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If you've ever tried to count cards (I can count to...32), you'll know that Las Vegas is a place you're unlikely to ever escape from – so I've no idea why the four heroes of ASDF: Escape to Las Vegas are attempting to, well, find their way in. In addition to multi-character platforming, this week also brings you the experiences of exploring a forbidden forest, rolling around as a big ball of slime, and clicking coloured spheres together like some kind of kaleidoscopic circular god. Enjoy!

Welcome To The Forest by Nuprahtor

Play it online here.

I kind of wish this short tale of reading and walking had some of Silent Hill's ambiguity, but at least it shares that series' weird, vaguely sinister atmosphere. It's a story about love, guilt, a guy in a top hat, and (of course) an ominous scratchy black-and-white forest. (Via Indie Statik )

Slime Laboratory 2 by Neutronized

Play it online here.

You're a slimeball. Not in real life (well, as far as I know), but in Neutronized's slick and slippery platformer sequel. Being a big ball of slime, you have the ability to squish under low ceilings, and grow in size by absorbing stray bits of blob. You also have a thick pink tongue that can grab onto things and kill wasps. You know, as you do. You've almost certainly played something like this before (literally, if you played the original), but there's a lot to be said for a near-perfectly engineered platformer – getting the 'feel' right is harder than you might think. (Via Indie Statik )

Four by Ali Shakiba

Play it online here.

Four is a turn-based Tetris, essentially, only with coloured spheres in place of blocky shapes, and with less catchy music – well, no music, unless creator Ali Shakiba has licensed John Cage's 4'33". Despite that, it's a beautiful piece of work: iconic and timeless, if a bit less immediate than Tetris, Columns and the like. You build nodes of spheres by connecting them with lines; connect four different colours to make the node disappear. (Via IndieGames )

ASDF: Escape to Las Vegas by dtclaw

Play it online here.

It's a bit incredibly rough, but there's enough puzzley goodness shining through Escape to Las Vegas (why would anyone escape to Las Vegas?) to make it worth any platformy puzzle fan's time. As with Lost Vikings or, more recently, Trine, you're controlling multiple characters at once, collaborating to clear obstacles and to move from room to room. The twist here is the control scheme, which has you holding A, S, D or F to move heroes A, S, D and F – or Alan, Steve, Dave and Frank as they're presumably known to their mums. The other thing to note is that it's rather difficult – I was defeated by the very second level. (Via Free Indie Games )

Tom Sykes
Tom Sykes

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.