In the simple and kid friendly Tree House Defense, another fun game on Whirled by Three Rings, created by Robert Zubek and Bill Robinson, protect your tree house from bullies, skateboarders, skunks, and other assorted neighborhood menaces.

Place various objects like trash cans, sandboxes, and trees on the board to protect your flag. Each defense station comes with a kid, armed with weapons like paper airplanes, water balloons, and boomerangs. Each station has a point system for range, damage and delay, with different costs.

Arrange these items in maze like patterns to get enough hits on your opponents before they reach your side. Each time you defeat enemies you get money to buy more objects. You continue placing objects on the board as the bullies get tougher. Your goal is to last as long as possible, and keep everyone away from your flag. You have four environments to pick from: forest, beach, winter, and Halloween, and each environment has a couple of unique assets to play with besides the standard ones on every board.

Analysis:If you find that some of the elaborate tower defense games are bit too eye glazing and forbidding to get into, then this cute and simple game is a great place to start. So, it's probably not for the seasoned tower defense veteran.

I liked the simple relatable idea of keeping the bullies at bay. The animations were cute, very Saturday morning cartoon-style. I especially liked the extras in each environment, like the Yeti and the huffing Jack-o-lantern. The gameplay feels a little slow at times, although I like that you can speed things up a bit by forcing out the next enemy on the board. I would have liked a fast forward feature. The other thing that bothered me a bit was that they used a flag as the home base instead of the tree house itself. On the plus side, there is a two player mode, and also some mention about making custom levels yourself in the future. Fight off the bullies in Tree House Defense!

Ragdoll Cannon 2 is, rather logically, the sequel to Ragdoll Cannon (as teased by the release of Ragdoll Cannon 1.5). That's some no-nonsense naming, there. What designer Johnny_K might lack in titling, however, he more than compensates for in gameplay.

The core concept is familiar to fans of the prior offerings: using high-powered artillery, fire a hapless stickman across an obstacle-ridden course and strike a small target. It's like a three-ring circus combined with an archery range.

This time around, the "HERE!" block has been replaced by a much clearer bullseye target, and the cannon has been given a visual upgrade; in fact, everything's a bit more shiny. Johnny_K has abandoned his prior blueprint style in favor of three different themes: matchsticks, pastels, and skeletons. Each theme takes hold for twenty levels before yielding to the next, and converging together for the final ten.

For those of you who could never work out that it's pi r squared, not pie are delicious, that's seventy levels available to you in this go-around. You'll start off with simple shots, but things'll quickly ramp up, and you'll find yourself trying to work out complicated trajectories in your head.

Adding to the complications are specialized blocks. Now, there's no term given in-game for these blocks, so I shall coin one: "burn bricks." Ooh, or "murder mortars." OH! No, wait, "stick snapping stones!" I like that; very descriptive.

These stick snapping stones are marked with an X (crossed matchsticks, a skull and bones, or crossed bones). If your stickman touches one of these, the part that connected with the brick gets "burned" and falls off the main stickman. Only live stickman parts can touch the target to advance, so these blocks will be your enemy at times (although, interestingly, a puzzle will occasionally rely upon using these blocks effectively).

"That's all well and good," I hear you saying, "but all this is going over my head! All I know about physics is that Coldplay invented the speed of sound!" Well, you strugglers of the sciences, take heart: the game is somewhat forgiving. The golf-style scoring encourages conservation, but allows as many shots as you need to succeed. A reset button allows you to start each level over without penalty to your score. By the tenth level, you'll have snagged the general idea (or gone crazy trying).

Analysis: If you liked the first game, you'll love this. Well, love's a strong word. Let's not charge into this. How about we go on a few more dates with Ragdoll Cannon 2 and see how it goes, yeah?

Look, the extra levels are more than welcome, but some of them are excruciatingly difficult. A small yet non-zero handful of levels tend to devolve into pixel hunting. If you like pixel hunting, you're set (and also a little strange), but for the rest of us, it's a bit frustrating. These levels are few and far between, thankfully.

