Free Games!

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I got the Sept. 2008 issue of PC Gamer which has 365 free games, so each day I'll post one. I haven't played them myself obviously, but some sound pretty good/interesting.

Games by the Category

Category: King of Pain

Epic Saga: Extreme Fighter
A fighting game from Doublefine, purveyors of the fine PC game Psychonauts
Karoshi
A platformer in which your character commits suicide in order to proceed. Deaths involve crates, bullets, and electrocution.
Adventure of Cat
Propel a cat through levels via an extendable pole-vault pole. Yes, really.
Rose and Camellia
"This is the elegant art of feminine conflict" according to the site. In other words, it's a third-person Victorian slap-fighting game made in Japan.
Punishment 1
Quoth the site: "An unfairly difficult platform game that is painful and nauseating to play".
Punishment 2
Given the write-up from Punishment 1, you can probably guess.
Grid16
It's you against a grid of games, where the challenge is to figure out how to play before the game's over.

Category: Hip to be Square

Toblo
Online physics-based shooter. Grab building blocks from the landscape and toss them at your enemies.
Kumoon
Control a cute little bird with a gun and shoot down all the boxes.
Rumble Box
Escape by destroying your opponents and using their parts to climb out of the box.
Shapes on a Plane
Arcade shooter where enemies attack across the six faces of a cube. Rotate the cube to direct your fire.

Category: Animal Behavior

The Crossing
Using a platform, prevent the deer from falling into an abyss.
Bugs
Bounce high in the air to scare the ladybirds away.
Penguin Panic
Fire your ice ray at panicking penguins to freeze them solid.
What Comes Around
Of all the territorial raccoon sims we've encountered, this one's especially sweet.
Hydrophobia
A frog drowning sim. Oh, OK: you're meant to keep him out of the water.
Polychromatic Funk Monkey
Guide the titular simian through a world of multicolored moveable blocks.
Arctic Blue
A game of hot potato - with a boat on a whale.

Category: Rock Your Body

Stepmania
A dance game with free tracks you can play via keyboard or dance mat
Frets On Fire
Guitar Hero clone with user-made tracks and the keyboard as your guitar. Strum with the Enter key.
Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 2
A rhythm-action webgame that works like, yup, a simplified Guitar Hero.
MiniDrumPro
Flash-based rhythm game that uses the keyboard as your drum kit.

Category: Ragdoll Comedy

Stair Dismount
Push your little ragdoll down stairs, adjusting where and how much force to use. His pain - points.
Truck Dismount
More ragdoll abuse: this time, you place him in front of a truck.
Toribash
Turn-based online fighting game. Tweak your character's joints and muscles to make slo-mo attacks.
Sumotori Dreams
"Drunken" ragdolls duking it out have as much difficulty simply standing as hitting.
Nekofight!
Imagine Darwinians getting drunk and attempting capoeira. Amazing, acrobatic results.
Ragdoll Matrix Reloaded
Control an Agent Smith ragdoll and dodge the never-ending stream of slow-motion bullets.
Ragdoll Masters
An Ang Lee-inspired fighting game. You control your character's momentum, but not his wildly flailing limbs.

Category: Bang Bang

Enemy Territory
Attack and defend in a class-based shooter set in the oft-ignored WWII.
F.E.A.R. Combat
F.E.A.R.'s multiplayer decoupled from the main game. Full of slow-motion shooting and kung-fu.
Savage 2
Online fantasy shooter with a touch of RPG and RTS. Each team has a commander to order its troops.
World of Padman
Cute online/offline cartoon shooter, with oversized maps (you appear tiny) and multiple game modes.
Cube 2: Sauerbraten
Single- and multiplayer old-school blaster lets the player edit the map in-game.
Celestial Impact
Brilliant multiplayer shooter where your guns deform the very moonlets you fight upon.
Paintball 2.0
Based on the open-source Quake 2 engine: deathmatch without death.
Nexuiz
Old-school shooter with loads of levels, modes and mutators.
Tremulous
Choose from different race - aliens or humans - build up bases, and pwn.
America's Army
Hardcore shooter sponsored by the U.S. military.

Category: Blood on the Asphalt

Armagetron Advanced
Tron's iconic lightcycles rendered as a multiplayer vehicle combat game. Extra modes include CTF.
Gride
Add and remove abilities from your ever-moving car in order to go as far as you can across infinite terrain.
03/06/09: Type Racer
Category: Blood On The Asphalt
A racing game where your speed is dictated by how quickly you can type.
Racing Pitch
Using a microphone, make engine noises with your mouth in order to make your car accelerate.
Goliath
Team-based vehicle combat game in a world of road warriors terrorized by an enormous, unstoppable tank.
ElastoMania
Motorbike sim emblazoned with proper physics has literally tens of thousands of levels available for download.
Trackmania Nations Forever
The ultra-excellent TrackMania, completely free! And now you can play against people with the pay-for version, too.
Off-Road Velociraptor Safari
A velociraptor driving a jeep, running over other velociraptors. If you don't want to play this, we don't even want to know you.
Rider
Paperboy crossed with Tokyo Bus Guide. Deliver packages without breaking the laws of the road.
GeneRally
A minimalist Micro Machines. Up to six players can bounce and break their cars together.
Wild Metal
Early Rockstar game of vehicular combat - you fight automated military units on the Tehric planetary system.

Category: RPFree

Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden
The year is 2053. Basketball is illegal. But that won't stop you. Deeply weird, and very funny.
Sewer Goblet
Old-school RPG about what happens when the Wu-Tang Clan adopt a baby.
The Diary of Anne Frank
An authentic depiction of Anne Frank's life, in platform form.
Winter's Heart
Turn-based combat and a really cute story make for an adorable mini-RPG.
The Desolate Room
Enormously involved robot combat that's raising money for a playground in Afghanistan.
Exit Fate
Turn-based RPG with tactical strategy combat. And bribery.
Last Scenario
A deep RPG replete with side-quests and its own spellcard system.
Wilfred, The Hero
Wilfred and Kyr-Stan are trying to remove evil from the world. Go, guys!
Exult
A fan-made remake of Ultima 7 that works on modern PCs.
Forumwarz
Legendary spoof RPG. Will you play as Camwhore, Emokid, or Troll?

Category: Press Up to Jump

Platform Racing
A multiplayer racing game that works like an old-school Mario platformer.
Sunset Runner
Run along the top of a train, jumping gaps and ducking the obstacles.
Bonesaw
Beat-em-up, puzzler, and platformer in which you hit folks with a hockey stick.
Hurrican
Jump and shoot game with a protagonist who looks an awful lot like Robocop.
Death Worm!
Death Worm! Death Worm! Death Worm! Death Worm!
Fantastic Blood Boy
Use randomly generated items to indirectly attack enemies.
What Linus Bruckman Sees When His Eyes Are Closed
Amazing split-screen platformer where you play as both an ancient samurai and a fast-food heir.
7 Minutes
Astonishingly nihilistic, with some lovely inventive moments, especially when it all goes dark.
Cave Story
Cute, classy side-scrolling platform game. We've usefully provided the English translation.
The Power
So focused on exploration that it boasts it has no puzzles.
Fancy Pants Adventures
Free-running adventure set in a beautifully animated world.
Bollen
If Super Mario starred a ball instead of a plumber, you'd get this. Bounce through increasingly difficult levels to reach the flag.
Muon
Bounce your double-jumping cube around randomly generated levels.
Paroxysm
A bit like Prince of Persia - you guide your little man through dungeons of spikes and traps.

Category: Logic Problem

Liberal Crime Squad
Foul language, violence, politics, religion, sexual references, adult situations, narcotics, prostitution, bodily functions, and bad pickup lines. Sold!
Masq
The Deus Ex of comic-strip soap operas. Get shot, divorced, incarcerated, all three, and more.
Guest House
An escape-the-room game. Use dreaded logic to think your way out.
Tale of Two Kingdoms
You're the sworn enemy of a king, called on to help him find out who's attempting to assassinate him.
Apprentice II: The Knight's Move
You're a wizard's apprentice in a series of adventure games. This episode is our favorite.
Reactor 09
Convince a prison guard to help you escape.
DayMare Town
Sketchily drawn adventure where you explore a creepy deserted town.
Anika's Oddyssey
Mesmerizingly pretty adventure game. Hunt for your stolen rabbit friend. Aw.
Samorost 1
Solve organic puzzles in artist Jakub Dvorsky's beautiful collage world.
Samorost 2
This time, your little white-hooded fellow has had his dog stolen by aliens!
Questionaut
Created by Dvorsky for the BBC, it incorporates loads of his gorgeous art.

Category: Best. Homework. Ever.

The Pantry
Not so much a game as a strange toy to click on. Ghosts in the pantry!
Beneath a Steel Sky
Beautiful and funny. You play an amnesiac with a sarcastic robot.
Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy!
A lady pirate must discover why all the birds are disappearing from the Barony of Meeth.
Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth
Demo of the in-development free game.
Infinity String
You're the sole American at an Arctic research station where weird events are occurring.
6 Day Assassin
You're an assassin who must use his skills and observational powers to escape a room.
Penumbra
It's a tech demo for the episodic retail series, but the physics here still make for a fun game to poke around in.

Category: Detective Work

Sam & Max - Abe Lincoln Must Die
The malevolent bunny andhis doggy pal travel to Washington to stop a statue running for president.
BeTrapped!
You're inspector Parker, hunting down clues in order to solve a murder. Wait, we can do better: a MURDER!!
Fedora Spade
Old-school point-and-clicker. Interrogate people for clues.
Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator
Multi-episodic point-and-click. The first one is called: In Search of the Skunk-Ape.
Rorschach
Uncover the dark goings-on at an insane asylum.

Category: Zombies

The Last Stand
Fight zombies by night and build up an undead-proof barricade by day.
The Last Stand 2
Like all good zombie fare, The Last Stand gets a sequel.
Bloody Zombies
Using a lawn mower, rip up the undead. You might as well do the weeding too.
Facewound
Side-scrolling shooter full of beautiful effects and fun weapons.
Cottage of Doom
To quote the game-maker: "... the chilling terror of a modest forest dwelling beset by the hordes of the undead!"
Boxhead: The Zombie Wars
Top-down shooter - back away from and take out an ever-increasing horde.
Zombie City Tactics
Top-down zombie strategy game. Is it possible to outthink the unthinking horde of undead?
Sonny
Play as an undead braineater in this superb turn-based RPG.

Category: Ambient Gaming

flOw
Top-down evolutionary oddity where your creature grows and moves through a primeval world.
Within a Deep Forest
Pretty, relaxing platform game. Bounce a ball through levels, upgrading it to solve different puzzles.
Knytt Stories
From the maker of Within a Deep Forest, but with an actual character instead of a ball.
Seraphim Flame
You're an angel out to save his race in this floaty, platform/flying game.
Endless Forest
Be a deer and try this strangely compelling MMOG/screensaver.
The Expletions of the Little Green Pod Man
Platformer where jumping is replaced by turning into a Venus Fly Trap and spitting out your character.
Cloud
Take to the skies and drag the clouds into puzzle-solving shapes. Very genteel.
Seiklus
Relaxing platformer where you mostly just explore the game world; there's little violence or collecting.

