Terry Cavanagh's ambitious and charming little game of platformer-esque exploration contains a lot of fun, but may demand too much from your reflexes for some players. Seek out your missing crew across a sprawling map packed with secrets, symbolism, and a whole lot of challenge that will put all your skills to the test. Buckle up, Captain.
A minor scoop turns into a major crime when Nancy Drew's student reporter friend Maya vanishes without a trace in an antique theater where Houdini once dazzled audiences, and it's up to you to figure out what happened. An adventure game lives and dies by its plot, and I really cannot think of any complaints to make about The Final Scene. The story is revealed through a vivacious and extensive script, performed by voice actors who are clearly having fun.
What do you when you have a yen for some online puzzle platformer fun, but find that no one game will satisfy your itch? Why not try three puzzle platformers at once? Paradox Embrace, by Zeebarf and Steve Castro, provides exactly that. The trick is in switching between 3 distinct game-worlds, achieved by activating pedestal-mounted "changers".
Defend Your Honor!... by retrieving the golden walrus for the Walrus King in this quirky defense game. Short and sweet, it's designed to fit into your coffee break, it features not only quick strategic battles, but a good old fashioned dose of humour that delivers a much needed jolt of energy to the tower defense genre.
Based on the classic short story by Edgar Allan Poe, delve deep into the heart of Paris as you track down a brutal killer alongside one of fiction's most influential detectives. While it may not be as challenging as some veteran gamers might like, this is still a gorgeously rendered hidden object game, and a lot of fun, with just the right amount of... monkey business?
Inspector Poirot is on the case again! Detective novelist Ariadne Oliver suspects that a murder may be committed at her high-society murder mystery fete. Sure enough, instead of a girl pretending to be a corpse, an actual corpse appears, which really casts a pall over your evening, let me tell you. It's up to Poirot to determine who is innocent, who is lying, and who is a murderer in the third entry in the series of hidden object games, Agatha Christie: Dead Man's Folly.
Taking over the world wasn't easy in ancient times, but with some smart tactics and powerful magic, you might just take your empire to the top of the heap. Click on whichever outpost you'd like to deploy soldiers from, and then drag the cursor to your target and release. Half of that outpost's forces will be sent out to occupy the object of your ire. If your army is bigger than that of your foe, that's one base down, one whole planet to go.
Strap on your lasers in this sequel to 2008's Robokill as you're forced to make an emergency landing aboard a suspiciously silent space station. Shoot down waves of enemies, buy upgrades, and above all else, stay alive as you delve deeper into the mystery. If Holmes had death robots at his disposal, he totally would have used them instead of Watson.
Everybody in town is depressed, but you've got the cure! In the arcade game Pill Cannon, you are a robot with just one arm, and it's your job to feed pills to the sad people, firing them at their little pods as soon as they show signs of growing morose. The faster and more accurately you work, the better your score!
Set sail for action, adventure, and... spelling? When Lucy runs away from home to avoid being shipped off for her tomboy behaviours, she never imagined she'd get wrapped up in a conspiracy involving the powerful East India Trading Company. Now she has to fight her way through a horde of pirates and rivals in her efforts to save countless lives and her family's name. Sink your opponents by spelling out words that charge your cannons in this clever new adventure release from Moonpod and unleash the Pirate Princess in you! We know you've got one.
Natalie Brooks: Mystery at Hillcrest High is fun, casual gameplay at its best. With this game Alawar shows its determination to go toe-to-toe with the big guns of the hybrid field, Mystery Case Files and Hidden Expedition. The narrative structure is delightful, the games and puzzles fun, and the action cut-scenes thrilling. Quirky, charming, exciting, and just plain fun, give Natalie Brooks a try! Even if it does mean going back to high school, however briefly.
NinjaKiwi's follow-up to its first defense game is better in (almost) every way. Protect yourself from wave after wave of enemies by mixing potions and lobbing them across a wall. Each concoction will have a different affect, allowing you to mix and create your own recipes of doom.
