requisite. It's just that simple. But getting to this millinery accoutrement is not as straight-forward in this platform puzzler by David Durham. Use [WASD] or arrow keys to move about, pick up items, and enter doorways and the [space bar] to jump as you pass by obstacles such as disintegrating tiles and rolling barrels—all while keeping that hat on your head. The difficulty of this feat varies by your agility and timing, yet the production values are consistently excellent. So hold on to your hat and get ready for the fun!
This unassuming escape-the-room game by Kiteretsu might have a scary sounding name, but there is nothing horrific about the puzzles you'll find inside this ordinary four-walled apartment. As per the requisites for this genre, you are trapped inside a room, no notes or friendly invitations brought you here. You are only here. Now you must piece together the clues to break the codes and find your way to freedom.
Life Quest was an excellent game when it was released for the downloadable casual games market, and the mobile port effortlessly brings that experience to touch screen iOS devices. Kick back and enjoy an experience not unlike The Sims meets a time management game, which is to say, you'll spend a whole lot of time getting very little done! (Just like real life, no?) Have a little virtual life in your own hands, no matter where your real life takes you!
In Cipher Prime's new puzzler Splice, you've got to rearrange cells in a strand to match the given pattern. Your moves are limited, so you've got to plan each step carefully to succeed. It's kinda like making a dangling chain of coathangers, except with MORE SCIENCE. (And an awesome soundtrack and sweet graphics.)
To quote the intro of Fallen City, Channel 4 and Big Robot's educational puzzle/real-time strategy game: What is a city? It is a machine; a machine for living in. But all machines can break down. The inhabitants of Fallen City (Angries) have become distracted by their individual lives and dreams and have let the once gleaming metropolis fall into disrepair. Frustrated by their inability to live the lives of fame and fortune they were told could satisfy them, many of the Angries fell into boredom or rage... and the city sunk ever deeper into its gloom. But broken machines can be fixed, right?
From NimbleBit, the creators of Tiny Tower, comes the next game that's going to occupy bite-sized pieces of your time for the next several months. Pocket Planes is the team's latest offering in the casual simulation department, putting you in charge of airports and passengers, planes and people, and challenging you to make it all run smoothly and swiftly so you can, well, do it all on a much bigger scale. It's the perfect formula for a "just one more level" kind of game, and if you were one of the many souls who fell victim to Tiny Tower's amazing level of addictiveness, Pocket Planes might just hook you twice as hard.
There's nothing more satisfying than world domination... that is unless it's world domination by robot! Robot House Games brings you their interpretation of this experience in the arcade-style game, Total Robostruction. Drag matching body parts together to create your mechanical army as you climb the ranks of an evil corporation. Just keep an eye on that timer cause, you know, there's no dilly-dallying in taking over the world.
What's a bear to do when a soda pop factory suddenly sets up shop in the bear's neck of the woods? Growl a lot! Oh, and seek revenge by drinking up all the cola and destroying the factory. In Cola Bear Float, you've got to guide the grizzly to the goal while playing with a gaseous twist in this high-difficulty platformer.
You don't have to be a vegan to enjoy fruit, though this may be a different interpretation on the usual form of enjoyment. Instead of chomping down on a succulent orange it's your responsibility to keep them safe from rain. Yes, rain. Not the usual type of rain but the type that is spiked and deadly. With plenty of physics puzzling to please even the most persnickety player, it's up to you to keep something sweet from turning into something dead.
LovePunks: The Game, developed by a group of the same name and with help from the Yijala Yala cultural arts program, is strange, crazy, bizarre, and absolutely wonderful. It has all the energy and vitality that you would expect from a creative band of 9, 10, and 11 year-olds, and they were clearly having a blast putting it together. Though its showcasing of the photo-realistic animations makes gameplay feel a little aimless, overall it is a singularly unique piece of interactive art.
Conceptis' latest Conceptis Light puzzle suite, Hitori Light, certainly is a mind-bender. In it, you're presented with a square grid of seemingly random digits ranging from 1 to the grid's size, many repeating throughout. Your job is to shade or circle every square in the grid according to three important rules. Each puzzle is fairly entertaining and has its own unique solution, and it's easy to start formulating strategies based on specific patterns of numbers that turn up often. Looking for a mind-bending distraction for a few minutes of your time? Then come shade and circle some squares. I know I am.
