[A final IGF reminder is here alongside a neat Easter Egg for those who want to see prominent indies looking sheepish and/or triumphant in front of a few thousand people - the 2008 IGF Awards video is now online.]

The Independent Games Festival has debuted the full streaming video of its 2008 IGF Awards ceremony, also reminding interested possible entrants that the final deadline to enter the 2009 IGF Main Competition is Saturday, November 1st at 11.59pm PST.

The 2008 IGF Awards Ceremony was held in February 2008 during Game Developers Conference. It was presented by Venture Africa/Arctic designer Andy Schatz, alongside IGF content directors and Offroad Velociraptor Safari creators Matthew Wegner and Steve Swink.

With the ceremony accompanied by interstitials from comedic video troupe Mega64, the 2008 IGF victors included $20,000 Seamus McNally Grand Prize winner Crayon Physics Deluxe, Kloonigames' 2D physics puzzle game that allows players to experience what it would be like to transform drawings into physical objects.

Other major winners at the IGF ceremony included physics-based puzzle action game, 2D Boy's World of Goo, which won the awards for both Design Innovation and Technical Excellence, and Audiosurf. As well as the streaming video, there are also now pictures of the IGF Pavilion and Awards available on IGF.com.

The organizers are also giving a final reminder about deadlines for the 2009 Independent Games Festival, which is already seeing a very strong set of entries ahead of this weekend's initial deadline.

Games selected as finalists in the Main Competition (due November 1st) or Student Showcase competition (due November 15th) will be available in playable form on the 2009 Game Developers Conference show floor, with their creators given complementary passes to attend the event, which includes the third annual Independent Games Summit.

Entrants will compete for nearly $50,000 in prizes, including awards for Innovation, Excellence in Design, and the coveted $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the IGF Awards, held in March 2009 during GDC.

In addition, the IGF Mobile entry deadline is on November 17th, with $30,000 in total for those indie creators making games for iPhone, cellphone, and other handheld devices.

More information on the competitions are available at the official IGF webpage and the official IGF Mobile webpage.

messhof's punishing action game Flywrench was recently updated with a new level editor and some minor graphical changes. Players can now submit their level creations as text files to the developer for inclusion in the next release of Flywrench.

Treasure Hunter Man is a freeware 2D platformer created by Bernie, featuring four dungeons with different themes to explore, a variety of inventory items to find for puzzle-solving purposes, unlockable skills, a couple of secrets, and two endings to discover.

Use the cursor keys to move, press the X key to jump, and hold the Z key to sprint once you've acquired the ability to run. Weapons are not available to you at the beginning, but can be found during the course of your adventure. The boomerang is thrown upwards or downwards by using the up or down arrow key together with Z.

Hold the up arrow key to go through a doorway or converse with NPCs. Note that you can only talk to other characters when standing next to them, and not directly behind them. You will need to acquire a sword from the dark cellar back in town before searching for a weak wall in the forest to destroy and reveal a passage to the first dungeon.

An easy difficulty setting can be accessed by pressing the left or right arrow key when the intro screen is shown, where players can choose to start the game with four hearts instead of the usual two for normal mode. (TDC link)

Name: Treasure Hunter Man
Developer: Bernie
Category: Platformer
Type: Freeware
Size: 5MB
Direct download link: Click here

Grey Matter is a collaborative project developed by the creators of Goo! and Gish, where players take control of a black dot which can only destroy enemies by running into them. Use the cursor keys to move, hold the shift key to reduce your movement speed, and press the space key to activate your boosts temporarily.

Points can be traded for upgrades in the pause menu, accessible at any time by pressing the P or escape key. A stand alone version is available for download as well, which should run quicker on older machines. (source: Paul Eres)

Name: Grey Matter
Developers: Edmund McMillen, Tommy Refenes, Danny Baranowsky
Category: Arcade
Type: Browser
Size: 5MB
Direct download link: Click here

[Here's a brief announcement about GDC 2009 registration starting up - look for much more information on Independent Games Summit speakers in the next couple of weeks or so.]

