This game is one of the biggest reasons that I love Newgrounds. Seriously–I LOVE this place exactly for games like this.  It’s called Survival Lab, and it may well be one of the best little games that you’ve never played before.  But that’s why I’m here, to point you in the direction of some of these nifty little titles that you may not have otherwise stumbled upon.

Survival Lab is, essentially, a volunteer test subject locked in a small room with a variety of automated weapons, all of which will be firing various kinds of projectiles at you.  Your job is to survive and collect coins as they appear.

The interesting part of this is, the longer you survive, the more you’re allowed to “learn” from your time in the lab.  You can purchase upgrades for yourself that allow you to move faster, jump higher and take less damage.  It’s a small, very simple game that manages to pack a lot more gameplay and variety than you’d expect, and thus, it’s well worth playing.

Water Rocket, one of the newest games at Newgrounds, poses an interesting problem–how to maneuver a small rocket through a collection of obstacle traps in search of water.

That’s also the entire plot of the game–your home is running out of water at a catastrophic rate, therefore you’re off to collect it in your rocket ship, which you’ll be able to upgrade to improve shield dynamics and fuel consumption of your lateral thrusters, as well as your rate of fall when the thrusters are cut.  You’ll also be able to repair any damage you’ve taken, but at the cost of not being able to upgrade rocket components, so there’s a real premium on avoiding damage.

It’s a strange mix of action and puzzle as you figure out how to negotiate levels of progressively greater difficulty , and this highly unusual combination adds up to plenty of fun for anyone willing to give it a try.

If you remember the fun of eighties classic Bionic Commando, where you swung across platforms via an extendible bionic arm, then you may enjoy a new game I spotted on Newgrounds, a fun little platform hopper called Ninja+.

There isn’t a whole lot of story in Ninja+–you run around and jump on platforms gathering gold coins as you go.  You’ll be able to throw unlimited kunai (those small ninja daggers that may or may not be attached to a chain, in case you don’t watch Naruto around the clock) and you’ll be able to swing on a line.

The idea is fun, but I found I had a tough time with some of the controls.  Hopping from platform to platform was as fun as advertised, but switching to the space bar to throw kunai was a difficult move for me.  In retrospect, I almost wish that the grappling hook had been weaponized instead, completely leaving out the kunai and thereby eliminating the problem, but that’s just me.

But people who like their action games fast and agile will definitely find plenty to love in Ninja+.

Sometimes, games aren’t good because their gameplay is amazing, but rather because of the story they present.  And perhaps one of the greatest stories is strictly related to Newgrounds itself, in the game How I Buy Petrol?

Anyway, How I Buy Petrol? is described as an “interactive epic poem” about one of the Newgrounds forum dwellers, named Sirkom93.  One day, he hatched an ingenious plot to get unspecified revenge on his schoolyard chums, which he announced to the Newgrounds forum.  This nefarious plot was then relayed to police by a valiant whistleblower named DeckHeadTottie, and Sirkom93 was arrested.

But before Sirkom93 can get his unspecified revenge…you’ll have to help him answer one question:  How I Buy Petrol?

It’s a comic riot, because apparently Sirkom93′s mental candlepower aspires to the crustacean range, and his unspecified revenge requires a lot of idiotic behavior on his part.  But still–it’s the story that counts here, though you’ll have some interesting minigames to partake in in an attempt to “buy petrol”.  Like I said: it’s not about the gameplay, it’s all about the story.  Though I have to admit, I’ve never seen real life distilled to a game with such effectiveness and comedic glee.

And Sirkom93′s story would be a whole lot funnier if people hadn’t been in danger…albeit, a rather limited danger.

And sometimes, the games on Newgrounds can get kind of weird in their sheer simplicity, this is why we’ve got games like John Citizen to talk about.

Basically, the aliens have landed one of their own on the planet Earth.  Charged with the duty of planting a series of Doomsday Devices all over the planet, he’s come to kill us all.  He’s armed to the teeth, ready to kill, and indistiguishable from anyone else.  He’s John Citizen.  And we’re not going to be happy to see him.

The gameplay is pretty simple, run, jump, blast things, avoid spikes–and the worlds all look vaguely similiar with some odd differences.  For instance, why do Dubai and the Netherlands look so much alike?  And last I knew, Ottawa in Canada was NOT comprised entirely of a long row of spikes with a series of platforms suspended via invisible restraints directly over them.  I’m baffled on that one, really.

But one thing is clear enough–John Citizen is a fairly fun and fairly quick casual game that’s worth a few plays.

I have to admit, I’ve played a lot of games on Newgrounds, and some of them are better than others.  But if you’re into action games that’ll make you think like a puzzle game, then you could definitely do a lot worse than Blackboard Squash.

