Vacant Ark is a strange departure from standard horizontal shooters, featuring excellent sprite designs by Buster but employing a slightly awkward gameplay system. You can only store and use up to six bullets at any time, although this supply can be replenished by collecting blue gems from vanquished enemies.

You lose all your energy stock if an enemy bullet grazes your on-screen character. A life is lost if you have no energy left when receiving damage. Your pod can also turn enemy bullets into gems when not in use for a few seconds.

Each end level boss requires a different strategy to beat. Some weapons are more effective in certain situations. You can only progress to the next zone if none of the bosses escape.

The plot of Zub involves navigating through ten different planets to find the lost Eye of Zub. Each planet is connected to some others by a system of teleports. You start on planet 1 and must get to planet 10 and back.

There are platforms on each screen, when you stand on one you can move it by crouching and pushing left or right. Use the platforms to get up to the three teleports at the top, your destination depending on which you choose. There is always at least one alien on screen at any one time, which descends from the top and attempts to knock you off the platforms.

Digital: A Love Story is an interactive fiction game created by Christine Love, presented through Bulletin Board Systems that you can visit and read using an operating system interface which mimics those found in computers from the late 1980s. At the start of your adventure a message in your inbox offers a phone number for you to dial up and log into your first BBS, and once you're familiar with the set of applications on your virtual desktop the tasks of replying to messages and initiating conversations with strangers can all be done with just the click of a button.

Though there's quite a bit of text to read in Digital: A Love Story, the game won't take longer than an afternoon to play through. The control scheme is admittedly clunky (e.g. you can't use the Enter key to submit a phone number, although it works when you're transferring codes), but persevere and you will be rewarded with an absorbing experience that no other game from this day and age can offer.

N is a platformer featuring a ninja with the ability to climb or slide down walls and run at amazing speed. The basic objective is to survive five rooms filled with traps and danger in each episode, with a different maze design introduced in every level to challenge the player's reflexes and quick thinking.

Collecting a piece of gold increases the allowable episode completion time by two seconds. Progress is automatically saved when an episode is completed. Tutorials and help sections are supplied to assist beginners, plus a healthy and active community continues to provide a continous supply of new content and custom creations.

Hydorah is a Gradius-style horizontal shooter that features sixteen different levels to beat, a wide variety of weapons to unlock, and a handful of secrets that can only be found by space pilots who dare travel off the beaten path. There is a progress save option that'll come in handy for practicing and mastering difficult stages, although players aren't allowed to use it more than three times during the entire mission.

Both primary and secondary weapons are mapped to the same key, while the ship's loadout is decided by the player before the start of each stage. Upgrades carry over from the last level, but lose a ship and your weapons will be weakened considerably.

The lack of a difficulty setting is going to irk some players, but shmup fans who had been yearning for a decent 2D side-scrolling shooter will be more than delighted with this gem of a game.

Echoes is an arena shooter by Binary Zoo which consists of ten levels, with a different enemy type introduced on every new stage. Each have their unique strengths, weaknesses and require various strategies to deal with effectively.

The player loses energy when collision with an adversary could not be avoided. Remaining energy is shown as a counter on the top right of the screen, also indicated by the colored ring surrounding your ship. There are only three different power-ups to collect. One increases firepower, the other restores health while the third is a sort of bomb.

Zoots awards are handed out whenever a certain task is completed, with current achievements available to peruse via the trial accomplishment screen. To get a perfect score, all ten objectives must be attempted at the highest difficulty. Hold the Z, o and 0 keys at the same time when the main menu is shown to unlock crack.

Gravity Hook HD is an updated remake of the original Gravity Hook game, featuring artwork designed for higher screen resolutions, gameplay rebalancing, new elements, Twitter support, and remixes of the original soundtrack plus new songs by partner Danny Baranowsky.

Reaching the 500m goal to unlock the first Gravity Hook build is easily attainable, but the game does get pretty hard past that point as just about every mine is placed even more sporadically than in the lower levels.

Transformice is a multiplayer flash game, where you control a mouse whose goal is to try and return with the cheese faster than all of the other mice. You are assisted by a Shaman who has the ability to summon various physics-based objects to help the mice get the cheese and get back safely.

The Shaman is a mouse with the ability to summon physics objects, and in some cases must overcome an otherwise insurmountable obstacle to clear a path to the cheese for the other mice. The Shaman is separated from the other mice with various markings on his fur and a feather on his head. The array of objects the Shaman has access to varies from map to map; in some cases, the shaman can't do anything at all.

The Underside is an exploration-based action platformer in the vein of games like Castlevania, Metroid, and Cave Story. However, unlike most other games in this genre, the gameplay is driven more by plot than by free-roaming exploration.

Graphics and engine are completely original. The plot revolves around a character named Ip who must escape from the underside, and prevent the world from being destroyed while he's at it. Characters, plot strands, and dialogue are heavily inspired by Earthbound, and are quirky, whimsical, and sometimes a little strange 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.