Category: Gunslingers

Gunlimb
You have guns for limbs, so you shoot them to move as well as kill. Stupidly fun.
XED
Vertical-scrolling shooter that'll suck your eyeballs out in a blur of neon and fire.
Bowmaster
Protect your castle! Judge the distance and arc or your weapons and wang stuff at enemies.
Platypus
Cute side-scrolling shooter where the models are made out of clay.
Exception
Shooter full of grey boxes - a dodge that enables the developer to fill the screen with huge numbers of enemies.
Harmotion
Two-player versus schmup that keeps track of your many battles online for bragging rights.
Battleships Forever
Real-time tactical-strategy space shooter where you can draw your own force field.
Fraxy
Top-down frenetic shooter that comes with its own awesome editor.
Iwanaga
Side-scroller shooter where you're dodging the enemy bullets or slashing them back at the firer. Rar!
Minishoter RS
Side-scroller with masses of weapon customization and hidden extras.
Return to Sector 9
Top-down shooter with a myriad of enemy-crushing unlockables.
Storm Assault
Side-scrolling tribute to Gradius: a bullet dodging, enemy scouring, space-faring shooter.

Category: Phys Ed

Tiny Hawk
A one-button game. Choose whether your tiny skateboarder jumps, grinds, or kickflips.
New Star Soccer 3
A sort-of RPG where you take control of a single player and make him the star of the team.
Pangya Golf
Japanese-o-crazy golf game with talking-cat golf bags and giant windmills. Cuter than you can bear.
Golf?
Wonderful WASD-controlled golf game set in a wireframe world. Your head is a gun!
Kart 'N' Crazy
Multiplayer Mario Kart clone with sickly bright tracks. Scream in delight or frustration as the bonuses come.
Dolphin Olympics 2
Awesome dolphin leaper. Glide in and out of the water, scoring points for style, and even entering space.

Category: Abstractia

The Last Canopy
A fairly simple shooter with a calming aesthetic: you're a butterfly fighting mechanical enemies.
Attack of the Meeplings
A vertical shooter that's more about avoiding enemy fire than shooting.
Armed with Wings
Silhouette-graphics action fighter - your stick-wielding fighter comes armed with a very useful eagle.
Frozzd
A little like Mario Galaxy. You're in space bounding between planets, followed by creatures who help you.
Garden of Colored Lights
A pretty shooter influenced by the likes of Rez. Music is a key factor in play.
Atomhex
Shoot the Atoms, collect the Hexes, and battle for survival. It's a little bit Robotron.
Coil
Deeply odd Flash game abstractly telling the tale of life from conception. Play as a sperm!
Varia
A vertically scrolling shooter. Accompanied by your collectible helpers, you must cope with some novel background obstacles.
Echoes
Now with Crack! An Asteroids/Geometry Wars shooter, with an unlockable mini-game called Crack.
Once in Space
A platformer that looks like it was scrawled in the back of a school notebook.

Category: Urban Nightmares

Grand Theft Auto 1
Rockstar North has made its original criminal adventure free, leeting you wreak 2D havok old-school stylie.
Grand Theft Auto 2
The similarly 2D, similarly free follow-up, with more violence, more vehicles, and just as much moral depravity.
Attack of the Killer Swarm
A buzzing, whizzing swarm of something or other terrorizes tiny people by exploding them.
Nuclear Eagle
A giant mutant eagle - that's you - needs humans to feed its young. Watch out for the military response.
Jaywalker
Frogger's revenge. Force cars to crash in their attempts to avoid you.
Robot and the Cities that Built Him
Giant upgradable robots stomp and laser their way through a city of hapless victims and angry military.
Twister
Play as a whirlwind, touching down and tearing apart a suburban neighborhood.
Toadzilla
An ugly but compelling Rampage-alike, with you as a giant toad tearing buildings apart.
Black Shades
Can you keep the VIP alive? This is a kind of desperate, ultra-brutal bodyguard sim.

Category: Monochrome

Kaipuu
You set out to find your lost love and find your emotions (and the abilities they give you) on the way.
Shift
Ingenious platformer where you flip between worlds of black and white.
Clock Tower's Secret
An atmospheric platformer about exploring the insides of a fog-covered mechanical clock.

Category: Pixel Power

Honey Blaster
A shooter where you play a bumblebee fighting insects.
Dot Fighter
Old Fashioned beat-em-up fun with ridiculously charming graphics.
The Crypts of Despair
A Rogue-style game with pixels replacing the usual ASCII.
Ratmaze 2
You're a rat, you're in a maze, and you need to collect letters and cheese.

Category: Before They Were Famous

Narbacular Drop
The game that gave us Portal: a student project based on puzzles and portable holes.
Elder Scrolls: Arena
The incredibly early first-person RPG that gave rise to the Elder Scrolls series, Morrorwind, and Oblivion

Category: Suburban Drama

Duty and Beyond
A point-and-click adventure about delivering pizza, with charming graphics and mercifully logical puzzles.
On A Rainy Day
An elasticized tree o fhands must help paper boats cross a river via judicious use of umbrellas. Yes, it's like that.

Category: Science & Industry

Darwin Hill
Juggle the principles of evolution as you populate a hillside of weird humanoids. Mate, kill, or watch the results of overpopulation.
The Virtual Contraption
A physics-based platformer where every surface wobbles and waves when you put weight on it.
Super Energy Apocalypse
Defend your trash-recycling center from zombie attack. Has both tutorial campaign and sandbox modes.
Tower of Goo UNLIMITED!
The unlocked inspiration for World of Goo.

Category: Strat-O-Matic

FreeCiv
The original Civilization, remade for free-software-loving hippies. Still fun.
FreeCol
Colonization was Sid Meier's American history strategy game. Read the manual before you start this one.
Ground Control
A race of super-women, giant artillery trucks, and a twitch approach to real-time strategy; precursor to today's World in Conflict.
Spring
A freeware RTS that began by sprucing up Total Annihilation, but now exists as an indie alternative.
Cultivation
A competitive commune simulation - grow enough food to feed your habitat.
Micropolis
You can't beat SimCity, so the open-source devs didn't; they simply remade it and gave it a new name.
Railroad Tycoon
The original classic: arrange deliveries of goods to build an industrial empire.
UFO: Alien Invasion
Modern reinterpretation of the X-COM games, following their use of Geoscape and Tactical modes.
The Jeluvian Project
A sci-fi turn-based strategy game. Ignore the graphics: there's some deep, thoughtful skirmishing here.
Oasis
A superb cross between Minesweeper and Civilization, with barbarian hordes.
Naked War
Cute email strategy game for a free trial. Quirky and very, very British.
GLCatan
The classic Settlers of Catan board-game, rebuilt for the PC. Up to four players can join in, taking turns.

Category: For the Kids

A Game for Three-Year-Olds
Or 36-year-olds, as the case may be. Prod and combine scribbled objects just to see what happens.
Sprout
Continually resprout as a new plant travelling across the world to achieve your dream of being an acorn.
Warbears
A crack team of bears fight crime with puzzle-solving and timely maneuvers.
Gesundheit!
Snot-eating monsters have invaded town; lure them into the mouths of underground fish.
Bound Plus
You're a ball trying to reach an exit, with different surfaces in the world helping or hindering your progress.
Fold
Create spheres that alter local gravity to fling you where you need to go.

Category: Physics!

Gravity Head
A game in which your head is the source of all momentum.
Blight Warrior
Mad fractal physics game based on "Diffusion Limited Aggregation." May crash your PC. And your brain.
Phun
Insanely clever and compulsive physics sandbox developed as part of someone's Master's thesis.
Baron von Puttyngton versus the Cancerous M.C. Escher Maze of Cheese
Use the mouse wheel to spin the level, moving your block of cheese with the level's flipping gravity.
Ichor
Surround your opponent with ichor to win. A truly astonishing game based on fluid dynamics.

Category: Extreme Violence

Tekkyuuman
Astonishingly violent platform game from Japanese gaming savant Ikiki. Like an anti-Mario, you jump around and blast people into showers of meat.
Space Barnacle
Meet interesting aliens and, well, meat them in this absurdly violent scrolling platformer.
Hammerfall
Thrash around in the air fighting bugs and airships in a craft equipped with hammers, scythes, and other toys.

Category: Cactus Games

Ad Nauseam 2
Brilliant, brash shooter filled with insane flying enemies and bright, neon colors. Cactus at his best.
Seizure Dome
A top-down sumo game in which your enemies are waddling fat men and naked women flying at you feet-first.
Mondo Agency
Dark and disturbing FPS - a kind of indie-gaming Eraserhead where things don't really make sense and the solutions are often insane.
Minubeat
Gorgeous hand-drawn shooter with pure black-and-white visuals. Short, difficult, and very clever.
Protoganda 2
Vertical shooter with a vaguely Constructivist Communist bent. Tough, but raw and rewarding.
MSOIDS
Asteroids, but with everything crudely drawn by hand using MS Paint. Lo-fi awesomeness.
Mondo Medicals
Nightmarish first-person puzzler. Not for the faint-hearted.
xWung
A kind of pseudo-physics destruction game. Abstractly looks like an arena shooter, but your weapon is a swinging ball.
Burn the Trash
Scribbling hand-drawn shooter where everything must be burned down. Vaguely reminiscent of mad classic Yar's Revenge.
Fractal Fighter
One of those scrolling shooters where everything is a screaming bossfight with a billion bullets whistling past your ears.
Clean Asia!
The Independent Game Festival-winning masterpiece. A scrolling shooter with the usual array of irreverent ideas.
The Design
Weird shooter in which "enemies" can only be removed from the structure of the arena when they enter a specific state. Clever stuff.
Unholy Stage
Another Sumo-shooter hybrid in which you blast enemies while they try to knock you off your platform. Abstract and very tricky.
F*ck Space!
Beautifully pixilated scrolling shooter witg a rather specific attitude... lots of baddies, lots of bosses. Doesn't last too long.
Psychosomnium
Absurb platform game that scrunches up the rules and throws them in the bin.
Saru ga Daisuki
Very basic platformer, but entirely crazy. Use your yo-yo to slay the servants of the evil doctor and escape his techomaze of neon.
Decontrologic
Micro-adventure in the most basic tradition. Some unusual ideas mixed up with Cactus' usual bizarre humor.
God Came to the Cave
A pretty abstract adventure where you play a spirit traveling through a cave. Relatively normalized and feel-good compared to Cactus' other work.
The Birthday
A side-on adventure game in which you must save your brother from a birthday worse than any other. Bizarre, but that's Cactus.
Illegal Communication
An action puzzle game controlled with the mouse. Part of the game: figuring out what you're meant to be doing.
Ted's Wet Adventure
Not quite as filthy as it sounds, this satirical game mocks someone who tried to rip off the GameMaker software used to make it.

Category: I Love the 80's (aka, Rogue-like, for those who know what that means)

Doom, the Roguelike
RPG set in the Doom universe, so replace wands with double-barreled shotguns.
Dwarf Fortress
Terrifying complex RPG where you manage a team of dwarves as they hollow out a mountain.
Zangband
Punishing but complex and rewarding RPG for purists who like their graphics ASCII, just as God intended.
Legerdemain
An experiment in what happens when an old-school dungeon-crawler meets interactive fiction.
Frozen Depths
Imagine a dunegon-crawler set in icy wastelands where you need to keep warm. Blue text, everyone!

Category: ABA Games (aka, created by indie developer Kenta Cho)

Titanion
Gorgeous vertical shooter that plays off vector-graphics design, with some excellent explosions.
Mu-cade
We cannot improve on the website's description: "The Physics Centipede Invasion. Smashup waggly shmup, 'Mu-cade'."
Gunroar
GUNROAR! A sort of Asteroids meets Space Invaders, but more importantly, it's called GUNROAR!
Torus Trooper
Time-limited Tempest clone where you need to maintain your clock via the magic of high scores. Very pretty.
TUMIKI Fighters
A sort of Katamari meets side-scrolling shooter where your ship gathers the broken pieces of enemies.
rRootage
Deal with ludicrous barrages of bullets as you fight vast battleships in space.
Noiz2sa
As the spelling gets sillier, the games get weirder. This abstract shooter looks like it was designed on a calculator.
Massashikun Hi!
Stick-figure Olympics! Play shot put, high diving, high jump, sprinting, and tug-of-war in a peculiar black and white world.