In Blackboard Squash, you play a tiny little chalk outline of a man on a chalkboard.  Meanwhile, chalk hazards are continually drawn into life to fall onto you or attempt to crush or skewer you.  You’ve got just enough fortitude to withstand five injuries, and after that, it’s game over.

You’ll be playing on different sides of the board every so often, and you’ll have to adjust your control perceptions to match.  You’ll have to constantly think and dodge, so you’ll need to be fast and clever to get through this one for any length of time.  It’s fast, casual fun.

Ever have one of those days when you’re feeling restless?  Like you’ve just slammed a quart of Red Bull laced with Pixy Stix?  Got a lot of excess energy to burn off?  Then what you need is one of the newest games on Newgrounds, a massive and hyperkinetic version of Pong called, strangely, Pwong.

Pwong, much as the name and my last sentence implies, is basically just a massive, spectacular game of Pong, with MULTIPLE BALLS.  And when I say, “multiple balls”, I don’t mean three or four.  I mean as many as ten or twenty on the field at one time.  Frankly, I couldn’t keeep an accurate count because they were flying so fast.  Scoring is the simplest a complex sports game can offer–each ball you miss is deducted from your score, while each ball your opponent misses is added to your score.

Just to give you an idea, at one point I was at negative seventy-five points.  Things picked up and I soon got to a hundred and one on my first try.  This qualified me for “pre-beginner” rank, and left me feeling vaguely ashamed of myself for the rest of the afternoon.  But it won’t stop me from coming back later–nor should it stop you from giving this one a try.

I’m a big fan of zombie movies, and by extension, games that act like them.  And I may well have found the toughest challenge I’ve ever taken on in the form of Days 2 Die.

Newgrounds offers me up an incredible zombie apocalypse scenario–it’s just like a whole lot of others.  No one really knows how it happens, or when it’ll end, but man, is it ever a brutal one.  You’ll be dispatched to survive a legion of the walking dead engaged in attacking you in several different locations, and each wave will get steadily more difficult.  But you’ll have a variety of weapons to choose from, and be able to place barricades to help fend off the waves of walking dead.

In early levels, you’ll be able to set up a simple KZ (kill zone) with the help of your barricades, then just stand behind them and blast away.  But in the later levels (I found it started around the police station) even the best gun you have is downright insufficient to deal with the dense mobs of highly resilient zombies.  Thus, the difficulty level may be just a bit too high for the casual zombie blaster, and even experienced shooter players could be in for a bit more fight than even they can handle.

But either way, you should have plenty of fun with this one, so go on out to Newgrounds and take on Days 2 Die.

Well, here’s a game that could have been a winner if there was just something more to it–I found it on Newgrounds, and it’s called 2112 Coop,a game that falls all over itself to prove that less is…well…less.

We start off with an interesting story–there’s a biochemical company that’s been involved in unknown nefarious deeds, and meanwhile, you’re out to get a sample of something to help prove the unknown nefarious deeds.  And to that end you’ll kill a whole LOT of security guards.  Apparently, committing mass murder of the security guards working for the company committing unknown nefarious deeds is actually somehow LESS nefarious than the deeds the company committing the unknown nefarious deeds is actually doing.  I don’t know; I guess we just need to run with it.

2112 Coop plays like Time Crisis with unlimited ammo that manages to conveniently require you to reload after most of the enemies have already been shot.  Meanwhile, the security guards are themselves spectacularly incompentent, so you’re not only trying to stop the evil corporation, you’re also ensuring that the gene pool will be improved by removing a series of brain-damage cases from possible reproduction.

You’ll shoot your way through in a surprisingly fun exercise, and when you reach the company’s front doors, you’ll beat the level.  You’ll also get a report of your ammunition used and accuracy percentage, as well as the number of head shots you made.

Basically, it’s quick, it’s fun, but there’s just not that much of it there to really enjoy.

There’s a lot to be said for the casual gaming experience, especially the casual shooter gaming experience.  It’s quick to get into, it’s easy to play, but the experience will often carry you through surprising hours of gameplay as you get into full-on “just one more level” mode.

One game that really does a fantastic job of “just one more level” is Guns n Angel, which not surprisingly I found in the vast array of gaming possibilities that is Newgrounds.

You play as Angel, an adorable tweenage girl with a deep and abiding passion for…firearms.  Seriously, this chick’s got more guns than the Republican National Convention.  She’s going to be running around with Uzis, shotguns, flamethrowers, and that’s just for starters.  She’ll be blasting everything that comes into frame all in the grand and epic pursuit of saving the world, but we really didn’t need that little thread of plot.  This one’s all about the run and the gun, folks, and if you, like me, couldn’t get enough Contra back in the day, then you will be all OVER this one.