Bart Bonte is back with another sugary sweet installment in his popular particle physics puzzle. While adhering to the same basic concept and gameplay mechanics of the prior two Sugar, Sugar games, this sequel delivers 30 more clever levels of imaginative obstacles in a simple block design plus jazzy tunes.
Just when you might have thought that everyone's favorite digital restaurant mogul was resting on his pixellated laurels, Flipline Studio's Papa has returned with the latest spicy addition to his culinary empire. Papa's Wingeria is hiring, and only your mastery of time management and a dexterous control of your mouse stand between you and stacks of buffalo wing-scented dollars.
Nyan and Wan have been named "Most Valuable Escapers" and you get to join them in the first course of an escape game tournament. Mission cards will provide hints and provide the premise for this delightful installment in the continuing escapades of the charismatic pair. While purposefully on the easy side, It Happens Escape Game: Beginner Course has a clever presentation and enough heart-warming charm to have you smiling all through the week.
Thanks to the huge success of games like "Angry Birds" and "Crush the Castle", the physics projectile genre is one of the hottest in casual gameplay of late. Smokoko's entry, King's Game, puts a twist on the style: your targets can fire back! Obviously, it would always be your best option to decimate your opponent as quickly as possible, but in this game, it can become a necessary strategy. The AI is a fairly accurate shot, and doesn't miss that often, even on the beginning levels.
Attention all doodlers! Drop your pen and strap yourself to the keyboard, because Francisco Ferreres is here with another in the series of hand drawn, top-down, vertical scrolling shoot-em-ups, Notebook Wars 3. Be prepared for the margins to run red, green, and blue with pencil shavings once more! Generally a refinement and extension of its predecessors, the addition of Keyboard controls and Frenetic Mode, which speeds up the pace of the game considerably, makes this a release that all shooter fans will find noteworthy.
Monster Physics is a bright colorful physics game for the whole family. Create a unique creature and propel it through level after level of physics puzzles. Using the intuitive controls, grab parts to create anything from a simple car to a complex rocket ship to help you reach the level goal. There are endless combinations of parts, and many different ways to solve each level, which means hours of great gameplay.
Filed directly under the "yes I'm old enough to remember the games this game was inspired by" category, The Sky is Falling from Ovine by Design is a retro arcade game that would have to revert to lines scratched in the sand to be any more old school. It's built around a simple mechanic that gradually gets more difficult as you play, offering up a crazy premise and a lot of gameplay mastery that only comes with practice, practice, and probably some more practice!
The developers at Stolen Couch Games have captured that child-like kindergarten drawing time feeling with the one-button puzzle game Ichi, a mobile port of the downloadable version available for Windows and Mac systems. It is only the team's second commercial creation for the iTunes App Store, but they understand that quality is much better than quantity. If the simple visual style makes you think "oh, this game will be a piece of cake!", well, my friend, you'll think twice when level 'some-odd-number' comes around and you can't master it!
A certain giant nuclear lizard and his fellow monster nemeses have had exclusive raging rights in Japan, but has their reign finally come to an end? Adult Swim along with PikPok Games is contesting the monster mayhem supremacy with an arcade-style puzzle game for Android and iOS called Monsters Ate My Condo. As it heavily parodies the Showa (aka monster) era of movies, you need to appease the behemoths by feeding them condo buildings for super high scores until your apartment tower topples over. Your building may fall and the game will end, but you will keep coming back for more of this frenzied arcade action.
Ready to get dragged into an undeniably captivating time management strategy resource management building game? Kingdom Chronicles by Aliasworlds casts you in the role of humble do gooder John Brave, resident unlikely hero hero. I know what you're thinking, been there done that. But wait! It's not only about being sexy and knowing it while having damsels in distress swooning in their tallest tower prisons. I promise.
With the intricate and challenging gameplay, fantastical backgrounds, and most importantly an actual story Build-a-Lot: Fairy Tales may be the best of the build-a-lot bunch, rather than a stale re-skinning of something we've seen before. For those who love the series and those who've never tried it, here's an imaginative gift from HipSoft wrapped in bright shiny paper and an elaborate bow.