Avalanche casts the player as a sled-bound penguin who is just trying to get home to his brood in the face of a relentlessly adversarial natural disaster. It's a running game that will test your agility and reaction as you pilot your little Antarctic hero to safety. It captures many of the features that made Dino Run and Canabalt great and presents them in its own unique way. It is a fine example in company with its worthy forebears.
A strange and even unsettling little experimental game about every day in the life of a faceless, unnamed man, Every Day the Same Dream somehow manages to be oddly affecting despite its grim and dark presentation. Is there anything at all that can break him out of his cycle? It won't take you long to play, but it may stay with you well after you've shut down the browser.
Think you know ghosts? Think again. When they discover their dream house is host to a gaggle of unruly spirits, the only place a young couple has left to turn is the strange little man who shows up on their front step and seems to know a little too much about what's going on. Mishap: An Accidental Haunting represents a benchmark in quality for the hidden object genre by Namco. Featuring eight chapters, 32 hidden object scenes, riddles, minigames, and more ghosts than you'll know what to do with, it's a fun, beautiful romp through an out-of-this world location.
Artist Colony is fascinating, absorbing casual simulation and time management game. For those who love casual sims, such as Virtual Villagers or My Tribe, this is the game for you. Just be warned, it is very addictive. You can while away hours as you manipulate your little people to and fro, searching for hidden pieces of the past or creating masterpieces for the present. It's time to dress in all black, slap on a beret, and get ready to create some art!
Ever wished that someone would combine the free-roaming, street-racing style of Grand Theft Auto with the vehicular sabotage of Mario Kart? And then throw in a little bit of Nintendogs just for good measure? Fortunately, the good people at Big Pixel Studios have stepped up and made our dreams into reality with Big Pixel Racing!
Androgynous teenagers with gravity-defying hair wandering a mysterious world armed only with cranky comebacks and improbably large weapons? Yes, everything you either love or hate about Japanese RPGs is waiting for you in a convenient Flash package in Ge.ne.sis, a turn-based tactical RPG by An Lieu.
The clans of the Norse-themed world of Nitrome's popular Ice Breaker series are gathering, but they need your help to release their Viking warriors from their icy, impossible, Goldbergian prisons! Ice Breaker: The Gathering provides short but succulent tidbits of new Ice Breaker levels for fans of the series.
What happens when jmtb02's Elephant series and his Four Second series love each other very, very much? Control your elephantine avatar through a number of quick mini-games in rapid-fire succession. Microgame collections like this one tend to encourage the player to mash buttons, any buttons, so Obey the Game really innovates in the way that it requires the player to take a moment and wait for further instructions.
Perfect Balance 2 is all about balance in its simplest form. Its down to the basics of physics here, where your goal is to stack a bunch of weird pieces on top of a bunch of other weird pieces and get them all to stay. Get it all assembled, then try and drop a few bonus diamonds on the pile for huge bonus points.
Prepare yourself for an interactive fiction that peels back the truth in layers as you become more and more entwined in this tale of superscience and space exploration. The narrative begins with an itsy-bitsy clue that not all will be as it seems, followed by your character waking up in a fairly unadorned abode. From there, it's up to you as to what you do and how you go about it, but be wary of those who comment on your every move...
Heard the one about the ancient curse? Well you're about to live it in this exceptional hidden object game. When you suddenly find yourself transported hundreds of years into the past, you have no choice but to solve a mystery involving a royal family if you ever want to find your way back home. With gorgeous visuals, clever puzzles, and smartly designed hidden object scenes, Royal House of Stone is a short but stylish start to a fun new series.
Destruction is fun! There's something to be said about games that let you take out all of your pent up anger, especially when you get to take it out on an unsuspecting village. And the pachinko-style gameplay as you're rolling a boulder down a mountain makes this latest game from PixelJam more than just a simple smash-and-destroy type of game.
Forget Beetlejuice, you're the ghost with the most! And you'll have to prove it in this strategic game if you ever want to get out of Hell. Easy to pick up but hard to put down, Hell Tour's addictive, board game style gameplay lacks polish and real punch, but is still devilishly entertaining.
