What's Hot:

• Name Your Own Price Bundle
• The Night of the Rabbit
• Star Command
• Fez

One of the first mistakes developers make when handling their own PR is emailing everyone under the sun who writes about games in any capacity. While initially that may seem like a good idea—I see you writing comments like “Isn’t that what you guys do?!”—writers are busy, and a generic pitch that isn’t in line with what they cover is a surefire way to get Marked As Spam and disappear from their inbox forever.

It would be a bit of an understatement to say that we here in the Gamezebo camp are a little excited for Daedalic’s new point-and-click adventure, The Night of the Rabbit. Okay, so maybe we’re a little cross-the-days-off-our-calendar excited for this one, but who can really blame us? The game just looks all sorts of awesome.

Whether it’s because they’re breaking from tradition, trying new things, or just because it’s always fun to root for the little guy, indie games are cool.  But for every notable independently developed game you’ve heard of, there are hundreds – if not thousands – that you haven’t.

In Her Interactive’s latest Nancy Drew mystery, we find our master sleuth challenged with one of the scariest storylines in the franchise to date, and also one of the best. Nancy Drew: Ghost of Thornton Hall contains two interweaving storylines, as Nancy must confront her skepticism of the supernatural head-on in order to save a missing girl just days before her wedding.

The ‘80s blessed us with big hair, over-synthesized music, and beautiful role-playing gamebooks from publishers like Lone Wolf, Fighting Fantasy, and Fabled Lands. For the sake of our children, these books and their illustrations of orcs, dwarves, and busty elf women must survive in this modern era. Happily, Black Chicken Games has launched a Kickstarter for Holdfast, a gamebook that’s bound for PC, Android, Mac, and print.

Kiz Studios has announced today a new character asset that will be coming to their popular MOBA game, SmashMuck Champions at some point in 2013. Described by Kiz Studios and fans as “part-platypus, part-unicorn and full-awesome,” Platimus, the Mighty Platicorn, was designed by fans of the game at this year’s PAX East event, and will now become a fully playable character in the actual game. 

The television drama Castle follows novel writer Richard Castle in his adventures with detective Kate Beckett, using his skills as a novelist to help solve every case that comes along. Now, fans of the television show can help Castle solve his next case in Castle: Never Judge a Book by Its Cover, a new hidden object puzzle game that’s actually really entertaining, even if you’ve never watched the show.

We love to wax nostalgic on the Golden Age of adventure games, but even the staunchest fans will admit that patience often outweighed brainpower in the genre’s heyday.  Recent entries in the point-and-click coterie have tended to favor the player’s experience in place of his ability to click randomly until something happens.  The Realm is the next evolution of this trend, further emphasizing fun over frustration, engagement over exasperation.

After the enormous success of 2012’s The Walking Dead, many gamers wondered what the future had in store for a developer as bright as Telltale Games. The point-and-click aficionados could have easily just put their heads down to work on The Walking Dead – Season Two (already announced for later this year) and called it a day. But no, Telltale has been hard at work on another episodic adventure set to debut this summer, and it’s one that’s already shaping up to be quite a strong contender for adventure game of the year in 2013.

We cover plenty of new games here at Gamezebo every week, but the number of games we’ve already covered that show up on new platforms?  It’s staggering.  This Wednesday and every Wednesday, Gamezebo is rounding up the games that aren’t quite new, but might be new to you depending on your platform of choice.  And who doesn't love new(ish) games?

The fact that you can play Angry Birds on basically every device under the sun is pretty cool. What's less cool, however, is that your progress isn't saved between devices. With the newly launched Rovio Accounts, that's something Rovio is hoping to change.

Hold onto your Booster Packs, Trading Card Game fans, because boy have we got the game for you! HEX: Shards of Fate is being touted as the first “real” MMO/Trading Card Game hybrid, and a “completely new gaming experience” in full. The game has secretly been in development over the last two years by Cryptozoic Entertainment, whose past accolades include the hugely popular World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. From the official Kickstarter page: “HEX combines community and storytelling aspects of an MMORPG with the collectable and strategic gameplay of a TCG.”

Pity the poor Pyro from Team Fortress 2. He (or she—or it) simply wants his rivals to join him in the splendor of “Pyroland,” but his delirious kindness actually leads him to burn up everyone and everything he encounters. But now you can take home one piece of Pyroland without winding up in a burn ward afterwards: The bouncy, fluffy Balloonicorn.

After a long and lonely dry spell, the original longue lizard Larry Laffer is back on the dating scene, thanks to his legions of seductive Kickstarter fans. Today we have some exciting information about a new piece of content that’s being added to the remake of Larry’s first dance with love, in the upcoming Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded. Based on the many votes from the project’s Kickstarter backers, fans of the series have chosen Jasmine to be incorporated into the game as a new woman in Larry’s luxurious love life.

Gamezebo has always been a great place to learn about the best new and upcoming games, and it’s a top notch way to find out about the best deals, too.  So isn’t it about time these two ideas came together? Today we’re announcing the launch of the Name Your Own Price Bundle. It’s the greatest idea since peanut butter met jelly. 

Get ready for a surprise reveal: Dracula is super-duper hard to kill. Even when the Lord of the Vampires is put out of commission (permanently or temporarily, depending on the mythology), his influence sticks around like a dark cloud. Ships suddenly seem to sail themselves, wolves start hanging around town, and bats seem to think they have the run of daylight hours. Dracula 4: The Shadow of the Dragon for PC, Mac, iOS, and Android revolves around one such mysterious Vlad-related phenomenon.

It’s probably not cool to admit a bias out in the open like this, but hey – here at Gamezebo, we’re really stoked about The Night of the Rabbit.  It’s the next game from the folks who brought us Deponia, and it both looks and plays fantastic.

It feels like I’ve been waiting four whole years for a proper sequel to my favorite plant-themed strategy game, Plants vs. Zombies. Oh wait a minute, that’s because it has been four whole years since the original Plants vs. Zombies was first released on PC and Mac platforms back in 2009. Rumors began circulating early this year that the sequel would come with the subheading “Garden Warfare,” but the lack of any real confirmation from the zombies themselves left many of us fans thinking: what’s taking so long PopCap?!

Wake up, Empress Anna! Time to stop your evil twin sister again! Empress of the Deep 3: Legacy of the Phoenix from Silverback Games continues the tale from the first two installments of the series, with the malevolent Pandora harnessing the power of the Colossus and threatening to destroy the world. With the help of the guardians, though, you can resurrect the Phoenix and find your lost tribe. Who knew sibling rivalry could be so destructive?

Rejoice my fellow Sims fans, because today is a day for jubilation. I can’t say I’m all that surprised about the news, but it’s still pretty exciting to hear nonetheless. That’s right, today Maxis has announced the existence of The Sims 4. I can hear my quirky virtual family murmuring nonsense words in excitement already!