Click on the image below to get the entire map for Ratmaze 2.

Fedora Spade is a multi-episode detective adventure game with an 8-bit aesthetic, by the author of Missing. It can be described as a mix of Princess Tomato and the Salad Kingdom and Phoenix Wright. The first two episodes have been released.

Name: Fedora Spade
Developer: RPGCreations
Category: Adventure/Detective.
Type: Freeware

Plasma Warrior is the latest platformer by Tom Vine, creator of the excellent Paroxysm which was released a few months earlier. This particular effort uses only seven colors, though no less professional than his last work. Your task is to guide a robot on an exploration mission to uncover the mystery of an abandoned mining operation.

Use the cursor keys to move, press the shift key to jump and hold the left control key to shoot. The down arrow key can be used to read signs or enter doors as well. Press the alternate and enter key at the same time to switch between full screen and windowed mode.

Name: Plasma Warrior
Developer: Tom Vine
Category: Platform
Type: Freeware
Size: 1MB

The lovable rodent from Pixeljam's original maze adventure returns for another go at navigating a dastardly tricky labyrinth in Ratmaze 2, on a quest to nibble down every single piece of cheese or edible material it could sink it's teeth into.

The first maze is made playable in this version as well, and a scroll mode can now be activated for a clearer view of the rat's surroundings. Expect to encounter puzzles such as those that requires pushing objects into certain areas or finding false walls to uncover hidden passages.

Name: Ratmaze 2
Developer: Pixeljam
Category: Action
Type: Browser

Image of a boss from Ether Vapor posted; perhaps one made for this encounter. [Ether Vapor review]

New metablog update; Joakim's start page has a new image.

There's a playable Cave Story interface made specifically for an upcoming fan work.

La Croix Pan gets a new update which speeds up the main character's movement. [La Croix Pan review]

Stompy, both blokes from Ovine by Design and Graham were recently interviewed by Auld Games.

Seems like Krobon Station is serious about their upcoming tennis arcade game. [preview, Mogura 2 review]

Alonso Martin is looking for beta testers for his new platformer, Heart Forth, Alicia.



[pictured left to right, Krobon Station's tennis game, screenshot from Heart Forth, Alicia]

Vector TD is a new flash tower defence game by David Scott, creator of the popular Flash Element TD, as well as Flash Circle TD. It takes the standard tower defence gameplay and adds stylish vector graphics, multiple maps, four strategic tower types with ten upgrade levels, and special bonus "power-up" towers that increase the range or damage of all nearby towers.

The obtrusive advertisement before the game starts is unfortunate, but if you can past that, the game itself is quite a lot of fun.

Name: Vector Tower Defence
Developer: David Scott
Category: Real Time Strategy/Tower Defence
Type: Browser Game

The Adventures of Cagney is a short 'Choose Your Own Adventure' novel playable online with plenty of images to accompany each turn of the page.

Exploring every single scene won't take longer than fifteen minutes, though the author had included additional bonus content to reward adventurers brave enough to survive until the very end.

Name: The Adventures of Cagney
Developer: Rey Ortega
Category: Adventure
Type: Browser

Kevin's post about the new Gibbage.co.uk:

Just revisited gibbage.co.uk, haven't been there in a while but the blog used to make me chuckle alot. Anyway, the world has gone crazy and it's become a game portal! Crikey!

Graham has added an informal second interview to his site, with Bob Fearon of Mersey Remakes. It's a whopping 34MB and nearly 50 minutes long, but is, as usual, well worth the download!

Listen

ProfPuppet's Last Scenario walkthrough (near spoiler-free) is now available in both text and zip format. As described by the man himself:

It's around 70 pages and should cover almost everything a player could want. The only improvements I could make at this point would be triple-checking for errors, listing two optional boss general strategies I missed, all boss strategies, all item descriptions/locations, editing for consistency, and a complete enemy bestiary, but I'll only do that if a bunch of people want it.

The document contains:
- walkthrough for the main plot
- information about all optional content
- every single boss/reward/hex/items which can be stolen
- a listing of spellcards (unique and highest stat percentage bonus cards)
- location and method of acquiring each Hex card

ProfPuppet's contact details can be found in the document, should you feel the inclination to thank the author for all his efforts.

[Last Scenario direct download link, original SA thread, Last Scenario review]

La Croix Pan tells the tale of a lone American sniper who enters a small town with the task of defending it by himself. The flashlight plugin is put to good use by the author, and though the game is short it still manages to instill a bit of suspense into the proceedings effectively enough.

Name: La Croix Pan
Developer: TheJBurger
Category: Adventure
Type: Freeware
Size: 10MB

Streambolt Desero is an updated version of Gustav Kilman's similarly titled platformer, but with updated graphics and none of the bugs from the original in this version.

Most of the moves have been updated plus several new ones, and a helpful tutorial is included to help new players get acquainted with the controls in a matter of minutes. Not all special abilities are required, since basic attacks can be used to complete the short one level demo with little difficulty.

