lockOn 2 is a score-based arena shooter with simple abstract graphics, where players gain shields for their ships by gathering items called PowUps. These PowUps will only appear once you've filled up the blue bar at the bottom left of the screen with the green and blue pods collected from defeated enemies. Any pods left out in the open space for too long will turn into an enemy craft after a while, so grab these pods as soon as you can if any of them are in your ship's proximity.

The primary and secondary shots are fired using the J and K key. Pressing the L key uses up one of your shields, indicated by a counter next to the same blue gauge at the bottom left corner. You can have a maximum of three shields at any time. (source: the2bears)

Name: lockOn 2
Developer: Jph Wacheski
Category: Shooter
Type: Demo
Size: 100KB

Annie Android is a short 2D adventure game created by Ben Chandler (developer of Man Boy vs Doctor Sock), featuring art drawn entirely with a six-colour palette as a self-imposed artistic limitation. The story centers around a female Robot named Annie Android, who is thinking of asking her good-looking Mailbot friend out on a date. (hints)

Name: Annie Android
Developer: Ben Chandler
Category: Adventure
Type: Freeware
Size: 10MB
Direct download link: Click here

wonderfl is an excellent service which allows users to input ActionScript 3 code in the textarea to the left, then compiling the code on the server side and running it for immediate results inside the window on the right. The term 'fork' refers to modifying the original code (either by the author or other users), then saving it under your profile name so that anyone can view it or change it even further.

A Google account of Yahoo! ID can be used to register for the free service.

Kei Mesuda had recreated his excellent Nomltest FS shooter using wonderfl (under the new name Tiny Cannon ML), while the legendary Kenta Cho designed a couple of originals such as CircleCycle, Ascii Art Ship and BallBlast with the versatile application as well. There is even a simple shooter with red pixels which propagate around the screen based on Conway's Game of Life theory. If those don't interest you, then there are always classics such as Tetris and the cave flier game. (source: the2bears)

wonderfl: build flash online

Here is a list of recommended Flash games compiled by the clysm himself, developer of the fan-favorite 2D platformer Seiklus. The selection is alphabetically ordered, as all good lists should be.

(clysm is currently working on the exploration game Avaus and putting the finishing touches on Velella, his collaborative project with darthlupi.)

Another list of recommended indie games can be found in this forum thread on CAG, where the current discussion is centered around a couple of free and commercial releases that anyone can download to get a feel of how much indie games have improved over the years.

Flash Games (autofish.net)
General Indie Gaming Thread (CAG)

[We're talking to this year's Independent Games Festival finalists, and this time, Eric Caoili interviews Tale of Tales' Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn about The Graveyard, a very short but thought-provoking interactive experience about old age and death, nominated for the Innovation Award.]

Though some would argue that it's far from an actual "game," The Graveyard is certainly a noteworthy, introspective title, presenting the idea of death not as something trivial like in most games, nor as depressing or dramatic as many would expect, but as a part of our existence -- death of old age.

In the trial version of the short PC/OSX game, players slowly guide a hobbling elderly lady through a cemetery, towards a bench. Alone and without ever saying a word, the woman sits on the bench while a poignant song, sung in Flemish but presented with English subtitles, plays.

The full, paid release is nearly identical except for one feature -- the possibility of death for the aged woman.

We spoke with Tales of Tales' designers Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn about The Graveyard, nominated for the Innovation award at this year's Independent Games Festival (part of Think Services, as is this website).

The two discuss how death is currently represented in video games, their response to critics who refuse to classify The Graveyard as a video game, and why they feel the independent games community is in a state of transition:

In this round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from Warner Bros Games, Other Ocean Interactive, Midway Games, and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted in each market area this week include:

Daffodils Wander Lonely as a Cloud in Flower (video)
Jenova Chen attempting to explain what the upcoming PSN release is all about. The game is expected to be available from the Playstation Network starting this 12th of February 2009, and will retail for $9.99. (source: Wired)

UGO's IGF Innovation Award Finalists 2009: Our Take (text)
Chris Plante picks apart this year's IGF nominees in the Innovation Award category.

