Free Games

N v2.0 released, adding new levels and local multiplayer to the hardcore platformer

Let your attention drift from this video for even a moment and you’ll miss the feature list for the updated N version 2.0, which is appended to a slightly maddening gallery of split second level shots. Think of it as a test. If you can’t stay focused for the one minute and two seconds required to learn about the new levels, 2-player co-op, integrated level sharing and “Fun-lockables”, you’re going to have a really tough time progressing through the game itself.

Ludum Dare 26 round-up recommends over 260 games

The theme for the 26th Ludum Dare gamejam was Minimalism, which is a principle that doesn’t apply to the competition’s number of entrants: all 2,346 of them. While we’ve been seeding their sparse delights into the weekly Webgame RoundUp, my basic calculations suggest that, at the current rate, it’d take between 9 and 11 years to feature them all. Fortunately, Sebastian Standke of Superlevel.de spent two weeks playing every single entry, and has distilled them down into a still-mammoth list of 269 recommendations, delivered in a 20-minute chiptune backed video.

The Free Webgame Round-Up

Just as death is an inevitable part of life, having your house smashed up is an inevitable part of home ownership – or it is in the therapeutic Destroy Your Home, at least. This week’s round-up is also dedicated to an aristocratic jerk who murdered your entire family, a small square haunted by his past, and a Pop Tart. Indie games, everybody.

Rift will be free-to-play in June

And strike another one off the rapidly diminishing list of surviving subscription MMOs. If there was any sub-based game not called “EVE” or “World of Warcraft” that had a possible, maybe, oh-so-slim chance of surviving with a monthly payment model, I’d have argued for Rift. If nothing else, it had a history of providing generous new content to validate its regular toll. Alas, no, Trion have now announced that, as of June 12th, Rift will be entirely free-to-play.

Actually, scratch that – this is great news. The pretty excellent Rift will be entirely free to play!

GeoGuessr turns Google Street View into a game of investigative orienteering

It’s Friday afternoon, which – if you’re reading this in the right timezones – means it’s time to kick back, let your work-rate slow to a crawl and enter Weekend Chill-Out Mode. At least, that’s what’s happened to the PC Gamer office, where the existence of GeoGuessr has sent us into a competitive flurry of locational sluething.

The Free Webgame Round-Up

Ludum Dare 26 continues to deliver on its minimalism theme. This week’s (second) roundup features an innovative shmup, a non-minimalist minimalist adventure game, and one of the most maximalist games I’ve played in a while: the imagination-fuelled madness of Dream Island. There’s also a Hotline Miami-esque action game set in a cafe – you’ll thank me a latte for that one. Latte. You know, like the coffe-*GUNSHOT*.

The Free Webgame Round-Up

In honour of the recent Ludum Dare (theme: minimalism), this week’s Free Webgame Round-Up was so minimal that it was invisible to the naked eye when it was originally published this Friday. Unless you were in the know, it was almost as if it hadn’t actually been written – but it definitely, definitely had. I’m reprinting it here for no particular reason, so prepare yourself for dancing llamas, sci-fi survival, wabbit-hunting, scepters and dungeon-crawling. Enjoy!

Fragment: first-person techno stealth is a smashing idea

Things students like: being drunk, being poor, being the subject of tired clichés… Oh, and being the creators of interesting Unity-based first person action-puzzle hybrids featuring a variety of experimental systems and ideas. Much like Fragment: a sci-fi stealth game about swapping bodies with remote-control holograms and shattering enemies into thousands of glass-like shards.

The Free Webgame Round-Up

Mankind has finally discovered the Yeti, hiding in the undergrowth of Kongregate – although it isn’t quite what we were expecting. The mythological creature spends a lot of time helping worm-things and barely any time posing for out-of-focus photographs on snowy hilltops. Dreams: shattered. Elsewhere this week, get ready to play ccatch, fight punks in the future, and attempt to steer a crash-prone ship around a deadly obstacle course. Enjoy!

Memory of a Broken Dimension: hack into an alienating world of platforming and confusion

Here’s your mind-breaking, assumption shaking, hyper-weird free indie game for the day: Memory of a Broken Dimension combines DOS command prompts, landscape exploration, and massive amounts of head scratching confusion into a short web-based preview. On the plus side, it’s nowhere near as weird as Nowhere.