Track down your stolen hens with Dale and Peakot; one armed with a shotgun, the other possessing amazing magical powers... but a mediocre little bird brain. An old-school platformer that would be at home on any console, Dale and Peakot is simple in premise but big on style and charm.
A point-and-click adventure set in a magical and mystical world that never was. Created by 3dpi Games, makers of the Tortuga series, Mandrake 1 begins a new series on the foibles of the Van der Dooms and their increasingly bitter dispute. The artwork has a nice, stylish hand drawn look done up in shades of black, white, and gray with just a hint of color here and there to liven things up.
Are you an adventurer who just can't seem to adventure? Are you a villager whose name is Villager? If so, you'll find the perfect home in Wildhollow, a well-crafted RPG/adventure/simulation game from KarjaSoft, creator of Spandex Force. In this light-hearted, humor-filled game, you play the role of a young boy/girl returning home to find your parents missing and your family ranch destroyed. Don't frown, though, as this game takes itself about as seriously as a clown working at a pie factory.
Westward IV: All Aboard is a solid addition to the ever increasing Westward pantheon. There's not a lot of change from Westward III, but why mess with a winning formula? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Of course, Westward IV offers new characters, new scenarios, new upgrades, and the same casual gameplay fun of its predecessors.
Dire Grove is a beautiful game that incorporates live action video sequences to tell the chilling tale of an ancient Celtic legend. And although it picks right up where the previous game in the series ends, it is a stand alone game that can be enjoyed without ever playing any previous installment. Dire Grove is perhaps not as long as Return to Ravenhearst, and yet it still manages to buck the current trend of ever-shrinking gameplay time now seen in most adventure/hidden object hybrids. Between the exploration, the hidden object scenes, and the puzzles you are looking at hours of fantastic casual gameplay.
Fantasy of the Sord is a classically styled adventure game and a finalist in our 6th Casual Gameplay Design Competition. In answer to the call of the competition, Klint Honeychurch has taken the theme of "exploration" and given us a sweet little nugget that harkens back to the early days of console gaming; a time when a flurry of pixels was as well-designed as the high-polygon count, 3D models of today.
Take a journey through one introvert's convoluted mind as you work to cooperate with your past selves, recorded in time. As soon as you reset the clock, the level starts anew, except now there's a phantasmal double of yourself scurrying about, re-enacting your first playthrough move for move. Press [space] again, and add another one to the mix, this one also moving according to the steps you laid out. Some levels will place a restriction on the number of ghostly doppelgangers you can conjure, and these are the levels where you'll have to see just how adeptly you can work with...well, yourself.
One the surface, Gratuitous Space Battles, from Kudos developer Positech Games, looks like your run-of-the-mill space RTS, something in the vein of the Homeworld series or Star Wars: Empire at War. But when that glance turns into a longing stare, you'll realize it's very different from both of those series and isn't really, in fact, a real time strategy game at all. Gratuitious Space Battles has a whole new system of gameplay going for it that, in many ways, feels more like a tower defense game than anything else.
Seek out your destiny, young knight! Or candlemaker. Or beast tamer. Or cook! In Cute Knight Kingdom, a fantasy life simulator from Hanako Games, you'll guide a young girl with a mysterious past to any one of dozens of endings. Will you become a renowned warrior? Or will you settle down and carry on the family business? Despite some repetitive gameplay, Cute Knight Kingdoms is an addictive little title that will be right at home with anyone who enjoys open-ended simulators.
Lights... camera... URK. Lottie's got a problem the night of her big stage audition, and she's not willing to go down without a fight. Sarah Morayati's snappily written interactive fiction piece about teenage girls under the limelight suffers slightly from some unintuitive puzzle design, but is easily carried by a memorable cast of characters and some genuinely funny storytelling. Broken Legs is an over-the-top and snarky adventure worth a look from anyone who has at any point ever been a teenager, stereotypes aside.
In What You See, a new point-and-click puzzle game, sometimes what you see isn't what you get. Just follow the instructions for each level, trying to figure out what they mean and then performing the action(s) required. It's a bit like a classic riddle game, but with a large dose of pointing and clicking added to make it accessible to a more casual audience.
