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Elona is a Japanese-developed Rogue-like with a nice tileset and considerable depth for a one-man project. As you might expect, it has graphics reminiscent of 8-bit JRPGs; there's a fair bit of NPC dialog, some of which is moderately humorous, although you do run into the occasional Japlish.

The UI is a bit confusing -- it's entirely key-driven, but with pop-up menus and odd key choices for selection and navigation. However, Rogue-like "hot-keys" give you access to the most common options, and while the tutorial doesn't tell you about them, as with most Rogue-likes the "?" key is your friend.

There are both wilderness and dungeon areas; dungeons tell you what level is appropriate before you enter, but noobs can expect to die quite a lot before they get a handle on the game. There is a fan-created Wiki (linked above) which will help, since the readme is notably unhelpful.

There's quite a variety of races and character classes, as well as "feats" for additional customization, and all skills can be trained regardless of classes. There's also a crafting system I haven't begun to explore. In addition to the dungeon and wilderness areas, which are randomly generated Rogue-style, there are a series of quests and an ovearching story.

In short, this is a nice addition to the genre, and shows quite a lot of thought and effort on the developer's part.

Some people really dig genre pieces, works that stick to convention and don't really deviate from the norm. You experience them because you enjoy the tropes of the genre and the familiarity of it all. This game is a standard hop-and-bop platformer, but if you have a platformer fetish like I do you'll most likely squeeze some enjoyment from it. Obake takes elements from Mario and Kirby and mixes them in a not-too-radical fashion, but does it with a decent amount of polish and a fair amount of charm.

You play as the titular Obake (Japanese for 'thing that changes') and take him through a six-world romp. The aesthetic is slightly off-kilter retro, and should appeal to fans of the 16-bit era. In your normal ghost-like form you can only move and jump, but if you press the down arrow you can possess an enemy. When you do so you gain their mobility and attack patterns, each of varying strength. The game takes Kirby's absorption motif a step further by also giving you that enemy's health. This coupled with generally low difficulty makes the game fairly easy, but it's fun to mess around with the various forms and explore the levels. The six worlds go a long way as well, so if you're into this sort of thing there's a lot of content to be played.

Nothing revolutionary, but a nice way to kill a couple hours.

And because I like you guys so much, here's an extra game at no additional charge: http://mogera.jp/gameplay?gid=gm0000000345
You play an albino deer,tripping on some psychedelic, that throws rocks at police. Enjoy.

I should probably be ashamed of myself, but I'm having too much fun. I still have a couple of medals to earn in RunMan, and I've been skimping on my Spelunky sessions. I tried to rekindle my old friendships with Fallout 2, Deus Ex, and Alpha Centauri but I can't seem to find the time. I've got tons of games at my disposal, but whenever I get free time I turn to this unassuming ROM hack of Super Mario World. You probably think I'm crazy but hear me out, because this game is a fucking masterpiece. Brutal Mario is the Cowboy Bebop or Tarantino flick of platformers, take your pick. Either way its a masterful blend of Nintendo's best, and if you have any fond memories of the SNES era you shouldn't miss it. If the above seems like hyperbole, just check out the screenshot there. That's a boss fight with Mammon Machine from Chrono Trigger. I rest my case.

Super Mario World is popular among ROM hackers simply because it's well-known and awesome, the definitive hop-and-bop platformer. Every aspect of its design comes together in perfect form, making a cohesive package that has yet to be topped. Most hacks don't tap into this potential, however, and squander in mediocracy. They either poorly implement the game's mechanics or try to turn it into something it's not. Mario's Adventure, anybody? The people who do actually know what they're doing typically go and make absurdly insane outings that only a diehard player could complete. To conquer them one would require fast reflexes, knowledge of glitches, and countless save states. And these games should be made. (I'm actually going to do a write-up for the archetypal one once I can get past its first level.) But Brutal Mario's different, and I couldn't be happier.

This is obviously a labor of love, as the developer knows her stuff. This game is highly allusive and drops constant references to other works like its Gaiman's Sandman. Super Mario World is its core, but set pieces, backgrounds, and enemies from assorted titles and other Mario games all make appearances. These additions are far from being a cut-and-paste hodgepodge though, as they're carefully woven together to create an enthralling experience. The nod to Tarantino and Shinichiro Watanabe is duly earned. Instead of being a pure homage, though, the game throws constant curveballs at you. I played one level where the On/Off switch actually changed the enemies in the level, and another one that was fully destructible via Mario's fireballs. These subversive quirks are made all the more apparent because they're within the Super Mario World engine, something that is so well-known and played.

The boss battles are what this hack is best known for, and they're reason enough for a download. Bosses are typically the one shortcoming in the Mario franchise, but not here. There are dozens of encounters and they're all throwbacks to various 16-bit games. Oh, and they are a lot of fun too. There is the occasional level that drags a bit, but other than that Super Nintendo fans shouldn't pass this up.

N.B. You'll need a Super Nintendo emulator and a patching program, both of which I linked to. You'll also have to, ahem, acquire a clean Super Mario World ROM, but you're on your own for that.

Journey is a charming Japanese dojin game in which you play a pith-helmeted archaeologist attempting to recover all artifacts from a particular underground complex. It's not particularly challenging, at least for experienced platform players, but it is cute, and there is a bit of puzzle-solving involved in figuring out connections between areas of the game world.

There are no English instructions, so: First, the game starts in windowed mode, and if you have your screen set to low resolution, some areas won't appear. Hit F4 to turn to full-screen mode (which also seems to run more snappily, btw). Arrow keys to move, down to crouch, X to jump, and D to toss bombs, of which you have an infinite supply. Also, A brings up a screen showing all the artifacts in the game and which you have recovered; D puts it away.

Some odd choices have been made here; for one thing, the game scrolls up-down as you descend, but it's quite large on a left-right axis, and doesn't scroll that way. The result is that your character is pretty small, as are the tiles in the play area. Though there are some enemies, they don't seem particularly difficult to defeat. And there's no in-game save, so you have to solve the game in one session -- which won't take a huge amount of time, an hour, or possibly two at most.

Still, it's entertaining enough in a classic platformer way, and it's forgiving enough that even those of us who suck can get through it with a degree of perseverance.

My first experience with games (and one of my first memories) was with the Ninja Turtle arcade game. I was standing on my toes, staring upward, and savagely mashing the attack button in ecstasy. I was Donatello, of course. There is some inherent fun to be had from decimating countless waves of foes via an intuitive control scheme -- which is what Sky-Whirling Geo offers.

The game's basic: It taps into that childhood power-trip of being a sword-wielding badass -- with wings even! -- that carves his way through a gulag of chibi baddies. You're a hellbent Pit from Kid Icarus, attempting to cause as much bodily harm as possible. Since the game force-scrolls and has baddies appear at timed intervals, its structure resembles that of a shump. Because enemies appear in these designated waves it makes the difficulty stem mostly from the pattern recognition of enemy spawns (the rest comes from having a single life), but on Easy and Normal this shouldn't be a problem. It controls like a dream and enemies drop after one hit, which furthers your feeling of pre-teen 'coolness.' For some reason there's a timer at the bottom of the screen; since the game force scrolls this time limit only applies to the (easy) end of level bosses. Unfortunately, the game runs only a paltry three levels.

I'd like to see another game use this control scheme but with something meatier behind it (a mini-Metroidvania, perhaps?) but as it stands, the game's a cool fifteen minute diversion.