Free game Estigma mixes body horror with arcade puzzling action

Seemingly a game set in one of the circles of Hell, Estigma is a fast-paced puzzler where you have to plan a route while avoiding deadly missiles. These missiles include giant eyeballs and big, bloody syringes, each spat out onto the screen by gaping mouths. Meanwhile, the walls that surround you are made of wriggling flesh. Oh, and you have to collect revolving brains, for some reason.

That's Estigma in a nutshell. A big fleshy nutshell. But strip away the aesthetic and there's a pretty familiar puzzle game underneath. Playing as...er...I don't know, a blob of meat? You have to walk over every tile to finish each stage. Tiles light up when you've stepped on them, and become solid when you step on them a second time, meaning you can only double-back on yourself a little bit. It's simple stuff, but livened up by the timed element, and those missiles that seek you out, putting the pressure on.

If you take too long to finish each clump of stages, you'll have to start them all over again, which is a bit annoying. Still, this is an early, unfinished version of the impressively weird Estigma, and who knows what will change as development rolls along. (Thanks, Alpha Beta Gamer.)

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.