Slash your way through monsters of myth and legend in this off-kilter side-scroller where you play as a lone samurai, pursuing a great dragon. Master special moves before they master you, buy upgrades, and drink in the sleek scenery as you race towards your destiny.
Byzantine Perspective is a tight little heist game from this year's annual interactive fiction competition. You're a student with less-than-legal plans for how to fund your education: get into a museum of Byzantine artifacts, get the valuable antique chalice, get out again. You're rigged out in your best cat-burglar clothes, with your best cat-burglar tools — some of them borrowed from an acquaintance, which raises never-answered questions about what sorts of company the protagonist keeps.
Are you old enough to remember sitting down in front of the TV on a Sunday night, anticipating the appearance of Angela Lansbury in one of the longest-running mystery series ever? If so, you will be thrilled with Murder, She Wrote by Legacy Interactive, a wonderful mystery hidden object/adventure hybrid based on the long-running television series of the same name. Murder, She Wrote allows the player to join world-renowned mystery author Jessica Fletcher as she makes her way through five brand new murder mysteries.
Taking home first prize in the Casual Gameplay Design Competition is no small feat, but David Shute's deceptively simple game of exploration does it with just a few small worlds. A short platformer that may stay with you a long time, Small Worlds offers detailed and surprising environments for you to reveal in your search for... a little peace and quiet.
Valerie Porter and the Scarlet Scandal is a stylish hidden object/adventure hybrid set in the roaring 20s. Wander back to a time when men were guys and women were dolls, when gin joints and speakeasies were the happening places to be, and when an intrepid girl reporter could really make a difference. There are 11 chapters and a prologue to this messy tale, each chapter containing multiple HOG scenes interspersed with a variety of mini-games.
The popular Battalion series continues with Ghosts, your solution to the daily ain't-go-no-tank blues. It's turn-based strategic warfare at its pixelated finest as the story continues. It's puns, explosions, and tactics galore. Will you emerge triumphant from the ten stage campaign? Or is it back to boot camp for you?
The Control Panel is an oldie but a goodie. Despite its age the game is a tight, well-constructed puzzle solving treat. Stripped of everything that usually accompanies a puzzle of this sort, no story, no background, no instructions, be prepared to sit back and let the gameplay blow your mind (and perhaps cause a concussion, if you end up banging your head against the nearest flat surface in frustration).
If you could rotate the world and change gravity, things like golf, juggling, balancing a spoon on your nose and standing upright after you've been laying down for three hours would be easy. Attracting Twist teases us with that concept by giving you control over the direction gravity flows, allowing you to move the game world and change where things "drop". Using this ability, your goal is to shoot your way to massive chain reactions as enemies slowly spawn near your ship.
With its stylish black and white art and haunting music by Coin, Colour My Heart continues to blur the line between game and experience, between play and art. Using a less linear structure than the first two games allows the player to wander back and forth through the stark, cold landscapes. Although there is a conclusion this is more (much more) about the journey.
Zombies. Those creepy undead creatures. Ever since George Romero showed us just how nasty the undead can be, zombies have become a staple of good (and bad) horror. And they come in all shapes and sizes. The only thing as varied as the zombies are the ways in which resourceful protagonists come up with to send them back to the grave. But one of the most interesting weapons of choice has to be the bowling ball, as we see in Zombie Bowl-O-Rama.
This little Dralien baby needs to find his mommy, and it's not gonna let hostile aliens, baffling contraptions, or anything else get in its way. Gameplay takes place across a series of scenes, each infested by dangerous foes, puzzling mechanisms, and other varied points of interest. Any and all clickable hot spots are highlighted with little white circles, drawing your attention to anything you might need to solve the situation at hand.
Absence is creepy, but not scary. Nothing is going to jump out at you, there's nothing in the rooms apart from lots of trash. Fire it up while taking a few minutes away from other tasks, and just enjoy the spooky atmosphere without worrying you'll have a heart attack. After all, Halloween is just around the coroner.