Find the key, get to the door, advance to the next level. Sounds like your everyday platform game, right? Well, it could be, but not in this instance. Strap on your straitjacket, and step into the psych ward of Funcrow's Psychout, where not everything is necessarily what it seems. Level by level, the laws of physics will continually change; sometimes gravity is controllable by a press of your finger, and sometimes you can scale a wall, and cling to ceilings just by walking.
Stick Figure Badminton 2 is a simple, yet satisfying badminton simulator with a great physics engine, featuring a good variety of AI opponents and some fun character choices (robots!). Regular badminton players will appreciate the smooth way the game handles smashes, drives and drops and non players will get a great introduction to the game that will make them want to go outside in the sunshine and play for real. How many other flash games can make the same claim?
Developed by advergamesters supreme B-Reel, Cube: A Google Maps Experiment transforms locales across the globe into levels inspired by those maze toys where you must roll a tiny metal ball through a labyrinth, all while highlighting features of Google Maps. A little ephemeral in gameplay, but very, very pretty, Cube is smart futuristic fun.
In a world where traffic and urban emergencies run rampant, there is group of anthropomorphic response vehicles looking to set things right. Vehicles Level Pack delivers more levels in the physics puzzle series that puts you in the driver's seat of cute little cartoon cars. Move the obnoxious black SUVs out of the way to reach your designated emergencies in time.
This modern take on the classic by Hans Christian Anderson (forget about Disney!) was created in 58 hours for TOJam #7. Point and click your way around a minimalistic environment of office space and city streets, holding very one-sided conversations with those you encounter. While it has some rough edges in terms of navigation, it does a good job of eliciting sympathy and will especially strike a chord with those struggling with shyness.
Find yourself trapped inside these ancient limestone walls with only your wits, a few clues and a patent love of solving puzzles as your means to freedom in this escape-the-pyramid game from TomaTea. While not markedly long or arduous, Long Time Ago has a number of enigmatic moments with just a few textual indicators and a glowing cursor to nudge you in the right direction. The clues are occasionally inconspicuous, but they're all there for those who seek them out—so, experiment a bit, put on your Indiana Jones hat, and tell that sphinx to "Bring it!" .
If a snake eats a pellet in the forest, and no one is there to control the joystick, does it still score a point? There's no need to get philosophical with Netgrind's Snakes On A Cartesian Plane, but you do need to put your thinking cap on. Each level puts a twist on the classic snake game, like disappearing traps, weirdly warping walls, and twisted controls. How many points can you rack up?
Gaz Thomas adds a new spin to the phrase "slice and dice" in this sequel to a favorite physic puzzle game. 3 Slices 2 brings you back into the hacking fun of cutting blocks apart in three swings to meet the goal of each level. A new colored block with opposite physics, the good old gold target challenges, and precise planning makes the game quick yet demanding enough to sink your teeth into. Can you prove that you are a cut above the rest of the puzzle gaming crowd?
This gorgeous scene from Robamimi is filled with charisma as well as fun puzzles. Just like One Scene and One Scene 2, all the gameplay takes place along one wall. Point and click your way through every picturesque detail, finding the clues needed to "escape" the scene. The quality of design and the affable features make this a relaxing and beguiling experience. When something is this good, it's always a happy occasion to find more!
Nutty Mania is a fun and relaxing new physics game from FlashRush Games with a silly premise and relaxing puzzles. But this cute little diversion won't be just any old walk in the park, you'll have some interesting obstacles to overcome (dinosaurs!) and some clever physics to navigate (portals!). Nutty Mania sports 42 levels to explore and even features a level editor, which will keep you entertained for many coffee breaks to come.
Do you enjoy hunting for tiny items? Picking out hidden objects? Finding small things contained in much larger things? Fresh from Klick Tock, creator of ZONR, Little Things Forever is an updated and expanded follow-up to the original Little Things, offering up thousands of tiny items to find as you hunt your way across puzzles unlocking new shapes to pick apart. It's a great improvement over the original game, but it's also precisely what we like about casual mobile releases: quick fun, lasting appeal, and endless content.
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?