Game Developers Conference organizer Think Services has opened registration for next year's GDC event, to be held in San Francisco's Moscone Center from March 23 to 27, 2009.

Also announced was the addition of new summits and the continuation of existing ones -- including the Independent Games Summit, relevant to this site -- falling under the GDC umbrella. These summits, which take place on the Monday and Tuesday of GDC week, are aimed at providing specialized coverage for various crucial development categories and practices.

In addition, the traditional Wednesday to Friday main conference, including major keynotes and existing Audio, Business, Game Design, Production, Programming, and Visual Arts tracks will continue for 2009.

Newly established Monday-Tuesday summits include the AI Summit and Localization Summit, bringing the total summit count to nine, as follows:

- AI Summit
- Casual Games Summit
- Game Outsourcing Summit
- GDC Mobile
- Independent Games Summit
- IGDA Education Summit
- Localization Summit
- Serious Games Summit
- Worlds in Motion Summit

Longstanding GDC initiatives such as the GDC Career Pavilion, the Independent Games Festival, the Game Developers Choice Awards, and the Game Career Seminar will also continue.

"You can expect more specialized content through our new and existing summits in conjunction with compelling talks in our main conference," said event director Meggan Scavio, a 10-year veteran of the conference.

"The Game Developers Conference prides itself on continually improving the conference experience based on the needs of our attendees and the industry. With the help of feedback from the community, our advisory board, and editorial staff, we've crafted a conference this year that speaks to the changing landscape of the games industry."

More information on next year's GDC line-up, hotel details and registration specifics are available on the official Game Developers Conference 2009 website.

Daruma Game is a Flash implementation of an ancient Japanese game called Daruma Otoshi, with a couple of small changes made by the developer Naokazu Terada. The traditional hammer has been replaced with a ball on string, and pieces can be knocked away from the structure in any order, as long as the head touches the ground without being turned sideways or upside down. (source: nekogames)

Name: Daruma Game
Developer: Naokazu Terada
Category: Arcade
Type: Browser

Perhaps as an indication of how big Shockwave Japan is in the East, they've posted a couple of videos showing popular actress and internet celebrity Natsuki Kato's first exposure to Nigoro's recent releases. Someone told me she's known for a particular Nivea ad, whatever that means. (source: Nigoro)

[This v. indie-relevant story, written by Ryan Langley, is crossposted from IndieGames' sister site GamerBytes, which deals exclusively in downloadable console games, spanning Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, WiiWare, and now XNA/Xbox Live Community Games.]

If you've been following us for the past few days, the XNA games have been a fairly big topic. Today, Microsoft have announced the winners of their Dream-Build-Play competition.

The four winners will divvy up $70,000 in prizes, and each receives an invitation to release their title on Xbox Live Arcade -- though many may now choose to stay on Xbox Live Community Games, since it's so close to release.

Below is each title that won a piece of the prize, along with a video showing them off. They all look very interesting and very different to anything else on Xbox Live Arcade. Continue reading for the full list.

1st Place: CarneyVale - Team Gambit
Prize: $40,000

"CarneyVale: Showtime is a vertical ragdoll platform game. In the game, you play as Slinky, a circus acrobat trying to rise up the ranks by performing acrobatic tricks and death-defying stunts through increasingly complex arenas. Chia even built-in a circus map editor for players to create their own obstacles to overcome, bringing user-generated content to a new a level."

Preview video for the upcoming Mondo sequel by cactus. (may contain spoilers, source)

In Zombie Baseball, you assume control of John the baseball player who must fend off twenty waves of zombie attacks using only his trusty bat and balls pitched by a fellow survivor named Sam. Press the A or S key to swing either your primary or secondary bat. You score twice as many points for decapacitating the undead.

An upgrade point is awarded for every increase in level, which can then be distributed among any of the three possible player upgrades. Start off early with the ball frequency upgrade to last longer in the game. (gameplay video)

Name: Zombie Baseball
Developer: Free Creation Games
Category: Action
Type: Browser

Physics Invader is a physics-based remake of Taito's arcade classic. Though the use of physics is a novel idea the game itself hardly strays too far from the gameplay found in the original.

