Brainpipe
The conceit behind Brainpipe is that you're navigating the convolutions of your own mind, attempting to achieve various mental states. To do this, you're represented by a white, circular, wireframe reticle. Control of the reticle is handled by mouse movement. It's difficult to tell if your movement through this swiftly winding tunnel is on rails or not; the movement is so fast it hardly matters.

The goal is to collect ten glowing sigils as you race through the tunnel by letting them pass through the center of your reticle, while at the same time avoiding all other constructs. These constructs each have their own patterns of movement, and are made up of fireballs, wireframe gates, rotating plasma balls, towers spewing green fire, and crawling caterpillars. Avoiding these enemies is accomplished the same way as collecting the sigils, by passing them through either the center of your reticle, or through other parts of your wireframe, which is admittedly a little more difficult.

A collision with an object causes everything to turn red and slows your flight down a little bit before starting back at full speed. The farther you travel through the tunnel, the greater your speed. Clicking and holding the mouse button will cause you to slow almost to a stop, making it easier to line up your sigil collection or object avoidance, but after this is done, there is a recharge time that passes before this ability is useable again.

There is a timer at the bottom of the screen that doubles as the scoring mechanism. You'll start out in the Nasal Ganglia level, moving on to the Trippocampus, before completely losing your mind and stomach, making you unable to continue. Well, honestly, that part's probably just me. But you will reach a point where you're flying so quickly through the level, trying to avoid no less than three different types of enemies at the same time and not a sigil in sight, that you'll feel a little overwhelmed. When you finally manage to collect ten sigils, you're rewarded by the mental state of the moment -- I've achieved "awareness" and "confusion", but I'm not sure if those titles have anything to do with performance, or just what that particular level enables.

One issue I had with Brainpipe was the way the reticle moves. It's not a smooth swaying back and forth as you move your mouse -- it's more like the reticle moves in discrete increments, and this choppy sort of movement is really frustrating when what you want is direct, one-to-one motion. Especially when trying to get from one end of the screen to the other, or trying to avoid collision with a fast caterpillar.

The graphics are suitably luminescent -- just like the insides of my mind! -- and things move along at a good, hectic pace. Brainpipe might not be for everyone, but everyone should give it a shot. You can grab it right here on Big Download in both Mac and PC formats.