Super-powered volleyball, an intergalactic dust-up, a small black square and a couple of guys on the lam - this is what awaits you in the small corner of the internet that I like to call The Free Webgame Round-Up. So take off your cyber-shoes, give your coat to Ask Jeeves, and rest your feet on that pile of old GeoCities websites, because things are about to get browsery .
Planet Punch by Matt Thorson and Alec Holowka
Planet Punch is a game that lets you punch things with Uranus. And also with the Earth, but then it isn't quite as funny to mention that. I should elaborate: you're a rogue star that looks like it's escaped from a particularly mischievous Kirby title, and you're using Earth and Uranus (stop tittering) to beat things up. What are you beating up? Asteroids, satellites, other planets, space dolphins – you know, the usual galactic junk. This collaboration between Matt Thorson and Alec Holowka is as ridiculous as it sounds, and a good way to take out your frustrations on what is sometimes a vast and uncaring and dolphin-filled universe.
Kung Fu Volleyball by KO-OP Mode
Have you ever wondered what Neo and Morpheus get up to when they're not fighting endless Elrond clones or philosophising about whatever? They play Kung Fu Volleyball, obviously, and now you can too. This inventive same-screen multiplayer game works with either two controllers (the recommended method) or with two sets of hands on the same keyboard (could get messy), and makes a few teeny changes to the volleyball rulebook. Namely: levitation and teleportation, which would have livened up the Olympic games no end.
Rescuenauts by TheRussMorris
A clever endless runner type thing that puts you in the role of two characters rather than just one. The A and D keys control a guy on a futuristic bike, shifting it left and right to collect power-ups or dodge obstacles. The mouse, meanwhile, controls a dude on a moving platform, whose gun will make short work of computer terminals, laser beams, and many other things that stand in Bike Guy's way. On your own, Rescuenauts offers an enjoyably tough challenge, but perhaps not one you'll be able to make too much headway in – unless you're adept at rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time. Thankfully, you can offload control of the other character to a friend, coworker, acquaintance or aimless drifter, which should make survival quite a bit easier in the long run.
Magnetized by Rocky Hong
Oh this is good. Magnetized is a one button physics puzzle game where you have to guide a small black square from an entrance to an exit, via the use of stationary magnet points, and your index finger. The square moves of its own accord, but you can manipulate the magnet (and later, magnet s ) to nudge it left and right. Too little and it may coast into a wall and die; too much and it may pick up momentum and... crash into a wall and die. Either way, old squareface is going to bite the bullet plenty of times along your journey. Like the best twitch arcade/puzzle games, Magnetized is impervious to walkthroughs – even when you figure out how much force (and when) to direct the little square with, you'd never be able to relay that information to another person. It's a skill that must be earned, so I hope the game's creator, Rocky Hong, lets us put it to further use in a follow-up. (Via IndieGames )