Use the cursor keys to move, and press the space key to shoot. Points can also be earned by pushing debris off the platform, although that's as far as the differences go since all levels are just copies of the first area ad infinitum.

Name: Physics Invader
Developer: Yoshio Ishii
Category: Shooter
Type: Browser

HDOS Databank request 01 is basically a remake of Tetris Attack's Puzzle Mode (Panel de Pon in Japan), where blocks are removed by arranging three or more matching blocks in horizontal or vertical lines. This is achieved by swapping two blocks at a time, but be mindful that the number of moves allowed per stage is always limited.

Careful planning will be required to solve some of the latter stages, especially when the only way to clear the entire screen is by chaining multiple combos from just a handful of swaps.

There is a video walkthrough here for the first twenty levels, but referring to it basically spoils all the fun (or frustration) to be had from figuring out the puzzles yourself. (Kongregate mirror)

Name: HDOS Databank request 01
Developer: GameReclaim
Category: Puzzle
Type: Browser

Winners of the 2008 Unity Awards development contest were revealed at Unite 2008 yesterday:

Best Visual Design (€200):
Feist - Florian Faller and Adrian Stutz

Best Gameplay (€200):
Tumbledrop - Hayden-Scott Baron (Dock)

Forum Favorite (€1000):
Off-Road Velociraptor Safari - Flashbang Studios

Best Overall Game (€2000):
Feist - Florian Faller and Adrian Stutz

Unite 2008: Highlights and Award Winners (Gamasutra)
Links to all playable 2008 Unity Awards entries

rlax is a simple action game based on the concept of removing flat 2D tiles stacked on top of each other in the right order before time runs out. A tile can only be selected when it is not covered by another, and white borders will appear around a tile to indicate that it can be removed.

You can press the m key to mute music. The game consists of twenty levels only. (Kongregate mirror)

Name: rlax
Developer: Platina Games
Category: Puzzle
Type: Browser

Crow in Hell is an action game which involves guiding a black bird from one room to another while avoiding contact with walls, ceilings, floors, and a variety of traps strategically placed to impede your progress.

Use the cursor keys to move, and press the Q key to access the retry menu. There are roughly fifty screens to explore in total. (Kongregate mirror)

Name: A Crow in Hell
Developer: Web Cypher
Category: Action
Type: Browser

Bytejacker returns this week with more reviews of indie and freeware games.

Featured in this episode: Introversion Software's Multiwinia, Rock Solid Arcade's Robokill, James Dewar's This Game is Wizard, David Miles Carter's Golden Pearl and Anna Anthropy's Mighty Jill Off: Jill Off Harder Edition.

Never a slow news week for these guys. (YouTube video)

Bytejacker episode 13

New site, new blog, and new concept art for an upcoming game called Gun (shown above).

Remote Impact is a game created by Florian Mueller and Stefan Agamanolis which encourages extreme physical exertion and brute force among participants. Stretch sensors are attached to several layers of fabric and foam to detect location and intensity of each hit to the surface (multiple impacts are also registered as valid hits).

The contraption works by projecting the shadow of both players onto the surface via a camera placed behind each participant, and players would have to hit their moving opponent and dodging their attacks at the same time as well.

POPGunner is a vertical shooter created by the developer of Thieving Racoon and Microland, featuring an infinite number of levels, configurable controls and a small screen area which wraps around on all four sides of the window.

Use the cursor keys to move, and hold the space key to launch your Polarity Orb forward. The orb also works as a protective shield when it is held by your ship. A green gauge at the bottom of the screen is knocked down by a small margin whenever an enemy ship gets past you, and the game ends immediately when this indicator hits zero. The F4 function key can be used to switch between full screen and windowed mode.

Nice as it is, there are a couple of setbacks to be found in this game. Your ship can never move diagonally, the high score table is an offline affair, and levels might be a bit too easy to hold the interest of most shmup veterans. (forum thread)

Name: POPGunner
Developer: Shoo
Category: Shooter
Type: Freeware
Size: 10MB

Collapse is a third person shooter created by Creoteam, featuring a protagonist named Rodan who has to fight back against the invasion of an alien race with an assortment of ranged and melee weapons at his disposal.

