Clever Puzzle Game of Spatial Reasoning

I'm a sucker for an original and well-designed puzzle game, and Chocolate Castle certainly qualifies. Here's how it works: In each level, you have a number of little characters who eat chocolate, but each eats only one type (white, milk, dark, or rose), and eats only once. About the level are various blocks of chocolate; you have to clear a level. Blocks can be dragged about the level, but if a block of one color contacts another of the same color, they stick together permanently. One character can eat an entire group of chocolate of the same color. So you have to plan how to move your chocolate blocks to free up other eaters in such a way that everything gets eaten, given the geography of the level and the limited number of eaters you possess.

Elegant Sword-Fighting Game with Outrageous Stunts

While many games indeed contain sword-wielding characters, very few make even a cursory attempt actually to simulate the dynamics of sword-fighting, nor yet to impart a sense of how it actually feels to engage in swordplay.

That's what Determinance does. True, what it simulates is less the reality of fencing that the sort of over-the-top dramatic swordplay you'd expect in Highlander or a Hong Kong action flick, but hey, that's fun. What it does, and elegantly, is allow you to control sword motions, body positions, and arm positions with nothing but the mouse and its buttons.

In this game, the player--we won't say "you", because "the player" in this instance is ideally your 9-13 year-old child or nephew (probably not niece--after all, Chess is a boy's game)--visits various sites portrayed in the Disney flick, and at these sites meets a variety of NPCs who engage him in conversation, pose puzzles and challenges for him, and teaches him the rules to Chess.

When you leave the "Chess Adventures" bit and start to just play "a quick game against the AI", the AI doesn't totally suck.

First Responder Sim

In Emergency 3, you control a city's first responders--EMTs, fire and rescue services, police, and so on--responding to emergencies. In twenty missions, you have to deal with a wide variety of them, from raging fires to explosions, derailed trains carrying dangerous chemicals, etc. There's also a 'sandbox' mode with randomly-generated emergencies, so once you've completed the missions, you can continue to play indefinitely, if you like. It's a real-time strategy game, in a sense, but your objective is saving lives, rather than conquering enemies.

The First True Interactive Drama

For decades, true interactive fiction--an application in which characters' responses to a player's input are determined algorithmically rather than via prescripted sequences, and in which valid stories emerge regardless of player action--has been a holy grail for AI researchers, digital artists, and game developers alike.

Most attempts to solve the problem have been "top down," that is, attempting to handle all sorts of stories, all sorts of personalities, and all sorts of potential actions. The results have generally been never more than mildly interesting.

Andy Stern and Michael Mateas, however, chose to try to solve a specific problem, rather than the general one. They chose a story with one setting (an apartment), two NPCs (a husband and wife), one basic conflict (their marriage is on the rocks), and a limited time frame (you are a friend of the family, visiting them over the course of an evening). By narrowing the focus this way, they were actually to solve the problem. Not, to be sure, in a way that solves the general problem--but in a way that makes of Façade the first really interesting work of true interative fiction.

Adventure Games Are for Kids

Well, at least this one is. Great Journey follows the adventure of two children seeking to help their friend Mr. Penguin prevent a polluter from dumping garbage in Antarctica. It's a simple point-and-click adventure in a classic mold with puzzles that tweens should have no problem solving, a bright kid-friendly palette, and engaging animations. Though the developer is Polish, the dialog has clearly been massaged by native English speakers, and the voice-over talent is clear and engaging.

Ball Labyrinth Meets Videogames

You may, from your youth, remember ball labyrinths: wood boxes with knobs on two sides you use to tilt a platform above the box, with the platform consisting of a wooden maze--with holes or slats in some areas which your ball, if you aren't careful, will fall through. You start at one location on the maze, and by tilting it carefully, try to get your ball to the exit. (The things we used to do for entertainment before videogames...)

Hazard Ball obviously owes a debt to those old puzzles; you control a ball in a maze, controlling it with the arrow keys; it has a degree of momentum, and the longer you hold a key down, the faster it goes, which is useful getting up ramps and such. Points are earned for collecting (running into) jewels and other objects, and there's the whole panoply of things you expect in straightforward videogames: gates opened with keys found elsewhere, powerups that give you special ability, hazards, moving opponents who try to damage you or knock your ball into a hole or opening into space.

Place your bombs, start the simulation and blast your way through over 100 challenging levels in this unique logic puzzle game!

Impulse has a simple game concept: the ball must hit the goal object. Different bombs, obstacles, special elements and force fields provide varied levels. The interactive timeline at the bottom of the screen lets you control the time and guarantees an original gameplay.

Free

We don't normally link to adver-games... But we're willing to make an exception for Junkbot, because we like it a lot.

Junkbot is a robot who works in a factory. His job is to empty garbage cans. Unfortunately, his programmers aren't too smart, and his pathing algorithms are dumb. He walks left-to-right until he hits an obstacle, then turns around and walks in the other direction. This would be okay, except that in most levels, something prevents him from getting to the garbage can. Your job is to build him a path--using Lego bricks (ah, the advertiser).

Distinctive, Surrealistic, Serene (and at $7, a bargain)

Some games, like Myst, feel like art because of the nature of their audio and visuals. Kalimée is of this type. The visuals are simple, but nicely textured 3D, and inspired by the surrealist painting of Salvador Dali; the music is excellent and peaceful ambient techno.