New York Magazine's The New Art Form: If Jackson Pollock Were a Gamer (text)
Flower, World of Goo and De Blob lauded by New York Magazine in this recent article.

The Reticule: Analyzing the IGF (text)
The Reticule is currently running a weekly feature in which each IGF nominated game is scrutinized in detail. So far, they've written about Mightier, Musaic Box, Between and Dyson.

Big Download: IGF Finalist Showcase (text)
Joystiq's sister site is also taking a look at finalists in each IGF category, with articles about games from the Technical Excellence and Innovation Award already posted up.

5 Unorthodox PC Games to Watch in 2009 (text)
Machinarium briefly mentioned in this article about five upcoming games to keep an eye on.

GameTunnel: January 2009 Indie Game Round-Up (text)
Ten new games reviewed by by the panelists for this month's edition.

The Escapist: Mod & Blade (text)
A three-page article on some of the better mods that you can find for TaleWorlds' sandbox RPG, Mount & Blade. (Indie Developer Showcase)

Four Freaky Half-Life 2 Mods (text)
Darren Gladstone takes the IGF Student Showcase winners as a jumping-off point and picks out and expands upon the slightly inspired DADIU titles. (source: GameSetWatch)

Games featured on this week's Free Indie Rapid Fire: Nitrome's Flash Cat, Pieces Interactive's Walkie Tonky and Spiritonin Media's Death Vegas. Results will be announced tomorrow, so get those votes in quick. (YouTube video)

Free Indie Rapid Fire 01/26/2009

[We're talking to this year's Independent Games Festival finalists, and this time Eric Caoili interviews KranX Productions' Alexander Porechnov about Musaic Box, a hidden object game featuring puzzles that have players arranging blocks to complete music arrangements -- nominated for the Excellence in Design and Audio awards.]

At a glance, Musaic Box's casual "hidden object" gameplay might not seem noteworthy, but closer inspection reveals a fascinating music-based puzzle component unlike anything else in the genre.

In the game, players comb their dead grandfather's home for compositions to play with his "musaic box" left behind. To render the song, however, they have to listen to and assemble its pieces on a puzzle screen.

Presented as tetrimino-esque block groups, each piece contains a snippet of a song with up to four instruments. Players have to properly arrange the pieces on the board to form the whole tune. A basic version of each song is available to guide players, as are symbols on each block corresponding to the melody's instruments and bars.

We spoke with KranX's Alexander Porechnov about Musaic Box, nominated for both Excellence in Design and Excellence in Audio awards at this year's Independent Games Festival (part of Think Services, as is this website).

Porechnov discusses how he devised the music puzzle game's mechanics, why he chose to pair that component with hidden object gameplay, and KranX's plans to produce handheld ports for Musaic Box:

screenshots

4bidden Fruit is a stripped-down remake of Q Games' Pixeljunk Eden, coded with Java and measuring only a measly 4K in size. In it, you control a white Grimp which has the ability to jump and tether itself to plants of all shapes and sizes. The objective of the game is to collect all twenty golden crescents floating around the garden, using only the left mouse button and the cursor to direct your jumps and direction of travel. You may need to burst a couple of pollenballs as well, just to fertilize seeds and grow new plants that will help you reach crescents floating high above the ground and out of your reach.

No music or sound effects are included, but you can play any track from your mp3 collection in the background as a substitute. The game contains only one single garden to beat.

Name: 4bidden Fruit (alternate mirror)
Developer: Simon Hayles
Category: Action
Type: Browser

Related:
Left 4k Dead (Markus Persson)

Pixeljam had just launched their new forums to go with the updated look for the site. There's a lot of stuff to see and listen to, but no new games yet as Gamma Bros 2 is still in production (currently scheduled for a release sometime in 2010).