Use the W, A, S and D keys to move, press the space key to jump, and hold the left mouse button to shoot. The right mouse button can be used to steady your aim. Press the Q, 1, 2 or 3 key to swap weapons, and tap the E key when standing close to an item on the ground to collect it. This is only applicable if you do not carry the same item in your possession.

The Ctrl key is used to duck behind cover, and holding down the R key reloads your current weapon. This demo does take a while to complete, and ends with a boss battle which will require the player to engage in close combat for any damage to be registered on their adversary.

There is currently no English translation for the demo, but the menu options shouldn't take too much effort to figure out. (source, screenshots)

Name: Collapse
Developer: Creoteam
Category: Action
Type: Demo
Size: 350MB
Direct download link: Click here

Immortal Defense gets its first significant update, with plenty of changes made to the game since the release of version 1.0:

- new background images
- fifty new levels (at least eight of these included in the demo)
- Points updated, balanced and tweaked
- graphical changes and visibility improvements added
- visibility lines added to indicate the location of the mouse cursor on screen
- Ctrl, Shift and the space keys given hotkey functionalities
- minor bug fixes

The full list of changes can be found over at RPGC forums, and a demo is available from the same page as well. (screenshot from version 1.1 shown above)

Reflexive Entertainment Inc. has been acquired by Amazon.com, according to an announcement made by the CEO of Reflexive Lars Brubaker in a recent press release. It was also stated that Reflexive's own distribution system is set to be expanded under the deal, and an entirely new market segment of potential customers will be reached using Amazon's distribution channel.

As noted by Andy, Reflexive is one of the more indie-friendly casual game portals out there, so the acquisition could mean a lot of possibilities opening up for indie game developers if handled right. (source)

Reflexive is acquired by Amazon.com (Reflexive)

Concept art/screenshot from the new game by the developer of Chalk and the Noitu Love series. Due out sometime next year.

Nekogames Kuzushi is a Flash banner game created by the developer of Cursor*10 and the Hoshi Saga series, consisting of a single room filled with blocks for the player to destroy. Use the mouse to move the paddle up and down. Ten points are added to your multiplier whenever the ball hits another block before touching the paddle.

The game ends once all blocks have been destroyed, although this might prove a little difficult as there is only one ball to expend.

Name: Nekogames Kuzushi
Developer: Yoshio Ishii
Category: Action
Type: Browser

A new game from the Infinite Ammo team, created exclusively for the upcoming gamma3D event (to be held in Montreal).

The iPhone and iPod touch port of Kenta Cho's rRootage is now available from the App Store, courtesy of Lazrhog. All modes from the original are included, although one major drawback is that the game has no sound effects.

rRootage Shooter Now Available for Free (Touch Arcade)
Kenta Cho's rRootage Hits iPhone (Wired)
Noiz2sa iPhone Port (IndieGames)

Run For It 2 is a simple action game created by JaJ in roughly three hours for a friendly Poppenkast competition. The objective is to avoid spikes and certain floating objects while running up and down an infinite path, all the while collecting as many diamonds as you can for points.

Use the left and right cursor key to move, and press the up arrow key to jump. (download instructions, prequel, competition thread)

Name: Run For It 2
Developer: Joep Aben
Category: Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 2MB

TinyCham is another Java-based creation from Markus Persson, featuring a window display size of forty by thirty pixel in glorious EGA colour. This early build does not contain enemy encounters yet, but it shouldn't take more than a couple of days for the author of Blast Passage, Breaking the Tower and Infinite Mario Bros to get this feature coded in.

screenshot from Boryokudan Rue

Theseus - Return of the Hero: One of Sigma Team's earlier commercial releases is now available as a free download. Remember to uncheck both boxes during setup to avoid having the toolbars installed. (source: AuthenticKaizen)

N+: The third level pack for Metanet's award-winning platformer is now available as a free download on XBLA.

