New screenshots from Metanet Software's upcoming XBLA release N+ are up on IGN.

- screenshots from N+
- visit the metablog

Sean Cooper's upcoming Boxhead sequel, Boxhead: The Zombie Wars. Made using the same engine, but features tile graphics by Daniel Cook.

The game will be released sometime around Christmas 2007.

- Play Boxhead
- Sean Cooper's site

The finalists for the 2008 IGF competition have been announced.

Seumas McNally Grand Prize:
* Audiosurf
* Crayon Physics Deluxe
* Hammerfall
* Noitu Love 2: Devolution
* World of Goo

Best Web Browser Game:
* Globulos.com
* Iron Dukes
* Tri-Achnid

Design Innovation Award:
* Battleships Forever
* Fez
* Fret Nice
* Snapshot Adventures: Secret Of Bird Island
* World Of Goo

Excellence in Visual Art:
* Clean Asia!
* Fez
* Hammerfall
* Synaesthete
* The Path

Excellence in Audio:
* Cinnamon Beats
* Fret Nice
* Audiosurf
* Clean Asia!
* OokiBloks

Technical Excellence:
* World of Goo
* Goo!
* Audiosurf
* Axiom: Overdrive
* Gumboy Tournament

Visit the IGF site for a complete list with screenshots and descriptions.

Garden Gnome Carnage is one of the better games created for the Game Maker winter contest so far. It's a pretty unique arcade game where you move a building left and right to swing a gnome who is attached to the top of it around in order to protect that building from invading elves. The gnome can also pick up bricks from the building and throw them at the invaders.

Mastering the movement takes a little getting used to because you can only pull the string he's attached to left and right, but isn't as difficult as it sounds. There's also a lot of depth to it, such as a combo system where you can knock elves into other elves and cause chain reactions.

One of the nicest touches is that each time you complete the game you get a new tip, and some of these tips reveal new abilities and techniques, giving it a lot of replay value. (I also love what happens when you reach 80,000 points.)

Name: Garden Gnome Carnage
Developer: Ultimortal
Category: Arcade/Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 5.4MB
Direct download page: Click Here

Guess what. It took two sleepless nights, but a new mirror for Rückblende is finally up.

- download Rückblende (593 MB)
- previous mention

A lengthy interview with Erik Hermansen of Caravel Games, the industry veteran who gave us the DROD series - recently featured on Kotaku's Five Indie Picks. He is also currently working on Frogs and Mice, an exclusive game for InstantAction set to be released early next year.

Let's begin with a little introduction of yourself, and some background info on Caravel Games as well. (for those who are not familiar with DROD - though however unlikely that is)

Alright, so I'm a guy that has made computer games for fun since I was 13. And then at one point I thought I'd try selling them. It more or less worked.

DROD was the game I made that was what I wished someone else would make so I could play it. And after I got it out to the world, I found out that there were a smallish number of people that really, really loved it. I think because they have brains like mine.

Flipside tells the tale of an escaped insane asylum patient who has a split personality. He sees everything in cardboard, and cheerful or depressing depending on which personality he's using.

This is a Half-Life 2 mod, and contains only one short level. The game was previously featured in PC Zone, reviewed by Mod DB, and was submitted as a student entry in this year's IGF competition. Has decent music as well, sort of a Caribbean feel. (mmm, fondues...) And yes, there are plenty of working mirrors this time.

Midnight Synergy (Wonderland series) has compiled a selection of 10 freeware games released in 2007, complete with proper descriptions and download links. Definitely worth a gander or two.

Meanwhile, an unofficial Grand Theft Auto IV web site had also posted a list of top 20 free games of 2007, though this article is done with poor judgment as more than half of the titles included were either released in 2006 or before that. There is also at least one game that comes with the Starforce protection - proceed with extreme caution, or avoid entirely.

First concept art from Aquaria posted.

The Streets of Rage Remake project gets a new web site.

mon's Fraxy gets a new update.