Category: One-Click Ponies

1Key Cave Ship
Play hot potato with your spaceship in this letterbox game. Warning: the Hot Cave level has cartoon naked ladies.
Doeo
Frantic collection game where you hammer the mouse to grab any Doeos you see. Very Japanese.
OneSwitch Ballz
It's Marble Madness! You remember that, right? Oh, the young. It's all about furious timing and intricate balance.
Strange Attractors
Using only the spacebar, you must sling yourself from the bottom to the top.
Shades of Doom
Designed for the visually impaired, Shades creates its world through multi-layered audio and the spoken word.
Metro Siberia
More spaceship hot potato, navigating through lovely green and black cities with only the spacebar.

Category: Interactive Fiction

Anchorhead
Lovecraftian Gothic horror, subtle and spooky. Be brave and enjoy one of the most atmospheric games ever.
An Act of Murder
Award-winning murder mystery adventure set in an isolated country house. Forces you to make intuitive leaps to reach conclusions.
Lord Bellwater's Secret
A single-room murder mystery. You play Bert Smith, searching through your master's study for clues to the death of your sweetheart.
Across the Stars
It's the year 5367 IR, on a ship serving the Xulthe'en Empire. Life is hard, work is long, but dun dun duuuun! Adventure awaits.
The Chinese Room
It's been compared to Norman Juster's Phantom Tollbooth. A thought-experiment game covering the theoretical basis of calculus.
Lost Pig
Pig lost! Boss say that it Grunk fault. Maybe boss right. Very funny game. Make sure to remove your clothes in public.

Category: Deep and Meaningful

The Graveyard
A short game described by the dev as "an experiment in real-time poetry without words." Control an old lady walking through a graveyard.
Gravitation
A sweet little pixel-art game where you have to balance time between the small child who loves you and exploring the rest of the level.
Passage
Do you join with your girlfriend at the start of the game and have a difficulty passage through, or go alone and make the journey easier?
The Marriage
Two squares represent a husband and wife in this abstract look at the mechanics of a relationship. Deep, man.
Facade
Part play, part interactive fiction. A couple's relationship crumbles. Ask them questions in order to interact.

Category: Ninjas (Sorry, No Pirates)

Too Many Ninjas
Use your sword to protect your little barbarian by deflecting ninja stars back at the ninjas.
N
Prepare for multiple deaths. You're a tiny ninja with a thirst for gold in this physics-based platformer.
Super Secret Ninja
Speedily make your way to the level's end, dodging the guards and using a grappling hook to get to the platforms.
Kninja
Slashy, bashy fun. One of the few platform ninja games here that gives you swords and enemies to dice.
Ninja Flu
Stop the dead bird-flu-infected ninjas from hitting the ground. Control your ninja by typing directions.
Ninjah
Get your ninja past the platforms as quickly as possible, using your grappling hook and slo-mo ability.
Shotgun Ninja
What would happen if you gave a shotgun to a ninja? He'd probably kill even more people than normal, right? Right.
Katakijin
Platform beat-em-up with combos, wall-jumps, and plenty of violence.

Category: Drawing Board (With Pirates)

Crayon Physics
Crayon scribbles become solid objects to solve puzzles with. Draw planks, weights, and wedges to get the rolling ball to the level's end.
Chalk
Protect the wandering girl from assaults: use the chalk to draw barriers or cross out enemies.
De Blob
You're a blob that sucks up paint and uses it to color in his drab city by bouncing all over it!
Line Rider
Draw complex sledge runs and then watch your little Line Rider attempt to slide down them.
Line Golfer
You play on a golf course of your own devising, drawing it yourself before hitting the links.
Ocular Ink
You're a paintbrush-wielding eyeball battling the evil eye-pirate Patches Deadlights. Awesome.
Doodle Defender
Draw your own Asteroids-style ship, then use it to attack invading enemies, all on a sheet of lined paper.
Gunbound
Worms-like online action game where you're tasked with blowing the bits off random Internet opponents.

Category: Precious

Puffbomb
Accurately position bombs to propel cute little puff animals towrd their goal.
Earwig is Angry
A disturbed child in a mental hospital must bludgeon his way to a new life of setting fires. Oh my.
Stunt Hamsters
Hamsters spray from a cannon, and you need to lead them to the goal by, uh, setting them on fire.
Hello Panda
Top-down action with the Pandas, a gang of the three meanest criminals in the world, who set out to steal a painting.
Bokorin
It's raining men. Men who must be kicked with combo-fighting skills by your tiny flying ninja.
Zox Space Arena
Two to five players in an offline game try to blow each other to bits in a small circular arena.
Soldat
Sideways-scrolling multiplayer shooter: the urgency and rockets of an FPS, wearing platformer clothes.
The Visitor
A point-and-click adventure about an alien who must grow by inhabiting and exploding animals.

Category: Brain-Benders

Professor Fizzwizzle
Push crates, roll on barrels, and press buttons in the correct order.
Mr. Robot
Adorable robotic puzzle game that's beautifully designed and very satisfying. Free from Gametap.
3D Logic
Connect matching colored blocks across three faces of a rotating cube, using only straight lines.
Not Pron
Advance through a series of puzzles using any means available, including many that feel like cheating.
Mr. Heart Loves You Very Much
A platformer and sliding-block puzzle game about reaching Mr. Heart. He does love you, after all.
BLOX
Sliding-block puzzle game where you must match two or more colors to make them disappear.
Heaven2Ocean
Puzzle game about a water droplet changing state from steam to liquid to ice.
Logi-Gun
A puzzle platformer where progress depends on thoughtful, not violent, use of your six guns.
The Dark Room
A spinning cube, some mysterious buttons, and the challenge to light up all the sides.
Chromatron
Lasers not as weapons, but as puzzles. Place mirrors to bounce light and complete systems.

Category: Gravity

Gravitee
Pool with planets, or golf in space. You use planetary gravity to swing your ball into the hole.
Pogo Sticker
Platform game where you're only in charge of the power and direction of your character's jumps.
Thrust Xtreme
"Defeat the Empire, weaken their defenses, steal their Klystron pods!" With gravity.
Lunar Rescue
Control your thrust with the arrow keys in order to maneuver your ship and rescue the moon people.
You Found the Grappling Hook
Use your grappling hook to swing through a series of evilly difficult caves. Likely to make you weep.
Polarity
Platform game where you change your character's magnetism to either stick to or to be repelled by surfaces.
To Hell with Johnny
A forced-descent platformer where you must fall deeper into hell without dropping from the screen.
Gravitron
Asteroids-style movement: destroy reactors, rescue everyone, dodge neon death beams.
Vertical Challenge
Platform game where you use your character's grappling hook to clear the levels. Swing, baby.

Category: Bubbles and Balls

Paperball
Flash-based office favorite: throw a paper ball into a wastebasket while compensating for wind.
N-Ball
Bounce the neon, glowing plasma ball through the levels, dodging obstacles to reach the end.
Colocoro
Tilt the level using the left and right mouse buttons in order to move the little ball to the level's end.
Peggle
Aim the ball, clear the level of orange pegs. Ode To Joy! Extreme Fever!

Category: Color Crazy

Splume
Cute color-matching mixture of Puzzle Bobble, physics, and Peggle
Super Tummy Bubble
Wobbly and fun physics-based color-matching game where you're clearing out parasites. So it's educational too.
Colormental
Return the color to your grey world using fire, air, ice, lightning, and poison.
Bejeweled
Swap adjacent gems in order to make up lines of identical stones.
Invalid Tangram
Shooter combined with a color-matching block game. Every dead enemy becomes a block that clutters the screen.
Colorfill
Draw horizontal or vertical lines to block off sections of the level with colorful shapes, destroying the ships within. That'll teach them.
Marvin Spectrum
Side-scrolling Flash-drawn platformer where you must match your body color to the barriers through which you jump.
Dropheads
Simple color-matching game where you must pair up the heads dropping from above.
Jewel Quest 2
Click on pairs of jewels to swap their position and create color matches. Yup, it's another simple, addictive puzzle game. You'll hate us.

Category: Ohkubo Games (aka, by developer Hikoza Ohkubo)

Warning Forever
Ohkubo's most notorious shooter pits you against progressively bigger spaceships.
Rayhound
Alter the gravity around your ship to slingshot enemy laser-blasts back where they came from.
Cyclops
You're a central spaceship firing thick laser beams at waves of enemies attacking from all sides.

Category: Skutnik Games (aka, by developer Mateusz Skutnik)

Submachine
Seven hand-drawn clickable games in a series of existential adventures.
Daymare Town
A gorgeous hand-drawn adventure with many puzzles. Superbly atmospheric.
Mr. Mothball
Platforming strangeness as you play as, er, a mothball collecting dust in a series of hand-drawn levels.
Covert Front
A series in an alternative-history WWI, with Skutnik's trademark puzzles.
10Gnomes
The ultimate pixel hunt: you search photographs for 10 cartoon gnomes tucked away in silly places.
The Great Kitchen Escape!
Skutnik applies his puzzle logic to a very ordinary setting: getting out of the kitchen. Harder than you think.

Category: Deeply Peculiar (as opposed to Just Abstract)

Killawatt
A fun Flash game about piling up speakers on the back of a truck. No, really, it's fun.
After Doomsday
Web-based futuristic society simulator that appears to encourage fighting offline. Not that we condone that.
Enrichment Centre
Utterly bizarre Flash puzzle game loosely set in Portal's universe. Don't tell Valve.
Dyadin
Mind-boggling two-player action-puzzle game designed to be played on two PCs side-by-side.

Category: Instant Action

Marble Blast Online
Platform game where you're controlling a marble, collecting rubies, or simply speeding to the level's end.
Rokkitball
How all basketball will be played in the future: by robots with magnets and rockets.
ThinkTanks
A browser-based tank shooting game, not a game about strategic governmental meetings. Thanks heavens.
Cyclomite
Meteors are going to destroy the universe... unless you can catch them with your Cyclomite. Soldier, you've a universe to save!
ScrewJumper
Action and jumping: our two favorite things. You're in the underworld, destroying alien mining equipment. Because you're cool like that.
Zero All Productivity
A top-down Asteroids clone, but multiplayer, in your browser, and designed to prevent you from ever working ever again. How apt.

Category: MMOG

Runescape
Hugely successful browser-based MMORPG, where all the usual online tropes are available for free: quests, abilities, and, ooh, grinding.
Maple Story
This 2D platform MMO has about 30 trillion players, and is more cute than 15 bunnies in your sock drawer.
Puzzle Pirates
A puzzle game and MMOG, where your piracy skills are based on your puzzle abilities, e.g., fixing your sails with your chess skills.
Dungeon Runners
NCsoft's sense of humor in a game. This free (though you can pay for stuff) MMO is one whole elongated spoof of WoW, and is actually very funny.
Second Life
A meeting place for perverts, artists, advertising people, and presidential candidates. Join, create a character, and wander.
Mythos
Fate's Travis Baldree has created another awesome Diablo clone, built on the back of the Hellgate infrastructure. A full game, entirely free.
Bang Howdy
Wicky, wicky, wah what on Earth? It's a tactical MMO set in the Wild West, with gold rushing, card playing, and of course, shooting.

Category: Classic FPS

jDoom
Doom, but more so. Made prettier and smoother, but still the nasty shotgun-blasting, demon fighting game it always was.
Legends
Inspired by Tribes 2, Legends is an online shooter with the added bonus of jetpacks.
Marathon
Halo's progenitor, the game that countless Mac users will tell you is better than its successor.
Hidden & Dangerous Deluxe
Classic squad-based WWII stealth shooter, giving you free-roaming hunt-the-Nazi fun.