And if you loved the original blueprint style like I did... well, the new graphics are disappointing. The graph paper of the original reminded me of my AP Calculus days, doodling in the margins while waiting for the next differential. The new style makes it more in line with your standard casual game's scheme: colorful, but not very distinctive. The new themes aren't bad, but they're just not as good. (Although the mish-mash of visual styles in the last ten levels? Bleh.)

If you can get past the occasional level and the disappointing graphics, you've got a lot of good stuff here. This game will test your mind and your skill. With cannons. And let's face it, that's awesome. Play Ragdoll Cannon 2!

It doesn't take long to get addicted to PixelField Perfect Pi Pack, Tonypa's perilous pixel pointing action strategy game. If you remember playing the original, you'll be even more excited about this latest evolution to hit your browser, as the game has been totally revamped with a new soundtrack and 30 all-new levels added.

The object of the game is simple: maneuver your red triangle base throughout a dangerous mine field to collect blue energy pixels in as few moves as you can. To direct your base, just click wherever you'd like it to go and it follows. What's the catch? You can't hit the sides or obstacles of the playfield or you lose a life.

The three pixels that orbit the base expand and contract in relationship to how far you make the base move. Click too far ahead and the orbiting pixels will stretch well beyond your original trajectory.

There are two versions of the game to choose from—The 'Original Pack' and the 'Perfect PI Pack.' Each has six initial levels and as you progress through consecutive levels without losing a life, you unlock additional levels. The Perfect PI pack seems a bit more challenging but both versions offer the same great gameplay satisfaction.

And the gameplay is addictive. Once you come to realize that you have more control over the base than you initially realize, the depth of strategy deepens and exploring the possibilities of how distance and timing impact your moves is what makes this game so much fun to play.

The look and feel is still simple, clean and easy on the eyes. The pixels that orbit the base have an eerie magnetism that is perfectly accompanied by the soothing soundtrack by Kevin Macleod.

Tonypa has many other games on his site that are just as interesting and simple to play as Pixel Field. They're all free and just waiting for you to discover them. Keep clicking! Play Pixel Field Perfect Pi Pack.

Each week we churn through dozens of downloadable casual games searching for just the right ones to feature. Is it interesting and fun, or is it just another clone? Does it have pretty pictures? Much like our weekly Link Dump Friday feature, this edition of Weekend Download highlights some of the games that, for one reason or another, didn't quite make it to a full review, but are still unique enough to be worth playing.

World Mosaics (Windows, 37MB, demo) - If you're a picross nut like me, seizing this game is a no-brainer. If you're new to these puzzles, here's the scoop. Much like sudoku, picross (picture crossword) utilizes a grid, but here the numbers outside are your clues to which tiles should be filled in and which should be blank. The challenge is to find out which tiles are filled and how many spaces are between the groups, and the result is a picture! World Mosaics has an extensive tutorial (almost too extensive) to get you into the picross groove. And once you get in, you won't want to get out.

Most of what World Mosaics delivers is standard fare in the picross world, though the archaeological premise does add a little extra flair. The mouse controls are simple to use and the puzzles get progressively harder as you play. There's enough content to keep you busy for quite a while. I grew tired of the cutesy presentation after some time, and the facts presented after each puzzle quickly became a pointless diversion between my intense picrossing rounds. Even though World Mosaics doesn't pack a big oomph, it's simple and enjoyable, plus it gave my picross addiction some much-needed attention.

Cy-Clone (Windows, 150MB, demo) - Shooters tend to stay in the obscure realms of independent gaming, but once in a while a title comes along that's both accessible and fun for casual gamers and shmup fans alike. Cy-Clone is similar to the winner of our 5th Casual Gameplay Design Competition The Last Canopy in that your ship absorbs the powers of enemy ships and uses them as weapons. With each foe you clone you get an unlimited normal attack as well as a power attack that's unique to that enemy, each one more interesting than the last. On top of that, the stage artwork is imaginative and varied, creating a surprising amount of depth for your eyes to behold. Sometimes the effects look ten years old, and the variety of ships you can absorb leaves a little to be desired, but it's still a rockin' shmup experience with an excellent twist.