Pixeljam Games
Pixeljam Forum

The WiiWare port of Hampa's popular turn-based fighting game is scheduled for a release soon, and as shown by the preview video features such as dismemberment, decapitation and blood have all been retained for the console version.

The original PC and Mac versions are still available from the official web site as a free download, with updates to match the WiiWare port coming some time after the console release.

Toribash for the WiiWare
Toribash official site

[This is the final set of Independent Games Festival finalists announced this year, following the IGF Main Competition and IGF Student Showcase - congratulations to all finalists, and we'll see you at GDC.]

The Independent Games Festival Mobile (IGF Mobile), an event that celebrates innovation in games for handheld devices, including mobile phones, DS, PSP, iPhone and iPod touch, has named the finalists for the second annual competition.

The number of entries more than doubled – to over 100 – compared to last year’s inaugural competition, bolstered by a strong showing from the emergent iPhone and iPod touch platform – so much so that a special ‘Best iPhone Game’ category has been designated for the titles which best use the unique possibilities of the device.

Winners of the 2009 IGF Mobile competition, who will get a share of $30,000 in prize money, will be announced at a special ceremony during the Game Developers Conference (GDC) Mobile conference on March 24, and additionally honored during the main Independent Games Festival Awards on March 25, 2009.

Some of the leading finalists for this year’s competition include stylish iPhone cube movement puzzler Edge (3 nominations), the technologically cunning Wardive on Nintendo DS, which uses local WiFi hotspots to generate enemies (3 nominations), and elegant iPhone ‘tower defense’-style title Fieldrunners (3 nominations).

Games also nominated multiple times include Secret Exit's touch-controlled iPhone rope wrapping game Zen Bound and iconic tilt-controlled iPhone puzzler Dizzy Bee, with a number of Flash Lite and Java cellphone games, including the innovative Cubic Republic, also finalists. Read on for the full list:

From FingerGaming: Ruben & Lullaby is a story you play like a musical instrument. Two lovers are fighting. You can control what they're feeling, where they're looking, when they speak, and when they listen. Tilting back and forth triggers the cuts from shot to shot, advancing the story. Your actions conduct a moody jazz soundtrack that reflects the feelings of the characters as they change in real time.

The game is available from the iTunes App Store for only $2.99.

Ruben & Lullaby (Opertoon)

A nice little article about ten games you should own for your iPhone was posted on Wired yesterday. The list includes two IGF Mobile competition finalists and a port of Crayon Physics Deluxe, last year's IGF Seumas McNally Grand Prize winner.

In another unrelated piece, there's a list of twenty games up on Online University Reviews with releases which are under the radar of most iPhone owners. (Secret Exit's Zen Bound pictured)

10 iPhone Games You Must Own (Wired.com)
Top 20 iPhone Games You've Never Heard Of (Online University Reviews)

high quality video, screenshots

Note: video contains spoilers.

The Legend of Princess is a 2D platformer created by the developer of Chalk and the Noitu Love series, where players get to step into the shoes of a tunic-wearing hero on a quest to rescue a kidnapped princess. As with most of Joakim's releases, there are plenty of memorable boss encounters to be had here.

Note that the game has only one playable level, although arcade veterans could technically replay the entire adventure at a higher difficulty setting by choosing a different set of starting equipment with each new try. Also, the chances of getting a rare blue or red gem increases if you defeat more enemies and avoid getting hurt too frequently.

Name: The Legend of Princess
Developer: Joakim Sandberg
Category: Platform
Type: Freeware
Size: 10MB
Direct download link: Click here

Related:
Legend of Princess Playthrough (skizm)
Let's Play: The Legend of Princess (KirbyPawn)
Guardian of Paradise (Buster)

screenshots

White Butterfly is a vertical shooter created by Linley Henzell, developer of the excellent Dungeon Crawl and Garden of Coloured Lights. Players begin the game by choosing one of the four available ships to pilot, with a fifth one only unlocked after you've completed the final stage.