On the list of things that are more useful in video games than they are in the real world, grappling hooks are certainly near the top. Acquiring a grappling hook in the real world is positively thrilling, until you start thinking of ways you can actually (and legally) use it. Fortunately, the aptly-titled Grappling Hook isn't grounded in reality. The puzzle platformer from SpeedRunGames is filled with 22 levels of quick-thinking grappling goodness that is sure to keep you zooming around for hours.
From Amanita Design, creator of the famously brilliant Samorost series, comes Machinarium, a game so well-conceived and implemented it can confidently launch as one of the best point-and-click adventures of all time. Machinarium is nothing short of a playable piece of art. Similar to Samorost in style and gameplay, you play a lone robot thrown out of the city working his way through desolate mechanical slums. Solve puzzles, find and combine items, and encounter loads of creative characters in your quest. Machinarium is one of those rare games you can't praise enough.
Nitrome's latest release, Graveyard Shift, is a first person rail shooter reminiscent of classic arcade games like Time Crisis. You know, those stand-up cabinets with attached guns where you had to shoot off the screen to reload. Instead of plastic pistols, you're armed with your mouse, and instead of taking out bad guys, you're disposing of zombies, killer bugs, poisonous plants, and other Halloween-approved foes.
Robin the Archer in Pixeland is a platform adventure that's all about Robin, a cute little character made out of chunky pixels who's really good with the bow. Each level is filled with coins, enemies, breakable blocks, and a whole mess of tricky jumps to navigate. Work your way through over a dozen stages, stopping between levels to upgrade your abilities.
Choose between playing as Anakin Skywalker for the Republic, or as the Jedi assassin, Asajj Ventress, in this Star Wars action adventure game built in Unity 3D. Forget what you think you know about browser-based games and give LEGO Star Wars: The Quest for R2D2 a try. It won't be long before you get sucked into a time long ago in a galaxy far, far away, where plastic bricks vied for control of the universe.
We've been in charge of running a country during a national crisis Pandemic: American Swine Flu. We've led the nation to world conquest Mastermind: World Conqueror. But have you ever wondered what goes on during the downtime? In-between the diseases and the hostile takeovers, everyday decisions still need to be made. NationStates is a massively multiplayer online game by author Max Barry that puts you in charge of your own fledgling nation to create and shape how you see fit.
Picma takes picross to dizzying new heights, and satisfies the never-ending craving familiar to picross addicts. The game lends itself well to the casual gameplay experience, being something you can do on a coffee break or when you have a few free minutes to solve a puzzle or two. Head to the site and solve one or two puzzles, or settle in for a marathon and solve until your eyes bleed, it is up to you. But definitely play Picma and enjoy the experience!
At first glance, Spectro Destroyer could be one of any number of platform shooters. Run and gun through the levels, taking out alien scum and robotic sentries trying to halt your progress. Then you realize there's more to this than shooting everything in sight. It's more like line-of-sight. In fact, Spectro Destroyer is just the opposite of the "shoot first, ask questions later" side-scrollers like Metal Slug and Abuse. Instead, it's an amalgam of a platform shooter and a physics puzzle. And that, my friends, is a lot of fun.
How does one navigate a world frozen solid by an apocalyptic catastrophe? On a squeaky bicycle, of course! Pedal your way across eight treacherous landscapes in this stunningly gorgeous platformer by Reece Millidge.
Gridrunner Revolution is a frantic, visually-intense shooter from Llamasoft. You play an unnamed little spaceman, alone and braving the neon, explosion filled depths of space. Suddenly, enemy ships approach. Do they want your ship? Your knowledge? A key piece of technology you have? Nobody knows. All that we can be sure of is if you blow enough of them up, space sheep wander on to the screen — and you can collect them.
Jason Nelson hits us with another simple movement game chock full of crazy texts and post-modern level design shenanigans. Are you ready to accept that things fall apart, the center cannot hold, and that doors can be opened by colliding with boxes? If so, prepare yourself for this mind boggling, stunningly austere experience.
This time around I scavenged up a pair of small but entertaining room escape packages from a Japanese developer called No1Game. The first, Emergency Exit Sign, tells the story of a Japanese all-night worker who just about lives at his office, which becomes a problem when a monster traps him inside. The second, Game In Game In Game, shows us a rather obsessed escape fanatic who plays a room escape game every day before bed, only to wake up one morning trapped in one.