Yard Sale Junkie (Mac/Windows, 61MB, demo) - If a time management game and a hidden object game got married and had kids, Yard Sale Junkie would be the result. Mixing item hunting with serving customers, you travel from house to house sifting through yard sale junk (ahem, "treasures") and matching them to thrifty customers that stop by. Because it straddles two popular genres, Yard Sale Junkie is worth a try, but the presentation leaves something to be desired. The photo backgrounds do not mix well with the items, and some of the font/color choices make this effort look a bit amateurish.

Eels, phonic substitutions, time-traveling groundhogs, and a game that lets you beat up Kirby-like avatars that represent people from around the world. Let's all join hands and sing a song of — OH MY OMELETS THE EEL IS EATING ME!!!

Phun - (Mac/Windows/Linux, 2-7MB, free) - You've seen this physics-based playground before, but now it's available for MacOS X! Create scenes using a simple set of tools (you can even add water!), then unleash your creation and see what chaos ensues. It's a cross between a World of Sand-style toy and Armadillo Run, and it really is as entertaining as the name implies.

Teeworlds (Mac/Linux/Windows, ~4MB, free) - An online multiplayer game of Worms-style fighting! Hoorah! Using simple FPS controls, this colorful 2D brawler puts you in control of customizable characters who pick up weapons and beat the squeals out of players from around the world. Because this game is open source, the level of customization is high, and the matches are quick, often frantic, and loads of fun.

Choke on my Groundhog, YOU !@#$% ROBOTS - From Kloonigames comes another experimental work, this one focusing on groundhogs, robots, and a replay feature similar to the theme from our 3rd Casual Gameplay Design Competition. You and your time-traveling groundhog sidekick (you read that right!) must eliminate every robot you can. Get hit, tap the [spacebar], and you begin again, the ghost of your pal returning to blast foes while you do the same.

Avoid the Evil Space Eel (Windows, 7MB, free) - A short game made by Nifflas, the inimitable author of all things Knytt, entered into the No More Sweden friendly competition. Fly your ship with the mouse and avoid the oncoming blocks as well as the ever-chomping eel. Use the [A] and [S] keys to play the drums along with the background beat for an extra bonus.

Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People (Windows, 69MB, demo) - From the same studio that brought us the superb Sam & Max adventures comes another episodic adventure series starring the e-mail answering, Trogdor inventing Strong Bad, "hero" from the animated internet cartoon Homestar Runner. The game captures the signature humor remarkably well, and it's strangely fun to be able to play the boxing-glove-clad character after all these years. The game is also available for WiiWare.

Floating Islands Game (Windows, 36MB, free) is a downloadable puzzle title created by Hempuli, author of Once in Space. FIG plays a lot like Rob Allen's Hapland series with more action and a distinct Lemmings slant to it. In each level you must guide the main character through the stage, collecting all of the gold stars before reaching the flag at the end. You can only affect his movements indirectly, however, by clicking and changing different parts of the environment at just the right time. It combines quick reflex gameplay with just enough puzzle elements to make it captivating, and the artwork creates a beautiful setting you just can't resist.

We first mentioned Floating Islands Game back when the community convinced the creator to release a short demo. FIG has since been incubating to emerge with almost three dozen levels! From the start there are two worlds, each divided into themed planets that hold a handful of levels. Each one is named and shows how tough it is according to the number of stars. The difficulty level spikes up and down and can switch between timed puzzles and pure brain teasers without warning, but you don't have to complete stages in order, which is quite helpful.

