Phantasmagoria of Flower View is a versus type shooter with Reimu, Marisa and Sakuya as initially playable characters, but the list adds on as the player progresses in the storyline. Playing as one of sixteen characters, you must battle your way through nine difficult encounters to uncover the truth behind an unnatural spring season.

The game most resembles Twinkle Star Sprites, where two equally matched characters fight head to head within individual and separate play areas. Upon meeting certain conditions, players are able to unleash a variety of character-specific Spell Attacks upon their opponents in an attempt to whittle down their remaining health points, in a manner not unlike a versus puzzle game such as Puyo Puyo.

ZUN's offering also features a Match Play Mode in which the player may face off against individual AI opponents or compete against other human players, as well as observe AI versus AI matches. With the netplay patch, multiplayer is also possible through LAN or over the Internet, although it has proven to be unstable, at best.

Name: Phantasmagoria of Flower View
Developer: Team Shanghai Alice
Category: Shooter
Type: Demo
Size: 30MB

Sub Atomic is a reimagination of Taito's The Electric Yo-Yo, but to access jph's remake the arcade classic has to be beaten first. Complete the game or use the insert and page up key combination to skip all three stages. A Sub Atomic executable file will be unlocked, decompressed and placed in the same game folder.

In the original, your objective is basically to clear the entire screen by moving your Yo-Yo over each block to remove them. Both creatures must be avoided, unless you've gained temporary invincibility by looping an energized brick. Earn more points by maximizing the distance travelled between two blocks.

The new version features six levels, with the additional ability of launching seekers bestowed upon your electric yo-yo. Use the control key to spawn a seeker at the cost of one charged dot, and they will target your nearest adversary. Press the shift key to make the seekers follow your yo-yo for a short while. Hold a directional arrow key to chase the nearest dot. An orange line at the top of the screen indicates the number of dots that you're required to collect in order to advance. The next phase is triggered when this line touches the word 'goal'.

Name: Sub Atomic
Developer: Jph Wacheski
Category: Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 10MB

Veck 2 gets two thumbs up from the creator(s) of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. Here's an excerpt from the article:

....we'd like to call out a really nice example of exactly what we were talking about.

The game in question is Veck2, a rather kick ass top down shooter. You can see it here. I love the crazy particles flowing around the screen in the background. The enemy types are interesting, and there's generally been a lot of thought put into the concept.

Our hat is off to Smayds, good job man.

The MAGI is a game about dueling wizards; you begin the game by creating a character, and you go through a series of battles, learning new spells and gaining more experience, until your ultimate battle with Death -- and chances are unless you gained a lot of experience along the way and lived for many years, you won't beat Death.

Its gameplay can be pretty addicting, particularly trying out new combinations of spells and stats; there's a deep strategy to it. The interface and what all the stats mean and what all the spells do can be a bit overwhelming at first, but there's a tutorial and help boxes so I managed to pick it up after a battle or two. It also has some of the best particle effects I've ever seen anywhere, and the game overall is very polished. I'm hoping for a more story-centric sequel to reveal more of the game's background setting and world, I find the idea of wizards fighting Death to find immortality dramatic.

Name: The MAGI
Developer: Tomek Grochowiak / TeeGee
Category: RPG/Strategy
Type: Shareware
Size: 14MB

More screenshots from Nenad's upcoming shooter. [preview two, additional media, Ablation, Deathchase UFO, Counterclockwise review]

ECD Systems is proud to announce the 2nd Annual Indie Game Showcase, a contest held online with the aim of providing more exposure to indie game developers.

Visitors to the website will be able to play the games and then vote on their favorites in two categories: general and casual. For each category, there will be a grand prize winner and three finalists. The award ceremony will take place at the Austin Games Conference in Austin, TX, September 5-7, 2007. The grand prize for each category is a fully configured high-end developer’s work station. Each finalist will receive an IPOD Nano plus other valuable prizes.

Participants can submit their games through the Indie Game Showcase site (www.indiegameshowcase.com). Games need to be a demo that runs on a PC platform. (The game itself can be intended for any platform.) Enter unpublished titles or titles that have been released in the last six months prior to March 9, 2007.

The deadline for submission is mid-July; however, the sooner the game is submitted, the more people will be able to vote on it. Voting begins May 1, 2007. A panel of judges will decide the winners and three finalists from the ten most popular games of each category.

Direct questions to Jim Feeney at jfeeney@ecdsystems.com or (508) 420-6990.

iceMice is a simple puzzler by GoGameGlad, featuring nine stages and a functional level editor to faciliate user creations. Collect all cheese in a room to reveal the exit, though certain obstacles require both mice to work together if a solution is to be achieved.

Future versions will include keyboard controls and more levels.

Name: iceMice
Developer: GoGameGlad
Category: Puzzle
Type: Freeware
Size: 2MB

Perfect Cherry Blossom features three different playable characters to choose from, with two different Spell Card types each. Reimu Hakurei can weave through the smallest gaps with ease, and her attacks deal low to decent damage, depending on which type you use. Marisa Kirisame relies on her speed and power to compensate for her thin attack area, but the amount of power she wields is very considerable. Sakuya Izayoi has even wider and more versatile attacks than Reimu, but can be quite tricky to use and maneuver.