The GarageGames' web site gets a face-lift.

Kloonigames has released a new monthly project entitled Humpsters.

HIZ is working on a new vertical shooter.

Monty's Christmas Special released. [gameplay video]

Buster (Iwanaga, Vacant Ark) is working on several new projects and prototypes.

Information about Submachine 5 revealed. The revamped Submachine 1 will be posted on Pastel Games soon.

Cryptic Sea had posted a new version of Ramjets.

Nucleosys (Scratches) is currently working on two different projects, with one of them being a freeware 2D adventure game developed for the Argentine government as an educational title.

IGF 2008 Main Competition finalists will be announced this Monday.

Photos from the Gamma 256 event recently held in Montreal, in which a selection of games with a display of under 256 pixels were being showcased.

- Célu
- Dive (download)
- Doomed Planet (download)
- Mr Heart Loves You Very Much (Terry's review)
- More photos from Gamma 256, taken by Simon Law
- Musical performances

Update: More photos from the Gamma 256 party.

Let's begin with an introduction of yourself.

My name's Derek Yu. *waves* I'm the editor-in-chief at TIGSource, one of the developers behind Aquaria, and I'm obsessed with a certain part of my body that I can't talk about in front of the children.

Aquaria is set for a release next Friday (7th of December, 2007). I'm assuming that it's finished and ready for the world - how does it feel to have finally completed this massive project?

It feels pretty darn good, although I have to admit, I'm so tired I'm not sure I'm fully appreciating it. Alec and I are really happy with the game, though.

You knew this was coming. Why $30?

Yeah, I saw people discussing it! $20 seems to be the midpoint for indie games, and we just felt that with all the content that we put into the game, $30 was pretty reasonable. It includes a full level editor, as well.

Alec has announced that Bit Blot's debut release Aquaria will be available for purchase starting next Friday, 7th of December 2007. Fans can expect daily updates to Bit Blot's web site, up to the day Aquaria is released. A demo will be made available for download on the same Friday; the (roughly) 200 MB full version for PC retails at USD $30.

- Aquaria release date announcement
- Derek Yu's web site

A collection of games made by members of Poppenkast in roughly three hours.

Arms: A new platformer by cactus with odd controls and unique gameplay mechanics. The game has a couple of puzzles and action sequences but it's more of an experimentation piece than a proper release. Use the W, A, S and D keys to move. Other actions are controlled with the mouse. Press the space key to restart.

Nevada Thompson and the Temple of Scorpions: The gameplay is pretty much described by it's title. An action game with limited controls, where players can only attack sideways. Use the Z or X key to whip, and tap the A or S key to shoot. Ammunition is limited, but can be replenished. There are two large rooms to explore in total.

Once in Space is a platformer by Arvi Teikari with emphasis on collecting stars to complete each level. The challenge is to figure out how to approach them, as most stars can only be acquired when your character is oriented in a certain direction as indicated by the small red arrows.

Use the cursor keys to move, and tap the left shift key to jump. Hold the control key to change gravity, though this is only possible on platforms with rounded edges marked red. Press Y and control to change key configuration settings. The game features music by Nifflas.

Name: Once in Space
Developer: Hempuli
Category: Platform
Type: Freeware
Size: 5MB
Direct download link: Click here

The team at Gamasutra had posted transcriptions for a couple of sessions from the Montreal International Games Summit (MIGS), taking place on the 27th and 28th of November. Jonathan Blow (Braid) offer his opinions about current game design practices, while Kellee Santiago (thatgamecompany, FlOw) reveals new details about their upcoming PS3 release, Flower.

The full details for Kellee's speech will be posted at Gamasutra at a later time.

- download Jonathan Blow's lecture
- Jonathan Blow's session
- Kellee Santiago's session

Update: Jonathan Blow's speech in audio format now available for download. The zip package also includes the original PowerPoint file used during the presentation. A video version will be made available soon.

