Four new games, from a bottomless hole to a tiny town

We have added quite a few games to the bored arcade lately. Four of them kept turning into much bigger projects than planned, which is usually a good sign. They do not have much in common. One is a very long hole, one is a tiny block world, one has a lake full of strange fish and one lets you build a cosy village.

Here is the short tour, starting with the easiest game to explain.

Bottomless

Bottomless asks you to scroll down. That is the whole control scheme. You start at sea level and pass real depths on the way: the deep end of a pool, the Channel Tunnel, the Titanic, the deepest fish ever filmed and the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

The facts stay real until you reach 12,262 metres, the deepest hole people have ever drilled. After that, the shaft carries on and the facts get less reliable. Lost socks, old chargers and unread messages have all found their way down there. There is also one extra odd thing hidden at a new depth each day.

It is not hard and it is not really possible to lose. It is just a long, strange scroll with enough real facts mixed in to make the distances feel a bit scary. Your deepest point is saved, so you can stop before your finger gets tired.

Pocket quarry

Pocket quarry started as a small floating island and a pickaxe. You can dig out any block, turn the island around and stack the pieces back wherever you want. Then we added water. Then fire. It got a little out of hand after that.

Water now runs downhill and looks for gaps. Lava moves more slowly, sets wood on fire and turns to stone when it meets water. Sand falls until it lands and bakes into glass beside heat. Ice can freeze a pond, then melt back into water near a flame. Plant a sapling and it grows into a tree. Cut the trunk down and the leaves slowly disappear.

The island gets small visitors too. Rabbits show up when there is enough grass, fish need a pond that is at least two blocks deep, birds perch on wood or leaves and butterflies drift over the green bits. They never stay forever. A rabbit will leave when its patch of grass is gone, and a bird takes off if you build too close to it.

There is no score and no job list. Build a hut, flood it, set it on fire, undo the mess or start a new island. Your island is saved in the browser between visits.

Weird catch

Weird catch is a fishing game with one rule that changes halfway through each dive. On the way down, fish pass straight through the hook and you have to dodge boots, cans and crates. Hit one piece of junk and the line starts coming back up early. On the way up, the hook catches everything it touches.

You only have ten hooks on the line, so filling them with rusty cans is a bad plan. Junk costs points at the dock and a clean line earns a bonus. The valuable creatures live deeper down, but they are heavier and slow the reel. Three dives make one run.

The fish are all made up. There is a Grumpy guppy, a Sock eel, a Ghost anchovy and, right near the bottom, a Pale colossus that is worth plenty but looks far too heavy for the line. Every new creature goes into a logbook, which gives you a reason to make one more dive even after a terrible score.

Snug town

Snug town is for the days when even fishing feels too stressful. It is a small town builder with no money, no timer and no way to fail. You place houses, paths, trees, shops, ponds and other little pieces on an isometric grid.

There are two ways to play. Free build gives you a village and lets you change it with no numbers attached. Build a town starts with bare land and adds people. A home needs a path beside it. Put water, a lamp and a shop close by and more people move in. The windows light up when a home has everything it needs.

The useful trick is to build homes in small groups. One well and one lamp can serve a whole street, so a village that looks tidy usually works well too. If you do not care about any of that, pick free build and put the windmill wherever it looks nice.

Which one should you play?

Try Bottomless if you want to scroll and read. Pick Pocket quarry if you want to mess with things and see what breaks. Weird catch is the one for chasing a score, and Snug town is the quiet one for building something nice.

All four are free, run in the browser and do not need an account. If one of them feels odd or breaks on your phone, tell us. These games tend to get better after people start poking at them.