Hey kids you should go to a museum and quit ALL VIDEO GAMES

"Hey, where'd the jerk who posts here go? I'd have better luck getting free games by mailing a wish list to the North Pole and praying at this rate". Yeah well I'm back now, so the four people who were waiting can chill out now. In fact, today I'll give you something so amazing that you'll never feel the need to pick up another video game again, free or not. That game is BUBSY 3D: Bubsy visits the James Turrell Retrospective. Yes. That Bubsy.

IGNORE ANY MEGA-MANIACAL CACKLING

A game so masterfully crafted, so artistic, so DEEP, I dont want to spoil it for you, to let you go in like a blank canvas so you can properly experience the DEEPness yourself the way it was meant to be seen and played. Let Bubsy guide you to the promised land as the burning question of "Are video games art" is finally answered:YES
I mean, would this face lie to you?

Obviously not

So go, enjoy BUBSY 3D: BVTJTR, and let it fill a void within you that you never knew was there until this very moment. Surely this is the height of video games, past present and future, so everyone can, AND SHOULD enjoy it.

a face that screams "Hello friend, nothing strange is going to happen whatsoever"

You can play this master piece right from the web page here

Brush your teeth

Oh man, time to check your meds at the door, because we're diving right into some weird stuff today! I've you've read through previous posts you'll know I told you about Middens by John Clowder, well today I'm here to tell you that it's got a sequel, and its just as strange and twisted as the game that came before. Get ready to slip on that straight jacket and stair at ink blot cards because today I'm going to tell you about Gingiva!

Basically where you're going

Where in Middens you played a Nomad armed with a sentient revolver, in Gingiva you play as a woman with a wind up key for a head, and things only get stranger from there. Though Gingiva gives you a far more coherent path to work with in comparison to Middens, which dumped you in the game world and told you to go nuts, that doesnt detract from the strangeness at all, especially in the party member department.

"Sup"

Gingiva is more combat focused than Middens, and there are less people to talk to, though that doesn't detract from the game that much, as the environments are still just as strange, as is the music, the attacks (such as "French Taunting") and the enemy designs. You dont need to play Middens to appreciate Gingiva, or vise versa, but I think they're both worth playing.

Maybe not at the same time

If you like weird RPGs, then Gingiva is right up your alley. If you like weird stuff in general you should be happy with what Gingiva brings to the table.

You can get Gingiva here

Not even the axes work

Been too long without a post. I could offer excuses BUT THERE CAN BE NO EXCUSES, so lets just get on with it. What do you think about fire? It's pretty useful, it can keep you warm, cook food, and set your enemies aflame! With that in mind, lets get to our game: It's called You Have To Burn The Rope.

 There's a boss! There's fire! There's a rope! You have axes that are worthless! YOU DO THE MATH

This is one of those weird 30 second games, so your mileage may vary with this one. For a game that's so short the guy who made it certainly put some detail into it, since it has it's own original music. YHTBTR is one kongregate and a bunch of other flash game sites. Normally I dont put flash games up but this is too silly to pass by.
Want to kill some time? Go check out YHTBTR here, and at a bunch of other places.

But all you do is YELL

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAARRGRGGHGHGHHHHHH! (WARNING: FEDORA AHEAD)

AAAAAAAAAAAAIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH
RRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHGGH!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYEAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHHHHH
YYYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA YOU CAN GET IT HERE

"But all you do is click..."

What I am about to show you might not even be considered a game by some of you, and I'm not so sure myself, but I've been seeing it so often that I've reached the "Why not" threshold, and now YOU get to "benefit" from it. You know whats tasty, and great in moderation? Cookies. You know what you're good at, what you've been doing this entire time without even really thinking about it? Clicking on stuff. What if you could combine those? (and throw moderation out the window because you'll wont be needing it where YOU'RE going) You'd get Cookie Clicker, and that's the...thing for today.

The cause of it all

The point of Cookie Clicker is to make cookies. You open it up in your browser and you make cookies by clicking on the giant cookie, but you can sell those cookies to buy things that give you more cookies over time, basically spending money to get money, if money were delicious and had no real dietary value (These aren't your fancy "nutri-cookies", its old fashioned chocolate chip, get ready to get pretend not real virtual fat).

"Why can't I stop?"

At first that's all there was to the game, but now there's achievements, upgrades, better art, cookie per second tracking, and game saves so you can stop to treat your crippling carpal tunnel before going back in to click the giant cookie some more to feed the endless cycle, eventually leaving you a hollow shell of who you used to be.

