There's no shortage of quantity in browser gaming, but quality is an issue, with far too many revealing nought but the emperor's new clothes. Yet, as so often with the internet, really interesting, original ideas are hiding there too.

Take, for example, rock-climbing, keyboard-skills, puzzle game Girp, which is a great deal more fun than it sounds, but unsurprisingly complex to describe. It uses the alphabet to help an impossibly athletic climber ascend a letter-scattered cliff face to escape an ever-rising pool of water – tangling players' fingers into strange, knotted forms around the keyboard, in a game that deftly mixes action, strategy and puzzle elements to deliver an unexpectedly engaging experience.

Also slightly unusual is the first world war-themed shooter 1916: The War You Never Knew; a monochrome horror title set in the trenches. This student-made release twists the sombre setting by introducing dinosaurs. Despite this, it maintains a subtle eeriness, and boasts a refinement that makes for a scare factor that defies the diminutive form of the browser game.

Taking the concept of abstract gameplay several stages further is the wonderful Osada, something of an interactive music video and surrealist story told with scrapbook cuttings and cheery, otherworldly audio. So minimal are the interactions that all that is needed to proceed through each scene is a few clicks on sound-emitting objects, but to play is to take a 10-minute journey through one of the most memorable gaming landscapes of recent months.