Bloktonik is an addictive new colored block-matching game with a twist: blocks come into the play area from all 4 sides, and it's up to you to manage where they land. A new twist on an old classic, Bloktonik is a great way to waste an afternoon. Or several, depending on how willing you are to are to avoid the real world.
Get ready for a robotic destruction derby of vast proportions, as you blast, shock, and, um, "tickle" your way through 23 levels of fleshy foes who'd love to take you apart for the scrap metal. Hold down the mouse button to activate your super-extendable tickling arms, redesigned with slightly less giggly purposes in mind, and let no man, machine, or anything else stand in your way.
For those who enjoy hybrid hidden object/adventure games PuppetShow: Mystery of Joyville is casual gameplay done right. If you want to kick off the Halloween season right, then sit back, relax, and make your way through Joyville before evil completely envelops the town. Just one word of advice: you might want to play with the lights on.
A collaboration between game developer and artist, The Glean of Glob was initially created as an interactive art installation. And though this Web edition might be called an experimental point-and-click, the term 'game as art' is definitely at play here. Add this to the category of games that push the envelope of what a game can be.
In this funky little gem of a platformer, your goal is to make it across 26 levels in the fastest time possible. Collect the green atoms scattered along the way to remove 5 seconds from your time, but each time you die, you add 5 seconds to your total time. Customization features abound and help to enhance the experience within.
Smokescreen is a new alternate reality game (ARG) from entertainment company Six To Start. Social networking, blogging, and chat lingo are all part of this game that takes on the task of warning players about the dangers of the Internet in a way that makes you feel like you're experiencing them first-hand.
Indulge your inner siege engine in Crush the Castle: Players Pack, a sequel comprised of devious maps made by fans to test your destructive physics skills and push your ability to smoosh tiny kings to its limit. While it doesn't bring much else new to the table, the Players Pack is a great showcase of some genuinely clever community talent from people just like you. Although we're sure you have much better hair.
Abuba is most definitely not ready to survive in the hostile environment that is suburbia. Cold, hungry, tired and scared after crash landing, Abuba just wants to go home and it is up to you in this short and cute point-and-click adventure from Pencilkids. Take a casual gameplay break and help get Abuba home! Abuba say thank you. And so do we.
If you are looking for a break from the standard RTS fare, or just want to play through a really well-made game, then look no further than Shadez II: Battle for Earth. This 2D side-scrolling title is extraordinarily well-made from top to bottom, providing enough strategy, explosions, and alien killing machines to keep most RTS fans busy for some time.
More door locks to figure out? Check. More machinery to fiddle with, hoping to not blow up the place? Check. Annoying cell phone still telling you what to do? Check. Yet another really ticked off creature from beyond ready to rip you to shreds? Uh, why in the world did we leave that lovely, peaceful green vat again?
If a pirate's life involves as much escape, danger, punches, and angry dogs as Tortuga 3 has, then it certainly isn't the life for us! After managing to escape the first two episodes, find a way ashore and stay one step ahead of your scurvy pursuers in this latest installment of a classic pirate point-and-click adventure. Just remember to keep one hand on your dubloons!
Bleep, bloop, assimilate! The life of a robot is hard. When you're slated for that big old junk heap in the sky, do you go quietly into that long good night? If you're playing Mechanaughts, a quirky little action platformer, you fight your way to your oppressors and take your mechanical revenge. Since robots tend to have cold, unfeeling metal pincers for hands, that revenge is unlikely to consist of hugs and a heartfelt discussion on your feelings.
Nancy Drew has returned in a brand new hidden object adventure! The ink is still warm from her previous case, so one would think Nancy gets a little vacation. It's anything but time to relax when a series of "construction accidents" (explosions!) rocks a posh spa/resort, forcing Nancy to investigate without alerting the wealthy clientele.
