Excellent news for Bloons fans, if you didn’t know already, the fifth installment in the never ending Bloons series created by Stephen Harris is live!

This Player Pack 5 contains 50 new levels – as usual – “of bloons-ey, christmas-ey goodness” created by fans from all around the world; you know the drill: use your mouse to aim, click and hold to choose the power of your throw and then release. Pop as many bloons as possible! Don’t forget to turn on the unlimited dart mode in case you get stuck!

I hope we will see new installments next year!

Have fun!

Bloons TD 3 is live! “After 319 days, 32 Million plays and countless requests for a sequel to Bloons Tower Defense 2, Ninja Kiwi is proud to present Bloons Tower Defense 3.

This time, use the all new towers and upgrades to work your way through 8 all new tracks and 3 difficulty modes to achieve that total Bloon popping satisfaction.”

The 8 tracks (you will have to get at least bronze on tracks 1-4 to unlock tracks 5-8) are a nice addition and add instant replay value to the game.

Bloons TD fans will love it, while Defense games aficionados will enjoy it.

Have fun!

Boombot is the latest creation from NinjaKiwi. Your goal here is to use explosions to get your Bot to the exit point in each level.

There are boxes, TNT, exploding Gel, and burning oil barrels to help and hinder you. Click and hold your left mouse button  to make a bomb and release to explode and move the robot.

Boombot features 50 levels of increasing difficulty and offers an unlimited bombs mode, just in case…

Not as good as the Bloons series, but still highly enjoyable!

Have fun!

Update: Boombot video walkthrough!

And one more! Stephen Harris, the creator of the Bloons series, has just released the fourth compilation of levels created by players, thanks to the level editor integrated in Bloons World.

This Player Pack 4 contains 50 new levels created by fans from all around the world; you know the drill: use your mouse to aim, click and hold to choose the power of your throw and then release. Pop as many bloons as possible! If I can give you an advice, turn on the unlimited dart mode!

Now the question is when the next Player Pack will be? Hopefully before the end of the year!

Have fun!

Update: Bloons Player Pack 4 walkthrough in comment #23 (thanks Jilbert!)

Fans of Match-3 games will be pleased to discover Bloons Pop Three, the latest game released by the Harris brothers from Ninjakiwi.

“We always had a blast with old match three back in the day and the thought struck us that it’d be awesome to have even bigger combos using the special bloons from our bloons games. Not supposed to be a big brain teaser, just a bunch of bloon poppin’ fun” the authors said.

If you don’t like match-3 games, you probably won’t like BPT. But if you like these types of games, prepare yourself to spend hours playing this one!

Have fun!

From Kaiparasoft, the company behind Ninjakiwi founded by the Harris brothers (Bloons world), here is Sinta: Escape from Ixerron Keep, a cute platformer.

“With you trusty bow and arrow in hand, make your way through dozens of fun and action packed levels from Ixerron Keep. Collect magic items, find hidden rooms, and slay the villainous wizard himself.

Use arrow keys or W,A,S,D to move, pressing UP or W to open doors or activate switches. Use your mouse to aim the bow and click to shoot. Gather more stars for more points, and keep lives intact for even more points. If you run out of lives you can continue the game from the great hall. The game saves your last games progress so you can play over several sessions if you like.”

A level editor is expected to be launched soon. My kids love this one!

Have fun!

Even More Bloons, the latest installment of the never ending Bloons series created by Stephen Harris, is live! Even More Bloons introduces a new bloon type, the helium bloon as well as the angled rubber block.

Even More Bloons offers 50 new levels and players should be able to create their own new levels soon, thanks to the updated editor that is currently not available on the site.

How long will it take before we can play Bloons Player Pack 4? Who knows…?

Have fun!

Here it is! Stephen Harris, the creator of the Bloons series, has just released the third compilation of levels created by players, thanks to the level editor integrated in Bloons World.

This Player Pack 3 contains 50 new levels created by fans from all around the world; the author mentioned on his site, “be on the look out for a new bloons version coming soon with new bloons and block types!”

That’s great news for all Bloons fans: a brand new Bloons game is on his way and should hit the web soon!

Have fun!

Update: Bloons Player Pack 3 Video walkthrough (levels 1-39/41-50)!

A big thank you to everyone that cast a vote in the 2007 Best Developers of the Year.

We are pleased to announce that nearly 5000 votes have been cast since you started voting for your favorite developers.

Without further ado, here are the 12 finalists you picked as the Best Developers of 2007 in their category, ranked by total votes received!

