2009 was an awesome year for games! And we played a lot of them! Here’s a recap of the great games we played this year. If you haven’t tried them yet, now’s your chance! They are all FREE and just waiting for you to enjoy them.

Our year started off with a great little platformer called Eversion that has a scary twist (a retail version is in the works). We then laughed a ton while living out the Olympic dreams of QWOP. There were a few fun games in the Boston Global Game Jam, and The Redistricting Game taught us about how messed up our current electoral system is.

The Legend of Princess gave us a glimpse of what could have been a sequel to Zelda 2 (on the NES), and Dino Run ate up a bunch of our time as we ran away from Armageddon with our dinosaur brethren. Speaking of dinosaurs, have you checked out Robot Dinosaurs that Shoot Beams When They Roar yet? It’s a pivotal work in gaming. Gemcraft is an addicting little tower defense game with a fun chromatic twist, and Facade is an older game (2004 or 5, I think) but still a lot of fun to play today.

Effing Hail is a neat little flash game where you destroy buildings, airplanes, and satellites with hail, or if you are in a more constructive mood you can try building with Grow Cube. Don’t Eat the Mushroom (and Knytt Stories) is a hilarious game about what happens when you do (or don’t) eat the mushroom, and is a must play for any serious gamer. Finally this year we enjoyed racing through the apocalypse in Canabalt, and subsequently relaxed with the music of Auditorium.

These were all terrific games, if you haven’t tried them yet be sure to go play them all now!

Got a few hours to kill? Are you really into trial and error? Then do I have a game for you! Grow Cube is a fun and addicting little game in which you add elements to a cube and watch them interact. It seems simple but the combinations possible through trial and error make the game really interesting. It’s also wicked cool to see the little dudes do their thing and run around the environment. While the end goal may not be clear I can assure you that you will know when you’ve won.

If you like the game I’d recommend checking out all the other offerings at by EYEZMAZE, like the Grow RPG. I might do a separate blog post on that one later.