Deftly dodge deadly hazards in free action game Deff

In skillful action game Deff, you are Death. Or at least, a death, as there are apparently loads of them. But let's not get bogged down in the backstory. In this side-on action-puzzler you play as a death-bringing wheelchair user, who dashes about the place from one gleaming node disc to another. You can't jump of your own accord, see (even in this demo, which slightly confusingly takes place before Death ends up in a wheelchair), so to leap up, or across the screen, basically to warp from disc to disc, you have to aim with the mouse and click on the golden discs. Which is simple enough.

Where Deff graduates from 'simple enough' to 'argh!' and eventually to 'f*** this' is its timed elements, which grow more numerous the farther you progress. The warp-disc-node-things begin to move, and then they need to be rotated, and spikes and other hazards soon rear their ugly heads. Oh, and there are enemies, which must be dispatched via a neat little slicing rhythm game. Deff impresses the more you play it, making great use of its central warping concept. It's a reflex-based action game, and a hectic puzzle game rolled into one.

This is only a demo, but there's a lot to it already. Deff is fast, stylish, and pretty satisfying when you finally pass through its deadly gauntlets.

For more great free experiences, check out our roundup of the best free PC games.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.