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Play: Steam games on the cheap thanks to daily Humble Bundles
Your average Humble Bundle is a fortnightly affair. Starting today, however, there's going to be a fresh bundle every 24 hours for a period of two weeks, which ought to add up to some decent savings for Steam gamers. If you've never partaken in one of these bundles before, then it's pretty simple: You visit the site to see what's on offer, choose how much (or how little) you want to pay for a bundle, decide how much of that money you want to allocate to a charity, and then look on in a contented stupor while the new titles magically weave their way into your Steam library. If you head over there today, you can get all the titles listed after the break for around £6 (although the site shows everything in dollars), or even less if you leave out one of the more mediocre titles, Dead Island: Riptide. (Update: the clock has ticked and the deal has already changed. There's now a new batch of goodies on offer.)
Play: The simple, mesmerizing Impossible Road
You can now play anything from first-person shooters to role-playing epics on mobile devices, but there's still plenty of love out there for casual time-killers. Impossible Road has recently arrived on Android after a year-long residency in the iOS App Store, and it's one of those games you can splurge an hour on at home, or poke at for five minutes on the bus. Your mission: Guide a ball down a winding track for as long as possible -- kind of like a never-ending Super Monkey Ball level, but set on the Rainbow Road track of Mario Kart legend. Admittedly, there isn't much originality to the gameplay, but Impossible Road does have a quirky and compelling visual style. You're an all-white ball in an all-white world, with the only definition and sense of space given by a ribbon-like track of changing blues that stretches to infinity below. The almost tribal techno soundtrack is a little busier than what's on screen, and it manages to match the pace of the game well, while also being a constant reminder of your inevitable doom.
Play: The frantic, fun and infuriating Trials Fusion
Some games are so challenging, frustrating and physically draining that your controller could easily explode against the nearest wall at any second. Trials Fusion is one of those games: A repetitive, soul-destroying platformer that'll have you playing the same level for hours on end, all in the hope you'll shave mere milliseconds from your previous best. However, it's only from the epicentre of this nightmare, through the tired workings of your callused, nail-bitten hands, that one experiences true gaming gratification. As with other games of this genre like Super Meat Boy or the Super Monkey Ball series, to name a few, the premise is devilishly simple. You must successfully navigate an obstacle course in the least possible time, mistakes not recommended. As its name suggests, Trials Fusion is based on the sport of motorcycle trials, with some motocross mixed in. Just it's more arcadey, and probably harder.
Play: Blizzard's easy-going collectible card game, Hearthstone
Blizzard's best-known for its RTS franchises and insanely popular MMORPG World of Warcraft, not to mention the Diablo series. With fans of the publisher's prior work kept sated and docile by sequels and expansions, Blizzard's turned some of its attention to other genres, like the early stage MOBA Heroes of the Storm, and the card-based game we're talking about here: Hearthstone. Hear the words "card game," and it's hard not to think of the deep mechanics of Magic: The Gathering that may appear inhospitable to newcomers, like starting to watch LOST half-way through the third series. One of Hearthstone's main strengths, however, is accessibility.
