Although it’s a 2D platformer, LIMBO is a horror game, so come prepared. Whether you’re fleeing a giant spider or succumbing to brain worms, the game is stark and disturbing. That makes it incredibly compelling. Add that to the black and white silhouette art, vivid animation, and precision platforming, and you have a great game. It’s just not for the faint of heart.

a boy and his blob is the childhood you never knew you wanted. It’s a genuinely idyllic summer of adventure, unconditional love, and meticulous platforming. It’s not often that a game can live up to the nostalgia it evokes, but it helps when a modern developer gives it a complete overhaul.

Snapshot looks to be a more clever puzzle-platformer than we were worried it might be in our original impression. The GDC build of the game showed off how the camera mechanic could be used both as a glorified inventory system and as a very different way to solve puzzles. This charming game boasts incredibly easy to pick up controls, making the game instantly accessible to anyone who has ever played a platformer before. Not much about this game is written in stone, but it will prove to be a game to watch for as it develops.

Night Game is an original puzzle game set as a side-scrolling platformer. The game is visually striking, has great music, and is different from other puzzle games we’ve played in the past. This Wii-exclusive title finally cashes in on the promises of third-party developed novel gameplay to owners, though the controls use the NES configuration of the Wii-mote.

Sushi Bar Samurai is a unique entry among the innovative games in the PAX 10. There is no platforming, no physics, and no combat. Instead there’s a chef (you), his trusty stock of sushi ingredients, and a pile of spirits who are owed a last meal.

Sushi isn’t made a la Cooking Mama. Instead, the eponymous bar of sushi ingredients scrolls across the top of the screen, and you simply click to queue your stock to make combinations that will result in palatable sushi. The game is perhaps a distant relative of Tetris, but because you can see the ingredients in advance, the emphasis shifts from tactical to strategic. In a nutshell, Sushi Bar Samurai is about mastering the arcane intricacies of sushi, and using them to plan an optimal path through a stream of ingredients.

We make a great deal of fuss about accessibility around here, and transparency is a part of that. You might predict that we’d be critical of a game that revolves around secret codes written in meat and rice, but hit the jump to discover sole developer Casey Muratori’s intriguing counterpoints about transparency’s place in puzzle games. We also chat about the language of sushi and reasons to make a game aside from cash. There’s not presently a public demo, but stop by his website to read more about his development philosophy and check out some media.

Take a few steps into Polarity and the game looks like a typical platformer; run and jump to navigate from one end of a 2-D level to the other. Soon, however, you’ll discover that your avatar’s suit is magnetic, and so are most of the surfaces in the game’s four levels. From there, it’s all about manipulating your suit’s polarity and the strength of your magnetism to fight gravity and manipulate objects in the environment. It looks and plays like a platformer, but it’s a puzzle game at heart.

The game was actually developed by a group of students from Carnegie Mellon University. We talked to Daniel Bryner, Howard Braham, and Przemyslaw Iwanowski how a game development education can be handy, how playtesting molds accessibility, and the game’s future. Hit the jump to read on and then go play the game.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is both the oldest and newest puzzle game you’ll play all year. Beneath the lovely retro aesthetic and slick DS interface beat the merciless hearts of 130 puzzles. If you can work your way past the abject humiliation of getting everything wrong, the game is a fresh take on classic mindbenders and is absolutely worth the 10 hours you’ll sink into it.

Mr. Driller DS is the archetypal GBA game pretending to be something more than it is. While it doesn’t much take advantage of the platform’s features, this doesn’t diminish the addictive action-puzzle gameplay.

With the degree of buzz surrounding the release of Valve’s Orange Box, it seems almost redundant to introduce one of its components: Portal. Nevertheless, amidst the hubbub about 5 high-profile games for $50, it’s easy to overlook the fact that these games can be purchased separately. Each game merits independent evaluation.