I know it's only Thursday, but I think most people have Friday off so I'm posting a day early. Here's a fun downloadable game to keep you busy over the 4th of July weekend. Ben There, Dan That! is an awesome and hilarious adventure game reminiscent of some of Lucasarts' best titles. Created by an independent studio, the game manages to simultaneously recreate and lampoon the genre's most famous cliches. You'll traverse a variety of unique locales and amass a collection of items that will be used (and combined!) in improbable ways. The self-referential dialog is extremely well written and really propels the story. I thought this was going to be a short little game but after several hours of playing I'm still not finished. This is one that you definitely don't want to miss!

Meowcenaries mashes up old school gameplay with your favorite internet memes into a pretty solid shooter. You guide a team of kittens through a bunch of missions, rescuing hostages and destroying Evilcat's forces. Oh yeah, and don't forget to collect those cheeseburgers; cats really love those cheeseburgers. LOL!

The Shift series continues with Shift 4. A space squid has brought down your space ship, causing you to crash land on an alien planet. You must navigate through the facility and find a way out. Luckily, you will rescue a companion along the way who will help you escape. I got stuck at one point, but if you get lost, I think the trick is to head back to the room marked in green on the map. Good luck!

Wow, I guess it has been a while since I put up a real post. So to what do we owe the honor? Why, beer, of course! I just saw this article about Dogfish Head Brewery who is working on a beer that is reminiscent of the oldest brew ever discovered. (You may know Dogfish Head from their popular 60- and 90-minute IPAs.) This recipe goes back some 9,000 years, which predates wine by 1,000 years or so. But what's really interesting is the story behind the brew. It was discovered by Patrick McGovern, who is an archeological chemist. Archological chemist? How cool is that?! They have striven to keep the brew as faithful as possible to the original recipe, but they had to make some concessions for the beer to be legal (damn ATF.) On the plus side, that may have the positive side-effect of making the drink more palatable. Anyway, I look forward to checking out this beer and getting in touch with my dipsomaniacal ancestors when it finally hits the shelves.

Let's kick off the month with a first person shooter. .kkrieger is a unique game though, because the entire game is only 96 kilobytes! This is one of the most impressive things that I've seen crammed into such a tiny file. It's a fairly basic shooter, though there are a variety of enemies and weapons spread over several levels.

While you're on their web site, I recommend that you check out .debris as well. It's not a game, it's just a demo, but it shows some pretty impressive stuff done in just 177K. These guys are definitely masters of their craft.