Wearrd Academy's School for Responsible Reanimation is ablaze under suspicious circumstances. Its students are up in arms over the arson, blaming one another for the fire that killed their esteemed professor. Factions form. Conflict erupts. There's only one way to settle this: a full-on zombie street brawl.

Corpse Craft is a hybrid puzzle/strategy game where you gather gruesome resources with a simple match-3 minigame at the bottom of the screen, then strategically assemble undead minions to combat your opponent on the battlefield above. Each zombie type is especially suited for a particular task. The many-armed, limb-throwing Handyman, for example, excels at basic defense, while the explosive Delivery Boy, a canine/schoolboy hybrid, is best suited for preemptive field strikes. The size of your zombie horde is limited only by your resources, which include blood, electricity, fat, and flesh.

Corpse Craft's steady introduction of new zombie types and power-ups keeps things interesting. There's also a day/night cycle that allows you to hoard resources while the sun shines and unleash a shuffling mob of death at nightfall. The first few levels are very easy, but as the single-player story continues it becomes quite demanding. Corpse Craft definitely leads to short-term addiction, and its charmingly macabre presentation, an obvious homage to Edward Gorey's work, is terrific. Click "Read more" below for some screenshots.

You don't need to set up a free account at casual site Whirled to play Corpse Craft, but if you do the game will save your progress and award you trophies (like "Nose to the Grindstone" and "Pressing the Flesh"). It'll also allow you play online with others and set up a friends list. Well-matched multiplayer battles can be epic. My only gripe about Corpse Craft is an apparent bug, which after an extended period of play might slowly grind performance to a near-halt. Restarting the game seems to alleviate the problem.

Thanks to Allen "Pyroman[FO]" Cook for pointing me toward this week's Act Casual selection. If you'd like to suggest a free browser-based game, send a link and description via our contact form.