Lead your team to the top of the premiership using strategy and cunning in this unique card-based football game.

Soccer Cards 2 is a football game quite unlike any other. An addictive game of chance that you influence with your skill. Choose your match cards revealing a situation in play, such as a goal, shot, pass, tackle, penalty, etc. Use your strategy options to increase your scoring chances and thwart your opponents.

Name: Soccer Cards 2
Developer: Michael Douglas
Category: Sports
Type: Freeware
Size: 1MB

La-Mulana is a freeware free-roaming platformer game designed to look, sound, and play like a classic MSX game. It's heavily influenced by the classic Konami MSX game 'The Maze of Galious' and anyone who has played that title will probably recognize the similarities very quickly. You play the whip-wielding Indiana Jones-esque archaeologist Lemeza Kosugi as he investigates the ancient ruins of La-Mulana in an attempt to find its treasure and one-up his father, who is trying to get the same treasure as well.

The game is huge, with many different areas to explore and dozens of items and weapons to find. Each area has a large variety of puzzles and traps and you need to solve the puzzles in each area to discover the Ankhs and Ankh Jewels, which allow you to fight the eight Guardians of the ruins. To solve the puzzles you'll need to be able to read the tablets scattered throughout the ruins, which will require a Hand Scanner and translation software for the portable MSX that Lemeza has brought along on the adventure. Your Hand Scanner will also allow you to find items and search the bones of less fortunate adventurers.

Name: La-Mulana
Developer: GR3 Project
Category: Platform
Type: Freeware
Size: 5MB

Shooter

A screenshot from Ishisoft's upcoming Skywaymen was recently posted. [Clockwiser, Pushover review]

The new Shoot the Core is up.

Typhoon 2001 updated with configurable controls. [Typhoon 2001 review]

cactus announces a new shooter entitled Clean Asia. [Space, The Design, Unholy Stage, Decontrologic, Ad Nauseam, God Came to the Cave, Illegal Communication, Retro Future, Precision, Retro II review]

oddbob announces Beast Invaders 3; wraps up production of G-Force with two sets of screenshots on both his site and the Retro Remakes forum thread. [direct download link, G-Force, Beast Invaders 2 review]

New screenshots from Excellent Bifurcation added. [Excellent Bifurcation review]

Platformer

The translation patch for La-Mulana is out. [La-Mulana walkthrough and maps]

We've got a mention on OMEGA's diary! [OMEGA's download page, INO-vation, Marble, Twintower review]

New screenshots from Riva Runs added to Crobasoft's web site.

Adventure

The Forgotten Element has a new web site.

New version of The Marionette now available. [The Marionette review]

Walkthrough for Yahtzee's 5 Days a Stranger, 7 Days a Skeptic, Trilby's Notes and 6 Days a Sacrifice can be found here. [Yahtzee's past projects]

Puzzler

Blocksum replays in .dat file format can be downloaded by clicking on the numbered rankings on this page.

Place any of these in Blocksum's replay folder, then select a file from the replay menu option to watch. [Blocksum review]

It is also possible to watch the replays in-game by going to the high score menu, selecting a high score, and press the download details option. [thanks zzmann!]

Mr. Blocko: Super Tournament Edition updated.

Miscellaneous

3Punge results are out. [FileFront mirror, Santaro, Round and Round review]

Trouble In CloudLand is a 2D game that features star-shooting mayhem and powerup collecting goodness. Conquer three unique worlds populated by troops of loveable but devious foes. Simple controls put you right in the action, while allowing for multiple play styles. Evolving gameplay will challenge even the most experienced of players.

Trouble In CloudLand was developed over four months by Joshua and Jony. It was programmed using Python, Pygame, and Eclipse.

Name: Trouble In CloudLand
Developer: Battle Zero
Category: Shooter
Type: Freeware
Size: 10MB

Speed is an alright card game by the creator of Dice Wars, in which the player has to discard all cards in hand before the computer AI does. This is achieved by placing a card which is sequential on specially marked areas. Each stage introduces increasing difficulty.

Name: Speed
Developer: GameDesign
Category: Puzzle
Type: Flash
Size: 1MB

In Excellent Bifurcation, the aliens have attacked and their ability to exist in either or both of their world and ours has given them an almost unsurpassable advantage. Take command of a special fighter craft capable of existing in both realities at once and drive them back!

The form your fighter takes on the left has double fast-firing cannons and can charge to release up to eight seekers. It is ideal for destroying small and weak but numerous enemies. The right-hand form has a single powerful cannon which fires slowly but does far more damage, and is more suited to taking out larger enemies. It can charge up to release a wave which passes through things, damaging them as it goes. You can switch them between the worlds depending on what kind of firepower you need where.

