Garden Gnome Carnage is one of the better games created for the Game Maker winter contest so far. It's a pretty unique arcade game where you move a building left and right to swing a gnome who is attached to the top of it around in order to protect that building from invading elves. The gnome can also pick up bricks from the building and throw them at the invaders.

Mastering the movement takes a little getting used to because you can only pull the string he's attached to left and right, but isn't as difficult as it sounds. There's also a lot of depth to it, such as a combo system where you can knock elves into other elves and cause chain reactions.

One of the nicest touches is that each time you complete the game you get a new tip, and some of these tips reveal new abilities and techniques, giving it a lot of replay value. (I also love what happens when you reach 80,000 points.)

Name: Garden Gnome Carnage
Developer: Ultimortal
Category: Arcade/Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 5.4MB
Direct download page: Click Here