Love: Video preview for Eskil Steenberg's upcoming MMO game posted on Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Mighty Jill Off: The Jill Off Harder edition of dessgeega's punishing platformer is now available for download.

Iji: Daniel Remar's epic action game updated to version 1.2.

Bytejacker: World of Goo, Diver, Skullpogo and Meat Boy featured on this week's episode. (YouTube video)

Kudos 2: Cliff Harris' life-simulation strategy game is now on sale. (blog post)

[Am delighted to reveal the full judge line-up for the IGF this year - as you can see, lots of smart indie and indie-friendly folks who will be helping to judge the competition - and there's not long left to enter, developers.]

The organizers of the Independent Games Festival have revealed its full list of judges for the 11th annual version of the competition, with a host of top indie/mainstream creators and media helping to decide this year's winners -- also reminding of the imminent November 1st deadline to enter the IGF Main Competition.

Games selected as finalists in the Main Competition (due November 1st) or Student Showcase competition (due November 15th) will available in playable form on the 2009 Game Developers Conference show floor. Entrants will compete for nearly $50,000 in prizes, including awards for Innovation, Excellence in Design, and the coveted $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the IGF Awards, held in March 2009 during GDC.

Over the past few years, the Independent Games Festival has helped guide the rise of the indie game scene by honoring and popularizing the best and brightest independent developers and their games. Former IGF honorees include Braid, Everyday Shooter, Audiosurf, Castle Crashers, Darwinia, and World of Goo, to name but a few.

The full judge list for this year's IGF competition is as follows:

Download mirrors for the World of Goo demo are currently being posted in 2D Boy's forums. The trial version contains all of Chapter 1 (out of four, excluding the final epilogue) which is roughly twenty percent of the entire game.

Demo of World of Goo Available (2D Boy)
2D Boy Interview (Rock Paper Shotgun)
Interview: World of Goo Creators Talk Development (GameSetWatch)

Two more gameplay clips from the upcoming WiiWare version of Cave Story were posted on GameTrailers today. An interview with the producer of the project, Tyrone Rodriguez, can be found in the extended.

The game is scheduled for a release this coming holiday 2008, and will retail at around 500 to 1000 Nintendo Points.

[NOTE FROM SIMONC: I very much appreciated the opportunity to participate in Sense Of Wonder Night at Tokyo Game Show this year, both as onlooker and judge - and here's a pretty complete write-up of the evening's proceedings, with lots of indie game favorites participating.]

At Tokyo Game Show on Friday evening, multiple entities, including industry association CEDEC, TGS organizers Nikkei BP and IGDA Japan combined to present the unique 'Sense Of Wonder Night', an evening showcasing 11 independent games from all over the world -- with the creators on hand to give presentations, and translation between Japanese and English making for a truly international flavor.

The showcased games were picked from a set of game submissions made earlier this year for the contest, which was co-ordinated by Nikkei BP in association with IGDA Japan head Kiyoshi Shin.

He also acted as effusive MC for the evening, which was inspired by the GDC's Experimental Gameplay Workshop in format, with just 10 minutes (including questions) for each set of creators to show and explain their games.

The loose, informal format was very much appreciated by the packed crowd of around two to three hundred, a significant majority Japanese, who packed one section of the Restaurant NOA at Makuhari Messe, adjacent to the Tokyo Game Show.

The event was co-located with the International Party on Friday evening, and the audience were given 'laughing' smiley-face toys to shake and make noise when they felt a 'sense of wonder' over the demonstrated titles.

Coming soon to a dojo near you. (Alien Assault)

First World of Goo review in video format, consisting entirely of gameplay footage and cutscenes (although the sound is barely audible).

Damsel is a short 2D adventure game created by Strange Visitor in just under four weeks, and comes in two versions, with voice acting and without. A princess has been abducted and imprisoned inside the highest room of a tower, and it is up to the player to hatch an escape plan before night falls and the evil wizard Dorkus returns to marry poor Damsel. (walkthrough)

Name: Damsel
Developer: Strange Visitor
Category: Adventure
Type: Freeware
Size: 60MB
Download page: Click here (mirror 1, mirror 2)