There's a new Gamasutra article written by Russell Carroll (Reflexive, GameTunnel) about increased profitability for developers and small studios from not innovating - making lots of money by creating clones of existing games which are popular.

According to him, a Hidden Object game, Click Management clone (Nanny Mania), and a Match-3 game sold nineteen copies more than a title belonging to any other genre, based on Reflexive Entertainment's sales statistics from the last three years. Essentially this means that developers who put out a clone tend to sell at a ratio of twenty copies as opposed to just one if it was based on anything resembling an original idea.

- Cloning Created the Casual Game Business

Julian Winter has made the entire Haluz 2 soundtrack available as a free download. This collection of thirteen songs took Julian an entire year to compose, and showcases the musician's knack for ambient and soothing music. The album was originally sold at a price of USD $6.

Alec Holowka had also released a track from his side project Célu in MP3 format, though the actual game itself will only be made available to the general public sometime in 2008. A lot of tracks in Aquaria have a similar vibe, so you can get a feel of Bit Blot's debut release just by listening to this song alone.

Against All Odds is a Flash game created as an attempt to educate players about refugees in general, and also indirectly provide information on the work that UNHCR does.

There are twelve scenes in total, with each act consisting of a small game, but no reward is offered when all three chapters are completed. More than half of these consists of multiple choice questions or trial and error situations, where players have to guess answers to a series of questions correctly to proceed.

The third act can be a little tricky to solve, because escape is only possible once you've found the man indicated by a green dot, hiding in one of the alleys near the heavily guarded exit.

Name: Against All Odds
Developer: UNHCR and Statoil
Category: Action, Adventure
Type: Browser

Have the guys at Digital Eel gone bonkers? First they offer Plasmaworm for free, now they're giving away both Big Box of Blox and Dr. Blob's Organism away - for nothing!

Dr. Blob's Organism was an IGF 2004 winner of both innovation in audio and visual art categories. Mac versions for these two games are also available.

I was sort of expecting the games to open Digital Eel's web site when exiting, but nothing of that sort happened.

- Digital Eel announcement
- Plasmaworm
- Big Box of Blox
- Dr. Blob's Organism

Phil Fish is lead designer for the forthcoming 3D-pixel game Fez, which is a contender in this year's IGF. Phil has been making games since he was two years old. After attending both art school and game school, he got his industry start at Ubisoft Montreal, and he currently works in the industry as a level designer.

He also makes up one fourth of the Montreal-based game-art collective Kokoromi, and these days he's busy organizing their second annual GAMMA event (which doubles as the closing party for the Montreal International Games Summit).

You can read full interview over at Arthouse Games.

Slidon is a new puzzler from the prolific Yoshio Ishii, in which players are given a number of tiles for each level to match and remove entirely, but only by sliding a tile horizontally or vertically per move.

Hold the left mouse button when the cursor is over any tile to select it, then choose a direction to slide a tile to it's new position. Players are given a limited number of moves in each level.

The delete option can be used to remove any tile on the board.

Name: Slidon
Developer: Yoshio Ishii
Category: Puzzle
Type: Browser

Warning: Contain scenes of violence, blood and gore.

South is an action game partly inspired by Castlevania, in which only three action keys are required for all moves and attacks. Tap the S key rapidly to slash, and use the A key to jump. Press the D key to use any additional weapons acquired during your adventure.

The game features two complete levels and a preview of the third.

Name: South
Developer: Wingboy
Category: Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 10MB

SchattenJagd is a short noir style adventure game with a point and click interface, made by Johann Scholz using the Visionaire engine. The author has included two separate endings for players to discover.

Name: SchattenJagd
Developer: Johann Scholz
Category: Adventure
Type: Freeware
Size: 30MB

Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles is puzzle game with anime-style cutscenes, several playable mini games, and two-player versus battles. Originally developed for the GP2X handheld platform, a demo for this Christmas release is available for download and features roughly twenty-five percent of the story mode itself.