Almost every part of the game is linked with the 'Cherry Meter'. Shooting enemies increases your Cherry points, bombing or dying decreases your Cherry points, and reaching 50,000 Cherry points gives you a temporary shield. The higher the Cherry Gauge becomes, the more points you gain from Point Items.

Press the shift key to slow down the player's movement, makes the collision box visible and changing the properties of your attacks. When fighting a boss, a position marker shows up on the bottom margin of the screen, indicating where the boss is on the horizontal axis. Since your target can be completely obscured by bullets or darkness at times, use this marker to help you aim your shots. The marker will dim when the boss is being hit, and will flash red when her health bar gets sufficiently depleted.

Name: Perfect Cherry Blossom
Developer: Team Shanghai Alice
Category: Shooter
Type: Demo
Size: 10MB

A Ruff'n Tumble playable teaser was recently posted at the Retro Remakes forums. This demo consists of a small room with continually spawning enemies to shoot at. Use the arrow keys to move and hold the D key to fire. [older demo consisting of one full level and soundtrack preview in .ogg format]

Shezzor's remake of this Amiga platformer has been in development for four years now (one less than Cave Story). It's new features are:

- 640x480, 60fps (original version was 320x240, 25fps)
- improved graphics to complement the higher resolution
- parallax scrolling, new soundtrack by infamous
- coded in Blitz

The full freeware version will be released sometime this year. [Ruff'n Tumble screenshots, information page, gameplay video one, gameplay video two, boss battle, renders by kukerex]

Here's a wallpaper made from the vector image of Curly Brace. [mentisworks, Thruster preview]

Video footage of the complete awards ceremony (including the marriage proposal) will be downloadable from the GDC site soon.

There's a whole bunch of screenshots from Ether Vapor (a WIP with trial version available) posted on this site. [Ether Vapor review, download link]

Acidbomb 2 will be out before the end of March. The full version will feature roughly fifty levels and bonus content. [Acidbomb 2 preview]

Gesundheit! updated to version 1.0.1, save bug fixed. The lovely soundtrack is also available from the same page, nine songs conveniently zipped into one file for download. [Gesundheit review]

Two new Fester Mudd screenshots posted. [Fester Mudd preview]

The new site for Veck 2 is up. [Veck 2 screenshots]

Bernard and Hank 2: Springtime Again should out next week.

New Reunion gameplay video posted.

More wallpapers? How about one from The Underside... [Merry Gear Solid, The Underside preview]

Article written by Jason Rohrer

Rod Humble just released his experimental artgame The Marriage for public consumption. With no sound, no music, and barely-there graphics, this game is clearly not meant to dazzle your senses, but instead meant to intrigue your mind (and its low-fi nature is not a cop-out---Rod Humble's day job is at EA, so he has plenty of experience making high-fi games). The core question: What does the game mean? Rod answers that question somewhat on the download page, but I suggest you play the game before reading his explanation.

I have played The Marriage quite a bit, and so has my spouse. We've spent some time talking about what it might mean. The game, and my experience discussing it, have reminded me of experiences at galleries of modern art---for each piece, I stare at it, scratch my head a bit, and try to mine the piece for meaning of some kind. I'm also reminded of watching a David Lynch movie with friends---we'd spend the rest of the evening discussing what the movie might mean.

With The Marriage, we don't start that meaning-search empty handed. We've got the title, and we've also got Rod's one-liner: "The game is my expression of how a marriage feels."

I'm not sure if I will ever write a review of this one, because the game's success or failure depends so much on the player's personal temperament and taste. I'm posting it here as a point of discussion. Please add your thoughts in the comment roll over at Arthouse Games.

Name: The Marriage
Developer: Rod Humble
Category: Artgame
Type: Freeware
Size: 530 KB

Tails Gear is a new vertical shooter by Blue and White, featuring options which follow your ship and can be commanded to stay in a fixed position until recovered at a later time.

Hold the Z key to activate your secondary weapon and display the hit point. Colliding with enemy ships do not cause any damage, though the game doesn't seem to allow any input with a keyboard when the continue menu pops up. A joypad works fine though. Two stages only.

Name: Tails Gear
Developer: Blue and White
Category: Shooter
Type: Freeware
Size: 10MB

Deo Dorant is a brilliant tribute to the classic platformers of old, specifically Commander Keen and the Apogee releases. Character movement is a bit slow but everything else is a nod to maze explorations and precision jumps.

Navigate around the dungeon using the arrow keys, and press the enter key to activate switches. The protagonist can jump off the surface of molten lava pit once, but do watch out for dangerous pits sneakily placed in unsuspecting places.

Use the S or L key for save and load functions.

Name: Deo Dorant
Developer: Majs
Category: Platformer
Type: Freeware
Size: 2MB