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• Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse - Episode 1
• Flappy Bird
• Clash of Clans

Into The Box is a mouse-only arcade game where players guide themselves through rapidly appearing rectangles.  Passing through the rectangles is the only way to progress into the next area of rectangles, which more rectangles then quickly appear within. As one can imagine, the game is not exactly friendly for players who suffer from motion sickness or have a paralyzing fear of endlessly falling through brightly-colored shapes.

The more rectangles the player passes through, the higher their score will be. Unlockables are attained once the player breaks through an established high-score tier. The unlockables include score multipliers, different soundtracks, and an "auto-pilot" mode which, at a 1500 score requirement, I may never find out what exactly that does (my best high-score is 196).

Developed by Tarik Kaya, of the Kayabros, Into the Box recently released for free on Google Play. Into the Box is also available to play in-browser on Kongregate, Itch.io, and Newgrounds. As the game continues to grow in popularity, many have questioned Kaya's reasoning for releasing the game for free, without any ads to support him either.

Thinking back two console generations ago, I can instantly recall fond memories of lurking through the shadows and patrolling the corridors of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow's multiplayer mode, Spies vs. Mercenaries. The mode divided a small group of players into the two aforementioned teams. Both the spies and mercenaries came equipped with their own set of abilities and gear. The mercenaries were tasked with preventing the spies from completing certain objectives, and the spies needed to sneak in and out without being killed. Once the game started, a heart-pounding game of cat-and-mouse ensued, with the spies darting in and out of the shadows and the mercenaries trying to hunt them down.

Of Guards and Thieves takes the core of the Spies vs. Mercenaries game mode and simplifies it into a less-complex, but just as engaging, concept. With the game's open Beta in full swing, I gave Of Guards and Thieves a download and proceeded to let it sneak off with a few hours of my evening.

Husband and wife development team Backward pieS are celebrating the release of their tree-growing puzzler with a 50% off discount sale. For a short amount of time, Let There Be Life is available for $4.99 on IndieGameStand, with Desura and Humble Store options coming in the near future. 

In Let There Be Life, the player must strategically grow a tree so that the leaves and branches do not overshadow the flowers on the ground around the tree. Self-described as a "watercolor painting come to life", Let There Be Life presents players with a stress-free atmosphere that can be appreciated by gamers of all skill levels.

Speaking of levels, Let There Be Life boasts 34 of them - all designed as hand-painted watercolors - for players to enjoy.

Backward pieS originally developed Let There Be Life during the 2013 Edge "Get Into Games" competition. For the competition, the developers were tasked with creating a game base around the theme, "Do No Harm" and Let There Be Life earned Backward pieS a position in second place.

The allure of loot is something that's hard to deny.

Some argue the loot-based formula, popularized by action-RPGs like Diablo, aren't actually "fun," and instead wage psychological warfare against players to make them feel like tweaking numbers is actually enjoyable. The same is often said of free-to-play games. When abused, the "pay-if-you-want" model is nothing but a shell to trick you into spending more money on a system that's designed to make you do it all over again, never really letting you play a "game" along the way.

The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot is a loot-based action-RPG in the style of Diablo. It's also a free-to-play game with not just a few resemblances to EA's much-maligned Dungeon Keeper reboot. Immediately the corporate cards seem stacked against any actual "game" to be found in this blend of genres.

It's mental tug-of-war; I want this here, but I don't want to spend money. Is this actually fun, or is it just gratuitously satisfying? The same push-and-pull defines Mighty Quest on a design level.

Obvious moves aren’t that interesting. So when it came to light that EA founder Trip Hawkins had a new startup working on a game to teach kids social and emotional learning (SEL), it raised some eyebrows. Well, mine anyway, and possibly Dwayne Johnson’s. Now that game, If…, is live, and it’s no less intriguing in the way it blends high production values and dedication to its mission to create a viable alternative to much of what school-aged children might otherwise play on their iPads.

