Onto my elaborations for
Impulse (free!):
The biggest issue with this game is that you can't show people how good this game actually is by just looking at screenshots. After playing it until level 52 today (and being thoroughly stuck there atm), I'd definitely say its one of the best games this month.
Here is a description by the dev:
Your craft is at the whim of Newtonian physics. With only a simple thruster you need to battle the forces of gravity and atmospheric drag all while avoiding high-speed impact. The trouble is that all these variables are liable to change with each level. Gravity could be strong, or weak, or zero; it may pull in any direction. Drag might mirror the vacuum of space or the ocean depths. Your crafts thrusters might be strong or weak. You might have limited or limitless fuel. Your hull might laugh off high-speed impacts or it might shatter from the slightest bump.
With all these variables, levels take on very different feels. Some require careful thinking and gentle, deliberate action. Others are all about reflexes and reaction. Most are a mixture of both.
While I am not too fond of Lunar Lander style gameplay in general (Impulse evoked thoughts of Lunar Lander before playing it), I actually really like Impulse. The greatest strength of this game is its versatility in level design and little touches that just make me feel good playing it. The most obvious one is the soundtrack. If nothing else, download the game just so you get the soundtrack for free. You can grab it from the Content/Music folder. Other than that, the small visual touches just feel.. satisfying. The little particle effects and jamming of lines if you are about to touch a deadly wall, it just makes this little geometry world come to life. Its one of the most abstract games I've played this year (Hello 2x0ng), but still does a remarkably good job at feeling "dangerous". Now this is also an aspect that other people might dislike, but it can get remarkably hard because its requiring several skills to play this game through. You need to think about some puzzle levels, use precise measurements, decide when the previous approaches that worked wont work anymore, quickly react and most of all, make sure you understand the level approach, and this is what I love about this game.
The game slowly eases you into how you can maneuver your little ship, but then starts throwing overboard what you learned and makes you apply a totally different idea that you didnt even know the game had, like needing to speed up via bouncing between walls before you can attempt to run through a passage way, or just throwing a random Worms style level at you in which you only have one "charge" to make a big jump and need to hit the goal on the other side. It does VERY well in playing with its own rules. Momentum, mass, speed, gravity all are frequently altered so that every level is a new puzzle for which you need to understand the rules.
Its a bit sad that people seem to have a hard time grasping the controls, because they wont get easier later on as the game obviously starts messing around with making this little ship even harder to control, only for the level to require a completely different skill. There was a level in which the ship was impossibly hard to control and instead of precise control just asked of very, very good timing of me. You might wonder how a level might need good timing without precise control and.. thats exactly the kind of question that I love this game for. The variability in this seemingly simple set of rules is really, really interesting.
Love it. I am getting the same "taking a gameplay idea and distilling it into a small and simply fun package"-feeling like I did with 2x0ng. Hopefully, some others can overcome their initial issues with the controls. Give the game a dl and try it for the soundtrack at least.