Category: Webstrat

Dice Wars
A game of world domination - essentially, Risk played with six-sided dice.
Desktop Tower Defence
A brillant reinvention of strategy gaming. Defend your desk from wave upon wave of abstract monsters by putting up turrets.
Protector
Desktop Tower Defense played with magicians and monks.
Storm Winds 1.5
Tower Defence crossed with a shooter in a tech-punk world, battling airships and weird flying beasts.

Category: The Final Frontier

GLFrontier
One man and his ship against the universe. Be a pirate, a trader, a mercenary...
BSG: Beyond the Red Line
Frakking-good fan game base on the new Battlestar Galactica, where you're a Viper pilot pew-pewing evil Cylon jerks.
Ur-Quan Masters
Huge space adventure where you're the captain of a ship exploring a galaxy and hunting a nameless foe.
Parallel Universe
A fan-update of Wing Commander: Privateer, rebalanced with new ships, missions, and bug fixes.
Noctis
Open-ended space exploration game where you get to name the planets you discover.

Category: Freesim

Flightgear
Open-source flight simulator with 20,000 airports and an accurate representation of Earth to fly over.
Orbiter
Hardcore space-flight sim enables you to relive all the greatest moments of the UK space program.
Flying Model Simulator
Lets you control remote-control planes, in case you're fearful of crashing your toy.

Category: MMOS Minus Graphics

Twilight Heroes
Meticulously constructed browser-based text MMO in which you play a hero fighting crime in a grim city. Ingenious, funny, and advertising-free.
PMOG
Fight friends and strangers by doing your day-to-day web browsing. Any task could net you points, from writing email to reading the news.

Category: Playing God

The Crowd
You affect group behavior by gifting individuals with emotions.
Big Vine
Cytoplasm
Silent, disturbing game in which you take control of a cell and battle malignancy while collecting food.
Incredible tech demo where you try to grow a pulsating silhouette tree. It's amazing.
Am Jesus
Projectile combat game where you play Jesus fighting off enemies who throw spears or sandals.
Dino Run
A meteorite hits Earth and you, a velociraptor, must run to escape the devastation.

Category: Under the Sea

Kylat
Wacky game based around undersea whacking. Solve submarine squabbling.
Dive
Can you get to the bottom?

Category: Ishii Games (aka, by developer Yoshio Ishii)

Basho Kioku
A simple memory game. Click on a square to complete the level, but you fail if it's a square you've ever clicked before.
Cursor*10
Time-bending puzzle game where you must cooperate with versions of your past self in order to advance.
Slidon
Simple pattern-matching game where you slide blocks around in the correct order to make them touch and vanish.
Hoshi Saga 2
Discover the star through combinations of clicking and problem solving in 36 levels of puzzles.
Plupon
Numbers slowly rain; you have to add them to make exactly 10 before they fall from the screen.

Category: Yahtzee Games (aka, by developer Yahtzee Croshaw)

5 Days a Stranger
The opening episode of Croshaw's AGS-built adventure series. Cat burgler Trilby finds himself mixed up in a time-spanning ghost story.
7 Days a Skeptic
400 years afer 5DaS, the crew of the ship Mephistopheles finds a mysterious artifact and learns that the ghosts of the past aren't as dead as they'd like.
Trilby's Notes
Now four years after 5DaS, we learn more about Trilby as he finds himself reunited with his past and the repercussions of his actions.
6 Days a Sacrifice
The fourth and final game in the quartet, set in multiple times hundreds of years apart, ties up the loose ends of the previous three games.
Trilby: The Art of Theft
Ben Croshaw's recurring Trilby character this time appears in a stealth-platformer, but maintains his distinctive retro style.

Category: Wheels!

Rigs of Rods
The marriage of a physics and driving game. Fying planes, sailing boats, controlling tractors... into, at, or off bridges.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
The only one I've actually played is Duty and Beyond, which I liked... I had to get the walkthrough because I missed a couple of things that were needed for the story advance, but overall it didn't feel like the puzzles were too hard or anything and you used everything you got eventually, which was good...
 
B

Budget Player Cadet

Guest
The Last Stand and The Last Canopy are both good fun.
 
B

BigBlue

Guest
Dice Wars has become an addiction... quick & easy...

Annoyingly random though... I either win, or lose in a turn if you get a horrible start and almost always end up going last which is brutal.
 
B

BigBlue

Guest
It's in Japan... maybe they block it there...

It's neat and simple... You could actually play it on a board which I'm thinking of trying w/ my boys.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, it's all in the initial post, although I probably should edit it to say what issue of PCGamer it now is, since it's been over a year :)
 
T

train

Guest
I tried to follow the Great Kitchen escape - and it went nowhere... (well - somewhere - but not to a game...)
 
T

train

Guest
If uh... "Play as a sperm" is in the game description - is this even SFW? (safe for the web)

:D
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Well, it's in the description as given by PC Gamer, not necessarily the game itself (as is the case in all of the game descriptions) :)
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Um, Dwarf Fortress? :D

I tried it, but the ASCII kind of threw me off. I mean, I like the basic Rogue game, but using that character set in that kind of game seemed to require a but more study than what I had (and patience :) )
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
And the last one! After 2 1/2 years, it's the 365th game!

8/12/08: Epic Saga: Extreme Fighter
Category: King of Pain
A fighting game from Doublefine, purveyors of the fine PC game Psychonauts

8/13/08: Toblo
Category: Hip to be Square
Online physics-based shooter. Grab building blocks from the landscape and toss them at your enemies.

8/14/08: The Crossing
Category: Animal Behavior
Using a platform, prevent the deer from falling into an abyss.

8/18/08: Stepmania
Category: Rock Your Body
A dance game with free tracks you can play via keyboard or dance mat

8/19/08: Stair Dismount
Category: Ragdoll Comedy
Push your little ragdoll down stairs, adjusting where and how much force to use. His pain - points.

8/20/08: Enemy Territory
Category: Bang Bang
Attack and defend in a class-based shooter set in the oft-ignored WWII.

8/21/08: Armagetron Advanced
Category: Blood on the Asphalt
Tron's iconic lightcycles rendered as a multiplayer vehicle combat game. Extra modes include CTF.

8/22/08: Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden
Category: RPFree
The year is 2053. Basketball is illegal. But that won't stop you. Deeply weird, and very funny.

8/25/08: Platform Racing
Category: Press Up to Jump
A multiplayer racing game that works like an old-school Mario platformer.

8/26/08: Liberal Crime Squad
Category: Logic Problem
Foul language, violence, politics, religion, sexual references, adult situations, narcotics, prostitution, bodily functions, and bad pickup lines. Sold!

8/27/08: The Pantry
Category: Best. Homework. Ever.
Not so much a game as a strange toy to click on. Ghosts in the pantry!

8/28/08: Sam & Max - Abe Lincoln Must Die
Category: Detective Work
The malevolent bunny andhis doggy pal travel to Washington to stop a statue running for president.

8/31/08: The Last Stand
Category: Zombies
Fight zombies by night and build up an undead-proof barricade by day.

9/2/08: flOw
Category: Ambient Gaming
Top-down evolutionary oddity where your creature grows and moves through a primeval world.

9/3/08: Gunlimb
Category: Gunslingers
You have guns for limbs, so you shoot them to move as well as kill. Stupidly fun.

9/4/08: Tiny Hawk
Category: Phys Ed
A one-button game. Choose whether your tiny skateboarder jumps, grinds, or kickflips.

9/5/08: The Last Canopy
Category: Abstractia
A fairly simple shooter with a calming aesthetic: you're a butterfly fighting mechanical enemies.

9/8/08: Grand Theft Auto 1
Category: Urban Nightmares
Rockstar North has made its original criminal adventure free, leeting you wreak 2D havok old-school stylie.

9/9/08: Kaipuu
Category: Monochrome
You set out to find your lost love and find your emotions (and the abilities they give you) on the way.

9/10/08: Honey Blaster
Category: Pixel Power
A shooter where you play a bumblebee fighting insects.

9/11/08: Narbacular Drop
Category: Before They Were Famous
The game that gave us Portal: a student project based on puzzles and portable holes.

9/15/08: Duty and Beyond
Category: Suburban Drama
A point-and-click adventure about delivering pizza, with charming graphics and mercifully logical puzzles.

9/16/08: Darwin Hill
Category: Science & Industry
Juggle the principles of evolution as you populate a hillside of weird humanoids. Mate, kill, or watch the results of overpopulation.

9/17/08: FreeCiv
Category: Strat-O-Matic
The original Civilization, remade for free-software-loving hippies. Still fun.

9/18/08: A Game for Three-Year-Olds
Category: For the Kids
Or 36-year-olds, as the case may be. Prod and combine scribbled objects just to see what happens.

9/19/08: Gravity Head
Category: Physics!
A game in which your head is the source of all momentum.

9/22/08: Tekkyuuman
Category: Extreme Violence
Astonishingly violent platform game from Japanese gaming savant Ikiki. Like an anti-Mario, you jump around and blast people into showers of meat.

9/24/08: Ad Nauseam 2
Category: Cactus Games
Brilliant, brash shooter filled with insane flying enemies and bright, neon colors. Cactus at his best.

9/25/08: Doom, the Roguelike
Category: I Love the 80's (aka, Rogue-like, for those who know what that means)
RPG set in the Doom universe, so replace wands with double-barreled shotguns.

9/29/08: Titanion
Category: ABA Games (aka, created by indie developer Kenta Cho)
Gorgeous vertical shooter that plays off vector-graphics design, with some excellent explosions.

9/30/08: 1Key Cave Ship
Category: One-Click Ponies
Play hot potato with your spaceship in this letterbox game. Warning: the Hot Cave level has cartoon naked ladies.

10/1/08: Anchorhead
Category: Interactive Fiction
Lovecraftian Gothic horror, subtle and spooky. Be brave and enjoy one of the most atmospheric games ever.

10/2/08: The Graveyard
Category: Deep and Meaningful
A short game described by the dev as "an experiment in real-time poetry without words." Control an old lady walking through a graveyard.

10/3/08: Too Many Ninjas
Category: Ninjas (Sorry, No Pirates)
Use your sword to protect your little barbarian by deflecting ninja stars back at the ninjas.

10/6/08: Crayon Physics
Category: Drawing Board (With Pirates)
Crayon scribbles become solid objects to solve puzzles with. Draw planks, weights, and wedges to get the rolling ball to the level's end.

10/7/08: Puffbomb
Category: Precious
Accurately position bombs to propel cute little puff animals towrd their goal.

10/8/08: Professor Fizzwizzle
Category: Brain-benders
Push crates, roll on barrels, and press buttons in the correct order.

10/9/08: Gravitee
Category: Gravity
Pool with planets, or golf in space. You use planetary gravity to swing your ball into the hole.

10/14/08: Paperball
Category: Bubbles and Balls
Flash-based office favorite: throw a paper ball into a wastebasket while compensating for wind.

10/15/08: Splume
Category: Color Crazy
Cute color-matching mixture of Puzzle Bobble, physics, and Peggle

10/16/08: Warning Forever
Category: Ohkubo Games (aka, by developer Hikoza Ohkubo)
Ohkubo's most notorious shooter pits you against progressively bigger spaceships.

10/20/08: Submachine
Category: Skutnik Games (aka, by developer Mateusz Skutnik)
Seven hand-drawn clickable games in a series of existential adventures.

10/21/08: Killawatt
Category: Deeply Peculiar (as opposed to Just Abstract)
A fun Flash game about piling up speakers on the back of a truck. No, really, it's fun.

10/22/08: Marble Blast Online
Category: Instant Action
Platform game where you're controlling a marble, collecting rubies, or simply speeding to the level's end.

