Bonesaw is now out, and it seriously rocks some serious awesome. Like, seriously.

You play as the last remaining member of the Golden Knights hockey team, after the mysterious Ref M- removed the rest of the team to an inter-dimensional penalty box. Find your teammates and pummel the "sluzers" who try to take you down along the way. Defeat enough of them and release the power of the almighty mighty bonesaw.

Part Kirby, part Super Mario World, a lot of Mega Man sound effects and an original soundtrack combine to make one of the better freeware games I've played lately. Highly recommended.

Name: Bonesaw
Developer: Kyle Pulver
Category: Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 59MB
Direct download link: Click here

An informal chat with Petri Purho, the developer of Crayon Physics Deluxe.

Hi Petri, how about a little introduction for the readers before we begin with the questions?

Well, I'm Mr. Purho and I'm probably the best known for being the guy behind Crayon Physics. Also I've made couple of other lesser known and more sucky games, which I've published on my blog: Kloonigames.

Do you keep count of how many experimental games you've released so far? Any favorites besides Crayon Physics?

I think there are now 17 games (I'm not sure), and there have been a number of favorites besides Crayon Physics. I seriously like SM Word a lot, but apparently I'm the only one :) Pluto Strikes Back is probably my other favorite and Amazing Flying Brothers is quite fun also. And I really kick myself in the head every once in while for making Daydreaming in the Oval Office.

[Cross-posted from GameSetWatch, originally by simonc: Just how rampant is piracy in PC casual gaming? In a startling instalment of his regular Gamasutra column, Reflexive's director of marketing Russell Carroll (Wik, Ricochet) reveals the 92% piracy rate for one of his company's games, and what worked (and didn't work) when they tried to fix it.]

“It looks like around 92% of the people playing the full version of [the pictured] Ricochet Infinity pirated it.” It’s moments like those that make people in the industry stop dead in their tracks.

92% is a huge number and though we were only measuring people who had gotten the game from Reflexive and gone online with it, it seemed improbable that those who acquired the game elsewhere or didn’t go online were any more likely to have purchased it. As we sat and pondered the financial implications of such piracy, it was hard to get past the magnitude of the number itself: 92%.

In the casual games space, where the majority of the industry is tied to an internet-distributed product, piracy is a common problem. Search for any casual game through Google, add the word ‘crack’, and the search engine will help you find and illegally acquire every casual game you can imagine.

One way to fight the search-engine facilitated piracy is to work to remove the ever-expanding number of links to illegal copies, but in many cases improving the Digital Rights Management (DRM) system to be more secure can be more effective as it renders a large number of those links obsolete. This is tricky to be sure, because improving the security must be done without making the DRM so onerous that it keeps honest customers from purchasing games.

The seventh 2007 Best Of Features here on the IndieGames.com.blog, we're proud to present twenty of the best freeware remakes released in 2007.

Gems of the yesteryear rebooted, reimagined or simply touched up for a new generation of gamers to enjoy. Indiegames.com steps into the time machine to bring these classics back to live, as we recap some of the best freeware remakes for your reading pleasure.

Best Freeware Remakes 2007

  1. Wizball
  2. Zub
  3. Space Cabbage
  4. Phoenix
  5. Millenipede
  6. Patrol Falcon
  7. Super Obliteration
  8. The Nameless
  9. Driller
10. IO
11. Doppelganger
12. Aetherzap
13. Return to Wor
14. Battle City X
15. Galaxian 2007
16. Dragonfire
17. Metro4K
18. Marippy
19. Excit
20. Pipeful Sunday

[Cross-posted from GameSetWatch, originally by simonc: 'In order for us to run the Independent Games Festival every year, sponsors have to step forward to help us out, and this year's Platinum Sponsor is Wizards Of The Coast - who you might know from Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons, but are getting into digital games in a major way.

Here's their announcement of their own sponsor-backed awards to be given out next week at the ceremony during GDC. Quite apart from the extra money/prizes for worthy indies, it's particularly neat to see they've picked both IGF entrants and finalists to contend for their own Gleemie Award. Here's the press release.']

"In a world of stagnating digital strategy gameplay, Gleemax™, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.’s (NYSE: HAS) community for gamers, consisting of social networking, online gaming and game related content, today announced the finalists for The Gleemax Award for Strategic Gameplay (“The Gleemie”).