When a level first opens you have several seconds to click the environment to see what can be done. Move the mouse everywhere, click on anything suspicious, and watch the landscape for clues. After the main character falls to the ground and the traffic light turns green, he starts walking. From that point on you have to act fast, as this guy can get himself into trouble within seconds. Tapping [enter] or clicking the circle icon at the bottom of the screen restarts the stage, so be prepared to use them very, very often.

In addition to the gold stars you're required to collect to pass each stage, there are also blue stars you can grab. These are often hidden in very clever ways that require you to have an inquisitive cursor and be fast with your mouse. They're not mandatory, but completists will want to seek out every one.

Analysis: Floating Islands Game is one of those titles that comes along once a year or so that's so creative and so entertaining you'll sit and play through it without leaving your computer. The artwork is definitely one of the game's strong points, as the sense of fun is evident in every pixel. I love the little monsters, faces, and pieces of scenery that exist for no purpose other than to look cool.

My only qualm about Floating Islands Game is the required wait before beginning each stage. Most of the time it's useful, but when you play the same stage ten, fifteen times in a row trying to get the timing right, the wait becomes a nuisance. There really doesn't seem to be a good way around the pause, however, as on many levels you need those few seconds to get things set up before the guy in green starts his brainless march.

With beautiful, fun artwork, a great soundtrack, and plenty of puzzle/arcade challenge, Floating Islands Game is a must-play.

Windows:
Download the free full version (36MB)

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

In last week's Link Dump Friday, I thought it was a phenomenal feat to feature six games in one article. Well, looks like we've done it again, and this time there are pirates and aliens, too! Still no waffles...

• Pel - A fun little reflex-based arcade game. Use the [arrow] keys to move the paddle and try to bounce all of the squares before they hit the bottom of the screen. Can also be described using single words instead of whole sentences: bouncey, musical-ey, Atari.
• Shore Siege - Your pirate ship has crashed on the shore, leaving you stranded and defenseless! Use anything you can find (or anything your "pirate scientists" create) to keep the baddies at bay, upgrading between rounds as you see fit. Simple but fun arcade gameplay works like a cross between a tower defense game and Defend Your Castle.
• Space Station Jason - A fairly standard platforming game with a nice twist: it utilizes 3D (cue cheesy swirly-eyed guy from the 30s) to create some interesting perspective puzzles. You can only move horizontally, so changing your view is the key to finding secrets and completing each stage.
• Polinko - A simple pachinko game where you aim and fire balls to clear red pegs from the screen. It may not be as unbelievably awesome as Peggle, but it's quick and free, so we can't complain.
• Typeracer - Put your typing skills to a fun use by hammering out paragraphs to push your car along the track. The fastest, most accurate typist wins!
• Multiplayer Space Invaders - You know Space Invaders, right? Shooting aliens, avoiding their fire, ducking behind shields? Add online multiplayer with competitive scoring and you have a slightly new experience.

Simplify, simplify. Coign of Vantage is the latest in Bobblebrook's collection of worldly, sensitive casual games, and the gameplay mechanic couldn't be more basic. An icon appears on your screen, shattered into a cloud of its component pixels, and your job is to reassemble them into the original picture. To do this, just point at the correct location on the screen. Once you find the magical hot-spot (no clicking required), the icon will snap into focus and another one will immediately appear, waiting to be re-congregated.

By itself, this is nothing new. I've focused a picture this way in Wario Ware before, and I expect the idea goes back much further. But Bobblebrook casts an audio-visual spell over the whole business that makes a mundane concept feel almost mystical. Your 2-D mouse gestures move the pixels in 3-D space, you see. They wheel around a mysterious point of reference like obedient electrons. You'll start the game clumsy, trying to guess at the right co-ordinates; but soon you'll forget that the mouse cursor exists at all, and just instinctively shuffle the storm en masse like the hand of Genesis shaping life out of molecules. Except that you're just making a cute picture of a butterfly. Or an elephant. Or a sliced lemon.