10/23/08: Runescape
Category: MMOG
Hugely successful browser-based MMORPG, where all the usual online tropes are available for free: quests, abilities, and, ooh, grinding.

10/24/08: jDoom
Category: Classic FPS
Doom, but more so. Made prettier and smoother, but still the nasty shotgun-blasting, demon fighting game it always was.

10/27/08: Dice Wars
Category: Webstrat
A game of world domination - essentially, Risk played with six-sided dice.

10/28/08: GLFrontier
Category: The Final Frontier
One man and his ship against the universe. Be a pirate, a trader, a mercenary...

10/29/08: Flightgear
Category: Freesim
Open-source flight simulator with 20,000 airports and an accurate representation of Earth to fly over.

10/30/08: Twilight Heroes
Category: MMOS Minus Graphics
Meticulously constructed browser-based text MMO in which you play a hero fighting crime in a grim city. Ingenious, funny, and advertising-free.

10/31/08: The Crowd
Category: Playing God
You affect group behavior by gifting individuals with emotions.

11/3/08: Kylat
Category: Under the Sea
Wacky game based around undersea whacking. Solve submarine squabbling.

11/4/08: Basho Kioku
Category: Ishii Games (aka, by developer Yoshio Ishii)
A simple memory game. Click on a square to complete the level, but you fail if it's a square you've ever clicked before.

11/5/08: 5 Days a Stranger
Category: Yahtzee Games (aka, by developer Yahtzee Croshaw)
The opening episode of Croshaw's AGS-built adventure series. Cat burgler Trilby finds himself mixed up in a time-spanning ghost story.

11/6/08: Rigs of Rods
Category: Wheels!
The marriage of a physics and driving game. Fying planes, sailing boats, controlling tractors... into, at, or off bridges.

11/10/08: Karoshi
Category: King of Pain
A platformer in which your character commits suicide in order to proceed. Deaths involve crates, bullets, and electrocution.

11/12/08: Kumoon
Category: Hip to Be Square
Control a cute little bird with a gun and shoot down all the boxes.

11/13/08: Bugs
Category: Animal Behavior
Bounce high in the air to scare the ladybirds away.

11/14/08: Frets On Fire
Categor: Rock Your Body
Guitar Hero clone with user-made tracks and the keyboard as your guitar. Strum with the Enter key.

11/17/08: Truck Dismount
Category: Ragdoll Comedy
More ragdoll abuse: this time, you place him in front of a truck.

12/02/08: F.E.A.R. Combat
Category: Bang Bang
F.E.A.R.'s multiplayer decoupled from the main game. Full of slow-motion shooting and kung-fu.

12/03/08: Gride
Category: Blood on the Asphalt
Add and remove abilities from your ever-moving car in order to go as far as you can across infinite terrain.

12/04/08: Sewer Goblet
Category: RPFree
Old-school RPG about what happens when the Wu-Tang Clan adopt a baby.

12/08/08: Sunset Runner
Category: Press Up to Jump
Run along the top of a train, jumping gaps and ducking the obstacles.

12/09/08: Masq
Category: Logic Problem
The Deus Ex of comic-strip soap operas. Get shot, divorced, incarcerated, all three, and more.

12/10/08: Beneath a Steel Sky
Category: Best. Homework. Ever.
Beautiful and funny. You play an amnesiac with a sarcastic robot.

12/11/08: BeTrapped!
Category: Detective Work
You're inspector Parker, hunting down clues in order to solve a murder. Wait, we can do better: a MURDER!!

12/12/08: The Last Stand 2
Category: Zombies
Like all good zombie fare, The Last Stand gets a sequel.

12/15/08: Within a Deep Forest
Category: Ambient Gaming
Pretty, relaxing platform game. Bounce a ball through levels, upgrading it to solve different puzzles.

12/16/08: XED
Category: Gunslingers
Vertical-scrolling shooter that'll suck your eyeballs out in a blur of neon and fire.

12/22/08: New Star Soccer 3
Category: Phys Ed
A sort-of RPG where you take control of a single player and make him the star of the team.

12/23/08: Attack of the Meeplings
Category: Abstractia
A vertical shooter that's more about avoiding enemy fire than shooting.

12/24/08: Grand Theft Auto 2
Category: Urban Nightmares
The similarly 2D, similarly free follow-up, with more violence, more vehicles, and just as much moral depravity.

12/29/08: Shift
Category: Monochrome
Ingenious platformer where you flip between worlds of black and white.

12/30/08: Dot Fighter
Category: Pixel Power
Old Fashioned beat-em-up fun with ridiculously charming graphics.

12/31/08: Elder Scrolls: Arena
Category: Before They Were Famous
The incredibly early first-person RPG that gave rise to the Elder Scrolls series, Morrorwind, and Oblivion

01/05/09: On A Rainy Day
Category: Suburban Drama
An elasticized tree o fhands must help paper boats cross a river via judicious use of umbrellas. Yes, it's like that.

01/06/09: The Virtual Contraption
Category: Science and Industry
A physics-based platformer where every surface wobbles and waves when you put weight on it.

01/07/09: FreeCol
Category: Strat-O-Matic
Colonization was Sid Meier's American history strategy game. Read the manual before you start this one.

01/08/09: Sprout
Category: For the Kids
Continually resprout as a new plant travelling across the world to achieve your dream of being an acorn.

01/09/09: Blight Warrior
Category: Physics!
Mad fractal physics game based on "Diffusion Limited Aggregation." May crash your PC. And your brain.

01/12/09: Space Barnacle
Category: Extreme Violence
Meet interesting aliens and, well, meat them in this absurdly violent scrolling platformer.

01/13/09: Seizure Dome
Category: Cactus Games
A top-down sumo game in which your enemies are waddling fat men and naked women flying at you feet-first.

01/14/09: Dwarf Fortress
Category: II Love the 80's (aka, Rogue-like, for those who know what that means)
Terrifying complex RPG where you manage a team of dwarves as they hollow out a mountain.

01/15/09: Mu-cade
Category: ABA Games (aka, created by indie developer Kenta Cho)
We cannot improve on the website's description: "The Physics Centipede Invasion. Smashup waggly shmup, 'Mu-cade'."

01/20/09: Doeo
Category: One-Click Ponies
Frantic collection game where you hammer the mouse to grab any Doeos you see. Very Japanese.

01/21/09: An Act of Murder
Category: Interactive Fiction
Award-winning murder mystery adventure set in an isolated country house. Forces you to make intuitive leaps to reach conclusions.

01/22/09: Gravitation
Category: Deep and Meaningful
A sweet little pixel-art game where you have to balance time between the small child who loves you and exploring the rest of the level.

01/23/09: N
Category: Ninjas (Sorry, No Pirates)
Prepare for multiple deaths. You're a tiny ninja with a thirst for gold in this physics-based platformer.

01/26/09: Chalk
Category: Drawing Board (With Pirates!)
Protect the wandering girl from assaults: use the chalk to draw barriers or cross out enemies.

01/27/09: Earwig is Angry
Category: Precious
A disturbed child in a mental hospital must bludgeon his way to a new life of setting fires. Oh my.

01/28/09: Mr. Robot
Category: Brain-Benders
Adorable robotic puzzle game that's beautifully designed and very satisfying. Free from Gametap.

01/29/09: Pogo Sticker
Category: Gravity
Platform game where you're only in charge of the power and direction of your character's jumps.

02/02/09: N-Ball
Category: Bubbles and Balls
Bounce the neon, glowing plasma ball through the levels, dodging obstacles to reach the end.

02/03/09: Super Tummy Bubble
Category: Color Crazy
Wobbly and fun physics-based color-matching game where you're clearing out parasites. So it's educational too.

02/04/09: Rayhound
Category: Ohkubo Games (aka, by developer Hikoza Ohkubo)
Alter the gravity around your ship to slingshot enemy laser-blasts back where they came from.

02/05/09: Daymare Town
Category: Skutnik Games (aka, by developer Mateusz Skutnik)
A gorgeous hand-drawn adventure with many puzzles. Superbly atmospheric.

02/06/09: After Doomsday
Category: Deeply Peculiar (as opposed to Just Abstract)
Web-based futuristic society simulator that appears to encourage fighting offline. Not that we condone that.

02/09/09: Rokkitball
Category: Instant Action
How all basketball will be played in the future: by robots with magnets and rockets.

02/10/09: Maple Story
Category: MMOG
This 2D platform MMO has about 30 trillion players, and is more cute than 15 bunnies in your sock drawer.

02/11/09: Legends
Category: Classic FPS
Inspired by Tribes 2, Legends is an online shooter with the added bonus of jetpacks.

02/12/09: Desktop Tower Defence
Category: Webstrat
A brillant reinvention of strategy gaming. Defend your desk from wave upon wave of abstract monsters by putting up turrets.

02/17/09: BSG: Beyond the Red Line
Category: The Final Frontier
Frakking-good fan game base on the new Battlestar Galactica, where you're a Viper pilot pew-pewing evil Cylon jerks.

02/18/09: Orbiter
Category: Freesim
Hardcore space-flight sim enables you to relive all the greatest moments of the UK space program.

02/19/09: PMOG
Category: MMOS Minus Graphics
Fight friends and strangers by doing your day-to-day web browsing. Any task could net you points, from writing email to reading the news.

02/20/09: Big Vine
Category: Playing God
Incredible tech demo where you try to grow a pulsating silhouette tree. It's amazing.

02/23/09: Cursor*10
Category: Ishii Games (aka, by developer Yoshio Ishii)
Time-bending puzzle game where you must cooperate with versions of your past self in order to advance.

02/24/09: 7 Days a Skeptic
Category: Yahtzee Games (aka, by developer Yahtzee Croshaw)
400 years afer 5DaS, the crew of the ship Mephistopheles finds a mysterious artifact and learns that the ghosts of the past aren't as dead as they'd like.

02/25/09: Adventure of Cat
Category: King of Pain
Propel a cat through levels via an extendable pole-vault pole. Yes, really.

02/27/09: Rumble Box
Category: Hip To Be Square
Escape by destroying your opponents and using their parts to climb out of the box.

03/02/09: Penguin Panic
Category: Animal Behavior
Fire your ice ray at panicking penguins to freeze them solid.

03/03/09: Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 2
Category: Rock Your Body
A rhythm-action webgame that works like, yup, a simplified Guitar Hero.

03/04/09: Toribash
Category: Ragdoll Comedy
Turn-based online fighting game. Tweak your character's joints and muscles to make slo-mo attacks.

03/05/09: Savage 2
Category: Bang Bang
Online fantasy shooter with a touch of RPG and RTS. Each team has a commander to order its troops.

03/06/09: Type Racer
Category: Blood On The Asphalt
A racing game where your speed is dictated by how quickly you can type.

03/09/09: The Diary of Anne Frank
Category: RPFree
An authentic depiction of Anne Frank's life, in platform form.

03/10/09: Bonesaw
Category: Press Up to Jump
Beat-em-up, puzzler, and platformer in which you hit folks with a hockey stick.

03/11/09: Guest House
Category: Logic Problem
An escape-the-room game. Use dreaded logic to think your way out.

03/12/09: Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy!
Category: Best. Homework. Ever.
A lady pirate must discover why all the birds are disappearing from the Barony of Meeth.

03/16/09: Fedora Spade
Category: Detective Work
Old-school point-and-clicker. Interrogate people for clues.

03/19/09: Bloody Zombies
Category: Zombies
Using a lawn mower, rip up the undead. You might as well do the weeding too.

03/20/09: Knytt Stories
Category: Ambient Gaming
From the maker of Within a Deep Forest, but with an actual character instead of a ball.

03/23/09: Bowmaster
Category: Gunslingers
Protect your castle! Judge the distance and arc of your weapons and wang stuff at enemies.

