If you've been long-suffering under the assumption that games are created in a mashup of impalpable art and science, our latest high-res gallery on Offworld will prove you wrong, as we go inside the factory workshops where your favorite games were built (above), from the smelting of Sonic's rings, the chiseling of the 1-Up mushroom, and the rubber-pressed rebounding blocks of Arkanoid. And in more art-overload news, we also took a look at the fantastically fragile and delicately rendered games-inspired work of Melbourne illustrator Ghostpatrol, saw some select images from French guerrilla artist Invader's new Rubikubism exhibition in London, and played with the bloom-lit pixels of Stimergy, a 36-hour game of retro-futurist picnic ant invasions. Elsewhere, One More Go columnist Margaret Robertson told us how Galleon, the criminally overlooked Xbox game from Tomb Raider designer Toby Gard, can lead us on a six-degrees journey through the games industry, found another example of a gainfully employed developer using a game to announce he was quitting his job, and watched the first official trailer for our new top iPhone pick, Spider. We also saw Timbaland and Rockstar's music creator app Beaterator officially announced for PSP and the steampunk-ian environmental strategy game Greed Corp announced for PS3, learned that Tokidoki and Upper Playground were coming to Wii racer Need for Speed, and our one shot's: Call of Duty and BioShock, the Criterion editions, and Pong on the streets, and Pong in the streets.

Recently on Offworld we've had a good slate of indie devs giving us a deeper look into some of the games already high on our most-wanted lists: chief among them is Castle Crashers devs The Behemoth officially beginning to reveal the mechanics of their cutely chaotic party/arena game still known as Game 3, and art game champ Jason Rohrer showing off a paper prototype of his Angolan conflict diamond-based DS multiplayer game. Elsewhere, we got the first shot of Die Gute Fabrik's gorgeously illustrated swamp-opera adventure Mutatione, Edmund McMillen & co. showed off the first video of their pathos puzzler Time Ufck, and Taito revealed the first video of dual control methods in their upcoming Puzzle Bobble iPhone port. We also saw Nintendo plunging their toes further into the social media space with the U.S. release of their free web-sharable DS flipbook animation app FlipNote Studio, Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner revealed the first draft script for a prequel to his PC adventure The Last Express, the EA Black Box team behind Skate gave us their top 10 user-made skate videos, and Team Fortress devs began dropping awesomely gentlemanly turn-of-the-century ephemera surrounding their latest game update. Finally, our 'one shot's: the nostalgic simplicity of Six Flags' early-80s Pac-Man theme park, Metroid's Samus on a ZX Spectrum, 9 0 0 0 gives us a motivational ninja poster, and, as above, Brock Davis shows us the sobering tragedy of a Mushroom Kingdom hit and run.

It seems as though as the App Store game entries grows exponentially, our true, heartfelt suggestions have dropped off inversely, but recently on Offworld we made one of our strongest, most unreserved recommendations yet with Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, the debut game from the former Thief/Splinter Cell devs at Tiger Style. It's a game that works brilliantly on two levels: first, as an intuitive action game that sees you finger-flicking/spinning webs to catch the insect inhabitants of the long-abandoned titular manor, but second, and just as wonderfully, unraveling the secret narrative that's running underneath, just under your nose if you're careful enough to look -- it's instantly become one of our top 3 iPhone games of all time. Elsewhere, we took a look at two of the best meta-games to come to the web in recent months, with the one level exploration of, er, This is the Only Level and the self-purchased enhancements of Upgrade Complete, and listened to both a wonderfully diverse Songs to Frag By videogame mixtape, and the live house/trance styling of PixelJunk Eden director Baiyon. Finally, we saw the first dazzling entry in the AI-controlled Mario contest, made our own Noby Boy catnip toy, saw LucasArts/Double Fine dev Tim Schafer reveal his hidden Rubik's talent, and our 'one shot's for the day: the geographical secrets of Left 4 Dead and the amazingly ugly excesses of the women of Leisure Suit Larry.

Recently on Offworld, American Elf artist James Kochalka dropped in to let us preview Robot Shark, one of the songs off his latest album Digital Elf, created entirely with Nanoloop on his Game Boy Advance, and we discovered that Jason Rohrer, creator of reigning memento mori art-game-champ Passage, was creating a two player DS strategy game based on the illicit blood diamond trade in Angola (!). We also watched Love Sport, a set of fantastically expressive pixel animations from Studio AKA's Grant Orchard, and heard Austin Wintory's soundtrack for thatgamecompany's PS3 art-game flOw being played live by LA's Golden State Pops Orchestra, and (literally) looked inside Sony's upcoming augmented reality virtual EyePet. Finally, we saw why 2D still matters in 2009 with the jaw-dropping visuals in XNA game Dust, and found infinitely adorable crocheted Marios, a re-imagined 80s arcade pinup, and, best of all, back-alley knock-off Pokemon.

Recently on Offworld, our Ragdoll Metaphysics columnist Jim Rossignol takes us through an illustrated history of one of videogames' best mechanical conceits: the jetpack. From The Stamper Brothers' original JetPac, to Exile, to Tribes, Jetpack Brontosaurus (above) and beyond, he looks at how the 'pack has let us "explore strange new worlds where the sky is not the limit, and where the vertical axis is as just as essential as the horizons that lay all around us." Elsewhere we marveled at the intricate rusted ironworks designs in the latest video of Amanita's upcoming adventure game Machinarium, saw Minotaur China Shop (and Jetpack Brontosaurus, coincidentally) creators Flashbang poke gentle fun at Braid creator Jon Blow, and found a wonderful series of T-shirts based on the glitched-out boot-up sequences of arcade games. And for our 'one shot's of the day, two more fantastic pieces from artists appearing in the upcoming Autumn Society games/art gallery show: Zelda's Link aims for the eye, and the Swarovski crystal-studded queen Tetrisina.

Recently on Offworld, Valve announced another infected incidence with Crash Course (above), a new downloadable campaign for the original Left 4 Dead due in September that will bridge the No Mercy and Death Toll episodes with an entirely new location, and PopCap continued to perfect their chesty/lusty zombie parody with a new set of Evony-busting banner ads. We also saw Braid creator Jon Blow tease his next game, The Witness -- described as "an exploration-puzzle game on an uninhabited island" -- by dropping a Tao Te Ching quote, as Braid itself is confirmed to come to the PlayStation 3, and we found new details of the Wii/Xbox 360/PS3 remake of cult hex-strategy game Military Madness/Nectaris. Elsewhere, AI specialists announced a competition that will use science to build a better Mario, Taito teased Puzzle Bobble for the iPhone, Sega fanatics released the long-fabled 32-bit Virtua Hamster (!), and we looked at an 8-bit iPhone NES synthesizer. Our 'one shot's for the day: Keita 'Katamari' Takahashi, shoeless and amused, and Super Mario Lilliput.