With all this talk of TOJam 2008 games, we thought we'd share with you a blast from the past. Specifically, one of the games from the TOJam 2007 competition. Quiver is a Gauntlet-like game where one player controls an archer fighting off a horde of zombies created by the other player. Not only that, but it's also same-screen multiplayer and the developers are working on an improved version.

The gameplay is rather dynamic for a top-down RPG shooter. Here's why. The archer is controlled using the mouse and can go anywhere that the player right clicks on. To fire, he must simply left click. As zombies are killed, the archer gains experience and therefore new levels and skills. The dungeon master (the player creating the zombies) can create them in just about any combination anywhere on the board. Want 9 level 5 zombies in the top right to spawn in 9 seconds? Go for it! It's a lot of fun, especially when you and your friend are just fooling around.

Jesse Venbrux, that purveyor of pernicious, punishing platformers, has released a new game. Pazzon is a decidedly retro platformer that reminds us a lot of the surreal stylings of Brain-Damaged Toon Underworld. However, while Brain-Damaged Toon Underworld is still in production, Pazzon is available for consumption right now.

The game is a simple story-based platformer. You must jump around inside a dream, talking to inhabitants along the way. The sound and art design are both excellent, especially in the color contrast of the environments. Everything is also simple geometric shapes, which lends a very minimalist air to the entire game. In short, another excellent game from Venbrux.

[Via IndieGames]

There some games that are just impossibly fun to play with a friend. Cheese is WAR! is one of those amazing multiplayer games. Featuring some excellent use of physics, an interesting art style, and charming sound effects, it's a miracle that this TOJam 2008 competitor didn't get some kind of honors. But when you are competing against such a large plethora of other great games, sometimes it's hard to get recognition.

Cheese is WAR! is a multiplayer-only game where two rats try and topple a tower of cheese onto the other rat. The tower has weak points and reacts fluidly, making the game just as entertaining to watch as to play. The tower designs are also reminiscent of the Tower of Goo project. As long as you aren't touching cheese, you'll be fine. If you touch cheese, you lose one heart. Lose all your hearts, and the opponent wins. It's that simple! Just keep in mind that your projectiles sometimes explode and that cheese strands can be severed.

messhof has released another of his strange, charming games for consumption by the general public. This time, it's the same-screen multiplayer game Cowboyana. It's a western-themed (you don't say?!) arcade game where you get involved in train shootouts, get hammered by drinking too much, get into a duel with your buddy, and various other activities revolving around you and your partner.

The game itself has a charming feel, capturing the western look with no fancy artwork. The special effects add to it, especially since while the smoke from shooting your gun is realistic, the characters are anything but. The music and sound adds to the experience, making it feel like a western movie condensed into pixel form. It's a lot of fun, even if you can't play the game on your own.

Item collection games have always been a part of the gaming landscape, from the very dawn of gaming until now. The Office Party is an extremely simple isometric item collecting game, but it has a charm all its own that will draw you in better than most collection games. With some decidedly retro graphics combined with a rather humorous objective, it's great fun, if a little bit on the short side.

Your goal is to drink as much wine and eat as much cheese at the party while avoiding your co-workers. If you touch a co-worker, you lose a life. If you drink too much wine, you'll get drunk, although this has no effect on gameplay. It's smooth, beautiful, and features an excellent jazz soundtrack. For a casual game to waste some time in and relax with, we can't recommend this TOJam 2008 competitor enough.

There's a sub-genre of shoot-'em-up that we here at Big Download do not see all that often. It shows up once in a while, but never for too long before it re-submerges itself into the dark and murky waters of the internet. I am, of course, talking about the 1v1 Arena shooter. Much like a fighting game, you must tear your opponent to pieces with a variety of special attacks while maneuvering around them. Thanks to Lithium Leaf, another one has surfaced! Over The Horizon is an extremely pretty shmup brawler. The gameplay is fairly standard for games of its kind, but you won't see us complain. If you are a fan of shmups and fighters, you owe it to yourself to give this genre a try. And Over The Horizon is the perfect place to do start.

[Via Lithium Leaf]

Also available is a digital store for newer Midway titles, which is accessible via Midway.com. Available games include Unreal Tournament III ($19.95), John Woo Presents Stranglehold ($19.95), The Suffering ($9.99), The Suffering 2 ($14.95), and Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe ($19.99), a collection of classic arcade games from Midway Arcade Treasures 2 and Midway Arcade Treasures 3.