03/24/09: Pangya Golf
Category: Phys Ed
Japanese-o-crazy golf game with talking-cat golf bags and giant windmills. Cuter than you can bear.

03/25/09: Armed with Wings
Category: Abstractia
Silhouette-graphics action fighter - your stick-wielding fighter comes armed with a very useful eagle.

03/26/09: Attack of the Killer Swarm
Category: Urban Nightmares
A buzzing, whizzing swarm of something or other terrorizes tiny people by exploding them.

03/30/09: Clock Tower's Secret
Category: Monochrome
An atmospheric platformer about exploring the insides of a fog-covered mechanical clock.

03/31/09: The Crypts of Despair
Category: Pixel Power
A Rogue-style game with pixels replacing the usual ASCII.

04/01/09: Super Energy Apocalypse
Category: Science and Industry
Defend your trash-recycling center from zombie attack. Has both tutorial campaign and sandbox modes.

04/02/09: Ground Control
Category: Strat-O-Matic
A race of super-women, giant artillery trucks, and a twitch approach to real-time strategy; precursor to today's World in Conflict.

04/03/09: Warbears
Category: For the Kids
A crack team of bears fight crime with puzzle-solving and timely maneuvers.

04/06/09: Phun
Category: Physics!
Insanely clever and compulsive physics sandbox developed as part of someone's Master's thesis.

04/07/09: Hammerfall
Category: Extreme Violence
Thrash around in the air fighting bugs and airships in a craft equipped with hammers, scythes, and other toys.

04/08/09: Mondo Agency
Category: Cactus Games
Dark and disturbing FPS - a kind of indie-gaming Eraserhead where things don't really make sense and the solutions are often insane.

04/09/09: Zangband
Category: I Love the 80's (aka, Rogue-like, for those who know what that means)
Punishing but complex and rewarding RPG for purists who like their graphics ASCII, just as God intended.

04/13/09: Gunroar
Category: ABA Games (aka, created by indie developer Kenta Cho)
GUNROAR! A sort of Asteroids meets Space Invaders, but more importantly, it's called GUNROAR!

04/14/09: OneSwitch Ballz
Category: One-Click Ponies
It's Marble Madness! You remember that, right? Oh, the young. It's all about furious timing and intricate balance.

04/15/09: Lord Bellwater's Secret
Category: Interactive Fiction
A single-room murder mystery. You play Bert Smith, searching through your master's study for clues to the death of your sweetheart.

04/16/09: Passage
Category: Deep and Meaningful
Do you join with your girlfriend at the start of the game and have a difficulty passage through, or go alone and make the journey easier?

04/17/09: Super Secret Ninja
Category: Ninjas (Sorry, No Pirates)
Speedily make your way to the level's end, dodging the guards and using a grappling hook to get to the platforms.

04/20/09: De Blob
Category: Drawing Board (With Pirates!)
You're a blob that sucks up paint and uses it to color in his drab city by bouncing all over it!

04/21/09: Stunt Hamsters
Category: Precious
Hamsters spray from a cannon, and you need to lead them to the goal by, uh, setting them on fire.

04/22/09: 3D Logic
Category: Brain-Benders
Connect matching colored blocks across three faces of a rotating cube, using only straight lines.

04/23/09: Thrust Xtreme
Category: Gravity
"Defeat the Empire, weaken their defenses, steal their Klystron pods!" With gravity.

04/27/09: Colocoro
Category: Bubbles and Balls
Tilt the level using the left and right mouse buttons in order to move the little ball to the level's end.

04/28/09: Colormental
Category: Color Crazy
Return the color to your grey world using fire, air, ice, lightning, and poison.

04/29/09: Cyclops
Category: Ohkubo Games (aka, by developer Hikoza Ohkubo)
You're a central spaceship firing thick laser beams at waves of enemies attacking from all sides.

04/30/09: Enrichment Centre
Category: Deeply Peculiar (As Opposed to Just Abstract)
Utterly bizarre Flash puzzle game loosely set in Portal's universe. Don't tell Valve.

05/01/09: ThinkTanks
Category: Instant Action
A browser-based tank shooting game, not a game about strategic governmental meetings. Thanks heavens.

05/04/09: Puzzle Pirates
Category: MMOG
A puzzle game and MMOG, where your piracy skills are based on your puzzle abilities, e.g., fixing your sails with your chess skills.

05/05/09: Marathon
Category: Classic FPS
Halo's progenitor, the game that countless Mac users will tell you is better than its successor.

05/06/09: Protector
Category: Webstrat
Desktop Tower Defense played with magicians and monks.

05/07/09: Ur-Quan Masters
Category: The Final Frontier
Huge space adventure where you're the captain of a ship exploring a galaxy and hunting a nameless foe.

05/11/09: Flying Model Simulator
Category: Freesim
Lets you control remote-control planes, in case you're fearful of crashing your toy.

05/13/09: Dive
Category: Under the Sea
Can you get to the bottom?

05/14/09: Slidon
Category: Ishii Games (aka, by developer Yoshio Ishii)
Discover the star through combinations of clicking and problem solving in 36 levels of puzzles.

05/15/09: Trilby's Notes
Category: Yahtzee Games (aka, by developer Yahtzee Croshaw)
Now four years after 5DaS, we learn more about Trilby as he finds himself reunited with his past and the repercussions of his actions.

05/19/09: Rose and Camellia
Category: King of Pain
"This is the elegant art of feminine conflict" according to the site. In other words, it's a third-person Victorian slap-fighting game made in Japan.

05/20/09: Shapes on a Plane
Category: Hip To Be Square
Arcade shooter where enemies attack across the six faces fo a cube. Rotate the cube to direct your fire.

05/21/09: What Comes Around
Category: Animal Behavior
Of all the territorial raccoon sims we've encountered, this one's especially sweet.

05/22/09: MiniDrumPro
Category: Rock Your Body
Flash-based rhythm game that uses the keyboard as your drum kit.

05/26/09: Sumotori Dreams
Category: Ragdoll Comedy
"Drunken" ragdolls duking it out have as much difficulty simply standing as hitting.

05/27/09: World of Padman
Category: Bang Bang
Cute online/offline cartoon shooter, with oversized maps (you appear tiny) and multiple game modes.

05/28/09: Racing Pitch
Category: Blood on the Asphalt
Using a microphone, make engine noises with your mouth in order to make your car accelerate.

06/01/09: Winter's Heart
Category: RPFree
Snow-based combat and a really cute story make for an adorable mini-RPG.

06/02/09: Hurrican
Category: Press Up To Jump
Jump and shoot game with a protagonist who looks an awful lot like Robocop.

06/03/09: Tale of Two Kingdoms
Category: Logic Problem
You're the sworn enemy of a king, called on to help him find out who's attempting to assassinate him.

06/04/09: Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth
Category: Best. Homework. Ever.
Demo of the in-development free game.

06/05/09: Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator
Category: Detective Work
Multi-episodic point-and-click. The first one is called: In Search of the Skunk-Ape.

06/08/09: Facewound
Category: Zombies
Side-scrolling shooter full of beautiful effects and fun weapons.

06/09/09: Seraphim Flame
Category: Ambient Gaming
You're an angel out to save his race in this floaty, platform/flying game.

06/10/09: Platypus
Category: Gunslingers
Cute side-scrolling shooter where the models are made out of clay.

06/11/09: Golf?
Category: Phys Ed
Wonderful WASD-controlled golf game set in a wireframe world. Your head is a gun!

06/12/09: Frozzd
Category: Abstractia
A little like Mario Galaxy. You're in space bounding between planets, followed by creatures who help you.

06/15/09: Nuclear Eagle
Category: Urban Nightmares
A giant mutant eagle - that's you - needs humans to feed its young. Watch out for the military response.

06/16/09: Ratmaze 2
Category: Pixel Power
You're a rat, you're in a maze, and you need to collect letters and cheese.

06/17/09: Tower of Goo UNLIMITED!
Category: Science and Industry
The unlocked inspiration for World of Goo.

06/18/09: Spring
Category: Strat-O-Matic
A freeware RTS that began by sprucing up Total Annihilation, but now exists as an indie alternative.

07/06/09: Gesundheit!
Category: For the Kids
Snot-eating monsters have invaded town; lure them into the mouths of underground fish.

07/07/09: Baron von Puttyngton versus the Cancerous M.C. Escher Maze of Cheese
Category: Physics!
Use the mouse wheel to spin the level, moving your block of cheese with the level's flipping gravity.

07/08/09: Minubeat
Category: Cactus Games
Gorgeous hand-drawn shooter with pure black-and-white visuals. Short, difficult, and very clever.

07/09/09: Legerdemain
Category: I Love the 80's (aka, Rogue-like, for those who know what that means)
An experiment in what happens when an old-school dungeon-crawler meets interactive fiction.

07/10/09: Torus Trooper
Category: ABA Games (aka, created by indie developer Kenta Cho)
Time-limited Tempest clone where you need to maintain your clock via the magic of high scores. Very pretty.

07/13/09: Strange Attractors
Category: One-Click Ponies
Using only the spacebar, you must sling yourself from the bottom to the top.

07/14/09: Across the Stars
Category: Interactive Fiction
It's the year 5367 IR, on a ship serving the Xulthe'en Empire. Life is hard, work is long, but dun dun duuuun! Adventure awaits.

07/15/09: The Marriage
Category: Deep and Meaningful
Two squares represent a husband and wife in this abstract look at the mechanics of a relationship. Deep, man.

07/16/09: Kninja
Category: Ninjas (Sorry, No Pirates)
Slashy, bashy fun. One of the few platform ninja games here that gives you swords and enemies to dice.

07/20/09: Line Rider
Category: Drawing Board (With Pirates!)
Draw complex sledge runs and then watch your little Line Rider attempt to slide down them.

07/21/09: Hello Panda
Category: Precious
Top-down action with the Pandas, a gang of the three meanest criminals in the world, who set out to steal a painting.

07/22/09: Not Pron
Category: Brain-Benders
Advance through a series of puzzles using any means available, including many that feel like cheating.

07/23/09: Lunar Rescue
Category: Gravity
Control your thrust with the arrow keys in order to maneuver your ship and rescue the moon people.

07/24/09: Peggle
Category: Bubbles and Balls
Aim the ball, clear the level of orange pegs. Ode To Joy! Extreme Fever!

07/27/09: Bejeweled
Category: Color Crazy
Swap adjacent gems in order to make up lines of identical stones.

07/28/09: Mr. Mothball
Category: Skutnik Games (aka, by developer Mateusz Skutnik)
Platforming strangeness as you play as, er, a mothball collecting dust in a series of hand-drawn levels.

07/29/09: Dyadin
Category: Deeply Peculiar (As Opposed To Just Abstract)
Mind-boggling two-player action-puzzle game designed to be played on two PCs side-by-side.

08/04/09: Covert Front
Category: Skutnik Games (aka, by Developer Mateusz Skutnik)
A series in an alternative-history WWI, with Skutnik's trademark puzzles.

08/05/09: Cyclomite
Category: Instant Action
Meteors are going to destroy the universe... unless you can catch them with your Cyclomite. Soldier, you've a universe to save!

08/06/09: Dungeon Runners
Category: MMOG
NCsoft's sense of humor in a game. This free (though you can pay for stuff) MMO is one whole elongated spoof of WoW, and is actually very funny.

08/10/09: Hidden & Dangerous Deluxe
Category: Classic FPS
Classic squad-based WWII stealth shooter, giving you free-roaming hunt-the-Nazi fun.

08/11/09: Storm Winds 1.5
Category: Webstrat
Tower Defence crossed with a shooter in a tech-punk world, battling airships and weird flying beasts.

