Squeezicks 1.0

Created by an education institution (the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab), for an education institution (the Museum of Science Boston), Squeezicks is nonetheless an entertaining mix of first-person shooting and pyramid-toppling. What's more, there is jump-in-anytime two-player support for a single keyboard, so you can take down your friends as well as your executable enemies.

Your task, as well as that of the three other spaceships beside and in front of you, is to knock out the forcefield of your opposition by disrupting their collection of floating colored balls; once that's done, you have a limited time to hammer away at their brick defenses, attempting to knock them into space. At your disposal you have a launcher of... well, whatever happens to appear as ammo, whether that's a seahorse or an old-fashioned camera. Midway through each game, a giant squid appears in the middle of the arena and starts firing off powerful shots at each player in turn - but it's possible to shoot it to make it miss when your turn arrives.

There's no semblance of a story, and it's clear that the game was meant for a customized situation, but it's still good for free kicks and giggles.