The number and variety of short video games that can be downloaded directly to your favourite console are rapidly expanding. They’re cheaper than the typical $60 console game, too, usually running between $10 and $20 on the PlayStation Network, WiiWare, and Xbox Live Arcade. Here’s a look at six recent offerings.

Fat Princess (Sony; PS3; rated teen)
Set for release this summer, Fat Princess is a fast multiplayer game, supporting up to 32 gamers on-line in any given session, that plays with the concept of Capture the Flag. The goal is to defend your team’s castle and its princess while trying to kidnap the princess from your opponents’ castle. The game is made interesting by the fact that you can play one of five roles—swordsman, archer, wizard, worker, or priest, all of which have different specialties—and you can easily switch from one role to another by putting on a different hat. Feeding your princess cake makes her heavier and more difficult to capture. This game mechanic, and the game’s title, is intended to be lighthearted, but proves offensive. The game is fun, but I wish the developers hadn’t tried so blatantly to be anti–PC.

Flock! (Capcom; PS3, Xbox 360; rated everyone)
In this goofy little game, your job is to abscond with farm animals, primarily sheep. You do this by piloting a flying saucer and scaring the sheep, herding them in the direction you want them to go. The environmental challenges increase as you progress, so you’ll have to exercise some puzzle-solving skills like shrinking the sheep by running them through a geyser—they’re made of wool, after all—so they’ll fit under wooden fences. You can play with a friend and create shareable levels with an easy-to-use editor. A bouncy soundtrack and comical sound effects make Flock! a quick, fun distraction.

The Maw (Twisted Pixel; Xbox 360; rated everyone 10+)
Another alien-themed game, The Maw has you play a cute little blue alien stranded on a planet after the spaceship you were abducted by crashes. Your only companion is a one-eyed creature that is mostly mouth, has a voracious appetite, and grows larger the more he consumes. You can guide the Maw around with an electric leash and use his appetite to get around obstacles, all in an attempt to escape the planet. The Maw can take on some of the attributes of his meals, so you’ll use his temporary fire-breathing and floating talents to solve the environmental puzzles and combat indigenous creatures. It’s a short but satisfying game that succeeds because of some great character design.

Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic (Sony; PS3; rated everyone 10+)
This fighting game is steeped in goofiness. All of the characters are marionettes, and they jump, punch, and kick with wild, exaggerated movements. Indeed, these kung fu fighters—dressed like they’ve been lifted out of a classic Bruce Lee film—bounce and flail around like the rag dolls they are. Its curious implementation of the laws of physics is what gives this game its charm. You won’t play this one for hours at a time, but for an occasional five-minute fix, these floppy fighters sure can bring the fun.

Space Invaders Extreme (Backbone; Xbox 360; rated everyone)
This is a modern-day reboot of the arcade classic Space Invaders, which helped start this whole video-game craze. Extreme is made for the brains of today, which means it delivers a hyperactive presentation of sounds and images that blitz your senses with information. Playing Extreme involves less strategy than the classic Space Invaders did because the bunkers and one-bullet-at-a-time firepower are gone, so the best course of action is to set your trigger finger to lightning speed and have at it. Also gone are the slow and steady alien ships. Extreme’s invaders, while styled in the eight-bit pixels of the past, vary in size, strength, speed, and number. You’d be surprised how difficult it is to collect the power-ups that fall from the sky when you’ve been trained to avoid alien bombs. Also new to the Space Invaders experience: boss battles. It doesn’t resemble the original much, but Space Invaders Extreme serves up furious fun that the original never could.

World of Goo (2D Boy; Wii; rated everyone)
A clever puzzler, World of Goo makes good use of the Wii remote—you point it at the screen to direct the construction of lattice bridges and towers. Travelling along these structures are black, oily goo balls; your objective is to build the structures in a way that makes the goo balls flow into a pipe. Each level requires you to collect a certain number of goo balls. The catch is that every addition you make to a structure requires a goo ball, so the bigger you build, the more goo balls you’ll need and the fewer you’ll be able to collect. You don’t have to be an engineer or an architect to excel at World of Goo, but it helps, especially when you’re trying to build a bridge across a canyon or a tower into the sky. Any goo balls you collect over and above the required number are added to an open world in which you simply try to build as tall a tower as you can. This is as much fun as the primary game is.