"Why couldn't I stop?"

FAIR WARNING: To some this game is pretty addicting, so I just want to tell you to not play this at your job or whatever if you work with computers, this is both the kind of thing you could have going in a browser in the background and the kind of thing some bosses would fire people for, and I don't want to be thought of as the guy who helped get people fired, I'm not gonna be a part of that, so this is me telling you not to do that.

Whoever thought up cookies and milk was a mad genius

If you're willing to risk developing a horrible case of OCD and ruining your mental stability to check this out for the sake of curiosity then you can check out Cookie Clicker here. You were warned.

Running all the way to a psychologist

Something short and sweet here today! It involves running, wild animals, running, hostile plant life, running, floating cash, jumping, human remains just lying around, running, and DEATH. It's called Fear Less.

Did I mention it has running? This is important, because it does

The game is about one girl and her recurring nightmare where she runs through a forest where everything is out to kill her while being pursued by version of the grim reaper that looks like it was spawned forth from the darkest, most foul corners from Deviant Art. That said, the art is nice, having sprites that actually look like they had effort put into it, and having a neat paralax scrolling effect for the foreground and background. One of the game's best aspects however is the music. Very well done, better heard than having me fail to describe it.

START RUNNING

The gameplay itself is about the girl fleeing from death while jumping over hazards and murdering the hateful animals that try to stop her with a sword. But for your first attempt you are like a small baby trying to run from an angry baby sitter. You basically die in one hit, you cant jump worth a damn, and you cant swing your sword to any helpful effect. How do you fix this? While running from death you can snag DREAM COINS, and spend them on upgrades to help you get a little farther each time you try to escape death.

"Oh God there were mushrooms EVERYWHERE"

For a game with cutesy graphics, Fear Less has some pretty dark implications about the mental state of the protagonist, but delving into the themes and artistic message here is for another website, here I'm just telling you its free. If you're into recurring nightmares, fleeing, delaying the inevitable, nonsensical currency, and cutting up cartoon wildlife, then Fear Less is for you.

Cant catch me, Death!

You can play Fear Less here

Goodnight, Private

Another short update today, because like before, the less you know going in the better. The game is  "Good Morning, Commander", and its a short adventure game that takes place in the first person(IN A SPACEBAAAAASE).

First person FINAL FRONTIER

The game was built in Unity, and has its own weird minimalistic art style that adds to the atmosphere. Gameplay is doing adventure game things by walking about the spacebase and using the "USE" key.

This isnt what your space base looks like

This could very well be the shortest post. Always breaking new ground at Gamesthathappentobefree. You can get Good Morning, Commander here in separate Windows and Mac versions

The Banality of Evil (also ghosts)

Got something weird and short for you today, and I'll have to advise anyone who uses video games as escapism from their terrible jobs to give this one a skip, as it takes place entirely in the work place, and not even a job where you're valuable, just some disposable code monkey job. The game is called One Late Night, and that's exactly when it takes place: during a coffee fulled late night coding marathon when the person you play as is the only one left in the building.

That guy's trying to get work done and those two wont take their needless conversation about their prep pre-school kids elsewhere

I dont want to give too much away, but as the title suggests, theres supernatural stuff involved, which I guess is summoned over from the SHADOW REALM by the anger of the unpaid interns, so thats pretty scary. Also Linux coding, which is even more scary.

Its just so fucking cheery here

 One Late Night is short, weird, and kind of spooky even, (the sort of game youtube celebrities make obnoxious playhroughs of and slap their "terrified" face on the thumbnail) so this update will be short because the less you know going in, the better.

"The only way this night could get worse is if a ghost showed up"

 You can get One Late Night here

One year anniversary! (and games)

Got a couple of weird things for you today, something that's actually used to train officers in the Swedish military, and another that's not. "A game that's meant for training army guys?" you say, "So it's like a FPS?" YOU COULDN'T BE MORE WRONG.

Training or screwing around on the clock? You decide

The point of the officer training game is to see how well you and three other guys can solve puzzles and work together under the pressure of a time limit. Obviously the best use for this to see how well you and your three very best can presumably handle whatever apocalyptic/action movie scenarios you can envision. Send you and your friends through the ringer and see who can step up when they need to and who you need to endlessly harass until they get their shit together. If you're trying to pull together a dream time to survive anything that gets thrown at you, you need to go through this ringer at least once.