Coign of Vantage, like Reflexive's Music Catch, gives compelling testimony that video games and classical music make great snuggle-buddies. The theme here is from Bach, who was famous for evoking the divine spirit with his harmonies. It seems an appropriate choice for a game about wringing order from chaos and finding form in a soup of dust.

The challenge—for this is still a game we're talking about—comes from the ubiquitous timer, which starts at 30 seconds and gains a few whenever you complete a puzzle. The chunk of time gained per level gets smaller as you play, so eventually the forces of entropy will get you. The final few levels, when the bonus and your average solving time converge, are just as tense as can be—partly because your high score attempt is about to be strangled, and partly because you'll want to see more of artist Armin Prucha-Stocker's little icons. They really are quite adorable.

I don't know how much longevity the game has. It never did grip me with the slimy hand of addiction, but then, that's also kind of a relief. Again like Music Catch, or Bobblebrook's own Twizzle, the experience sparks with brief wonder and then fades to a satisfied peace. That's fine by me. In the end, Coign of Vantage is just a game where you point at a specific spot on your computer screen, based on subtle visual cues. But somewhere between seeing and pointing, your mind uncurls its new-grown wings and takes to the air. Play Coign of Vantage.

Bonus essay question! The phrase "coign of vantage" means "an advantageous position", and is probably most famous as the title of this 19th-century painting, by Dutch classical painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Why did Bobblebrook give the game this title?

Surprise! Suspense! A scintillatingly superb set of sequels, specifically suggested by your escape specialists for another Weekday Escape. Sequester yourself away, take a sabbatical from the scathing stupor of your work week. Salud!

• PonPon House 2 - This game is a pure pleasure to play, a gentle and dreamy experience without any sense of urgency or danger. All in all, a lovely, not-too-tough respite from an increasingly hectic world.
• T2B Escape 2 - I love this game! All the classic elements of a really excellent room escape are present: well-designed graphics, intriguing and gratifying logical puzzles, and a distinct lack of pixel-hunting (hooray!). You're in for a treat.

Note: Comments are disabled for this entry, but you will find a place for comments on each game's review page. You may use the rating widget below to rate this week's selection of Weekday Escapes.

Arijigora is a point-and-click puzzle game from Japan starring stick figures against a diabolical biological creature. Click on the right items, and with the right timing, to save the stickman race from the threat to its existence.

If you're familiar with the Hapland series, then you'll feel right at home with this new game from author Hozo, who even gives a nod to Rob Allen's original as the inspiration behind this one.

If you're unfamiliar with this type of puzzle, then you should know that it is possible to reach a dead end, a condition where it is impossible to win. A reset button is usually provided to reset the puzzle back to the beginning. But Hozo has taken that concept to the next level by providing additional reset buttons at certain checkpoints, thereby eliminating the hassle of having to start again all the way from the beginning as you progress through the game. A welcome addition to a highly enjoyable puzzle game concept. Play Arijigora.

Cheers to Eric for the link. =)

Ugh. The pain is killing me. But... But where am I? I don't recognize this place; why's it so dark? What's that smell? And why are these flies... OUCH! Hey! Those aren't normal flies, that thing bit and it hurt.

I... I gotta get out of here, this place is giving me some seriously bad vibes and did that thing in the cage just move?

Welcome to Monster Basement, a chilling room escape game from Patrick Majewski of Godlimations notoriety.

Unlike most room escape games that focus almost strictly on puzzle solving, Monster Basement seeks to inject mood and atmosphere into what is often an almost apathetic genre. Usually (some choice selections exempted of course), you're simply thrust in a room with no motive to get out other than the player's desire to complete the game.

In Monster Basement, the motivation to leave is made all too clear; this room with its vampire flies, blood stained meat hooks, and grotesque abominations sitting in fluid filled beakers, scares the jebus out of you, and as you slowly work through a way to leave this terrible place, things aren't likely to get better either.

