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Have you ever read the children's book Harold and the Purple Crayon? Armed with only a simple crayon, Harold creates a whole new world, where what he draws comes to life. You can have a similar experience with Crayon Physics.

With Crayon Physics, you create a world on your system that responds to forces as real objects do. Draw a box on the screen, and it "falls" toward the bottom of the screen, as if pulled by gravity. You can have free-falling objects like this, or by inserting pivot points, you can create levers that redirect forces in directions you want them to go. As a game, you move a ball around on screen, allowing it to collect stars. Create ramps, drop things to push them along, the sky's the limit of what you can do to manipulate your new world here. You'll probably have best results with a stylus, although you can still draw things with your mouse.

There is a deluxe version in the works (watch the video to see what's in store) that hasn't dropped yet.

Crayon Physics is a Windows application and requires Win98 or later.

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You don't have to spend time in Roswell to have to deal with aliens. Just fire up Spheres of Chaos, and you'll have more extraterrestrial enemies than you know what to do with, as well as a light show that just won't quit.

As you work through the various levels of play, you will encounter progressively more enemies that you have to eradicate before you can progress to the next level. Keep an eye out for black holes that can attract or repel you, and if you don't complete a given level soon enough, the bad guys will come looking for you.

Even on lower-end systems, the graphics are impressive. With that many bright colors and patterns, you'll wonder whether somebody spiked your Gatorade.

Spheres of Chaos works as a single-player game, or supports up to eight players at a time in multi-player mode. It's a free download, and it's available for Windows and Linux systems

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Did you ever think that maybe there just weren't enough dead aliens out there? Did you want to do something about it? Alien Arena may be right up your alley.

A first person shooter in the tradition of Quake III and Unreal Tournament, you'll be up to your ankles in blood-n-guts in no time. You can run Alien Arena in single player mode, server mode for playing against others, or even start up your own dedicated server.

There are several different game modes here, including Death Match, Capture the Flag, and others. The carnage is configurable, so you can have just the experience you're looking for. With the ability to reset everything, you can't break things in the configuration screen.

The lead developer claims that the game has been downloaded over half a million times in the last couple of years, so there's a big installed base out there. There is a large online game forum so whether its a configuration issue, or just a chance to gloat over your accomplishments, there's a big group of folks out there eager to hear what you have to say.

Alien Arena is a 3-D game, so you'll want to make sure your system has the horsepower required.

Alien Arena is available for both Linux and Windows systems.

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Did you ever have one of THOSE days? You know, you get up, brush your teeth, find that the world has been overrun by mutant penguins? I hate it when that happens.

TAGAP is The Apocalyptic Game About Penguins. As the name suggests, you're looking at the end of life as we know it through the eyes of a flock of penguins who have been used in vile experiments by Dr. Glowenko. Pablo (the good guy) fights against Pedro (the bad guy) and a host of zombie penguins, killer penguins, robot penguins, and more. Using the weapons available to you, including an arsenal of guns, featuring shotguns, machine guns, flame throwers, rocket launchers, and a disintegrator, and even chemical warfare, in the form of anti-penguin mind-altering drugs, you defeat the enemy, while collecting goodies for doing well. Penguins on steroids? Yeah, that's in there too.

Play TAGAP under Windows XP or Vista. No tuxedo required.

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Okay, the truth is out: we all love Legos! There's always been something very satisfying about the look and feel of those little plastic blocks. From the simplest construction–look, I made a cube!–to complex animated beasts, everything just kinda' looks cool when it's made out of Legos.

In fact, the only real drawback with these little Danish blocks is when you step on them in the middle of the night. There is nothing in the world as sharp as those little plastic corners at 4:30 in the morning when you've just GOT to go.

Logo Digital Designer protects you from that danger, while giving you much of the fun of the Lego experience. Whether using a pre-built model as a starting point, or just starting with a blank screen, you can build just about whatever you want. The Camera Control lets you rotate your virtual model, and to zoom in and out, getting a better view of your handiwork from all angles. You have an unlimited number of bricks, so you'll never run out. Once you're done, you can check the Price Window to see how much your project would cost if constructed with real Lego bricks. Heck, you can even click through to the online store to buy them right now.