Name: Streambolt Desero
Developer: Gustav Kilman
Category: Platform
Type: Demo
Size: 2MB

Teaser image from Raidien Phaec posted on Hermitgames' site. [Fren-ze]

Tizma releases Geoplex, a new action puzzler.

Artbook and concept documents for Reunion added to Mike Bithell's site.

dess reviews nemu90kww's Aggresive Sokoban. [web site]

Last Scenario updated to version 1.21. Save games from v1.01 are compatible with the latest release. [direct download link]

SCMRPG gets second spot in an old top ten list, sandwiched between Custer's Revenge and E.T. - fame!

SKT promises to double the number of songs in Red White Yellow on June 15th.

Top ten shmups scoring systems list posted on GameFaqs, currently discussed in Shmups Chat.

RGCD issue 2 should be released this week. A teaser image can be found on the official site. All games mentioned on the cover will be made available on the CD. [Motocross Challenge, Guxt, La Mulana, Alien Abduction, Streets of Rage Remake, Veck]

New screenshot from Ichigo-Citron's vertical shooter, Rozen Diadem posted.

A tech demo for Hero of Allacrost released. No quest yet, though players can still same a few battles.

3Punge (Three Minutes Game Contest) results announced.

Deep Magic 2 is currently in development. A demo will be released later this week. [original GMC thread]

Kairos is working on a new vertical shooter for the latest Shmup-Dev competition. [Ikaruga review]

Wildfire Studio's Jungo will be released today.

ooPixel's (Samegame series) Waking Life will be released tomorrow. [playable demo]

Use arrow keys to move. Ctrl speeds up text and closes textboxes.

Money for Old Rope (MFOR) explained in detail at We Make the Cops. Bob's new shooter will most likely cost around five pounds.



Screenshots from Play-Asia's collaboration with new team SideQuest Studios posted, a horizontal shooter entitled Söldner-X: Himmelsstürmer. The original announcement (supports 720p HD mode in 16:9) seems to indicate a console release. Due out later this year. [more images, Shmups Chat discussion]

Purple is a new platformer by Bowser, creator of the Colorblind FIX series and one of the GM community veterans. Both jump and throw frisbee actions have multiple keys mapped to each. Use the frisbee to hurt enemies or break colored blocks.

One level only, though at least four stages are promised for the next release.

Name: Purple
Developer: Bowser
Category: Platform
Type: Freeware
Size: 5MB
Mirrors: Fileplanet, Mediafire

Kudos: Rock Legend is the latest game from Cliffski [Kudos, Democracy], quietly released back on Friday the 25th of May. The game is a rock band simulator, where you play as the singer in a struggling band attempting to make it big. In some respects it's quite similar to Cliffski's last game, Kudos, but is pleasantly mixed up with entertaining minigames that have you composing songs, mixing your album and practising with your band.

Gametunnel wrote an exceptionally positive preview of the game a couple of days before its release, stating that "[...] nothing will prepare you for just how fun Kudos: Rock Legend is", and that "Rock Legend is shaping up as one of the best games of the year", for whatever that's worth. As for my opinion? The game is certainly quite a lot of fun to play, and well worth checking out. Definitely Cliffski's best game to date.

Name: Kudos: Rock Legend
Developer: Positech/Cliffski
Category: Sim Game
Type: Shareware, Demo available
Size: 24MB
Direct Download: (Demo) click here

Paradroid is a game by Andrew Braybrook that was originally released for the Commodore 64 in 1985.

Yes, I am writing a review of a 22-year-old game. Yes, this retro-review deviates a bit from standard Arthouse Games practice. I justify this deviation with the following two excuses: 1. I never played the game when I was a kid, so it's new to me (and probably new to many of you, too); and 2. there's very little modern grist for the Arthouse Games mill (art games are few and far between). That said, I'm not sure that Paradroid is an art game---more like an interesting landmark in the art of game design.

Okay, first things first: how can you play it? Paradroid was re-released as Paradroid 90 on the Atari and some other platforms. It has a few modern remakes for PCs (see http://paradroid.sf.net, http://paradroid.ovine.net/, and http://freedroid.sourceforge.net/). All of these remakes differ slightly from the original in graphics or gameplay, but they're probably the easiest way to get a taste of Paradroid on a modern computer.

This review covers the original 1985 version for the C64---you can download a disk image of that here: paradroid.zip. I played it on the VICE emulator, and I had to download C64 system ROMS separately (from this package), since they no longer ship with VICE for legal reasons. I unzipped the paradroi.d64 disk image, mounted it as a disk in VICE, and auto-started the program on the disk. I had a bit of trouble here and there along the way (Paradroid is looking for a joystick---or emulated joystick---on port 2), but I was able to get Paradroid running smoothly with a bit of perseverance. If this process sounds too involved, try one of the remakes linked above.

Read the full review over at Arthouse Games.

Name: Paradroid
Developer: Andrew Braybrook
Year: 1985
Platform: Commodore 64
Type: Abandonware