January 19th, 2006 - NASA launches the interplanetery space probe New Horizons, which at the time was the fastest human-made object ever launched from Earth, as well as the fifth probe to leave Earth's escape velocity. Its primary mission is to do a flyby study of Pluto's system and secondary mission to study one or more Kuiper Belt objects. The result of this secondary mission was a mission to 486958 Arrokoth.
Lyle is a guy just living in Cube Sector when suddenly some jerk up and steals his cat Keddums from his house! Lyle shouldn't have left his cat outside but that's besides the point. It's time to get Keddums back in a delightful Metroidvania in which you fight by picking up cubes and throwing them at adversaries, as well as using them for platforming and solving puzzles. Good stuff!
February 22nd, 2006 - The al-Askari Shrine in Samarra, Iraq is bombed at 6:44 AM AST. There are no casualities and no entity officially took responsibility, but later that year there would be a confession by Abu Qudama al-Tunesi while in Iraqi custody that the attack was masterminded by AQI commander Haitham al-Bardi and committed by a total of eight people. The result of this attack resulted in a severe uptick of sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni Muslims that would lead directly into what is known as the Iraqi Civil War.
Direct Site | Archive.org Link
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A | Game Engine: Adventure Game Studio 
You awaken every day in a filthy cell with no idea who you are or why your face is bandaged, why your clothes are covered in bloodstains. Every day you're taken out of your cell and made to run an obstacle course. Today you are given a gun - a mockery, certainly, as how little control you really have over your situation...until suddenly your cell door opens. Made by Ben Croshaw in 2006 around the same time period he was making Trilby's Notes, 1213 is a technical marvel as the AGS codebase is pushed from a typical point-and-click adventure game to a Prince of Persia-style gameplay loop as you explore the dire remains of a facility literally crumbling around you. An excellent work!
Direct Link | Steam | itch.io
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A | Game Engine: Multimedia Fusion 2 | Part of the Game With A Kitty Series (2nd of 8)
The followup to A Game With A Kitty takes us to a more cosmic setting as the arch-chancellor of the Imp King gets ordered to recover Princess Daffodil's missing crown! It's a long trek to the castle, and the game features a lot of physics based puzzle solving as the latest addition to the series. The Kirby influence is stronger still then it was in 1, while the grabbing mechanics are a strong relation to the same mechanics in Super Mario World 2. Very cute, very funny, very fun!
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A
As the game of sudoku began to really take off in the UK around 2005, the US was bit slower to catch the Number Place bug, but it became a sensation here not long after 06. As it goes, there would eventually be studios looking to make their own sudoku games. Eight years before their hit game Subnautica, Unknown Worlds Entertainment would make Zen of Sudoku, their first official self-made title. While having an admittedly orientalist vibe, the puzzles work as advertised and the game features modest animations and pleasant soundscapes as you think through how to complete the sudoku puzzles. There are four difficulty levels, not counting the tutorial, and several in-game achievements for playing certain skill levels and forgoing options that make the game easier. It's nice!