No, not that kind of Step Up

The other thing I got for you today is a weird little non-typical adventure game that's a a kind of prequel demo for Kentucky Route Zero, an adventure game that ISN'T free, so I'm not going to talk about it. It's called Limit and Demonstrations, its about fifteen minutes long, it's got its own music, and the art is cool, and its free (obviously), so if you're trying to kill time, this might be what you're looking for, it's not like you'll lose much for trying (accept time).

But you lose time when doing anything

So, I've been at this nonsense for a full year now. I had fun with it, and if even one of you found a game you enjoyed here, then it was worth it. I mean, it would be more productive and helpful than blogging about what I ate for lunch.

OH NO, IT'S HAPPENING

You can play that officer training game in your browser here, and you can get Limits and Demonstrations here

Its like someone took a baseball bat to your monitor

OH GOD WE GOT A INDIE PLATFORMER MADE IN FLASH INCOMING! WATCH OUT!

GET DOWN

Short post today, because this is a short game. Straight to the point: the game today is "Fractured". Its a short indie platforming game where you from point A to point B across a series of small levels. The gimmick for Fractured is that the gameplay screen is like a busted pane of glass with all the shards twisted around (HAHA ITS FRACTURED, GET IT?).

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

But lets be frank, the game is short, kind of "eh", and its completely unneeded plot is "DEEP". I cant really recommend this unless you're looking to kill some time. I mean really, if this game was a painting it would be that "painting" thats just a blank white canvas. You might think I'm joking now, but play it, especially the last level.

"Not my fault you're too much of a plebeian to understand the underlying themes in the story and the gameplay"

You can play Fractured from the browser here

Weird dreams are why you shouldnt eat before you go to bed

Got something that might interest you, especially if you like Blade Runner and other cyberpunk stuff. The game today is called "Dreamweb", a point and click adventure game that was developed back in 1994 by Creative Reality, published by Empire, and became freeware as of last October. Stick your sense of normalcy at the door and take the red pill because were going places!

That's actually just how the sky looks in the future

With a story and atmosphere maybe best described as dark noir cyberpunk, Dreamweb stars a bartender named Ryan who is suffering from strange dreams. In the game's intro, we learn that the Dreamweb is threatened by seven great evils back on earth that have yet to come into their powers, but if they are given the time to discover them they will, and then there goes the dreamweb, the earth and the whole house of cards. The Keepers of the Dreamweb have chosen Ryan for an important, if simple job: Kill the shit out of seven people, they aren't reality breaking demi-gods yet but they will be if he doesn't do something. If that doesn't make sense then you did the opposite of what I wanted and took the blue pill, what the hell.

I know I technically gave you a choice but seriously, c'mon

Dreamweb might sound peachy so far, but its important to note that there are technical limitations that might make the game way less appealing, and when it was released it recieved some reviews that are best described at "ouch". For starters the view for the game is top down, which doesn't look too good for a game made in 1994. Dreamweb also has items that you can pick up in game that don't have a purpose beyond taking up space in your inventory and giving you false leads ("Maybe unlocking this door has something to do with this baguette I snagged earlier? I've just been holding on to this thing...").

"Maybe I can break the door down? I mean its pretty stale"

If that doesn't turn you away from Dreamweb, then by all means dive in, but remember I gave you a fair warning and all that. (Plus it's free, so what do you have to lose?

Nothin' but hard drive space you were just using for cat pictures anyway

You can snag Dreamweb from a bunch of places, like here and here

Who you gonna call?

Got another weird indie RPG for you today, its got ghosts, bats, and onion rings (maybe?). It's called OFF. It's hard to go into detail about this game and not give anything away so I'm going to keep this short and quick. First off: ghosts

GONNA GETCHA

 Ghosts are the primary enemy of the game. There are big ghosts, small ghosts, typical ghosts, weird ghost, upside down ghosts, stretchy neck ghosts, people ghosts, animal ghosts, and even more types of ghosts. The art for the enemy sprites in the battle screens are also well done, they're exactly as weird as you'd expect for this game. Moving on to the second topic: Bats

This kind, not the flying kind

The protagonist of this game is known only as The Batter, and his goal is the purification of all specters everywhere. At his disposal are the various bats you find through the game, and his moves, which are all named after baseball in one way or another. No pitches though, so that kind of sucks, but then he'd be the pitcher, not the batter, wouldn't he? Moving on to the last topic: Onion Rings.

Hmmmmmm

By "Onion Rings" I mean everything strange in the game, from the music (all great, especially the battle theme), the plot (no spoilers here), and the world  that the game takes place in and the people that you meet there (The over world map is mostly a black void with strange voices whispering at you). You'll eventually see what I'm referring to in the game by Onion Rings, though they aren't golden or delicious.