Paskapet (Russia) – Best Developer 2007 (Room Escape games)

Paskapet is a very prolific Flash game developer from Russia, who has released six Room Escape games in the last eight months! After the release of Escape Library, Paskapet made five games in the “Colored Rooms” series, Escape Pink Room, Magenta Room, Green Room, Orange Room and Turquoise Room.

Rodrigo Roesler (Brazil)

Rodrigo Roesler is a Web designer and a Flash game developer from Brazil. He released Trapped – The White Rabbit last September, the first installment of a very promising trilogy of Point’n’Click adventure and Escape games. The second installment, The Dark, is now live!

Shawn Tanner (U.S.A.)

Shawn Tanner is the author of several popular flash games and the Webmaster of Afro-Ninja Productions. Shawn released three Room Escape games this year in his very popular Escape series: Escape the Car, Escape the Closet and Escape the Phone Booth.

Bernd Mattiebe (Germany) – Best Developer 2007 (Adventure games)

Bernd Mattiebe is a German artist and designer. He is also the man who gave life last year to Wogger, a cute red alien. Since then, he has created over 100 chapters for the Wogger Mini series that more and more people enjoy playing every week.

Federico Rutenberg (Argentina)

Federico Rutenberg released the first chapter of Esklavos last April. Esklavos is a Point’n’Click Adventure series involving two young aliens. Since then, he has created 9 more chapters and Esklavos is quickly becoming popular series.

Mateusz Skutnik (Poland)

Mateusz Skutnik defines himself as a Flash games architect and a graphic novel artist. His best known adventure/escape series so far is Submachine (with two new chapters this year, Submachine 4 and FLF). He also started two new adventure series this year, Covert Front and Daymare Town. The author is now developing “Submachine 5: the Root” that should be released in January.

Bart Bonte (Belgium) – Best Developer 2007 (Puzzle games)

Bart Bonte is a Flash developer from Belgium who has already developed successful games. More well known for his Room Escape games (the Bonte Room series, A bark in the Dark, Loose the Moose), Bart released several puzzle games in 2007, such as Fields of Logic, Chicken Grow and more recently, Factory Balls.

Yoshio Ishii (Japan)

From japan, Yoshio Ishii has been designing Flash games for several years now. He is well known for his Neko Series, a series of games involving cats. In 2007, he decided to focus on creating puzzle games, and released some very creative games such as Plupon, the amazing Hoshi Saga series, and more recently, Slidon.

Stephen Harris (New Zealand)

Stephen Harris is the author of the Bloons series and many other successful games. The original Bloons game was released last March and became an instant hit. Since then, Stephen has created Bloons World, a site dedicated to Bloons fans, two “Bloons” Tower Defense games, and a few other puzzle/skill games!

John Cooney (U.S.A.) – Best Developer 2007 (Action/Skill games)

John Cooney is very well known in the Flash gaming community for his Ball Revamped and Four Second series. He released many new games this year, such as Scribble 2, Luminara, Ball Revamped 5 or Ocean Explorer to name a few. Now working full time at ArmorGames, you can expect more creative games from this guy!

WeCreateStuff (Israel)

WeCreateStuff defines itself as a group of (young) nerds with way too much free time. They released Portal: The Flash Version last October, a awesome Flash 2D version of the first person action/puzzle game developed by Valve.

Joel Esler (Australia)

Joel Esler is a Flash game developer from Australia. Last September, he uploaded at Kongregate his first game, a physics-based platformer named Manifold. Even though Manifold was only a demo, it was an instant hit. After a few weeks, Joel released Fold, a full version of his previous game with much more challenging levels!

Here at FreeGamesNews, we love free browser-based games. The end of the year is coming soon, and it’s time for YOU to cast your vote for the Best Developers of the year in our first annual FreeGamesNews Awards.

Here are the 10 nominees in the category Best Puzzle games Developers of 2007, in alphabetical order:

Bart Bonte (Belgium)

Bart Bonte is a Flash developer from Belgium who has already developed successful games. More well known for his Room Escape games (the Bonte Room series, A bark in the Dark, Loose the Moose), Bart released several puzzle games in 2007, such as Fields of Logic, Chicken Grow and more recently, Factory Balls.

Damien Clarke (Australia)

Damien Clarke is a Flash game designer from Australia. Many of his games are co-sponsored by several major games portals, which is a sign of quality. The author has released two excellent puzzle games this year, Silversphere and Bloxorz.

