Beautiful Castle Death Machine is a fan remake of the ancient Japanese-themed game Palamedes, which, as we all know (*opens Wikipedia), is Taito's puzzle game about throwing and matching dice. This match-3 style puzzle game was released for the arcade, NES, and Game Boy, but to my knowledge has been buried in dreary vaults since 1990.

You play as a dwarf who is about to be crushed by a giant wall of dice. To prevent this grisly fate, you can throw your dice upwards. Let's say, for example, that a die with a "1" on it is very close to the hero. You tap "up" several times to select the "1" and then throw that die at the die in question to remove both.

That's how I played the first few times, but found it very difficult. Turns out I had misunderstood the rules and ignored the "make" button which allows you to remove an entire row of dice from the board. For example, one would remove the dice in the order 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. pressing the "make" button would remove perhaps a few lines from the game, but just aligning a few 1s, or even 2s, 3s, or 4s, would remove a smaller area.

It sounds complicated and probably a bit confusing the first couple of times, but this is a fascinating puzzle game that I highly recommend to match-3 fans. You can play it here. (Thanks, Warp Door.)

For more great free experiences, check out our compilation of the best free PC games.