As I prepared to write this Contraption Maker preview, the realization of why my Grandma hates Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure suddenly hit me. It was, after all, the movie that introduced me to the beautiful chaos that is the Rube Goldberg device.

Chuck the Muck is the latest in line of fun and quirky games in the Planet Muck universe, right behind last year’s well-received action-oriented Critter Escape. This time around, one of those lovable critters has teamed up with a big muck named Chuck for a head-scratching, physics-based good time. So how do our critter pal and his new friend Chuck hold up in a puzzle-platform environment?

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.

It may look like one of the now-ubiquitous minimalist iPhone weather apps, but Mosaique is more like the love child of Lumines and Echochrome than another reinvention of the thermometer. Beautiful in its simplicity, simple in its design, and satisfying in its gameplay, Mosaique checks all the boxes of a great puzzle game by being the essence of them.

Tadpoles may not look tasty to humans, but to everything that lives in the pond they might as well be chocolate cake. Tasty Tadpoles is a clever little arcade game by Mark White that is one of the most pleasantly simple iOS games around. And despite the name, we're pretty sure no tadpoles are actually harmed during the game, despite being eaten over and over again.

Fairytales are full of happy endings - of knights in shining armor saving damsels in distress. But sometimes it can be fun to play the bad guy too. In (Don't) Save the Princess from Shen Games you'll use magical arrows to guide an unlucky knight straight into the waiting jaws of a lip-smacking green monster.

I’ve always been a sucker for a great platform adventure game, and when you throw eye-popping 3D graphics that are supposed to resemble paper into the mix, well then you might as well have reached into my pocket and emptied out my wallet because I’m already sold. Unfortunately for Paper Titans, while the game holds true on its promise of providing plenty of paper, there is not one sheet of fun adventuring gameplay to be found.

With the amazing success of King’s Candy Crush Saga and Farm Heroes Saga, it’s only natural to see other developers try their hand at a level-based match-three game on Facebook: and that’s what gamers have been given with Jelly Glutton. Jelly Glutton follows a little monster named Jelly that wants nothing more than to eat all of the sweet treats in existence, one match-three level at a time. You’ll be able to help him fill his belly, and while Jelly Glutton may not be the most original game in existence, it’s still pretty fun to play.

Like every other form of creative expression, video games deserve to be rated according to the quality of their contents instead of their names. That said, when you title your game “Better than Portal,” you’re inviting weighty judgment against your work. Sure enough, Better than Portal is an empty boast. The game doesn’t touch Valve’s hallowed puzzle platformer, and in fact it’s a dismal experience altogether.

When Fez first launched on Xbox LIVE Arcade in April 2012, hope for a PC release was low.  Creator Phil Fish dubbed it a “console game” specifically, with an experience crafted by the way players ingest it.  While this caused some PC gamers to close the window on Fish and Fez permanently, those who have patiently awaited a change of mind have finally been rewarded with a Steam release.  Time may not heal the PC-spited’s wounds, but giving into the joyful charm of Fez just might.