With its sleek iconographic aesthetic, twitchy gameplay, and impish sense of humor, Chris Underwood's Hanna in a Choppa quickly became a favorite here at JayIsGames. In fact, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say it's right up there with Stunt Copter and Comanche in the rotocraft gaming hall of fame. Now, after four years, and plenty of crossed fingers, the physics puzzle action returns in Hanna in a Choppa 2! Of course, the name is a bit of a misnomer, since it seems Ms. Hanna has earned quite a few more pilot's licenses this time around, from hot air balloons, to biplanes, to jetpacks, to ostriches. Cunning level design and satirical writing work hand in hand to form an instant classic.
It's dangerous in the primordial soup, a place where infected organisms roam hungrily looking to consume or destroy anything that crosses their path. At least, that's the scenario behind the fantastic Amoebattle by Grab Games, a real-time strategy gem created for iOS devices. Inside, at the microscopic level, it's a constant state of warfare, and war is heck.
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.
Red Riding Hood was once a normal girl baking sweets, skipping through enchanted forests, wanting to visit her grandma without any ulterior motives. Little did she know that she was about to be thrust into a nightmare when her poor Granny was taken by some rude wolf. Now it's up to you, as Red, to brave 96 levels of puzzles to save Granny and show that wolf it's never good to mess with a girl who can master gravity.
First released in 2008, The Power was a behemoth of a Metroidvania-like shooter for downloaders only. Now, The Power is back and available for your browser pleasure! Search, shoot, and upgrade your way through a massive world to discover the mysteries of The Power, and why it's so important to a strange planet.
In a city where the wicked never sleep a brave hero shall rise. Jeff the Sanitation Worker has come to save the day. Er...well, he's come to clean things up so that people can at least walk around without catching the plague from the rats that seem to be everywhere. That's heroic right? Still, prepare yourself for the high energy thrill ride of cleaning the streets as Jeff.
Minigolf! In space! With explosions! And trance music! And lens flare! You'll find it all in Bomb Runner, a physics arcade game by Core Studios. Inspired as much by pinball as by golf, you must click, drag, and shoot your way through 24 beautiful levels. Some of the shots do seem to rely on luck as much as skill, especially in the later levels, but overall, Bomb Runner is an entertaining diversion.
Continue the adventure across the Plains of the Endless Grass in search of the Wiseman who knows every story ever told. Play as Myosotis and embark on a journey filled with fantastic creatures, breathtaking scenery and, of course, captivating stories. A Grain of Truth picks up (and leaves us) where The Trader of Stories: Bell's Heart left us: wanting more.
Continue the adventure across the Plains of the Endless Grass in search of the Wiseman who knows every story ever told. Play as Myosotis and embark on a journey filled with fantastic creatures, breathtaking scenery and, of course, captivating stories. A Grain of Truth picks up (and leaves us) where The Trader of Stories: Bell's Heart left us: wanting more.
The action-packed Enigmata series gets reincarnated as a real-time tower defense game. Protect the Core from wave after wave of enemies and huge bosses by upgrading and placing ships with a variety of explosive abilities, including upgrades that persist across levels. It's a gorgeous, though somewhat chaotic, spin on the genre that sci-fi fans will want to check out.
Clueless provides an easygoing escape challenge that is sure to appeal to anyone who loves the genre. Logical, pretty, and challenging, here's a bonus escape for those who love solving their way out of locked rooms.
Tesshi-e gives us a sequel to The Happy Escape with Happy Escape 2, yet another challenge to find as many happy coins (and, thus, happiness) within a classic locked room escape. There is only one escape scenario in this little charmer that features the standard gorgeous Tesshi-e visuals and a jazzy little tune to help pass the time while solving a nice selection of logical puzzles.
Gently wafting down from the world of Wii Ware games, LostWinds2: Winter of the Melodias is an iOS port of the 2009 sequel to LostWinds, a game that also recently made its way from console to mobile marketplace. Frontier Development has created a fantastic sequel to an adorable and easily lovable game, translating the same sense of awe and wonder that made the original such a pleasure while adding new elements (literally) to toy around with. It's a platform adventure ("metroidvania") like few others, and once you get a taste of the richly animated world LostWinds2 has to offer, you'll sit down and absorb the entire game without hesitation.
