Shade is a short one room game set in a cramped apartment, written by Andrew Plotkin for the 6th Annual IF Competition in 2000. In it, players find themselves packing to leave for a trip to an arts festival, but must first complete a few house chores before setting off with the plane tickets in hand. The hint system has been cleverly disguised by the author as a to-do list, which can be referred to whenever you find yourself contemplating on what action to take next.

Return to Sector 9 is the long awaited sequel to Ambush in Sector 9. Featuring nine game modes, fifteen ships to pilot, plenty of weaponry, and plenty of aliens to use it on.

Each of the fifteen ships has its own special weapon. Once you have unlocked the ships and their weapons, learn which game modes they're best suited to.

In Sumotori Dreams, each bout starts when both players touch the ground with their hands and ends when a player falls to the ground or steps outside the circle. A cube of the winner's color is then thrown in to signal the end of a round.

To win a game you need to have two points more than your opponent, and a total of at least five. Use the enter or backspace key to push, or press the arrow keys to move your character around the circle and change the camera angle view. Hold the down arrow key to touch the ground. A hidden mode can be unlocked during the main menu display by breaking one of the walls on the far right.

Castlewars is a card game in which players from both sides can win by being the first to build a hundred storey castle or destroy the opponent's castle entirely. A number of cards are shown at the bottom of the screen, and the player has to decide which card to play for each turn by clicking on it. Cards can be discarded from their hands by holding down the control key while selecting a card. Only one card can be discarded during each turn.

Varia is a new vertical shooter from Kairos, featuring four playable levels and a combination of influences from several classic shmups. Rotating powerups can be collected using the Cho Ren Sha 68K method, while options can absorb and mimic enemy attacks.

Hold the Z key to shoot, and use the X key to freeze options in their places. Tap the C key to free the ability of the currently selected option.

As a few of us may remember, Pushover was an excellent puzzler published by Ocean about fifteen years ago. The remake by IshiSoft features the same objective as well, to topple all dominoes found in each level. The difficult part was figuring out how to arrange certain pieces in order to successfully cause a chain reaction and finally ending up with the trigger piece being pushed.

For this reason, the protagonist can pick up and place domino pieces in key areas. Some dominoes may have special characteristics, although most are explained during the first few tutorial stages. Press the Z key to grab tiles or push a domino by using the left or right directional key with the action button. Fullscreen can be enabled under options. Later levels are rather challenging, but don't let that discourage you from downloading this fabulous remake.

La-Mulana is a freeware free-roaming platformer game designed to look, sound, and play like a classic MSX game. It's heavily influenced by the classic Konami MSX game 'The Maze of Galious' and anyone who has played that title will probably recognize the similarities very quickly. You play the whip-wielding Indiana Jones-esque archaeologist Lemeza Kosugi as he investigates the ancient ruins of La-Mulana in an attempt to find its treasure and one-up his father, who is trying to get the same treasure as well.

The game is huge, with many different areas to explore and dozens of items and weapons to find. Each area has a large variety of puzzles and traps and you need to solve the puzzles in each area to discover the Ankhs and Ankh Jewels, which allow you to fight the eight Guardians of the ruins. To solve the puzzles you'll need to be able to read the tablets scattered throughout the ruins, which will require a Hand Scanner and translation software for the portable MSX that Lemeza has brought along on the adventure. Your Hand Scanner will also allow you to find items and search the bones of less fortunate adventurers.

Anyone familiar with Tempest would definitely be interested in Thorsten's Typhoon 2001. Use the left and right arrow keys to move the ship around the stage, and hold the space key to shoot. A superzapper can be used by pressing the enter key. Avoid spikes when warping to the next level.

Not a standard vertical or horizontal shooter but quite simply one of the best freeware Tempest remake yet. Ace, indeed.

Hoshi Saga 2 is a sequel to the popular brain teaser by Yoshio Ishii, in which players have to discover the star cleverly hidden in each of the thirty-six stages by using unconventional methods.

Invisible Vision is another excellent game from keim, developer of Nomltest FS and Sky Swimmers' Heaven. A departure from the rest of his efforts, it involves engaging sea battles with enemy submarines while avoiding mines and surviving the occasional boss encounters.

Wireframes are used to replicate the surroundings of a dark ocean. With careful observation, it's quite easy to detect enemy ships based on the ripples caused by their movements.

The arrow keys can be used to move your ship around. Controls can be slightly awkward to learn at first but the effort will be rewarded with an amazing gameplay experience. Press the Z key to launch a torpedo. Every missed shot costs three seconds, and the game is over when you run out of time.

If green is not your favorite color, there are two other executables to start the game in gray or blue.