Give aspiring game developers a place to send their babies out into the world and they'll come up with some pretty neat stuff. I'm a huge fan of Kongregate for its wiki powers. Anyone can submit a game for review by the constantly growing community of gamers. The best new games rise to the top and are featured on the main page. Developers who put out the best games can even win cash prizes for their work. It's a nifty system, sort of the Threadless of flash gaming. And it's coughed up some awesome 2D platformers over the past few years. These games all start with the simple, tried and true mechanism of jumping from safe place to safe place, then draw the format to its far reaches. The diversity and depth of platformers available to play for free is astounding. These little hop-and-duck games even approach art in places. Here are some of the best on the web.
So many contemporary games still use '80s-style pixels to tell their stories. It helps players wax nostalgic while seeing what else can be done with the world of 16-bit. endeavor is one such game. Designed and programmed by Zillix, a computer science student, the game follows the tale of a small dwarf as he struggles to unearth a powerful family secret. It looks like a straight-up platform jumper, but features RPG elements as you find objects that give you new abilities. With great writing and music to boot, endeavor is worth replaying for each of its multiple endings.
A bit like a chapter out of Braid, Company of Myself requires you to think in four dimensions as you pilot your character through a series of increasingly confounding levels. Each time you die within a level, your ghost comes back to do exactly what you did before you kicked it. You use these echoes of yourself to your advantage as you map out your escape from a given room. The game's slowly unfurling story of an introverted recluse is well worth the brainpower you'll need to put into it.
This widely-played Kongregate gem is a massively multiplayer side-scrolling RPG. You read that right. Not only can you bounce around a quirky 2D universe shooting enemies, completing quests, and leveling up, but you get to do it all alongside hundreds of other players. And did we mention it's steampunk-themed? One of the three classes you can choose to play comes equipped with a steam-powered jetpack. You can flit around your air city in your brass armor and monocle all by the power of steam. Holy awesome. And unlike other common MMO timesucks, Skystone is entirely free to play.
Like Portal, Faultline requires you to manipulate your surroundings in order to navigate them in new ways. Draw lines from point to point in order to fold up a level like a piece of origami paper. Avoid spiky things and electrocution as you bend your juicy pink cyberglam surroundings.
A mini puzzle platformer with stunning art, Coma follows the mind of a young boy as he maneuvers through imagined landscapes. It features one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a flash game. The brief playthrough will leave you wanting more from the game's gorgeous, subtly-articulated universe.
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