The Sandbox is a creative elemental puzzle game for iOS by Pixowl. It mixes puzzles and challenges with good old fashioned elemental interactions, exactly the kind you would find in classic browser games like Sand Sand Sand. Guiding the all-powerful element dropping utility that is your finger, you can mix dozens of unique elements to create fantastic reactions, functioning machines, crazy Rube Goldberg-like devices, or just paint pretty pictures on your screen. There's plenty of room for creativity, but also a fair amount of thoughtful challenge as well!
Bushes and huts, grass and trees, churches and gravestones, and bears. Dangerous, dangerous bears. Triple Town from Spry Fox is the kind of mobile game you'll love to carry around with you at all times, firing it up for a few quick rounds and putting it away when you're satisfied with your progress. It combines city building with a good ole match-3 puzzle game in a manner you're probably not used to seeing, allowing you to work with individual elements to build a great empire, one match at a time.
One part physics-based slinging game, one part RPG, and one part tactics, SQUIDS from The Game Bakers is a many-layered game that gracefully passes gameplay elements back and forth, creating a dynamic yet cohesive experience. While it starts out with a little Sling-like action, it ends up playing more like Ogre Battle, all without adding too much complexity or foregoing its casual roots. To top it off, SQUIDS looks as good as it plays, featuring top-notch visual design and a storyline and characters that are legitimately fun to engage with!
Recluse is a short, cute, and creative metroidvania-style platform adventure game from chambers that tied for eighth place in the most recent Ludum Dare compo. Centered around the "tiny world" theme, you play a snail who has never left its shell and is now ready to emerge into the world. While much of the gameplay is standard platform fare, there is a unique mechanic that makes Recluse worth experiencing: screen shoving!
You think you're tired? Take a look at Mr. Box! You would think three games of sleep would be plenty but not for this cardboard narcoleptic. Too bad for him it's up to you to wake him up and this time around it's not only tree stumps and wooden boards you'll be using. It's up to you to draw the method that will have him waking up on the wrong side of what may have seemed a safe platform above a perilous fall.
Cappuccino Under The Leaves, by Japanese developer Karabina-7, is a point and click based around making a frog a cup of coffee. Yeah, it's an odd kind of work, but with its engagingly cute aesthetic, and challenging, but logical, puzzles, Cappuccino Under The Leaves is an excellent blend that's good to the last drop.
Retro shmup? More like Bullet Candy! An avalanche of colour and sound assaults you like a continuous rain of fireworks, but there's no time to stop and watch as 8 bosses, plus minions, are out to destroy your little spaceship. Or maybe you're out to destroy them. Score Rush requires registration before you can play, but shooter fans will find that behind the dazzling spectacle of the graphics there's a smooth, solid, and very playable game as well.
Look fast! The Snark is back for the third time! If you're lucky enough to be invited to join the Snark Busters Club, you can count on lots of adventure, hidden objects to spot, and traveling through surreal backwards worlds and fantasy steam-punk locales to solve the puzzles it left behind. As a departure from the first two games of the series, collect mostly whole items to form a new, more useful object. Circlet reconstructions directly in each scene keeps the focus on exploration and discovery, not straining the eyes. The fabulous graphics and player-pleasing extra touches makes Snark Busters: High Society even more charming than the first two.
This little girl named Mabel is stuck in a cavern and her only means of escaping is combining letter creatures into words and use them as platforms to climb out. A cross between a platformer and a word puzzle game that gives you the challenge of navigating platforms carefully while making intricate words for as many points as possible. Your high score and hopes of surviving all hinge on your extensive vocabulary knowledge and quick thinking in this game by Joel Esler.
The Podge's cute, cuddly, and ever-infernoey insect is back to set the world on fire once again in the puzzle platformer, Firebug 2. As before, the gimmick is that the protagonist will set everything he touches on fire, making speed a larger element than in most puzzle platformers. Refinement of the original's already fun gameplay, makes for a game that's a great for burning through a coffee break.
It's time to raise a toast in celebration of Tesshi-e's 73rd astonishing room escape effort and once again enjoy its tricky, twisty, mistily nostalgic personality. There's really nothing to complain about in Mild Escape 5. The puzzles are tricky and satisfying with some neat solutions, the construction is at a minimum, the English translations are terrific, the controls are top notch, and the color puzzles come with text making them solvable even for the colorblind.