Prizes will be awarded to those representing creativity in innovative strategic game design at the 10th Annual IGF Awards Ceremony on February 20, at CMP’s Game Developers Conference (GDC). GDC, the world’s largest industry-only event dedicated to the advancement of interactive entertainment, takes place February 18-22 at San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center.

You can now pre-order Invisible Handlebar's Audiosurf on Steam for $9.95 (there is a 10% discount for pre-orders). The game will be released on the 15th of February 2008, while a demo will be posted up on the same day. The official web site was also relaunched with a new look to celebrate the announcement.

This download contains the extra bonus of Valve's The Orange Box soundtrack to play with, which includes Portal's "Still Alive" song. (Gamasutra article)

A release date (before March 31st, 2008) has been attached to the sequel of the popular ragdoll physics game. The developers (Secret Exit) are keeping their cards close to their chests but promises to reveal screenshots from their upcoming shareware game soon.

Some of the details posted about Stair Dismount 2:

- The game will have improved graphics
- Face support(!)
- Multiple Dismount scenarios
- Online leaderboards

More details in this post.

The sequel to last year's Sydney Finds Employment, Sydney Treads the Catwalk is a new AGS adventure game by pixel artist extraordinaire Ivan Dixon. Eccentric humor is once again the main focus of this title, though the author has taken heed much of the feedback received by it's predecessor and implemented them into this release to please fans of the genre.

The point and click interface from early Sierra releases is used here, so players who are familiar with those classics should feel right at home. Left click to interact with an object, or right click to cycle through all available actions. Move the cursor towards the top of the screen to access the inventory. (this game is not suitable for children)

Name: Sydney Treads the Catwalk
Developer: Ivan Dixon
Category: Adventure
Type: Freeware
Size: 20MB
Direct download link: Click here
Walkthrough: Available

shooot 2: revenge of square is a new arena shooter from the prolific tonypa, in which scarce instructions are provided to players though the game itself isn't too hard to figure out with a little thought or assistance.

Your square can only shoot periodically from certain edges, and the shape itself rotates in one direction at all times. The only action controllable by the player is the rotation speed and movement. Press the left mouse button to pause. Collect small dots for powerups, and destroy coloured circles to advance in level.

There are some surprises and even boss battles to reward perseverance. An online high score table is included.

Name: Shooot 2
Developer: tonypa
Category: Shooter
Type: Browser

Continuing our pursuit for some of the worst games on the net, we present to you: Sh*t Game, a short platformer created by the developer of Space Barnacle and Standard Bits. Use the arrow keys to move, or press the left shift key to jump.

An ending is included, though gameplay mechanics are indescribable as they are not governed by standard platforming design rules.

Name: shit game
Developer: Mark Johns
Category: Platform
Type: Freeware
Size: 5MB

Interviews

IGF 2008: GameDev.net interviews half of the finalists in the first of their two special articles.

Lila Dreams: Wired chats with the developer of Kongregate's upcoming MMO game.

Oddbob: Robert D. Fearon questioned about his involvement with Retro Remakes, and also games development in general.

Updates

Irritation Stickman: DAN-BALL's physics-based platformer updated with one new world.

Blood Car 2000 Deluxe: An offline version of Cryptic Sea's driving simulator is now available for download.

Macintosh

Neon Tango: A new glowy vector arena shooter from Freeverse; trailer available from information page. (4Gamer.net review)

Previews

Card Sagas Wars: Third trailer for this MUGEN fan game posted. (web site)

Saturated Dreamers: New screenshot from RPGCreations' upcoming exploration game posted. (Wiki entry)

Press

Indie Nation: Destructoid is running a semi-regular column on indie games, currently up to it's fifth edition.

Free Gaming Review: Six more freeware game recommendations offered in TechConnect Magazine's special feature.

Miscellaneous

Shift 2: A sequel to the popular Flash platformer is in the works.

DrilNES: Joshua Jersild's NES emulator updated. (development journal)

Mother 3 Fan Translation: Follow the progress of this fan project here.

Barkley Jam Gaiden: FAQ for the parody b-ball RPG now available.

qrp is a small GM project from the creator of Battleships Forever, an IGF finalist competing in the Design Innovation Award category. Possibly inspired by Rod Humble's The Marriage or Jason Rohrer's Passage.

The game has more keys to use than what is originally stated in the included text file.

Name: Qrp
Developer: Sean Chan
Type: Freeware
Size: 2MB
Direct download link: Click here