Lego Digital Designer is available for Windows (XP) or Mac (OS X 10.3+).

Download Lego Digital Designer

Are you an air guitar aficionado? Do you lust after that sunburst Strat hanging in the music store window? If you've got a computer keyboard, this may be your lucky day.

Frets On Fire is a keyboard-based guitar playing game. Using a combination of Function keys and the the Enter key, you play along with individual notes and chords to rack up a big score. You can start at Easy level to learn the moves; graduate to Medium as you gain confidence, and eventually you'll be at Amazing, shredding with the best of them. There are tons of songs available, or you can import from Guitar Hero, or even create your own songs.

It may not be time to quit your day job yet, but with Frets On Fire, you'll feel like that big recording contract is just around the corner.

Frets On Fire is available for Linux, Mac (x86 processors), and Windows.

Download Frets On Fire

Got a perfectly good gamepad, but a game that doesn't like it? Xpadder may be just what you're looking for.

Xpadder is a controller-to-keypad translator. You can run keyboard-only games by mapping keyboard keys to keys on your game controller. If you can type it, you can do it through your game controller. Even mouse commands can be emulated. Xpadder supports up to 16 controllers at a time, for multiplayer games.

Testimonials on the website tell stories of using Xpadder to create "hardware macros", where long strings of characters are mapped to controller keys, enabling users to perform complicated series of tasks with simple button presses.

Xpadder can auto-detect many controllers, but even if yours isn't one of them, you can still set it up manually to take advantage of the software. Along with "normal" controllers, Xpadder can work with any other type of controller: joystick, steering wheel, dance pad, and more.

You need to be running Win98 or better to use Xpadder.

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Originally published as Halloween Harry, the game Alien Carnage has recently been re-released as freeware. Featuring both flame throwers and zombies, it was truly state-of-the art back in the early 90's, and is still exciting today.

Halloween Harry, our intrepid hero, is responsible for penetrating the alien ship that has hidden itself under the city. Calling on his extensive arsenal of weapons, including the photon cannon, micro nukes, and even the very powerful Omega bomb, Harry will have the nasty aliens on the run in no time.

Alien Carnage is an old-school game, and will most likely work best on an old-school system; released before Win2k or XP were a twinkle in Bill's eye, you will probably have better luck with earlier versions of Windows. The included ReadMe file has some more useful suggestions about this.

Download Alien Carnage

Did you ever wake up in the morning and decide that your life was too boring? That you wanted a challenge? That maybe you should join the bomb squad? This could be your lucky day!

Acidbomb is an action-packed puzzle game that puts you in the ultimate hot seat: you are the bomb disposal expert, and everyone depends on you. You have limited time to defuse your bomb, and just to crank it up, as you get closer and closer to the end, and the pressure starts to mount, the screen starts shaking and the volume and intensity of the sound increases. If you are successful, you're the hero, but it you don't get it completely right, then KA-BLOOIE!

With fifty different levels and constantly-changing bomb configurations, you will never play the same game twice. Extensive documentation clues you in on how the various types of bombs work and what your best approach may be to defusing them.

Acidbomb is available as a "lite" version, without music, or you can grab the whole package, music and all.

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The story goes that an early prototype of PONG was set up in a Northern California watering hole and became so popular that people would line up before opening for a chance to play. After a short while, the big console broke down and the bar owner called to have it removed from his establishment. Upon further examination, it was found that the reason that the machine stopped working was because it was too full of quarters. Pretty popular. The folks in line thought that PONG was a good thing, and that it was worth the wait.

Good things indeed come to those who wait. For those of you who have waited since our last review of Plasma Pong for a Mac version, that time has come. Recently released is the OS X port of this mesmerizing game, available for both PPC and x86 machines running 10.4+.

Plasma Pong is PONG with a twist: not content to just move paddles back and forth to bat the "ball" around, players operate in a plasma environment. The game field comes complete with swirling colors and fluid dynamic principles are the order of the day: squirt plasma into the environment, create a vacuum that attracts the ball, and even generate shock waves to keep things interesting.

In addition to the Mac version, there is a new version available for XP and Vista, so there’s plenty to go around.

Download PlasmaPong for Mac