From long-time casual game creator Terry Paton, Waste is a simple but highly-polished puzzle game featuring every child's two favorite things: monsters and goopy green sewage! The undeniably cute release combines quick-action puzzle solving along with a little bit of old fashioned error-driven pressure, forcing you to make snap decisions that are not only efficient, but economical, too. It's an easy game to pick up and play, no matter what mood you're in or how long your "coffee break" happens to be!
An up-and-coming young housefly has a simple wish; He wants to make it to the big city and become the greatest stunt rider that Bugopolis has ever seen. To impress the masses with your skills, you have to drive through multiple trick-tastic levels, collect star balloons, and get money for your trip. There are plenty of other insects along the way to aid Buzz in his quest for glory and they want to show their stuff off to the world. Whether you are looking for a quick physics distraction or an addicting stunt racer, Stunt Bug has got you covered.
Fans of Metroidvania style games, rejoice, and put on your virtual sneakers! SubMu entertainment's latest release, Blockstachio, incorporates quirky, blocky graphics, and a soundtrack that solidly consolidates retro bleeps and bangs over the top of the heroic theme music that will drive you towards your goal, while also packing enough platform action to keep you happily satisfied, while running and jumping your way through each level, in your pursuit to save the world. The world needs saving, and it is up to you and your cubic hero to do it. Are you up to the challenge?
You might not be ready for this Jelly Escape, a puzzle-platformer by Taw Studio. Games about anthropomorphic blobs making their way through dangerous obstacle-laden settings are nothing new, and this one is hit by a bit of CPU lag. With a fluid progression of 50+ levels, a comprehensive checkpoint system that allows the game to be challenging without ever feeling too tough, and a hilariously whimsical sense of humor, though, it's worth checking out.
Dinos in Space is, apart from being a very cool thing to draw in your notebook while ignoring the math lecture going on in your class, a cerebral flow-based logic puzzle game from John Saba. Using arrows, switches and teleporters, your goal is to send dinosaurs from their dispensers into the appropriately colored satellite elsewhere on the grid. Sure, it sounds simple on the surface, but get your head wrapped in this game, and when you take a break, you'll still be solving puzzles in your brain.
This little red block monster's father doesn't want to play with him, but maybe you can change that in this eye-infested tumble drop physics game. Made with the Box2D physics engine, you get a cutesy puzzle game backed by reliable and well-tested physics that won't waste your precious free time. Click away as few mean monster blocks as possible to reunite a playful son and his tired dad for high scores and star ratings. The adorable music and a squealing son will put a smile on your face, guaranteed!
Why does negligent parenting get such a bad rap? If it wasn't for bum parents, we'd never have this lovely launch game, Billy The Pilot, from Erik Sombroek, about a little boy who just wants to fly, and who has a mom and dad that don't seem to mind their little boy building a launchpad in the backyard, right in the path of the family flower bed. The backgrounds and animations in Billy the Pilot are impossibly cute and the upgrades a lot of fun, especially the ability to build a pet dragon! But the gameplay is repetitive and the in-flight controls are clunky. It also isn't very hard. Really, Billy the Pilot is just an excuse to explore a beautifully drawn and colorful Never Never Land where kids are kings and parents nowhere to be found...as it should be.
Lexcavator is a wonderfully chirpy word-based puzzle game by Adam Parrish that combines elements of Dig Dug with spelling games like Bookworm. Your goal is to bash away at the letter tiles by spelling out words, clearing the way so the protagonist can hop further down the level. It requires a lot of careful thinking to prevent capturing yourself in a corner, so enter only if your vocabulary and tactical skills are up for a challenge!
It is up to a green cosmic wanderer with a chain grapple arm to rescue some grounded birds from certain destruction in this retro adventure grapple game. Ladd Spencer (think classic grapple game...) may have had it rough, but the Chain Champ here has to swing over boiling lava pits, dodge pitfalls, and focus on collapsing grapple surfaces. A quick casual game packed with loads of gameplay, chiptune sound effects, and helpless birds to keep you swinging during a lazy afternoon.