Use the cursor keys to move, press the Z key to shoot, and hold the X key to fire your secondary weapon. A third attack can be executed by pressing the Z and X key together. Hold the left shift key to move your ship around at a lower speed. Use the escape key to access the pause and quit menu.

You would need to level up all three attacks for automatic weapon upgrades. Using just one type of shot throughout the game does not upgrade the weapon, even though it continues to gain a new level after repeated usage.

There are three long stages to play in total. (source: Shmup-Dev)

Name: White Butterfly
Developer: Linley Henzell
Category: Shooter
Type: Freeware
Size: 5MB

Closure is a unique 2D platformer created by Tyler Glaiel, co-developer of Edmund McMillen's Aether. The game involves using orbs to light up your surroundings, as the entire area is shrouded in complete darkness with each step outside the light most likely a fatal one.

Note that you will need to have Flash Player 10 installed for this game to work properly. There are thirty stages to play in total.

Name: Closure
Developer: Tyler Glaiel, Jon Schubbe
Category: Puzzle
Type: Browser

Assassin Blue is a 2D platformer with combat elements, consisting of twelve levels split evenly between four distinct areas to explore. In the game, players assume control over a sword-wielding hitman who must carry out a series of missions for his superior. This naturally translates to a lot of jumping, climbing and fighting as you make your way past hordes of henchmen leading up to the commander of each resistance group.

The entire adventure takes about an afternoon or two to finish. To use the high quality soundtrack instead of the standard MIDI tunes, simply download the optional 30 MB music add-on from the same page and unzip it into the game folder. An option to switch between the two will then appear just before the title screen is shown.

Name: Assassin Blue
Developer: Banov
Category: Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 10MB
Direct download link: Click here

For this weekend only, the price of TaleWorlds' sandbox RPG on Steam has been reduced to $7.50 (from the original recession-unfriendly $29.99 tag). A demo for Mount & Blade can be downloaded off Steam if you have the client installed, else just grab the 380 MB file from TaleWorlds' official site.

Mount & Blade on Steam

Related:
Mount & Blade official site (TaleWorlds)
Mount & Blade Gameplay Trailer (Gametrailers)

Links to some of the recent interviews with prolific or high-profile indie game developers of today:

Jonathan Blow: The Next Phase (text)
Jon talks about the upcoming PC port of Braid, Steam, and his next possible project.

BestRideEver: A Talk with Dylan Fitterer (text)
Find out what Dylan has been up to these days, nearly a year after the release of his bestselling game Audiosurf.

Zeno Clash Interview - Part 1 (text)
Part one of the two-part interview with Andres Bordeu, designer of the upcoming Source-powered melee action game Zeno Clash.

Unknown Pleasures 2009: Blush (text)
This is the part where Flashbang Studios sign a pact with the devil, the minute they promise the internet that there would be six new Blurst games this year.

Note: This is a beta build.

NUD is a tower defense game created by the developer of Battleships Forever, a 2008 IGF finalist in the Design Innovation Award category. Towers in the game (called NUDs) can be placed so that enemies would have to traverse further than usual to reach the exit point, hence allowing players to change their route and also get a couple of extra shots at them along the way. Each NUD confers a different bonus to adjacent NUDs regardless of the type, and when used in conjuction with upgrades your NUDs can cause some serious damage to enemy units.

Name: NUD
Developer: th15
Category: Strategy (Tower Defense)
Type: Freeware
Size: 2MB

A new site for the IGF award-winning Fez is now live, with a couple of teaser screenshots posted for good measure. No firm release date has been mentioned yet, although the team is confident that fans would be able to get their hands on the game sometime in 2009.