CRITICAL HIT

The only problem some people might have with this game is that they might see it as a poor attempt at being "deep". But that's down to personal preference, and it's a part of what makes the game weird. Still, if you like RPGs, oldtimey stripped baseball uniforms, ghost busting, things that are shaped like onion rings but aren't actually onion rings, and talking cats, then you should like OFF.

Watch out, ghosts

You can snag OFF here.

I have no idea whats going on and neither will you

The Mayan day of reckoning, December 21st edges ever closer, gotta get more video games up here before time runs out! What I got for you today is so strange, so odd, so far out there that I need to put up a warning first before I start talking about it. The game for this week is Middens, and I cannot recommend it if you have a poor mental constitution, are prone to nightmares, or are easily over stimulated, because this game really doesn't screw around.

This game might cause mental illness, we don't know

Middens jumps right on the crazy train right at the start and never lets up. Even the title screen is strange, what with the earth being in the middle of getting a new piercing in the background. All aspects of the game art ooze surreal weirdness, from the strange shifting sprites to the backgrounds where freaky beings roam just out of reach.

Why yes, that gun does have a face

The sound work in this is top notch, the sound sometimes being actual music, others just ambient background noise. It is dissonant, disturbing, delightful, and probably other describing words that start with "D" that I cant remember, the point is: its awesome.

The protagonist looks pretty slick in this

Gameplay wise, at the surface Middens seems like a "regular" RPG, or at least as close to regular as anything gets in this game. But thats not the case: in every battle you start off alone and you muse summon aspects of your mind, body, and soul to fight alongside you. Middens is structured around freeroam exploration, you are given the vaguest hint of a plot and then set loose upon a strange ever shifting landscape. Getting lost is part of the game, and part of the fun if you ask me: wandering around seeing new things is great, especially when you pass through an area you've been before and you discover new stuff. Though it might seem like its trying pretentious, it doesn't seem that way to me, rather that it's just trying new things.

How do i get back to the bus from here?

If you like turn based RPGs, open world exploration, weird music, or really screwed up art, then Middens might be for you. It might even prepare you for the aftermath of the Mayan apocalypse (that is if whats left of the world is a shattered and twisted landscape filled with broken souls, otherwise it wont help). Again, I cannot recomend this if you dont have the mental fortitude. If you play this then only have the drab concrete walls of your bunker to look while angry mutants claw at the doors you might lose it if you cant handle it.

An open window? Dont be crazy, they'll throw spears at you through there! Get some bullet proof glass

You can get Middens here

Skeletons, whales, and cats

Time for video games! Also an important public service announcement, but first video games. Today I got something really short. Like, two minutes if you rush short. So much so I concidered not putting it up on here, but if I did the weird werewolf music video game I can do this one too. It's called Dear Esteban, and yes, it's basically a big riff off of Dear Esther.

Look at that cursive "Begin" button, so sophisticated

Made back in November as a part of "Fuck This Jam", which is about making games for genres you dislike, rather than smashing jars of jellied fruit preserves, the developers have said that they actually like Dear Esther, and that, in their own words: "We love Dear Esther. Dear Esteban was made in good fun & parody. Dear Esteban is not so much 'Fuck This'. It's more a love letter to Dear Esther from the weird kid who doesn't have a shot but you kind of feel bad for." So if you liked Dear Esther, or like weird surreal stuff, then Dear Esteban might be your thing, and even if it isn't its not like it will take up much of your time to try it.

Doesn't any melting clocks though

You can get Dear Esteban here, and with that said and done its time for our the really important part of this post, the public service announcement.

"Buy canned food and shotguns!"

December twenty first is rapidly approaching, are you prepared? If you already have a bunker stocked with food, water, a generator, and a computer filled with video games, then you're ready. If not you really need to get on that, because how else will you deal with the waves of flaming Mayan skeleton warriors looking to use your torso as a pin cushion and your skin as a decorative throw rug?

Seems appealing, but its Walmart so you know those boxes are filled the to brim with Chinese lead

I mean sure, some of you might be looking to preserve things like "art" and "literature", but that's boring. Have some common sense and snag a flash drive and fill it with games so future generations can know the joys of games of the video variety.

Look at this guy, why don't you have a place like this?

 I mean obviously not everyone is going to escape from the mutants, fallout, and angry skeletons but you should at least put some effort into it.