The only vulnerable parts of your ship are the white parts at the centre. This means that the small form is much better at dodging than the large one. The only dangerous parts of bullets are the brightest (yellow or white) parts. Also, if you are shot down the form which was hit emits a green shockwave instead of a yellow one.

Press the Z key to shoot, X key to charge the special weapon, and C key to switch between two forms. Use the A key to activate autofire. You can change settings, like windowed vs fullscreen and whether it uses vsync, by editing init.txt.

Name: Excellent Bifurcation
Developer: Linley Henzell
Category: Shooter
Type: Freeware
Size: 1MB

Doctor Who and The Daleks is a remake of and loving tribute to the classic console game Daleks. The game begins with the Doctor materialised on the surface of Skaro, homeworld of the terrifying Daleks. You control the Doctor, moving him with the number pad or the keyboard. Pressing S or five on the numpad is considered a pass move, where the Doctor stands still and the Daleks move.

Every time the Doctor moves, the Daleks move closer as well. However, the Dalek troops aren't quite as smart as the Doctor. In their bloodlust they will collide with each other, leaving behind a pile of radioactive debris which other Daleks may collide with as well. So you'll want to make your moves carefully and try to lure the Daleks into each other.

You are aided in your struggle by the Tardis, the Doctor's travelling machine through time and space. You can use the Tardis to instantly transport yourself to another place on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the Tardis is still an unpredictable beast, so you can't control where you'll appear. A teleportation counts as a regular move, so if you land next to a Dalek, bad luck there.

Use the function keys to change the size of the game.

Name: Doctor Who and The Daleks
Developer: Dream Codex
Category: Puzzle
Type: Freeware
Size: 1MB

Reviewed by the Gnome (Gnome's Lair)

Ahh, episodic gaming, point-and-click fun, lovely absurdism and an exercise in alliteration. You just got to love the newest (can you believe it’s the third one released, already?) Sam and Max Episode: The Mole, the Mob and the Meatball. It’s funny, it’s well directed, it’s excellently written, it’s self-contained, it’s slightly psychotic, it must definitely be the cheapest just-released game in whole wide web and it’s the sole proof mankind ever needed to prove how perky and alive adventure gaming still is.

Then again, it’s also far too easy and quite a bit on the short side, but guess I can live with these things. Especially when this is the only Sam and Max game ever to feature a hilarious, brilliant and jazzy Mafia song. Oh, and admittedly it does feature a whack-the-rat style minigame that’ll make Hit the Road veterans cry. And a great driving mini-game. And an amazing variety of puzzle types, which might not be tough, but are always entertaining.

Anyway, back to the Mafia as, well, it’s quite central to the plot, for it’s the Mafia and Ted E. Bear’s Mafia-Free Playland and Casino you’ll be unleashing the investigating duo upon. In a search of a mole no less. Still, that’s all you’re getting out of me… Them Spoiler-dudes have already given me two warnings… I’m confident there won’t be a third.

My lips are sealed. You, on the other hand, have to play this game. Now. It will hit worldwide audiences at the 8th of February.

Name: Sam and Max Episode: The Mole, the Mob and the Meatball
Developer: Telltale Games
Category: Adventure

Deathchase: UFO is a lo-fi remake of classic ZX Spectrum game 3D Deathchase by Mervyn Estcourt. It was made for the Four Colour Mini Competition held by Retro Remakes, which required games to use 160x100 pixels display with only 4 shades of gray similar to TI calculators.

Chase down and destroy evil alien saucers throughout the 8 sectors. Avoid crashing into trees. Aliens can be shot only in close proximity. When they are in range an indicator in bottom right of the screen will start to flash.

There are 4 saucers in each sector although you can expect more on the later stages. Special bonus is awarded for clearing all of the 8 sectors.

Name: Deathchase: UFO
Developer: Nenad
Category: Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 1MB

6 Days a Sacrifice is the fourth and final instalment of the John DeFoe series, which thus far has encompassed 5 Days A Stranger, 7 Days A Skeptic and Trilby's Notes.

Theo DaCabe, a surveying officer for Buckinghamshire County Council, is assigned to run a routine health and safety assessment on the headquarters of a fad religion called Optimology. Little does he realise that he is about to be caught up in the machinations of destiny, and a plot that has simmered for two centuries.

Name: 6 Days a Sacrifice
Developer: Yahtzee
Category: Adventure
Type: Freeware
Size: 2MB

INO-vation is an alright platformer by OMEGA, the creator of Every Extend. Guide your character around a maze and collect scattered objects to complete your collection of obscure items, with their uses unfortunately only described in Japanese.

Name: INO-vation
Name: OMEGA
Category: Platform
Type: Freeware
Size: 1MB