Polytron Corporation

Related:
Fez 'GDC 08' gameplay (GameVideos)
GDC 2008: Cam Gameplay (Gametrailers)
Fez teaser trailer (Vimeo)

In this round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from Nintendo of America, Square Enix, N-Fusion Interactive, Redtribe, and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted in each market area this week include:

Shown above, a test footage from Flashbang Studios' next Blurst game. Titled Blush, this ecological action game is scheduled for a release on March 1st, 2009. (source: Offworld)

Blush Game Announcement (Flashbang Studios)
Blush: First Test Footage (Vimeo)

[We're talking to this year's Independent Games Festival finalists, and this time Eric Caoili interviews 24 Caret Games' Matt Gilgenbach about Retro/Grade, a rhythm game and shoot'em-up -- played in reverse -- which is nominated for the Excellence in Design and Audio awards.]

Far from a traditional shoot'em-up, Retro/Grade has players guiding their spacecraft in reverse through stages where the action has already played out.

To prevent damage to the space-time continuum, players dodge lasers returning to the enemies that fired them, while also positioning themselves to "catch" their own reversed shots. Power-ups enable players to temporarily restore the flow of time and correct their movements.

Retro/Grade features rhythm game elements, in that the timing of all the shots are based off beats in the music. Players also have the option of using either a keyboard/gamepad setup or a guitar controller, the latter control scheme allowing players to quickly maneuver their ship through different lanes by hitting corresponding frets.

We spoke with 24 Caret Games' co-founder, game director, and gameplay programmer Matt Gilgenbach about Retro/Grade, nominated for both Excellence in Design and Excellence in Audio awards at this year's Independent Games Festival (part of Think Services, as is this website).

Gilgenbach discusses how the team stumbled upon the game's novel design, the differences between its two control schemes, and the need for publishers to fund innovative, low-budget projects:

The 2009 Independent Games Festival (IGF) has announced the ten winners in the Student Showcase for its 11th annual awards, with games from three continents spanning ecological, paint-splattering and fantasy exercise games to be shown at GDC this year.

Chosen from a new record of 145 Student Showcase entries (up over 15% on last year's 125 entries), these games will go on to compete for an overall Best Student Game prize, to be awarded at the IGF Awards Ceremony on the evening of March 25th, 2009.

Some of this year's Student Showcase winners include CMU's 'active play' exercise-centered game Winds Of Orbis, quirky Danish first-person dish cleaning game Dish Washington (pictured), and ecological management puzzle game City Rain from Brazilian students.

Also honored are titles including USC's abstract painting game The Unfinished Swan and reality-manipulating German side scrolling shooter Zeit Squared:

Monospace is an iPhone and iPod Touch puzzle game where players would need to collect a certain number of white cubes in each level to advance. To achieve this, you would need to switch between the 2D and 3D view frequently so that a solution can be found.

The game will be available from the iTunes store starting this 21st of January 2009, retails at $1.99, and comes with sixty-four levels in total (sixteen stages assigned to each difficulty setting). Music from the embedded video is not included in the game.

Links to some of the recent interviews with a couple of IGF 2009 finalists and high-profile indie game developers of today:

Eurogamer: 2D Boy's Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler (text)
Beautiful things happen when you lock both Ron and Kyle inside a small room.

RPS: Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble (text)
A brief chat with Keith Nemitz about the recent WGA nomination for his critically-acclaimed social board game.

RPS: McMillen’s Myriad Marvels (text)
The designer of IGF finalist Coil reveals his plans for 2009. No mention about the upcoming Wii Ware version of Meat Boy though.

Gamasutra: An Audience With Q-Games' PixelJunk Team (text)
Kentaro Yoshida (studio director, Q-Games) and Shouichi Tominaga (director, PixelJunk Eden) interviewed for this special Gamasutra feature.

Gnome's Lair: Pacian (text)
The developer of Snowblind Aces and Gun Mute attempts to explain his obsession with interaction fiction.

GamerBytes: From Nintendo DS To XNA Community Games (text)
Cornered by Ryan Langley, Craig Forrester is forced to answer a few questions about his recent XNA Community Games release, Johnny Platform's Biscuit Romp.

The Escapist: Indie Developers Showcase (text)
Ten upcoming developers and their games were selected for a special feature on the award-winning online magazine, with a new interview to be added daily for the next eight days or so.