With an almost old school horror movie sensibility, your courage is sure to be tested at every turn with flickering lights, pictures that appear to change out of the corner of your eye, and music and sound effects that make you feel like something is lurking just beyond that rotted old door.

Or is there actually something lurking there?

A room escape game with bite, Monster Basement is definitely the game to play after the kids have gone to bed. Turn off the lights, crank up the sound, and if you're easily scared, just keep telling yourself, "It's only a game. It's only a game."

Analysis: Full disclosure: I love horror games. Anything that gets my blood pumping from high end console productions like the Fatal Frame series to well done indie offerings to be found on the net such as Sinthai Boonmaitree's The House are simply heaven for me. As a result, I might just be a little bit biased towards Monster Basement.

But this would only be because Majewski does a surprisingly awesome job of selling the horror side of the game. Violin stings hit when you look at the right thing to crank up the tension, and what little voice acting there is in the game is for all intents and purposes perfect.

Add to this some truly jump worthy moments and a twist ending that will catch you off guard, this game definitely finds itself very much on my good side.

As for its merits as a room escape game it does a decent job on that front as well. While there may not be a trashcan to look under, many of the other staples are there; pixel hunting, a handful of keys, and puzzles that won't make sense until after you've completed them.

The fact that you can die in this game (though the game is mercifully forgiving when you do die) does actually make it easier because this gives you the opportunity to figure out what you got wrong and try again.

Not the hardest of room escapes, Monster Basement should be just easy enough for the escaping challenged such as myself to eventually work their way through, but challenging enough to prove suitable for the more hardcore of room escape enthusiasts.

All in all a well put together game on all fronts and one that should not be missed unless you've a heart condition or avoid movies because they give you nightmares. Play Monster Basement!

Rooms: The Main Building is an upgraded full version of the Flash game Rooms released early last year. Created by HandMade Game, Rooms: The Main Building is a clever combination of puzzle and adventure elements. Bored with simple sliding puzzles, the main character receives a strange gift that transports him to another world. Here, rooms are broken into a series of spaces that can be moved around a grid like a sliding puzzle. Gather items to unlock more rooms as you search for puzzle pieces that lead the way out of this bizarre realm.

Everything in Rooms: The Main Building is mouse-driven, a somewhat welcome change from the Flash version's keyboard/mouse hybrid controls. Your goal is to move the character to the exit in each room by sliding squares to create a path. To slide a piece of a room, make sure your character is standing in it and move the mouse to an empty space. Arrows appear on the side where that piece can be moved; simply click one and off you go. Your character can walk from room to room provided there's a path that isn't blocked by a wall or other obstacle. You'll even encounter teleporters, wardrobes, hydrants and other elements that — well, I'll let you discover their uses on your own. Suffice it to say, Rooms only gets better and more interesting as you play!

The sliding room puzzles take place on the Room Board, a central map that connects much of the game. From here you'll take key items you find in treasure chests back to Rooms Street where more riddles wait to be solved. Here, side-view scenes function much like a classic adventure game where you click and navigate your way around rooms to gather clues to solve a specific puzzle. Items you find from the Rooms Board will be necessary to solve these puzzles, so they rarely pose much of a brain teaser.

A great bonus feature in Rooms: The Main Building is the ability to create and share custom, user-created levels. As you play through the game new elements are unlocked in the editor. Play with the building blocks to your heart's content, utilizing everything you've seen in the game however you see fit.

Analysis: When the Flash iteration of Rooms hit in early 2007, we were impressed with its intelligent design and fresh ideas. Rooms: The Main Building doesn't deviate from that great genre-crossing formula and improves on every aspect of the original, adding loads of extra rooms to solve, additional content, and smoothing over the rough edges at every corner. The visuals are much cleaner, the music and sound effects richer, and tons of small graphical effects (such as the screen shaking when you slide a room) make the entire experience smooth and enjoyable.