Much like the Dream Chronicles series or the more recent Princess Isabella: A Witch's Curse, the new casual adventure game Drawn: The Painted Tower drops you in a gorgeously drawn world filled with items to find and puzzles to solve. The story and artwork wrap the game in a brilliantly mysterious package, delivering a feast for your senses as you devour the simple (but tasty!) gameplay.
Your journey as Arkus Rei, space pirate, continues in this series of extremely challenging platform adventures. Follow the instructions given by your new found human companion to uncover treasure beyond your imagination. But first you must travel to several different dangerous locales and, well, survive.
U-Sensor is a fun, engaging escape game from Japanese development studio, HILG (G-Sensor). Short enough for casual gameplay yet complex enough (three different ways out) to have fun playing more than once. Escape the doldrums of office work by escaping from the office!
Mr. Jones' Graveyard Shift is a curious combination of a free-form simulation, tycoon management title, and time management game. As customers come in, you custom-create grave plots based on their requests and budget. You have an enormous amount of freedom in how you create your graveyard, allowing you to be creative, inventive, or just plain efficient. Plus, there's no time pressure!
From turbo starts to spectacular crashes, Heat Rush successfully captures the heart of arcade racing games of the past. Strap yourself in, pull on the leather driving gloves, and get ready to go VROOM!!
Battalion: Arena is a grand way to get the morally questionable thrill of outwitting a fellow human being with miniature tons of steel and explosives at your command. The multiplayer chapter of the Battalion series may not stray far from its Advance Wars roots, but then, Advance Wars is a great game.
The Metalix have hidden their power source deep within their lair, and it's up to you to seize it! If only you weren't so... naked. Dungeon crawl the night away in this addictive roguelike from Point Zero as you search for gold, items, weapons, and, yes, clothes on your way to stop the Metalix. With randomly generated treasure and dungeons, steel daddy-long-legs, giant eggs and killer babies, you're in for a long trip.
Appearing out of nowhere like a crazy tropical storm, Coconut Queen has arrived and is ready to give Build-a-lot (and, heck, even Totem Tribe) a challenge for its casual sim throne. Combining the "neighborhood improvement" concept with some inventive unlockables and a subtle sense of humor, Coconut Queen provides a phenomenal gaming experience with enormous replay value.
Coinciding with H.P. Lovecraft's birthday today, we review Necronomicon, a single player trading card game by Games of Cthulhu. If you're astute, then you could probably assume from either the game's title or from the developer's name that this trading card game is one steeped in H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos.
Searching for her twin sister who vanished while exploring an enormous mechanical cube discovered in space, Rua ventures deeper into enemy territory with her companion Cedric and quickly finds herself in over her head in this stylish, fast-paced shooter. Upgrade your abilities, increase your proficiency, buy new weapons, and discover new ships while you try to stay alive long enough to unravel the mystery behind the disappearance of Rua's sister.
After discovering a photo of a young boy in her attic, a boy her parents insisted wasn't real, Rosemary returns home in this bittersweet point-and-click adventure to uncover the truth about her childhood friend. A remarkably well made game that centers around invoking the proper memories to reveal the past, Rosemary is a sweet, sad, thoughtful story that could wind up staying with you much longer than it takes to play.
You reprise the role of the resilient young castaway, Mina, and her adorable primate pal, Jep. When last we left the duo, we thought we had made our way safely off of Nemo's island, but it seems we were a little naive. Now you must guide them both through more explorations of the island in the hopes of getting off of it... again!
Strange Cases: The Tarot Card Mystery is a new hidden object/adventure/mystery hybrid by Sulus Games. You play FBI agent Claire Ellery assigned to a case in a fishing village so small it can't be found by GPS, which should be your first hint that something's rotten.
If you're a big fan of sports games and have been dying for something to play at work on break, this is it. Even if you aren't really that into sports games, Crunchball 3000 boasts quite a bit of accessibility. So gear up, warm up, stretch out, and pay no mind to the 6'4", 320 lb behemoth giving you the evil eye. Scars build character and you ain't got time to be scared. Are you ready for some Crunchball?