Developer Banter: Overgrowth (audio)
Lots of tips on getting publishers to notice your game(s) were revealed by the Wolfire team in this special eighty-minute long podcast. (indie-friendly online distributors, game review sites)

[Leading up to the 2009 Independent Games Festival in March, Eric Caoili is talking with the finalists for the preeminent indie game competition, this time interviewing Kyle Pulver and Peter Jones about Snapshot, a 2D PC platformer with a photography twist and a Yoshi's Island-esque visual style.]

In Snapshot, players guide Pic through a colorful, pastel-hued world in which they can capture objects or creatures with a photograph, then place them elsewhere to reach previously inaccessible areas, complete puzzles, or move around creatures.

We spoke with the game's core team, designer/programmer Kyle Pulver and designer/artist Peter Jones, about Snapshot -- which was nominated for an Excellence in Design award at this year's Independent Games Festival (part of Think Services, as is this website).

Subjects discussed include how the team motivated themselves to complete the project, the designers' thoughts on I Wish I Were The Moon's photo element, and planned features for future Snapshot builds, which include a Portal-esque mechanic that allows players to record and redirect the velocity and direction of moving objects:

If you're a big fan of Meat Boy, then you should be elated to hear that Edmund and his crew are working on a remake of the frustratingly difficult 2D platformer for release on the Wii Ware distribution channel later this year. A Windows version can be expected around that time as well. Till then, keep checking back on the official site and Edmund's blog for updates, screenshots and perhaps even a trailer or two in the (very) near future.

Super Meat Boy official site

From GamerBytes: Kellee Santiago, president and co-founder of thatgamecompany has revealed via the PlayStation Blog that wind-simulator Flower will be making its way to the PlayStation Network on February 12th, in America at least.

To celebrate they've released a new trailer which you can check out in the extended. (source: The US PlayStation Blog)

The soundtrack to 2D Boy's award-winning World of Goo is now available for download from Kyle's site. The entire 85MB collection contains twenty-seven tracks in total, and comes up to a full forty-nine minutes in length. (source: Offworld)

Music from World of Goo
World of Goo Soundtrack Now Available (2D Boy)

screenshots

Note: Site contains images which are not safe for work.

The 24-Hour Police is a 2D side-scrolling beat 'em up in the style of the Final Fight series, where players step into the shoes of a vigilante cop on a mission to take down the local mob boss and his henchmen. This translates to three stages' worth of goons who can be punched, kicked, thrown, or shot at, as you make your way towards the final showdown with the leader of the criminal organization.

Use the menu at the top of the window to configure key settings, or to switch between full screen and windowed mode. The game will only work on Windows operating systems with the Japanese language pack already installed.

Name: The 24-Hour Police
Developer: Desire Factory
Category: Beat 'em up
Type: Freeware
Size: 40MB
Direct download link: Click here

screenshots

Walkie Tonky is a physics-based action game where players get to guide a giant robot around a city and engage in the act of smashing buildings, vehicles, and all manners of defensive measures that the Earthlings have set upon you. There is only one level to play, but upon finishing it a separate challenge mode will be unlocked.

Note that no checkpoint system has been implemented in this build, and players are expected to retry the same stage from its starting point whenever they fail to beat the final boss.

Name: Walkie Tonky
Developer: Pieces Interactive
Category: Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 20MB
Direct download link: Click here (MediaFire mirror)

[Leading up to the 2009 Independent Games Festival in March, we're talking with the finalists for this year's IGF competition, starting by interviewing Hemisphere Games' Eddy Boxerman about the triple-nominated Osmos, a serene and elegant "orbital osmosis simulator".]

In Osmos, players navigate through an indigo sea of wandering motes, absorbing smaller bits while avoiding collisions with larger motes.

Its drifting orbs, calm visuals, and minimalist soundtrack provoke comparisons with ThatGameCompany's fl0w or Nintendo and Skip's Orbital/Orbient games, but Osmos offers several significant differences in mechanics.