With a better presentation, more coherent gameplay, 80 new levels, and the ability to create and share puzzles, Rooms: The Main Building is everything you want it to be and much, much more.

Windows:
Download the demo
Order the full version

Mac OS X:
Coming Soon! In the meantime, use Boot Camp or Parallels.

Fashion is back in fashion with Jojo's Fashion Show 2: Las Cruces, a new time management sim from Gamelab. Rosalind and Jojo made their comeback in the original Jojo's Fashion Show, and now it's time to wow the crowds with new fashions, new models, and new shows around the world.

Just like the original, Jojo's Fashion Show 2 includes two main modes of play: Career and Dress-up. The former is the meat of the game, sending you out to assemble outfits and rush models onto the runway to score well in the judges' eyes. Dress-up mode is a more laid-back pursuit in which you use outfits unlocked in Career mode to dress models waiting on the platform, then take a snapshot for your archives.

A set of three models stands before you waiting to be dressed. Each one has a style choice floating above his or her head (Provocative, Bollywood, Sockhop, etc.). Using the one-word guide, choose a top, a bottom, and shoes from the rack below that best matches the model's preferences, then click the runway icon to send them out and see how you did.

Although the layout, gameplay and overall style is practically identical to the original game, the sequel adds a number of subtle and not-so-subtle enhancements. New in-game events, such as Show Climax, help you earn more points or give you extra time to work with the models. You also get to interact with more characters than before, including a photographer and the editor of a fashion magazine. Photo shoot mode is also a nice touch, parading flocks of dressed models and tasking you with taking a picture of those that match specified criteria.

Analysis: With an energetic visual style and quick, rewarding gameplay, Jojo's Fashion Show 2: Las Cruces drops a fun new time management experience in your lap that's surprisingly entertaining. Yes, even if you don't know the first thing about fashion. The game does a great job of teaching you the utter basics of building appropriate outfits without getting stuck in the intricacies of fashion.

Where Jojo's Fashion Show 2 falls short is innovating beyond its predecessor. In many ways, this sequel could be seen as more of an expansion pack, adding photo shoots, male models, and new clothing choices to the menu. Other than that, it's essentially the same game as the original, which isn't a bad thing by any means, just slightly disappointing.

A great-looking and surprisingly captivating time management game that challenges without inducing frustration. Enjoyable even if your idea of "high fashion" is a t-shirt and pajama pants!

Windows:
Download the demo
Order the full version

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

Jojo's Fashion Show 2 is available to download from these affiliates:

It was an easier time, a simpler time. The concept of the nuclear family had yet to become an ancient relic and kids still went to the malt shop after school to share a soda. Gas station attendants didn't just pump your gas but wiped your windshield and checked your oil, and milkmen still dropped off glass jugs of milk on your front doorstep. For some it was as close to utopia as we ever got. And yet, in this postcard perfect picture of America, just along the fingernail thin white borders, there's plenty enough room for murder to creep in.

A high end plastic surgeon and an upper crust debutante are engaged, or at least they were until the good doctor mysteriously broke it off for hardly any reason at all. When he is found dead shortly thereafter, the girl's brother, famed socialite Walter Vanderbilt, becomes the prime suspect.

That's where you come in. Baxter, Al Baxter, retired police detective turned private eye. Under the employ of an indignant mother and a distraught sister, you must break through the stonewalls of the police department, and navigate the labyrinthine narratives of evidence to clear Walter's name. Or condemn him...

Your quest for the truth will take you across the country from star-studded sunny Southern California to the seedy underbelly of New York. Plot twists and turns await, and maybe just a little danger too in this, Uwe Sittig's freshman production of Dirty Split, a point and click adventure game with intrigue and style.

Analysis: Perhaps one of the most impressive things about Dirty Split is that this is the author's first venture in game design; a fact that I still find hard to believe. That's because once you get over the initial flaws, the entirety of the game exudes the kind of craftsmanship and polish found in far more experienced professional designers.

