Alpha Core

Here’s another short but enjoyable puzzle game by Bart Bonte, called Full Moon. The idea is to make the bunny get to whatever it wants at that time (carrot, pear, apple) in each level (there are only 13 of them). In case you get stuck, I wrote a complete walkthrough for it below. Have fun! Read more

In Oiligarchy, you explore the land for oil reserves and start drilling when you find them. If the locals don’t allow it or if there’s too much fancy wildlife around, you’ll have to deal with this “problem”. This is where politics comes in handy: by supporting presidential election campaigns, you’ll get the man in the Oval Office to work for you and eventually be able to drill everywhere. In the meantime you’ll get filthy rich! Enjoy and be sure to keep up with the oil demand or you’re out of business.

This game has been created by the people over at la Molleindustria.

Crossblock is a nice puzzle game by Hexaditidom (D.J. Trousdale) over at deviantART. The aim of each level is to clear it of all blocks by drawing lines through them horizontally or vertically. The tricky thing however is that you have to remove a certain number of blocks at the same time this way (this number changes throughout the game).

If you’re really stuck, scroll down for my walkthrough below. Enjoy! Read more

After much consideration, I’d like to present to you the best web game of 2008: You Have To Burn The Rope (YHTBTR) (alternative link). It’s an amazingly superb little platform game and has everything that makes a game great. It’s unique and highly original. Enjoy it! Over and over again…

Congratulations and many thanks to Kian Bashiri, Christian Dryden, Henrik Nåmark (for the great music) and everybody who contributed to this little gem! There’s also an interview with Kian Mashiri, who’s responsible for the design, code and graphics of the game.

Auditorium is an interesting audio visual puzzle game about the process of discovery and play. There are no right or wrong answers; there are many ways to solve every puzzle. In every level, you try to redirect or control ‘The Flow’ which is a stream of audio visual particles that will create sound when matched with the audio container of their color. The aim is to fill up all audio containers so you hear the music completely, you’ll see (and hear) what I mean when you play it. Enjoy!

It’s my turn to post an escape game this time! Kagi nochi tobira (鍵のち扉), which means ‘key, then door’ is quite simple in concept. As you might have guessed: in every room, you need to find a key and open the door with it. Sounds easy enough, not? Go ahead, prove it to me and complete all 20 levels in the game! Enjoy!

While Doro is more into escape games, I prefer tower defense games. Here’s a nice addition to the collection I already posted before. It’s called Ultimate Defense 2.

Refreshing in this game is the ability to dig around in the landscape and find some bonus items or treasures, which help you getting more money for the next level.

At first the game might seem pretty difficult, but keep trying and you’ll be able to get to the end easily! Money is hard to come by in this game, so spend it wisely! Enjoy the game!

I already posted about escape games earlier, where I stated that Escape Game [Vision] was maybe the best of this kind I played until then. Well, I think I must add another one to my list:

Casual Gameplay Escape was released yesterday in Weekday Escape on Jay is Games and hooked me completely with it’s new approach to the topic ‘escape the room’. The game is the result of a collaboration between Jay is Games and Sean Hawkes, who is – until now – better known as the developer of puzzle games, such as the clack series (Clack, Clack 2). And maybe this is also the secret why I love Casual Gameplay Escape so much.

You are locked in a room as usually, but instead of clicking around for tools, which might help you in your task of getting out of the room, you solve puzzles. And with puzzles I don’t mean these old ones that reoccur in every third escape game. No, the puzzles here are challenging and refreshing at the same time, think outside the box and work with the hints in the sparingly equipped room. It goes without saying that you find the walkthrough at Jay is Games.

The only drawback in regard to Escape Game [Vision] is that Casual Gameplay Escape has absolutely no background story whatsoever.

Putt Base is a well designed physics-based puzzler in which you try to putt a golf ball. This might sound easy enough, but the play field slows you down a lot and there’s not exactly a straight path towards the goal. That’s why in most levels you get some parts (like bumpers, corners, etc.) which you can place on the field to help you to get the ball to the hole. I espacially like the artwork, which gives a very comfortable feeling to the game. Thanks to Jayisgames where I found out about this one.

In Orbitrunner, you control the Sun with your mouse. Use it to manipulate the planets’ paths. The Sun’s pull gets stronger as planets get closer. If the gravity is at a right angle to the direction of travel, an orbit can form. Make sure planets don’t leave the screen or collide!

It’s an OK game, but it starts getting on the nerves after the gazillionth attempt to keep a bunch of planets with colliding tendencies on the screen. The first few levels are the nicest actually, because you can draw some nice patterns on the screen with them.