For example, it includes matter-ejection propulsion that shrinks the player's mote, time-warping for speeding or slowing down time depending on the player's needs, and intelligent motes that can avoid or destroy players.

We spoke with designer and programmer Eddy Boxerman about Osmos -- which was nominated for multiple awards at this year's Independent Games Festival (part of Think Services, as is this website), including Technical Excellence, Excellence in Design, and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

Subjects discussed include exactly what makes the osmosis sim unique, and why players might need to brush up on orbital maneuvers to take on the game's later stages:

In this round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section, including positions from THQ, Rockstar New England, Vicarious Visions, and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted in each market area this week include:

Mirror Stage is an exploration game where every stage is divided into small areas, featuring a variety of objectives that usually requires highlighting all rooms or stepping into a certain spot to clear the level. There are a total of seven chapters included, each containing anywhere between six to ten small episodes to play.

You assume control over a short green line, with only the cursor keys assigned as means of movement. For menu navigation, use the space or enter key to select an option. The game is available for both Mac OS X and Windows platforms. (forum thread)

Name: Mirror Stage
Developer: Stephen Lavelle
Category: Action, Adventure
Type: Freeware
Size: 20MB
Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X

New gameplay trailer for Secret Exit's upcoming rope simulation game, Zen Bound. Out soon for the iPhone and iPod, with PC, Mac and console releases to follow shortly after. (Zen Bondage)

New Zen Bound Screenshots Released (FingerGaming)
Preview: Zen Bound (IndieGames)

Nicalis' official site has been updated with new content, with a couple of projects added to the games page and a newsfeed created for future announcements. No platforms for Night Game (previously titled Skymning) has been mentioned on the information page, although chances are high that the game is currently being developed with the WiiWare in mind. (source)

Nicalis.com

The Writers Guild of America had recently nominated Mousechief's Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble for the Videogame Writing Award, with the winner to be announced on February 7th, 2009. A full list of nominees for the prestigious award can be found over at Gamasutra.

Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble is a social board game written and developed by Keith Nemitz, with additional writing by Adrianne Ambrose. A 17MB demo (for both Windows and Mac) is available for download from the official site.

Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble Nominated By Writers Guild (Gamasutra)
Why Dangerous High School Girls Can't Be Ignored (Gamasutra)

[From now until early January, IndieGames.com: The Weblog will be counting down the best independent and freeware games of 2008, with descriptions, screenshots, and links of the best games in each major category.]

The eighth of the 2008 Best Of Features here on the IndieGames.com blog, we're proud to present twenty of the best freeware platformers released in 2008.

From the critically-acclaimed Braid to the fan-favorite Cave Story, the indie game development scene is never short on quality platformers to play. Knytt Stories took the title for the best platformer last year, and with Nifflas' Night Game to be released only in 2009, it is time to crown a new heir for the throne.

Here's the top freeware platformers of the year:

Best Freeware Platformers 2008

  1. Iji
  2. The Fancy Pants Adventure: World 2
  3. Shift 3
  4. Spelunky
  5. Treasure Hunter Man
  6. Jumper 3
  7. Rockman 7-FC
  8. Teppomanto
  9. Meat Boy
10. Mighty Jill Off
11. Squish
12. Verge
13. Sh*t Game
14. Seven Minutes
15. The Power
16. Love
17. I Wanna Be The Guy
18. inno vation
19. Boondog
20. Mission Extreme

[Got feedback? Reasons to disagree? Post a response and we'll do a special 'best of reader comments' round-up at the end of our chart countdowns.]

People Stacking (or Stacking People) is a physics-based puzzle game where players would have to stack people in different poses as high as they can without having the entire structure tumble over. Click on the judge button to initiate the scoring process, with all of the points you've acquired added to your total score before the screen is cleared for another attempt at building a new tower.