The artistry, an homage to the work of Josh Agle and the visual stylings of the late fifties and early sixties, is simply a treat, and mingles beautifully with the smooth jazz soundtrack. This combined with the top notch voice acting helps create a rather uncommon mood for a murder mystery; one that is surprisingly relaxed and subdued.

Indeed, when I think murder mystery, I typically revert to either the hardboiled gumshoes of prohibition era America, or the refined European gentleman detectives such as Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot. Sittig dodges both sleuthing epochs as well as the high tech gadget riddled whodunits of the present to provide what is a truly unique experience in the genre. The fact that there's nary a bug to be found, and that the game is FREE, is all just icing on the cake.

Perhaps one of the saddest things about Dirty Split is that its more glaring faults are front-loaded in the game. Chief among these would be an exhaustive and repetitive dialogue script and poor puzzle choreography. For the dialogue, I understand where the game is going, you have to have some opening exposition to get a full grasp of what you're supposed to do. There's just too much of it and sticking with the game through the opening dialogue interactions can prove to be a test of one's patience.

As for puzzle choreography, I mean to say that Dirty Split seems off balance when it comes to finding that sweet spot where the tasks before your are relevant to the plotline, well timed, and suitably challenging. Unfortunately, just as you're dealing with all this dialogue, you find yourself also having to contend with tasks and pseudo puzzles which seem gratuitous and menial. This is too bad because after you get over this initial hurdle, Dirty Split really finds its rhythm.

Finally, I truly think that Uwe has found something of a star in his lead character Al Baxter. When I say this, I don't mean the kind of video game star that is juiced full of attitude a la Sam and Max or Sonic, but a more mellow kind of star that will appeal to a more reserved audience. More Mario than Sonic, more Trilby than Larry Laffer, Baxter eases his way through Dirty Split with a dry wit and a "Father Knows Best" kind of charm.

To sum up, if you're looking for a two-fisted, edge of your seat thriller, look elsewhere (though, as Uwe wrote to me, you may want to keep an eye out for his next release if that is what you are looking for). If, on the other hand, a calm afternoon spent solving a murder mystery with all the urgency of an afternoon tea sounds like a good idea, this is your game. A flawed jewel in its own right, I think this first (and hopefully not last) adventure of Al Baxter proves that Uwe Sittig will be a developer to keep an eye on.

(Note: Dirty Split is a rather tame game, but there are certain adult themes that may not be appropriate for younger children.)

Windows:
Download the free full version

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.

You like it old school? That's good, because on this edition of Weekend Download, we've got a healthy dose of retro-style gaming ready to throw you back a decade or two!

Pittoch (Windows, 1.2MB, free) - A superb little puzzle game where you must gather keys to unlock the exit on each stage. Each blobby critter can hold one key, and in order to control extra ones you must link them together. Linked blobs move as a unit, so if you have two holding hands you can't fit through a single-spaced gap between blocks. Simple but highly entertaining and just the right amount of challenge.

CryptRover (Windows/Mac/Linux, 3MB, free) - A roguelike that puts you in the role of archaeologist trapped in an underground crypt. You have a limited air supply, which can be replenished by picking up canisters laying around the levels, and spiders are waiting to attack you at every turn. It plays less like a roguelike and more like an action game, but the concept combined with the ASCII graphics are great.

Big Building Boom Blues (Windows, 1.9MB, free) - After wiring a bomb at the top of a skyscraper, you must rappel down the side of what is probably the most strangely contoured building ever made. Can you reach the bottom before the explosion catches up with you? If you don't, the game calls you dumb...

Armand and the Foppish Hat (Mac, Windows, 20MB, free) - A short Zelda-like adventure where you help Armand on a quest to... save the world? No, not quite. Save a princess? Nah. Restore peace, honor and justice to the land? Nope. How about recovering his spiffy hat? Even better! Simple visuals but a nice sense of humor make this one a good afternoon diversion.