Developer: Chronic Logic
Genre: Platform

Two weeks and two grand were all it took to make Gish, a one-of-a-kind 2D side-scroller featuring an innovative twist: The gameplay is entirely based around physics. You play as Gish, an amorphous ball of tar that kind of just rolls and squishes around. He's apparently in search of Brea, his similarly proportioned love interest, and to reach her, he'll need to puzzle his way through a series of challenging levels, manipulating the environment, avoiding traps, and more.

Gish can ooze into tight spots.

Gish isn't your standard platforming hero. For one thing, he has no appendages whatsoever and merely rolls around. However, his near-viscous body allows him to access areas that normal creatures can't. His most notable ability is to grow spines at the touch of a button, allowing him to scale and travel along vertical or upside-down surfaces. Other than that, Gish can jump, and in many cases you'll need to roll him along a ramp and launch him off to wherever you need him to go. Pushing certain objects, bypassing obstacles and hazards, and other such elements are central to the single-player game, which is part platformer, part puzzle. The unique controls and believable character and environment physics ultimately make Gish a rather distinctive game.

There are a couple of two-player modes, for good measure. One is sumo wrestling, sort of an American Gladiators-style contest in which Gish and Brea must try to push each other off a wobbly platform. All this is set against a most excellent backdrop that's clearly reminiscent of E. Honda's home turf in Street Fighter II. The other multiplayer mode is football, in which black and gray must try to push the ball past each other and into their opponent's end zone.

Gish even has some cool frills to it. Brief sequences in between stages display some clever humor, presenting none other than Gish himself as the star of many famous motion pictures. Is Gish truly the world's next big star? Be sure to try the game for yourself and you'll see!

Developer: Mind Control Software
Genre: Strategy

Imagine Civilization as a fast-paced turn-based arcade game, and you begin to get the idea that's behind Oasis. Oasis is a game about ancient civilizations and the barbarian waves that plagued them. Many a nascent society was wiped out due to marauding barbarians, and your job is to prevent that. You play as a long-lost Egyptian pharaoh returning to a shattered kingdom. The only trouble is, you have no idea where anything is. So you have to explore the map, locate the lost cities, link them up by roads, and prepare for the next barbarian onslaught.

Only seven more turns remain before the barbarians are at your gates.

Depending on the difficulty level, you have only about 60 to 80 turns before the barbarians appear. During that time, you have to explore the map and locate your cities. Once you've located them, you can use workers that you've gathered to build roads to connect the cities together. Once connected, cities will begin to grow in population, and, more importantly, you can use roads to move people around. If you're lucky, you'll have also uncovered the point on the map where the barbarians will enter, so you'll want to concentrate your populace in the closest city to that point so they can repulse the invaders. If you don't know where the barbarians will appear, you'll have to guess. Either way, the goal is to prevent the barbarians from wiping out all your cities from the map.

The game takes its name from the fact that you can also uncover a magical oasis on each map. Doing so uncovers a powerful scarab artifact, and if you progress through the game far enough, you'll be granted special upgrades and technologies that make your job easier. The oasis also represents your weapon of last resort; if the barbarians manage to wipe out your cities, they'll head for your oasis next. The more power you've accumulated, the more likely you'll repel the invaders. If you don't, well, don't worry. Civilizations were a dime a dozen back in those days.