Never trust blobby pink monstrosities! In this sequel to Nitrome's 2009 action platformer, guide your furry miner with speed but caution through crumbling caverns full of paths that fall away just as suddenly as they fly up before you. Packed full of new beasts, obstacles, power-ups, and now checkpoints, it's a difficult but worthy sequel.
An old idiom is brought back to life in the physics puzzle gaming scene in Eliot Pace's sequel to Pigs Can Fly. Manipulate multiple objects using time-and-space distorting colored potions so a little pig can get some wings. With a re-imagined look, more depth to the puzzles, and the same physics gameplay, this oinker has learned a few new tricks that are a welcome sight. This porker is as lazy as pigs get so it could use all the help it could get.
You know what's cool? Beatboxing. You know what's cooler? When you get to conduct a squad of digital human beatboxers right in your browser. So Far So Good serves up a simple but slick and stylish webtoy where musical creativity is just a drag and drop away. Warning; may make you irresistibly cooler by association.
Is your trigger-finger ready for a challenge? Then load up the beautiful but deadly Ludum Dare competition entry Kumiho. Pilot a ship with the ability to teleport against hordes of semi-organic monstrosities transformed by a vengeful Goddess. With striking visuals and simple but high-difficulty gameplay, it's a lovely little diversion if your reflexes are up to the task.
Aimed more at kids than adults but equally enjoyable by both for its charm, this sweet little adventure platformer tells the story of a teddy bear who gets lost and strikes out to find a way back home to the little girl who dropped him. Light on challenge but big on style and cuteness, it's just the right size for new gamers to try on, and just the right tone for old gamers to relax with.
Like your mini-golfing streamlined and mellow? This slick physics puzzle by Jayc Santos might be the offer. Serving up creative bumpers and boosters you place yourself, and your average golfing traps like water and mines, it's a mellow experience you'll definitely want to take a swing at.
Ever since Pac-Man first escaped off the right side of the screen to magically appear on the left, players have had a certain thing for games that skew traditional notions of spatiality. The Village Blacksmith offers another wonderful take on this kind of teleportation in Recursion, a cool little retro puzzle platformer. The series of single screen levels progresses nicely, even if the jumps require a bit too much precision. Still, Recursion worth playing over and over again.
A bite-sized escape puzzler from Dghgbakufu that drops you in the middle of a cross-shaped five-room dungeon and dares you to solve its puzzles and escape to the surface. Bakufu shies away from the complicated clichés like using screwdrivers to pry open panels and finding power cords to plug in computers. All the keys and doors are symbol-coded, and there's no pixel-hunting, either; what little challenge this developer's games contain lies in deciphering the simple yet clever little clues to open the safes, which is fine for someone wanting a quick and easy escape but not so much for a challenge-seeker.
In the mood for some good, old-fashioned, retro arcade fun, without the need of a roll of quarters? Brandon Williamson's Forget-Me-Not, which was originally a popular mobile game, is now ported over to your browser! It takes the classic concept of Pac-Man, and adds a shooter to it. Quickly addictive, and perfectly frustrating, Forget-Me-Not is old-school fun at its finest.
A Long Way Home is an arcade physics puzzle game from Jonathan Mulcahy. Stranded 100 light years from Earth, you play an astronaut whose only companion is a wrist-mounted computer who offers bits of advice. Using a sharp eye and impeccable timing, trot around asteroids and planets and jump from their surface across the screen, the goal being to collect dark matter so you can open successive worm holes that get you closer to home. Along the way, you'll encounter exploding asteroids, comets, teleporting dark matter, and more. Not exactly a leisurely walk in space.
Looking for a logic puzzle game that is tested and designed with cognitive physiology research AND is still fun to play? The boys over at Handy Games in Germany bring you infeCCt, a nice casual undertaking that gets you covering tiles with vines. The game will bend your mind to its limits with tons of impressively designed levels, extra obstacles and tiles for an added challenge, and online scoring system to compare your problem solving skills with others.
FlipPix Art is a series of picross logic puzzles created by GabySoft for mobile markets, including Android tablets, iPad, and NOOK Color/Tablet. The games are designed for ease of use while on the go, employing a rather unusual control mechanism that, surprisingly, makes mobile picross easier and less error-prone. On top of that, each of the games in the series features a different visual theme along with a large number of puzzles, making it one of the best ways to get a picross fix while on the go.
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