The story of If… (the title is inspired by a Rudyard Kipling poem of the same name) unfolds on a planet called Ziggurat where anthropomorphic dogs and cats once lived together in harmony. But something has happened to upset the balance, and it’s up to your child’s customized canine character to get to the bottom of it, starting with a special town called Greenberry. Your guide is named YouDog, a mentor figure who’s one part Yoda, one part Mr. Miyagi and one part man’s best friend.

Other characters follow through the portal to Greenberry in short order to help you with the literal rebuilding. This is the least compelling part of the gameplay, requiring the simple gathering of several resources to restore buildings to their former glory.

With so much business wheeling and dealing, sometimes it’s easy to forget that China is a nation enshrouded in communist principles. This week’s Chinese gaming news brings a subtle reminder of that – though it certainly brings a fair share of capitalism-loving financial actions too.

Thanks to our friends at Beijing-based Laohu.com for sharing this news round-up with our Western readers. If you’re looking for Chinese gaming news daily, be sure to give them a look.

In the corporate world, even long-awaited good news doesn’t mean there isn’t bad news for some people in the organization.

That was the case for Disney Interactive, which despite turning a profit in the last quarter of 2013 on the strength of Disney Infinity nevertheless laid off 700 employees this week, or just over a quarter of its total workforce. Along with the job cuts, the division is closing several offices in the U.S., plus one each in South Korea and India.

As you might expect with such a drastic reduction in headcount, Disney Interactive will simply develop less games moving forward, relying on partnerships with outside studios instead. It also may avoid big ticket purchases, as many media reports are spinning the company’s latest move as a referendum on its 2010 acquisition of Playdom.

Love it or hate it, Flappy Bird managed to touch something very primal in all of us. An urge to triumph over impossible odds; to conquer the unconquerable.

Since its removal from the App Store in January, plenty of “me too” games have flooded the App Store. Shameless clones, however, miss what make Flappy Bird great. We don’t want to play a cookie cutter knock off, we want the next Flappy Bird.

And I think I’ve just found it.

Like Flappy Bird (and Super Hexagon, and a zillion crazy-hard reaction games before it), Tiny Car is a game with a simple premise and immeasurably difficult gameplay. You’ll need to keep the titular tiny car on an ever-winding road, and your only control are left and right. Momentum will make those turns harder and harder to make, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll struggle to even break 10 points.

OnLive, the company that helped spearhead the concept of cloud-based gaming, is back. Alongside it is a new Executive Chairman in the form of Mark Jung – formerly of VUDU and IGN – and a host of new concepts to potentially breathe new life into the old service.

The group, which specializes in allowing players to stream PC games to nontraditional hardware over the internet, laid off all of its employees in August of 2012. A new company, also called OnLive, was started in its place, while all of its assets were sold cheaply to Lauder Partners for $4.8 million. CEO and founder Steve Perlman stepped down from his position and the service has been relatively quiet until now.

A press release sent by the company this week states their plans for a new subscription, called CloudLift. The service is meant to allow players to use supported games they already have installed on their PC across multiple platforms such as tablets, Macs, OnLive’s own streaming device and certain TVs.

Apparently, any game supported by CloudLift should work despite where it was downloaded from, but purchasing a game from OnLive directly includes a seven day trial. The service normally comes at a cost of $15 a month.

That’s not included with the $10 a month “PlayPack” subscription, which provides access to streaming-only games from the OnLive library.

Outernauts was brilliant. We said as much when it launched back in 2012, and I stand by every single word of praise we’ve heaped upon it. It’s arguably the best Facebook game I’ve played (though Marvel: Avengers Alliance could probably argue just as strongly for that title), and unlike many of you reading this, I’ve played a lot.

Outernauts was Insomniac Games’ first foray into casual gaming, and it proved not only to be a great free-to-play Pokemon clone, but the first Pokemon clone that I found myself enjoying on par with the real thing. And don’t just take my word for it – YouTube’s leading Pokemaniac TheJWittz wrote the Gamezebo review of Outernauts and gave it a perfect score.

They shut the web-based game down earlier this year to focus on a mobile-only relaunch. As a fan of the original, I was more than a little excited.

That excitement was misplaced.