More adept at ripping heads attached to spines than building digital shops, both MidwayArcade and the Midway.com store were built by Digital River, Inc., a leader provider of e-commerce services. "We are excited to work with Midway Games and help maximize the sales opportunities on its online stores," said Joel Ronning, Digital River's CEO. "Using our e-commerce expertise, we can help Midway offer a consistent, reliable and user-friendly way for its consumers to purchase their favorite Midway games."

"The Midway brand has a long and rich history of fast-paced and addictive games from our arcade and touchscreen heritage," said Mona Hamilton, vice president, marketing, Midway Home Entertainment. "The new digital storefront at midway.com and the casual games site at midwayarcade.com allow us to deliver these classics, favorites and recent releases directly to a wide-range of Midway fans."

Our sister site (more like our mother site, really) Joystiq hosts a short-but-sweet interview with Mercenaries 2 senior producer Jonathan Zamkoff, offering a look at what to expect from the game's inclusion in next week's E3 trade show. Speaking of which, what should you expect to see from Mercenaries 2 next week?

"You're going to have to come by our booth to check out the latest and greatest, but it will be sweet- and hands on!" replied Jonathan Zamkoff.

Oh. Well, I guess you'll just have to wait for Joystiq's extensive coverage of the game next week. Too bad. But hey, the interview is still a good read, so check it out!

Typing games have always been strangely addicting. We can't count how many hours we've spent playing games like Typing of the Dead. It's because of this that we very much enjoy Debugger, an entry in TOJam 2008, as it's definitely not your typical typing game. Your goal is to keep the bugs from eat all your cheese. In order to do so, you must press the key on your keyboard that corresponds with the sector that the bugs are in. As the game progresses, it rapidly becomes a frantic mashing of keys to kill the bugs and protect the cheese, all subtlety lost. Not that we are complaining. It's fun, the graphics are crisp, and the gameplay simple but addicting. Definitely give it a try.

Talk about a fusion of game styles. Smacking very much of Every Extend, flowers of error has been released from the confines of TOJam 2008 and out into the freedom of the real world. To play the game, you must drag the bombs in each wave to destroy the enemies. When eneies die, they drop little letters that add to a story at the top of the screen. Everything about the game screams "experimental", from the strangely affecting music, to the trippy graphics, to the story being built as you continue to play the game. It's another brilliant game from the minds of Jonathon Mak (better known for Everyday Shooter) and Pekko Koskinen and is well worth playing.

We've talked about it twice, and now finally we have played it. a game about bouncing is easily one of the best games of the TOJam 2008 competition and well earned its first-place prize. An experimental game where you latch onto bumpers, it combines a "destroy and dodge" shmup sensibility with far simpler gameplay, hypnotic graphics, and soothing sounds. Playing the game isn't so much playing as it is experiencing a sort of zen as you dash and dodge around the arena, avoiding missiles and destroying bumpers. It can be played with both gamepad and mouse, although we would suggest the gamepad.

You could write a blog just covering cactus' releases alone, it seems. Alone with Life Is A Race, cactus also released a simple arena shooter called Retro 4. The controls are simple, comprised of just WASD for movement and the mouse for attacks. Enemies are simple geometric shapes that are different colors. You can hold down the left mouse button to fire, tap it to rapid-fire, and press right mouse button to unleash a special. Simple. There's an online leaderboard for those who want to compete with others as well. In other words, it's another simple, addictive, quick game from the mind of everyone's favorite freeware developer.

[Via IndieGames]

If only real life were this simple. A very quick game, Life is a Race! is one of cactus' new releases. It's extremely simple, featuring a little pixel man trying to reach the end of a plain screen. You tap the mouse button to have him run forward. That's it. The game is 1mb and completable in a little under 3 seconds, if you so wish. There are also online leaderboards as well. If you play it more than once, thanks to the simplicity of the game, you can also play it meta, such as using different tools to speed up your time, or see what the lowest time you can possibly get is. In other words, it is a cactus release.

[Via IndieGames]

Everyone remembers the lightcycle from Tron. The fun little game where you rode around, avoiding the trails of each cycle as you try and eliminate your opponents. There have been many remakes of it over the years, but none as interesting as this. Cubes is a freeware remake of the lightcycle game. Unlike most remakes, however, Cubes is in full 3D with 6 degrees of movement. It also includes power-ups, shields, and the ability to shoot down enemy cycles. It's extremely trippy and an absolute blast to play especially since it is online-only, where last-man-standing is the name of the game. Give it a whirl for some simple arcade fun!

[Via IndieGames]