Taxonomy
Gretel & Hansel
Wicked stepmothers have been a part of fairy tales for as long as anybody can remember, but none were as wicked as Hansel and Gretel's. Convincing her husband to abandon their young children in the woods was a dastardly deed, and now you can fill the shoes of young Gretel and try to set things right! Gretel & Hansel is a free browser-based point-and-click adventure that embraces charming visuals and simple gameplay, and even throws in a few twists for gamers with a bit of a mean streak.
Waker
In the world of Waker, all of our dreams are a path to the stars and back. Sometimes these paths are broken and the dreamers sleep forever. It's up to you, a Waker, to fix these paths so that the dreamers can once again awaken from their slumber. It sounds like a terrific story in a beautiful world of sleep, but between the mundane presentation and terrible gameplay, Waker was one dream we were dying to wake up from.
Cave Chaos
Spelunking can be a dangerous past time, but spelunking in a cave where there's no immediate path in any direction? That's chaos! Cave Chaos takes a browser-based approach to the world of cavern exploration and it embraces the panicked excitement that its developer Nitrome is known for. Caves and caverns have long been a staple environment in the world of gaming, which makes it doubly refreshing to see such a fun new take on these surroundings.
Now Boarding: Episode 1
Managing a small airport is no easy task, so why not see if you're up to the challenge? Turn around a struggling airport by mapping flight plans, opening new routes, buying bigger planes, and making sure all of your customers stay happy in an attempt to turn around the business woes of a little airport with a lot of personality.
Graveyard Shift
Graveyard Shift is a browser-based shooter reminiscent of the old light gun days of games gone by. A spooky side-scroller, you'll be tasked with shooting the unholy armies of the undead with little more than a click of the mouse and a whole lot of courage to protect you. Well - courage and a shield.
Swordless Ninja
Running. Jumping. Rescuing the princess. It's a formula that we've seen time and again in 2D platform gaming. Super Mario Bros. first did it back in 1985, and thousands of imitators have tried to re-capture that glory since. Now a well-polished pretender to the throne is available for free in your browser. But is Swordless Ninja different enough to set itself apart in a world of Mario-clones 25 years deep?
MagnetiZR
When I think of magnets, the first thing that comes to mind is my fridge. I have magnets shaped like every state I've visited. My fridge is covered in magnetic letters and numbers that my kids use to practice their spelling. We even have a handy magnetic clipboard we use to keep track of what we need to replace in our pantry.
But magnets can be so much cooler than that. Remember that science kit you had as a kid? The one with the really strong magnetic blocks that attracted and repelled each other? MagnetiZR is more like that than your silly old fridge. It tries to recapture the awe-inspiring sense of magnetic discovery we all had as kids, and as a free flash-based puzzler it does a great job of re-instilling that sense of wonder.
Copy Cat: A Painter's Puzzle
If you've ever been to art museums like the Louvre, you've likely seen the artists standing in front of a masterpiece with their own canvas and brush in hand. Artistic reproductions are an art form all to themselves requiring a great deal of talent, ingenuity and skill. Copy Cat: A Painter's Puzzle recreates this challenge with the accuracy that such reproductions strive for.
Boxgame
Perspective is an interesting thing. In the real world we tend to view things as three dimensional. Objects have depth. They have texture. We can touch and feel them. We're also used to the idea of a two dimensional world. Paintings. Literature. All of these things are flat. But what about the dimensions we so rarely explore? What about the fourth dimension? In Sophie Houlden's recently released mind-bending puzzler Boxgame, you're going to have to think about thinks in a perspective that will rock you right out of your comfort zone, and we love it.
LEGO Star Wars: The Quest for R2-D2
If you were to stop me on the street and tell me that someone had created a LEGO Star Wars browser-game that was completely free, took hours to complete, and was even better than the originals, I would have laughed until I fell down. And yet here I am, about to tell you these very same things.
Set during the Clone Wars saga, The Quest for R2-D2 tells a new story in the Star Wars universe. Lost in space, R2 is transmitting a distress call in the hopes that he'll be picked up by a nearby ship. What he doesn't realize is that this signal also contains the blueprints to a powerful new starship. Whoever finds the droid, finds the blueprints. Both the Republic and the Sith are in a race to find R2 first.
