Too Many Ninjas is a decent flash game in which the player has to rack up a killer score by knocking down ninjas or deflecting throwing stars. Hold the arrow key to swing your sword in any of the six directions available.

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.

Q.U.B.E. is a clever first-person puzzle game that tells the story of an unnamed protagonist trapped inside a maze, equipped with a pair of gloves that allows him to extrude or contract multi-coloured cubes by willpower alone. Manipulating the cubes is as simple as targeting them before pressing the left or right mouse button, although cubes will stop responding to your commands when they have reached the limit of their extension or contraction capabilities.

No tutorial sequence is included with the game, but it really doesn't take more than a minute to learn the controls and start solving puzzles in every room. You can't save your progress though, so be prepared to spend about an hour or so if you're planning to beat Q.U.B.E. in one sitting.

Line Rider is a Flash physics toy originally created by FSK in September 2006, but quickly became an internet phenomenon shortly thereafter. The basic concept is to draw multiple lines for a boy on a sled to ride, using the mouse and a number of preset tools provided by the developer.

Seizuredome is a new remake of Unholy Stage, the arena shooter released by cactus back in 2007. The objective of the game is to stay away the edge of the screen, which can be rather complicated when enemies are attempting to push you off the suspended platform at every opportunity.

Use the cursor keys to move, and hold the left mouse button to shoot. Right click for an alternate firing method, applicable to all weapons available for acquisition from vanquished enemies.

Ghosts of Aliens is a full-length RPG which has been in production for nearly an entire year, featuring music by one of the developers credited with creating the post-cyberpocalyptic basketball epic, Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden. Playing as the ghost of an alien named Atum, the story tells the tale of this restless soul who is given another chance at life, granted that he undertakes a quest to defeat the five Doom Beasts and save the world of Appalathia.

Use the Z key to run or select a menu option, and press the X key to cancel a choice or bring up your inventory screen. Press the left alt and enter key at the same time to switch between windowed and full screen mode. Progress can be saved at any time.

Combat is mostly negligible, as enemies encountered during the early part of the game only requires two hits or less before surrendering to you. Bosses can be easily defeated using your strongest Magle, while Quencheleth are readily available for purchase from item shops located in towns scattered all over Appalathia. There is however one particular dungeon that will most likely cause excruciating frustration, since entering this area inside a tree will end your adventure in less than two seconds if you're not equipped with the Mark IV blocker. In here, players would have to be mindful of their steps as well, as touching traps would pretty much wipe out all party members without warning.

Ghosts of Aliens isn't without faults and bugs, but anyone who is willing to persevere might find a couple of pleasant surprises to be had with this adventure. The RPG Maker 2000 Font Patch can be used to fix font display problems, but note that the program doesn't come with an uninstaller.

In The Hive you play as Alex Rig, a reporter who was investigating a missing persons case when he discovers a heavily-fortified research facility while snooping around for clues. Similar to Iji, Prince of Persia and Flashback, Alex will be doing a lot of climbing up platforms and crawling through air vents to find ammunition or health-replenishing items that he can keep in his inventory for later use.

The taser he carries is effective enough against guards at close range, but only rifles and shotguns can protect him from being overwhelmed by chasing mutants that are more resilient to bullet damage. Both the protagonist's health and his weapons can be upgraded in small increments, provided that you manage to locate the special items required to level up their stats.

The controls might feel clunky and unresponsive at first, but if you give the game a chance to impress it could even suprise you with its high production values in just about every other area. This 2D platformer was created by Vanni del Moral as his entry for submission to the YoYo Games' 'Discovery' competition.

Depending on how good you are at overcoming difficult challenges, Beacon can be a rather lengthy platformer that will take some time to beat. Shadows are lurking in every corner waiting for our protagonist to make a wrong move, but as luck would have it a beacon of light appears out of nowhere to help him illuminate the way forward.

The beacon will occasionally take a branching path that is out of your reach, and you would have to rely on the light from blue and red crystals just as often to progress.

Solar Plexus is a puzzle platformer created by the developer of the Noitu Love series, where you are in control of a female protagonist sent to investigate the sudden communication silence from a certain space colony. Most of the challenges in the game require the player to manipulate blocks using the mouse and navigate around obstacles placed deliberately to hinder their progress forward.

Weapon ammo is limited to just fifty shells as well, but you can replenish this stock by left-clicking on ammunition blocks resting somewhere in most levels. Some doors will only open after you've placed purple blocks in specially marked areas, while other locations are only accessible by creating your own platforms with the blocks.

This is an unfinished version of the full game, containing nine levels to play in total. Joakim has no plans to continue developing it, and is considering the project an abandoned one.

Cave Story is a freeware sidescrolling platformer title created by Daisuke Amaya, art-name Pixel. You control a cute little amnesiac who runs around helping out these rabbit-ish creatures called Mimigas while trying to find your way out of the giant cave inside the floating island which makes up the game's setting.

You can expand your health meter by collecting Life Capsules in similar fashion to Metroid games, while you can get stronger by collecting energy to boost your firearms' output. Each weapon can be built up to the maximum level fairly quickly, but taking damage will drain energy from its experience meter, sometimes causing it to level down. Given how quickly they power up this only tends to be an issue during boss fights, and even then there's usually plenty of opportunities for collecting more weapon energy.

The game has loads of secrets, too. For a freeware Japanese platformer, it's fairly lengthy and has quite a large amount of text. We're also talking three very different endings, plenty of plot, and quite a cast of charming characters. It really is a superb little gem.