08/12/09: Parallel Universe
Category: The Final Frontier
A fan-update of Wing Commander: Privateer, rebalanced with new ships, missions, and bug fixes.

08/13/09: Am Jesus
Category: Playing God
Projectile combat game where you play Jesus fighting off enemies who throw spears or sandals.

08/14/09: Hoshi Saga 2
Category: Ishii Games (aka, By Developer Yoshio Ishii)
Discover the star through combinations of clicking and problem solving in 36 levels of puzzles.

08/17/09: 6 Days a Sacrifice
Category: Yahtzee Games (aka, By Developer Yahtzee Croshaw)
The fourth and final game in the quartet, set in multiple times hundreds of years apart, ties up the loose ends of the previous three games.

08/24/09: Punishment 1
Category: King of Pain
Quoth the site: "An unfairly difficult platform game that is painful and nauseating to play".

08/25/09: Hydrophobia
Category: Animal Behavior
A frog drowning sim. Oh, OK: you're meant to keep him out of the water.

08/26/09: Nekofight!
Category: Ragdoll Comedy
Imagine Darwinians getting drunk and attempting capoeira. Amazing, acrobatic results.

08/27/09: Cube 2: Sauerbraten
Category: Bang Bang
Single- and multiplayer old-school blaster lets the player edit the map in-game.

08/28/09: Goliath
Category: Blood on the Asphalt
Team-based vehicle combat game in a world of road warriors terrorized by an enormous, unstoppable tank.

08/31/09: The Desolate Room
Category: RPGFree
Enormously involved robot combat that's raising money for a playground in Afghanistan.

09/01/09: Death Worm!
Category: Press Up to Jump
Death Worm! Death Worm! Death Worm! Death Worm!

09/02/09: Apprentice II: The Knight's Move
Category: Logic Problem
You're a wizard's apprentice in a series of adventure games. This episode is our favorite.

09/03/09: Infinity String
Category: Best. Homework. Ever.
You're the sole American at an Arctic research station where weird events are occurring.

09/04/09: Rorschach
Category: Detective Work
Uncover the dark goings-on at an insane asylum.

09/08/09: Cottage of Doom
Category: Zombies
To quote the game-maker: "... the chilling terror of a modest forest dwelling beset by the hordes of the undead!"

09/09/09: Endless Forest
Category: Ambient Gaming
Be a deer and try this strangely compelling MMOG/screensaver.

09/10/09: Exception
Category: Gunslingers
Shooter full of grey boxes - a dodge that enables the developer to fill the screen with huge numbers of enemies.

09/14/09: Kart 'N' Crazy
Category: Phys Ed
Multiplayer Mario Kart clone with sickly bright tracks. Scream in delight or frustration as the bonuses come.

09/15/09: Garden of Colored Lights
Category: Abstractia
A pretty shooter influenced by the likes of Rez. Music is a key factor in play.

09/16/09: Jaywalker
Category: Urban Nightmares
Frogger's revenge. Force cars to crash in their attempts to avoid you.

09/17/09: Cultivation
Category: Strat-O-Matic
A competitive commune simulation - grow enough food to feed your habitat.

09/18/09: Bound Plus
Category: For the Kids
You're a ball trying to reach an exit, with different surfaces in the world helping or hindering your progress.

09/21/09: Ichor
Category: Physics!
Surround your opponent with ichor to win. A truly astonishing game based on fluid dynamics.

09/22/09: Micropolis
Category: Strat-O-Matic
You can't beat SimCity, so the open-source devs didn't; they simply remade it and gave it a new name.

09/23/09: Protoganda 2
Category: Cactus Games
Vertical shooter with a vaguely Constructivist Communist bent. Tough, but raw and rewarding.

09/24/09: Frozen Depths
Category: I Love the 80's (aka, Rogue-like, For Those Who Know What That Means)
Imagine a dunegon-crawler set in icy wastelands where you need to keep warm. Blue text, everyone!

09/28/09: TUMIKI Fighters
Category: ABA Games (aka, created by indie developer Kenta Cho)
A sort of Katamari meets side-scrolling shooter where your ship gathers the broken pieces of enemies.

09/29/09: Shades of Doom
Category: One-Click Ponies
Designed for the visually impaired, Shades creates its world through multi-layered audio and the spoken word.

09/30/09: The Chinese Room
Category: Interactive Fiction
It's been compared to Norman Juster's Phantom Tollbooth. A thought-experiment game covering the theoretical basis of calculus.

10/01/09: Facade
Category: Deep and Meaningful
Part play, part interactive fiction. A couple's relationship crumbles. Ask them questions in order to interact.

10/02/09: Ninja Flu
Category: Ninjas (Sorry, No Pirates)
Stop the dead bird-flu-infected ninjas from hitting the ground. Control your ninja by typing directions.

10/05/09: Line Golfer
Category: Drawing Board (With Pirates!)
You play on a golf course of your own devising, drawing it yourself before hitting the links.

10/06/09: Bokorin
Category: Precious
It's raining men. Men who must be kicked with combo-fighting skills by your tiny flying ninja.

10/07/09: Mr. Heart Loves You Very Much
Category: Brain-Benders
A platformer and sliding-block puzzle game about reaching Mr. Heart. He does love you, after all.

10/08/09: You Found the Grappling Hook
Category: Gravity
Use your grappling hook to swing through a series of evilly difficult caves. Likely to make you weep.

10/13/09: Invalid Tangram
Category: Color Crazy
Shooter combined with a color-matching block game. Every dead enemy becomes a block that clutters the screen.

10/14/09: 10Gnomes
Category: Skutnik Games (aka, by developer Mateusz Skutnik)
The ultimate pixel hunt: you search photographs for 10 cartoon gnomes tucked away in silly places.

10/15/09: ScrewJumper
Category: Instant Action
Action and jumping: our two favorite things. You're in the underworld, destroying alien mining equipment. Because you're cool like that.

10/16/09: Second Life
Category: MMOG
A meeting place for perverts, artists, advertising people, and presidential candidates. Join, create a character, and wander.

10/19/09: Noctis
Category: The Final Frontier
Open-ended space exploration game where you get to name the planets you discover.

10/20/09: Dino Run
Category: Playing God
A meteorite hits Earth and you, a velociraptor, must run to escape the devastation.

10/21/09: Plupon
Category: Ishii Games (aka, by developer Yashio Ishii)
Numbers slowly rain; you have to add them to make exactly 10 before they fall from the screen.

10/22/09: Trilby: The Art of Theft
Category: Yahtzee Games (aka, by developer Yahtzee Croshaw
Ben Croshaw's recurring Trilby character this time appears in a stealth-platformer, but maintains his distinctive retro style.

10/26/09: Punishment 2
Category: King of Pain
Given the write-up from Punishment 1, you can probably guess.

10/27/09: Polychromatic Funk Monkey
Category: Animal Behavior
Guide the titular simian through a world of multicolored moveable blocks.

10/28/09: Ragdoll Matrix Reloaded
Category: Ragdoll Comedy
Control an Agent Smith ragdoll and dodge the never-ending stream of slow-motion bullets.

10/29/09: Celestial Impact
Category: Bang Bang
Brilliant multiplayer shooter where your guns deform the very moonlets you fight upon.

10/30/09: ElastoMania
Category: Blood on the Asphalt
Motorbike sim emblazoned with proper physics has literally tens of thousands of levels available for download.

11/02/09: Exit Fate
Category: RPFree
Turn-based RPG with tactical strategy combat. And bribery.

11/03/09: Fantastic Blood Boy
Category: Press Up To Jump
Use randomly generated items to indirectly attack enemies.

11/04/09: Reactor 09
Category: Logic Problem
Convince a prison guard to help you escape.

11/05/09: 6 Day Assassin
Category: Best. Homework. Ever.
You're an assassin who must use his skills and observational powers to escape a room.

11/09/09: Boxhead: The Zombie Wars
Category: Zombies
Top-down shooter - back away from and take out an ever-increasing horde.

11/10/09: The Expletions of the Little Green Pod Man
Category: Ambient Gaming
Platformer where jumping is replaced by turning into a Venus Fly Trap and spitting out your character.

11/12/09: Harmotion
Category: Gunslingers
Two-player versus schmup that keeps track of your many battles online for bragging rights.

11/16/09: Dolphin Olympics 2
Category: Phys Ed
Awesome dolphin leaper. Glide in and out of the water, scoring points for style, and even entering space.

11/17/09: Atomhex
Categor: Abstractia
Shoot the Atoms, collect the Hexes, and battle for survival. It's a little bit Robotron.

11/18/09: Robot and the Cities that Built Him
Category: Urban Nightmares
Giant upgradable robots stomp and laser their way through a city of hapless victims and angry military.

11/19/09: Fold
Category: For the Kids
Create spheres that alter local gravity to fling you where you need to go.

11/23/09: MSOIDS
Category: Cactus Games
Asteroids, but with everything crudely drawn by hand using MS Paint. Lo-fi awesomeness.

11/24/09: rRootage
Category: ABA Games (aka, created by idie developer Kenta Cho)
Deal with ludicrous barrages of bullets as you fight vast battleships in space.

11/25/09: Metro Siberia
Category: One-Click Ponies
More spaceship hot potato, navigating through lovely green and black cities with only the spacebar.

11/30/09: Lost Pig
Category: Interactive Fiction
Pig lost! Boss say that it Grunk fault. Maybe boss right. Very funny game. Make sure to remove your clothes in public.

12/01/09: Ninjah
Category: Ninjas (Sorry, No Pirates)
Get your ninja past the platforms as quickly as possible, using your grappling hook and slo-mo ability.

12/02/09: Ocular Ink
Category: Drawing Board (With Pirates!)
You're a paintbrush-wielding eyeball battling the evil eye-pirate Patches Deadlights. Awesome.

12/03/09: Zox Space Arena
Category: Precious
Two to five players in an offline game try to blow each other to bits in a small circular arena.

12/07/09: BLOX
Category: Brain-Benders
Sliding-block puzzle game where you must match two or more colors to make them disappear.

12/08/09: Polarity
Category: Gravity
Platform game where you change your character's magnetism to either stick to or to be repelled by surfaces.

12/09/09: Colorfill
Category: Color Crazy
Draw horizontal or vertical lines to block off sections of the level with colorful shapes, destroying the ships within. That'll teach them.

12/10/09: The Great Kitchen Escape!
Category: Skutnik Games (aka, by developer Mateusz Skutnik)
Skutnik applies his puzzle logic to a very ordinary setting: getting out of the kitchen. Harder than you think.

12/14/09: Zero All Productivity
Category: Instant Action
A top-down Asteroids clone, but multiplayer, in your browser, and designed to prevent you from ever working ever again. How apt.

12/15/09: Mythos
Category: MMOG
Fate's Travis Baldree has created another awesome Diablo clone, built on the back of the Hellgate infrastructure. A full game, entirely free.

12/16/09: Grid16
Category: King of Pain
It's you against a grid of games, where the challenge is to figure out how to play before the game's over.

12/17/09: Arctic Blue
Category: Animal Behavior
A game of hot potato - with a boat on a whale.

12/21/09: Ragdoll Masters
Category: Ragdoll Comedy
An Ang Lee-inspired fighting game. You control your character's momentum, but not his wildly flailing limbs.

12/22/09: Paintball 2.0
Category: Bang Bang
Based on the open-source Quake 2 engine: deathmatch without death.

12/23/09: Trackmania Nations Forever
Category: Blood on the Asphalt
The ultra-excellent TrackMania, completely free! And now you can play against people with the pay-for version, too.

12/28/09: Last Scenario
Category: RPFree
A deep RPG replete with side-quests and its own spellcard system.

12/29/09: What Linus Bruckman Sees When His Eyes Are Closed
Category: Press Up to Jump
Amazing split-screen platformer where you play as both an ancient samurai and a fast-food heir.