Rosangela Blackwell is just like any other young writer struggling to make it big in New York. Except for the ghosts only she can see. And the one she works with. When a string of murders breaks out in New York, Rosa smells a story, but the truth behind them may be more than she can handle. An incredibly polished point-and-click adventure from Wadjet Eye Games, The Blackwell Convergence is highly recommended, with an engrossing story, stunning visuals, and full voice acting.
This surreal platformer by Makibishi Inc. drops you unceremoniously into a world gone absolutely loony. As it turns out, stars are the cogs by which time ticks in this universe, and as fate would have it (as it often does), those stars have been scattered to the ends of the earth. You, a fearless yellow blockhead, must gather up the missing stars in hopes of setting things right in the world again, or at least as right as things get in that place. Which isn't very right at all.
You play a poor and homeless beggar in this piece of interactive art from Scott Brodie. You must figure out how and what to eat, and where to go and what to do. You must learn the laws of the land the hard way, and you must ultimately learn to subsist on the charity of strangers, lest you fade and wither away to nothingness.
A frothing geyser of black vapor lies somewhere in every level, and it's up to you to send the shivering little protagonist tumbling into the miasma. The game's kind enough to tuck a decidedly useful trick up your sleeve: white objects can be disintegrated with but a single click of the mouse.
In the original Pandemic and its sequels, you were responsible for widespread sickness. In Pandemic: American Swine, you're trying to keep it back. Play from the other side of the fence in the latest installment of germ warfare as you manipulate the media to keep the public calm, institute curfews, keep your borders clean, and try to find a cure.
You control three different characters: a hulking heavy weapons master, a stealthy ninja scout, and a shield-bearing defense specialist. They are the Galactic Commandoes, and they're here to solve a series of platform/puzzle levels using their unique strengths and abilities! Yeah, teamwork!
This crazy mash-up of RPG and color-matching puzzle is gorgeous, fun, and addictive. Destroy groups of blocks and rotate the puzzle grid to fight monsters by falling on them from above with your drill lance spinning. Bigger and better than the first Knightfall in every way, with a fleshed-out story, creative boss battles, and more ways to build your character, Knightfall 2 is what a sequel should be.
This is what you might get if you stapled The Italian Job movie to the Spy Hunter video game, and it doesn't get much cooler than that. You are the getaway driver as your den of thieves recruits thugs, plans robberies, and flees from the scene with the cops in hot pursuit. The Heist 2 may not be pretty, but crime never is.
Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy stamps its way into the hidden object scene and holds its ground with well-integrated story and gameplay, great artwork, and logical hiding places for items. It's perfect for casual audiences who aren't looking for a lot of challenge but want a good gaming experience nonetheless.
Minecraft is a sandbox game that lets you make your own world out of colorful building blocks. Construct a fortress, and then plant tulips on the parapets. Dig a vast network of subterranean tunnels, drop a colony of people down the rabbit hole, and watch them wander. Or, if you're in a particularly metacognitive mood, make a sandbox. Uncage your imagination, and let it take you where it will.
Department 42: The Mystery of the Nine is a hidden object adventure game from Frogwares, creator of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened and Secret Missions: Mata Hari and the Kaiser's Submarines. Take the role of an agent working for Department 42, a secret organization that investigates paranormal events. Yes, kind of like X-Files! Nine malevolent artifacts that were sealed away in Grimstone mansion have gone missing, and it's your job to find them before their evil influence spreads chaos around the world.
Our hero is a cute little bunny with a cute little bunny crown, a newcomer to an island chain that recently experienced an "incident." As a result, its inhabitants and natural vegetation have been damaged, and like any good hero, you need to restore the land to its former glory. Along the way, find the girl, fall in love and marry her. Of course everybunny knows that the best way to a girl's heart is to gather rocks and wood so you can buy her things she likes, so get to it!
Forget your power-ups and your super-combos. It's time to do your best flat-foot impersonation and hit the street after your target in this unique typing game, where your wheels only turn as fast as your fingers fly. Featuring a snarky sense of humour and a noir atmosphere on top of some of the craziest dialogue around, The Red Herring Chase is a brilliant little gem of a game that may or may not break all your fingers.
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