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Free games of the week

Racing cars around, bashing into each other, throwing yourself or your friends off of the edge. This week you can play a fiendishly fun yet deviously simple car game, or scroll down and read about some strategic roguelikes where you must destroy your enemies and try to survive.

If neither of these ideas take your fancy, I’ve also been playing an astoundingly adorable platformer about a baby bird that is learning to sing, and one about a ghost longing to be a great knight and a hero for the kingdom. Each of these games contain within them their own unique charm and adventure - read on and find a game for you to explore.

Looking for more free games? Check out our round up of the best free PC games that you can download and play right now.

KeyCars by Kenney

With as many cars to control (or cows, or couches, or other vehicles) as you have keys on your keyboard, try not to fall off or get hit. KeyCars is a local multiplayer where you and as many friends as you can manage each grab a key on your keyboard. This one key will control the vehicle, allowing it to rotate around and hit other players whenever it is pressed down. The car however is always in motion, and this adds some considerable challenge. Hitting other players will eliminate them from the game, as will falling off the screen but everyone can easily restart by simply hitting their key again.

In each of the four arenas, there are a variety of buttons on the floor - some allow you to go faster, while others spawn a bomb moving forwards, reverse the direction you turn, or jump. There are also walls around the edge of the arena that you can collide with, preventing you from falling off, but they are destroyed after you plow into them. If you don’t have enough friends to ensure the wacky, chaotic, fun that accompanies a bunch of vehicles racing around each other, you can spawn in AI that drive around on their own! This game is really fun to play, especially when it comes to fighting over keyboard space with your friends.

Songbird Symphony by Joysteak

Perhaps, instead of trying to outlast your friends in an arena of cars, you can become a kind bird, able to help other creatures and sing songs of their family. Songbird Symphony is a beautiful adventure platformer mixed with rhythm elements in which you become a tiny baby bird, looking to discover what type of bird you will grow up to be and what your destiny is. As you travel around the forest, you begin to learn how to speak to other creatures and how to help them. Many of the creatures around you need help - lost friends, unable to find flowers, and generally needing cheering up. Helping them will bring joy to those around you and give more meaning to your life.

You can also collect feathers to learn about other birds. Learning is a precious part of growing up, but so is singing songs and dancing! Your uncle Pea the peacock can teach you a few things, but it is up to you to explore around and learn what you can from all of the other smart creatures in the forest, especially when it comes to things Pea won’t tell you. Hopefully you can learn enough to understand who you are as well.

Dord by NarwhalNut

Instead of being an adorable bird, you can try your hand as a cute ghost in this 16-bit adventure game - hoping to save the kingdom and become a knight for the king. The queen of the kingdom has been kidnapped, so the king is looking for some knights to go and save her. Sadly though, the king does not see any promise in your small ghostly figure - maybe it's your bowtie? Either way, you are determined to prove everyone wrong by defeating three guardians and retrieving an orb for the king. You may be helpful and cute, but you can also fight!

As you are a new hero, you have a very different way to fight - by using strange objects to your advantage. Normal weapons such as swords and arrows are hard to come by. Household goods like peanut butter and hand sanitizer though are significantly easier for you to obtain and use. When it comes to fights, you can charge up these items to use them for three times their power (but if you overcharge, you will only hit for half - so watch out!) You can also attack normally as well, which will be needed if your special attack points run out. Dord is a casual adventure game, but does have some challenge and a lot of quirk!

The Legend of Kassappa by HugoVaz, Marebergo, Saulotti, & Thiagomarten

Have you ever played a snooker-based dungeon crawler? Well, this week I can say that I have, and it's fantastic! Your party for this adventure contains three characters; a wizard, a warrior, and a ninja. Each of them have different stats; lives, damage done, and speed they move when hit with the cue ball. They also have different skills - the warrior is super strong, defeating enemies quickly. The wizard can teleport through walls and the ninja can dodge traps. Strangely, all of the levels are billiard tables - complete with pockets that will save your characters if you get them into it. You will need to save at least one party member in order to move onto the next level.

Normally, in snooker there aren’t a lot of dangers, but this is a dungeon crawler - one littered with things that are trying to destroy you. There are spikes on the table, enemies that need to be killed, and keys that have to be collected if you are going to make it out of this alive. If you do end up killing enemies, they might drop chicken dinners that will give you more lives! Other levels have loot that can be collected before pocketing your party, serving the purpose of leveling them up. This will come in handy as you progress to more challenging areas within this snooker-table dungeon. The Legend of Kassappa is definitely a unique way to take on a dungeon full of enemies.

Necken [Demo] by Joccish

More of a normal, turn-based roguelite - Necken is set in a Swedish forest, where you are looking to find a water spirit that gets its kicks drowning people in the water where it lives. The spirit is called Necken it lures people in with beautiful music. You have gone into the forest in order to stop this water spirit from hurting people any longer. This forest, of course, has its own dangers.

You travel around, collect resources and craft equipment that will enable you to survive. Each tile that spawns in can have something interactive on it, from piles of rocks to tall trees, and even homes to be looted. Sometimes they spawn with enemies that will then move around, attacking you if you are on the same square as them. When it comes to fighting, you can attack with equipped weapons that you’ve created or fight with your fists. Your hands don’t ever run out (unless you die) while shields and main weapons will disintegrate over time. You will need to really manage everything going on, as dying means you restart from the beginning of the of the forest without any of your resources.

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