12/30/09: DayMare Town
Category: Logic Problem
Sketchily drawn adventure where you explore a creepy deserted town.

01/04/10: Penumbra
Category: Best. Homework. Ever.
It's a tech demo for the episodic retail series, but the physics here still make for a fun game to poke around in.

01/05/10: Zombie City Tactics
Category: Zombies
Top-down zombie strategy game. Is it possible to outthink the unthinking horde of undead?

01/06/10: Cloud
Category: Ambient Gaming
Take to the skies and drag the clouds into puzzle-solving shapes. Very genteel.

01/07/10: Battleships Forever
Category: Gunslingers
Real-time tactical-strategy space shooter where you can draw your own force field.

01/08/10: Coil
Category: Abstractia
Deeply odd Flash game abstractly telling the tale of life from conception. Play as a sperm!

01/11/10: Twister
Category: Urban Nightmares
Play as a whirlwind, touching down and tearing apart a suburban neighborhood.

01/12/10: Railroad Tycoon
Category: Strat-O-Matic
The original classic: arrange deliveries of goods to build an industrial empire.

01/13/10: Mondo Medicals
Category: Cactus Games
Nightmarish first-person puzzler. Not for the faint-hearted.

01/14/10: Noiz2sa
Category: ABA Games (aka, created by indie developer Kenta Cho)
As the spelling gets sillier, the games get weirder. This abstract shooter looks like it was designed on a calculator.

01/19/10: Shotgun Ninja
Category: Ninjas (Sorry, No Pirates)
What would happen if you gave a shotgun to a ninja? He'd probably kill even more people than normal, right? Right.

01/20/10: Doodle Defender
Category: Drawing Board (With Pirates!)
Draw your own Asteroids-style ship, then use it to attack invading enemies, all on a sheet of lined paper.

01/21/10: Soldat
Category: Precious
Sideways-scrolling multiplayer shooter: the urgency and rockets of an FPS, wearing platformer clothes.

01/22/10: Heaven2Ocean
Category: Brain-Benders
Puzzle game about a water droplet changing state from steam to liquid to ice.

01/25/10: To Hell with Johnny
Category: Gravity
A forced-descent platformer where you must fall deeper into hell without dropping from the screen.

01/26/10: Marvin Spectrum
Category: Color Crazy
Side-scrolling Flash-drawn platformer where you must match your body color to the barriers through which you jump.

01/27/10: Bang Howdy
Category: MMOG
Wicky, wicky, wah what on Earth? It's a tactical MMO set in the Wild West, with gold rushing, card playing, and of course, shooting.

01/28/10: Nexuiz
Category: Bang Bang
Old-school shooter with loads of levels, modes and mutators.

02/01/10: Off-Road Velociraptor Safari
Category: Blood on the Asphalt
A velociraptor driving a jeep, running over other velociraptors. If you don't want to play this, we don't even want to know you.

02/02/10: Wilfred, The Hero
Category: RPFree
Wilfred and Kyr-Stan are trying to remove evil from the world. Go, guys!

02/03/10: 7 Minutes
Category: Press Up To Jump
Astonishingly nihilistic, with some lovely inventive moments, especially when it all goes dark.

02/04/10: Anika's Oddyssey
Category: Logic Problem
Mesmerizingly pretty adventure game. Hunt for your stolen rabbit friend. Aw.

02/05/10: Sonny
Category: Zombies
Play as an undead braineater in this superb turn-based RPG.

02/16/10: Seiklus
Category: Ambient Gaming
Relaxing platformer where you mostly just explore the game world; there's little violence or collecting.

02/17/10: Fraxy
Category: Gunslingers
Top-down frenetic shooter that comes with its own awesome editor.

02/18/10: Varia
Category: Abstractia
A vertically scrolling shooter. Accompanied by your collectible helpers, you must cope with some novel background obstacles.

02/19/10: Toadzilla
Category: Urban Nightmares
An ugly but compelling Rampage-alike, with you as a giant toad tearing buildings apart.

02/22/10: UFO: Alien Invasion
Category: Strat-O-Matic
Modern reinterpretation of the X-COM games, following their use of Geoscape and Tactical modes.

02/23/10: xWung
Category: Cactus Games
A kind of pseudo-physics destruction game. Abstractly looks like an arena shooter, but your weapon is a swinging ball.

02/24/10: Massashikun Hi!
Category: ABA Games (aka, created by indie developer Kenta Cho)
Stick-figure Olympics! Play shot put, high diving, high jump, sprinting, and tug-of-war in a peculiar black and white world.

02/25/10: Katakijin
Category: Ninjas (Sorry, No Pirates)
Platform beat-em-up with combos, wall-jumps, and plenty of violence.

03/01/10: Gunbound
Category: Drawing Board (With Pirates!)
Worms-like online action game where you're tasked with blowing the bits off random Internet opponents.

03/02/10: The Visitor
Category: Precious
A point-and-click adventure about an alien who must grow by inhabiting and exploding animals.

03/03/10: Logi-Gun
Category: Brain-Benders
A puzzle platformer where progress depends on thoughtful, not violent, use of your six guns.

03/04/10: Gravitron
Category: Gravity
Asteroids-style movement: destroy reactors, rescue everyone, dodge neon death beams.

03/05/10: Dropheads
Category: Color Crazy
Simple color-matching game where you must pair up the heads dropping from above.

03/08/10: Tremulous
Category: Bang Bang
Choose from different race - aliens or humans - build up bases, and pwn.

03/09/10: Rider
Category: Blood on the Asphalt
Paperboy crossed with Tokyo Bus Guide. Deliver packages without breaking the laws of the road.

03/10/10: Exult
Category: RPFree
A fan-made remake of Ultima 7 that works on modern PCs.

03/11/10: Cave Story
Category: Press Up To Jump
Cute, classy side-scrolling platform game. We've usefully provided the English translation.

03/15/10: Samorost 1
Category: Logic Problem
Solve organic puzzles in artist Jakub Dvorsky's beautiful collage world.

03/16/10: Iwanaga
Category: Gunslingers
Side-scroller shooter where you're dodging the enemy bullets or slashing them back at the firer. Rar!

03/17/10: Echoes
Category: Abstractia
Now with Crack! An Asteroids/Geometry Wars shooter, with an unlockable mini-game called Crack.

03/18/10: Black Shades
Category: Urban Nightmares
Can you keep the VIP alive? This is a kind of desperate, ultra-brutal bodyguard sim.

03/19/10: The Jeluvian Project
Category: Strat-O-Matic
A sci-fi turn-based strategy game. Ignore the graphics: there's some deep, thoughtful skirmishing here.

03/22/10: Burn the Trash
Category: Cactus Games
Scribbling hand-drawn shooter where everything must be burned down. Vaguely reminiscent of mad classic Yar's Revenge.

03/23/10: The Dark Room
Category: Brain-Benders
A spinning cube, some mysterious buttons, and the challenge to light up all the sides.

03/24/10: Vertical Challenge
Category: Gravity
Platform game where you use your character's grappling hook to clear the levels. Swing, baby.

03/25/10: Jewel Quest 2
Category: Color Crazy
Click on pairs of jewels to swap their position and create color matches. Yup, it's another simple, addictive puzzle game. You'll hate us.

03/29/10: America's Army
Category: Bang Bang
Hardcore shooter sponsored by the U.S. military.

03/30/10: GeneRally
Category: Blood on the Asphalt
A minimalist Micro Machines. Up to six players can bounce and break their cars together.

03/31/10: Forumwarz
Category: RPFree
Legendary spoof RPG. Will you play as Camwhore, Emokid, or Troll?

04/01/10: The Power
Category: Press Up To Jump
So focused on exploration that it boasts it has no puzzles.

04/02/10: Samorost 2
Category: Logic Problem
This time, your little white-hooded fellow has had his dog stolen by aliens!

04/05/10: Minishoter RS
Category: Gunslingers
Side-scroller with masses of weapon customization and hidden extras.

04/06/10: Once in Space
Category: Abstractia
A platformer that looks like it was scrawled in the back of a school notebook.

04/07/10: Oasis
Category: Strat-O-Matic
A superb cross between Minesweeper and Civilization, with barbarian hordes.

04/08/10: Fractal Fighter
Category: Cactus Games
One of those scrolling shooters where everything is a screaming bossfight with a billion bullets whistling past your ears.

04/12/10: Chromatron
Category: Brain-Benders
Lasers not as weapons, but as puzzles. Place mirrors to bounce light and complete systems.

04/13/10: Wild Metal
Category: Blood on the Asphalt
Early Rockstar game of vehicular combat - you fight automated military units on the Tehric planetary system.

04/14/10: Fancy Pants Adventures
Category: Press Up To Jump
Free-running adventure set in a beautifully animated world.

04/15/10: Questionaut
Category: Logic Problem
Created by Dvorsky for the BBC, it incorporates loads of his gorgeous art.

04/16/10: Return to Sector 9
Category: Gunslingers
Top-down shooter with a myriad of enemy-crushing unlockables.

04/19/10: Naked War
Category: Strat-O-Matic
Cute email strategy game for a free trial. Quirky and very, very British.

04/20/10: Clean Asia!
Category: Cactus Games
The Independent Game Festival-winning masterpiece. A scrolling shooter with the usual array of irreverent ideas.

04/21/10: Bollen
Category: Press Up To Jump
If Super Mario starred a ball instead of a plumber, you'd get this. Bounce through increasingly difficult levels to reach the flag.

04/22/10: Storm Assault
Category: Gunslingers
Side-scrolling tribute to Gradius: a bullet dodging, enemy scouring, space-faring shooter.

04/26/10: GLCatan
Category: Strat-O-Matic
The classic Settlers of Catan board-game, rebuilt for the PC. Up to four players can join in, taking turns.

04/27/10: The Design
Category: Cactus Games
Weird shooter in which "enemies" can only be removed from the structure of the arena when they enter a specific state. Clever stuff.

04/28/10: Muon
Category: Press Up to Jump
Bounce your double-jumping cube around randomly generated levels.

04/29/10: Unholy Stage
Category: Cactus Games
Another Sumo-shooter hybrid in which you blast enemies while they try to knock you off your platform. Abstract and very tricky.

04/30/10: Paroxysm
Category: Press Up to Jump
A bit like Prince of Persia - you guide your little man through dungeons of spikes and traps.

05/03/10: F*ck Space!
Category: Cactus Games
Beautifully pixilated scrolling shooter witg a rather specific attitude... lots of baddies, lots of bosses. Doesn't last too long.

05/04/10: Psychosomnium
Category: Cactus Games
Absurb platform game that scrunches up the rules and throws them in the bin.

05/05/10: Saru ga Daisuki
Category: Cactus Games
Very basic platformer, but entirely crazy. Use your yo-yo to slay the servants of the evil doctor and escape his techomaze of neon.

05/06/10: Decontrologic
Category: Cactus Games
Micro-adventure in the most basic tradition. Some unusual ideas mixed up with Cactus' usual bizarre humor.

05/10/10: God Came to the Cave
Category: Cactus Games
A pretty abstract adventure where you play a spirit traveling through a cave. Relatively normalized and feel-good compared to Cactus' other work.

05/11/10: The Birthday
Category: Cactus Games
A side-on adventure game in which you must save your brother from a birthday worse than any other. Bizarre, but that's Cactus.

05/12/10: Illegal Communication
Category: Cactus Games
An action puzzle game controlled with the mouse. Part of the game: figuring out what you're meant to be doing.

05/13/10: Ted's Wet Adventure
Category: Cactus Games
Not quite as filthy as it sounds, this satirical game mocks someone who tried to rip off the GameMaker software used to make it.
 
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