A simple puzzle game based around the beauty of sound, Auditorium is a game full of experimentation. Each puzzle has multiple solutions all based on you, and the game drives you to finish it with a beautiful soundtrack done in classical style. The current display on the main website is nothing more than an elegant tech demo for the game, but does a very effective job at selling how good the game is. If you don't believe us, give it a whirl for yourself! Just be prepared to spend a while trying to finish it.

Auditorium's mechanics are fairly simple: use objects that you can drag and drop to manipulate the flow of a stream of particles into a level to fill the containers scattered around. The first few levels teach you how to do this effectively and with finesse. However, soon the game starts dropping new problems to deal with, such as obstacles, colored particles and containers, and new kinds of objects to deal with. It never feels forced or contrived, and the mechanics really force you to use your brain in ways that you didn't think were possible. Auditorium is one of the best puzzle games out there, and certainly makes a great case for "games as art."


Another phenomenal game, The Majesty of Color is an altogether bizarre, lovecraftian look at actions and consequences. It has a charming retro-pixel style, delightful sound, and an intriguing concept that got me to play through multiple times. It's an extremely quick game, but it leaves you somehow wanting more out of it, whether that means a continuation, more choices, or whatever. At the very least, it'll make you thank about how we view the unknown.

Quite obviously a horror game, The Majesty of Color has you playing a man who has fallen asleep and is dreaming of himself as an unidentified gooey mass of tendrils and eyeballs. Using the one controllable tendril, you must reach out and interact with the environment in different ways to complete the game. There are five different endings, each consisting of little more than a black screen with minimal text detailing the end of the dream. In a way, it is minimalist without ever really trying. This is a good thing.


There's only one way to describe this game, and that is bizarre. A flash game comprised of multiple levels taken straight from web pages, i made this. you play this. we are enemies. is borderline schizophrenic in its rapid shifts in graphics, content, and text. It's little more than a simple maze to navigate, but all the strange happenings make it much more interesting.

Playing a little reddish ball, you must move from side to side and jump around to reach the exit, designated by an arrow. All the levels, as mentioned before, are actually web pages that have been defaced to provide the player with a game world. The strange part is not in this, but rather what happens when you collect items: text pops up, things explode, plants grow, and many more varieties of actions occur. There's also things to click on, such as movie links. It's all accompanied with a disjointed musical soundtrack and extremely sketchy drawing. To put it simply, this is the kind of game that you would expect to see drawn on the wall of a mental institution inmate. Is it a clever commentary on the way web media works? Simple strangeness? Decide whatever you want, but either way, it's a game that is fun purely because it's so strange that it isn't even really a game.


An entertaining diversion from the drudgery of normal browser games, QWOP is relentlessly hard not due to any sort of level or creature design, but purely because of the way the game is controlled. It's all rather simple, but learning how to do it properly is an exercise in constant replays and experimentation. And even then you aren't likely to get it right!

Following a track runner from an unnamed country, QWOP requires you to guide him by contracting the thighs and calves of both his left and right legs using is QW and OP keys (hence the name of the game). You can't control anything else, either. Your goal is to run 100 feet without falling and hitting anything above the hips. It's extremely difficult to get any where, and in a way makes you think just how much of yourself you take for granted. When you walk somewhere, you don't pay it any attention. When you try to walk with a ragdoll man in a flash game, he crashes all the time into the ground.

These are all just recent examples of fairly artsy games. Other games of this kind include:

• Pick Up The Phone Booth And Die, an Interactive Fiction game whose lose condition is exactly what is stated in the title. There also appears to be no win condition.
• You Have To Burn The Rope, a game that tells you exactly what to do in the title, game music, and game itself: burn the rope. It's worth mentioning that the end music is absolutely hilarious.
  
• Aisle, an Interactive Fiction game with only a single opportunity to input a command, giving you a wide variety of different endings depending on what you do.

For more coverage on indie games and the scene, keep an eye out for Independent Minds at the same bat time, same bat channel. Also check out Freeware Friday and our indie category for some excellent freeware games and indie news, respectively.