Creative Units (Germany)

Creative Units is a German development and games design company that created Excit earlier this year. Excit is a very nice viral Flash game that borrows from RoadBlocks and its clone Orbox B heavily, but it takes the original idea to a whole new level!

GamePure (Japan)

GamePure is a Flash game design studio from Japan. GamePure has released many action games this year, such as Speed Cluster, Oshidama or the very cute Bound Bear series. They have also created a very unique Collapse-type game, Micro Art, impressive on many levels.

Stephen Harris (New Zealand)

Stephen Harris is the author of the Bloons series and many other successful games. The original Bloons game was released last March and became an instant hit. Since then, Stephen has created Bloons World, a site dedicated to Bloons fans, two “Bloons” Tower Defense games, and a few other puzzle/skill games!

Yoshio Ishii (Japan)

From japan, Yoshio Ishii has been designing Flash games for several years now. He is well known for his Neko Series, a series of games involving cats. In 2007, he decided to focus on creating puzzle games, and released some very creative games such as Plupon, the amazing Hoshi Saga series, and more recently, Slidon.

Taro Ito (Japan)

Taro Ito, the game designer behind Gamedesign, has released many games over the years, and this year was no different with four new puzzle game titles, Porolith Flash, The Four Color Problem, School Wars and Chat Noir.

Michael Le

When Michael Le from Canada released his puzzle game Jelly Blocks last summer, he certainly wasn’t expecting instant success. Jelly Blocks is so simple and absorbing that people can’t stop playing. And with 100 levels available to play, it can take a while to complete it.

Preloaded (U.K.)

Preloaded is a London-based Web design agency. After CDX, a multi-episode adventure released last year, Preloaded is back in 2007 with LaunchBall, a new addictive Puzzle/Physics Flash game created for the Science Museum in London their new Launchpad gallery.

Adam Schroeder (U.S.A.)

Adam Schroeder is the creator of the very challenging and delightful puzzle game Sola Rola. He also released the third (and final?) installment in his Asteroids Revenge earlier this year, and is now co-working on Argue (About Everything) with a fellow developer, a multiplayer real-time strategy game set for release next year at Kongregate.

Zeba is the latest Puzzle game created by Stephen Harris, the creator of the Bloons and Bloons Tower Defense series.

Your goal here is to clear all the blocks on each level. To do so, use the arrow keys to guide Zeba the little dragon and push the blocks of the same type together. Press the spacebar to shoot the block Zeba is facing and burn all connected blocks of the same type.

You start each level with a limited number of each breath type, and they don’t carry over level to level, so use them carefully. Walk over the extra breath tokens to get them.

Zeba is an interesting puzzle game, but it suffers from a lack of difficulty and the moving/turning controls are a bit annoying. A limited number of moves to complete each level would certainly add to the difficulty, and an undo button would be a simple but very useful addition.

Hopefully the author will release a sequel including a level editor and the gaming community will help create challenging levels to enjoy this game to its full potential!

Have fun!

Bloons Tower Defense 2 is now live!

The sequel to Bloons Tower Defense made by Ninjakiwi comes with 3 new maps – easy, medium and hard, one new tower type, some new upgrades, and two brand new items that you can put on the road in case some bloons manage to escape.

There are also two new bloon types to struggle with and if you are already a Bloons TD fan, I doubt Bloons Tower Defense 2 will make you rethink your position.

Prepare yourself for lots of fun and hours of popping bloons!

Have fun!

Here it is! Stephen Harris, the creator of the Bloons series, has just released a second compilation of levels created by players, thanks to the level editor integrated in Bloons World.

This Player Pack 2 contains 50 levels created by fans from all around the world; as mentioned by the author, “there are some nasty levels in here that might take more than a couple of tries to pass”.

I have no doubt that some fans are already looking forward to playing the PP3!

Have fun!

Update: Bloons Player Pack 2 Video walkthrough (thanks TimmyOtool!)

Hotcorn is the latest game designed by Stephen Harris, the creator of the famous Bloons series.

Hotcorn is a skill game in which you have to pop popcorn as quickly as possible while leaving as few unpopped kernels as possible! Use your mouse to control the fireball character. Avoid butter that slows you down, and water that stops you!

Hotcorn features 50 levels and is a challenging game: some levels are very hard to complete! Your progress is automatically saved and your score is carried over from session to session, so you can go back and replay earlier levels to try and improve your total score.

Hotcorn is definitely not as good as Bloons, but still another amusing game from Ninjakiwi!

Have fun!