It's The Day After Independence Day, which as legend has it is the day an exhausted Will Smith had a bit of a lie-in after he punched that alien and met film's Jeff Goldblum just hours before. What better time to get lost in an ancient ruin, interrogate a bunch of animals, play Breakout 17 times simultaneously, or take part in a cruel, unusual puzzle game? Read on for those things I said – that is, if you've managed to find your spectacles first.
The Ruins of Machi Itcza by MNWS
It's hard enough finding your way in most mapless 2D platformers without throwing tricksy room changes into the bargain. Machi's very purple ruins are a confusing place to explore, connecting in a disorientating, jumbled-up way which is memorable, if a little annoying with it. If you've not quite had your fill of 1-bit platformers yet, you might consider getting lost in Machi Itcza. (Via Indie Statik )
Deducktion by Tuttle Games
Jessica Fletcher is my hero – even though part of me is convinced that she done all them murders – so I'm a big fan of all these amateur sleuthing games that have been cropping up lately. The cutely named Deducktion puts you in the role of a duck investigating the hideous knocking over of a bin after a pizza party. Your suspects: a cat, a dachshund, a skunk and a mouse. Something smells funny about one of them, and (as the game randomly settles on a culprit) it isn't always Pepe Le Pew over there.
BRICK[bricksmash]SMASH by Draknek
So you like Breakout huh? Well how's this for an ironic gift/punishment. Draknek's BRICK[bricksmash]SMASH is a Breakout clone with a twist: you're playing a whopping 17 games of it at once. You're not just keeping track of the main game but the 16 smaller ones above it, which erupt into extra missiles when cleared. It's a brilliantly maximalist take on the old arcade game, and a surprisingly refreshing use for a series that's been remade, reborn and outright cloned roughly eight billion times in the last thirty years. (Via Free Indie Games )
I Can't Find My Glasses by ElijahT
As a speccy four-eyes myself, I know the pain of losing your glasses only too well – though I'm thankfully nowhere near as short-sighted or seemingly colour-blind as the unfortunate soul in I Can't Find My Glasses. The first thing you need to do is RTFM, TFM in this case being the list of the controls in the 'instruction' box under the game screen. Without knowing that you can squint by holding the right mouse button and moving the mouse up and down, ICFMG is a lot harder than it should be – and it's already maddeningly, fiendishly, compulsively difficult. Brilliantly blurry stuff. (Via Free Indie Games )
3LIND GAME by Sergey Gerasimenko
3LIND GAME is not a fair puzzle game - far from it. It constantly breaks its own rules, turning the concept – it's sort of a bit like Snake, only not – on its head at the start of every stage. It throws extra stuff in mid-level to keep you on your toes, and it once boinged me with a Monty Python-style finger seconds after I'd made it through a difficult obstacle course. It is, however, a devious, smart and beautifully constructed experience that rewards your creativity with plenty of its own. (Via IndieGames )
