Nezumi man (Rat man) is a 2D platformer created in the same style as early Megaman games, where you are in control of a rodent who has to defeat the evil Dr. Gyoniku and his henchmen. Ratman can jump, shoot, slide, and earn special abilities by beating the boss characters in each of the eight levels included.

A hidden bonus chapter can also be unlocked once you've completed the entire game, although it doesn't really take more than two hours to achieve that feat if you're already accustomed to playing difficult platformers by now. The save feature will come in handy if you need a short break or two between sessions as well. You can resize the application window by using the configuration file included in the game folder.

With a quirky name which is actually evolution spelled backwards, Noitu Love and the Army of Grinning Darns is quickly gaining widespread recognition for it's classic platforming goodness.

Controls are stripped down to basics, featuring the standard punch and jump plus two more attack variations assigned to both the left control and shift key. Much like Capcom's Mega Man series, you get to utilize certain devices to change form and access special powers. The first few levels may seem repetitive but the game does get better after the second stage.

Most of the highlights occur during boss battles, where each leader has to be defeated using different strategies. The final boss encounter is simply amazing, even when compared to other platformers freeware or otherwise. A word of advice, you'll miss out on quite a bit if the easy difficulty setting is chosen. Press alt-Enter to play in full screen mode.

Plasma Warrior is a retro 2D platformer created by Tom Vine, where only seven different colours are used in the entire game. Your task is to guide a robot on an exploration mission to uncover the mystery of an abandoned mining operation.

Use the cursor keys to move, press the shift key to jump and hold the left control key to shoot. The down arrow key can be used to read signs or enter doors as well. Press the alternate and enter key at the same time to switch between full screen and windowed mode.

Guardian of Paradise is a fun little Zelda-ish game by Buster, who you may know as the creator of Akuji the Demon. GoP casts you as Tela, a boy whose sister has fallen ill. Nobody knows what's wrong with her, so there seems to be no cure, but legends tell of healing waters in Paradise, so Tela sets out to find the fabled land and save his sister. He encounters elemental spirits along the way, which provide magic, and the basis for the game's puzzle system.

Please download and apply the english translation patch over the original file as well.

The Spirit Engine 2 is the follow up to the freeware game The Spirit Engine, first released in November 2003. Set in a new world, with new characters, new graphics and a rewritten game engine, TSE-2 improves upon the game experience of the original in every possible way.

The story is about three citizens who discovered their paths crossing in an act of charity one dark night, finding themselves burdened with the responsibilty of not only defending the nation but deciding whether to save civilization as they know it. TSE-2 offers an updated real-time combat system with greater control over characters, combat speed options and action synchronisation controls to make battles more tactical and more fun.

X-0ut returns with a brand new shooter entitled Gravitron, though this one requires a little more tact as it is actually based on Thrust. Instead of transporting pods into the skies you now have to destroy reactors while saving any spacemen wandering on the surface of the planet.

Switch to mouse controls by pressing the tab key when the main menu is shown. Activate the shields next to a fuel pod to fill up your tank. Progress is saved using a pass phrase, plus the nifty level editor facilitate user creations quite well. Expect more content to be posted in the near future.

Hoshi Saga 3 is a new collection of puzzles designed by Yoshio Ishii, where the objective of the game is to search for stars hidden in each of the thirty levels included. Practically no instructions are given, and players are expected to solve puzzles by experimenting with random elements found in every stage.

Unlike some of the popular multiplayer RPGs these days, Jick (real name Zack Johnson) first created Kingdom of Loathing as a simple game that had stick figures for character illustrations, seemingly random items and odd combat encounters with inhabitants of the land. KoL now boasts over a hundred thousand active users - an amazing achievement for a game which looks and plays exactly the same way as when it started out five years ago.

Noiz2sa is another excellent shooter from Kenta Cho that features abstract shapes to shoot at. It doesn't sound particularly interesting at first but once you dig in you'll find that it is just as addictive to play as the rest of his games.

The red dot located inside your ship is the object that you need to protect from an endless barrage of bullets. Each stage consists of ten sections, and your current progress is conveniently displayed on the top right. A boss awaits at the end of each level if you manage to survive that long.

DUO is an excellent shooter by Binary Zoo, makers of DUOtris and Mono. Your mission is simple, destroy every sphere thrown at you in each level to progress to the next. Much like Pang, spheres will break into smaller pieces when shot. This complicate matters as they're much harder to hit every time.

Fortunately power-ups can be collected to upgrade your ship's firepower. Features a hundred levels with varying difficulty to test casual gamers and shooter veterans alike.