You are allowed a maximum of only twenty people to stack in each game. (source: 0stage-blog)

Name: People Stacking
Developer: Takaaki Ogiwara
Category: Puzzle
Type: Browser

Featured on this week's Free Indie Rapid Fire: Ryan Chisholm and Benzido's Evacuation, Robert Fearon's Squid Yes! Not So Octopus! and David Scatliffe's Xycle. (YouTube video)

Free Indie Rapid Fire 01/12/2009

Links to some of the recent interviews with a couple of IGF 2009 finalists and high-profile indie game developers of today:

Tuna Snax Features: Dyson (text)
Rudolf Kremers and Alex May spilling the beans on their collaborative project Dyson.

Site of the Gaming Dead: Gish Creator Talks Xbox Live Arcade (text)
Edmund reveals interesting tidbits about his upcoming games in this special feature.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Venture Dinosauria (text)
Kieron Gillen chats with Andy Schatz to find out more about their third game in the Venture series.

WSJ.com: New Indie Videogame Movement (text)
An article about indie games thriving on consoles.

NPR: Computer Game A Mash-Up Of Crayons, Physics (audio)
A friendly chat with Petri Purho, developer of Crayon Physics Deluxe.

Gameplay video from Kyle Pulver (Verge) and Peter Jones' upcoming 2D platformer Snapshot, a 2009 IGF finalist in the Excellence in Design category.

official Snapshot web site
Snapshot IGF Info Page

An ecological action game where players assume control over a peacock-like creature in a looping ecosystem. Conflux is currently being developed for both Mac OS X and Windows platforms.

Conflux page

New Boing Boing game blog spinoff Offworld has published four-page definitive guide to this year's Independent Games Festival finalists, thanks to editor and IGF judge Brandon Boyer - and there's no better summary of what you can look forward to hearing about more frequently in the next few months.

The piece comes complete with descriptions for each entry, videos, links, and everything else that Brandon can cram into this comprehensive article about the best indie games on the planet (this year).

The Offworld Guide to the 2009 Independent Games Festival

Best Indie Games of 2008
A well-written article by James Murff, although links to the games are strangely missing. (fan art by Niklas Jansson)

 1. Spelunky
 2. Everyday Shooter
 3. Dwarf Fortress
 4. World of Goo
 5. Iji
 6. Mount & Blade
 7. Dyson
 8. Audiosurf
 9. Noitu Love 2
10. Multiwinia

Freeware games of exploration (Update)
Eight must-play freeware 2D platformers, if you have the slightest interest in indie games. (source)

Top 5 Flash Games of 2008 (Casualty Gamer)
Five games to hold your interest while votes for Jay is Games' best Flash and casual games are being tabulated.

Updates

Spelunky v0.99: Tons of bugfixes, additional config options, tunnel to area 4 added, fully-featured level editor, and plenty more.

Calamity Annie: Version 3 features a download size reduction of one megabyte, optimizations, and a new extra character (for donaters only).

Iji 1.3: Full changelist here.

Knytt Stories: Version 1.2.1 released.

Releases

Caster: A third-person action shooter in the style of the Virtual On series, purportedly in production for more than seven years.

Ten Ton Ninja: More grappling hook action in this new freeware game from Addictive 247.

Greentech: A new puzzle game by Mr. Chubigans, developer of the Acidbomb series and Sandbox of God. (download instructions, trailer)

A demo for Kloonigames' Crayon Physics Deluxe is now available for download (Windows XP and Vista only). No announcements yet on other digital distribution channels or specific dates for Linux and Mac ports.

Only the first two islands (eighteen levels in total) are playable in the trial version.

Crayon Physics Deluxe Demo and FAQ (Kloonigames)

In this round-up, Gamasutra highlights some of the notable jobs posted in its industry-leading game jobs section, including positions from Activision, True Games Interactive, EA Redwood Shores, and InWorld Studios.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted in each market area this week include:

[The Independent Games Festival finalists are now revealed, and there's a whole bunch of extremely interesting, innovative titles jockeying for contention again this year.]

The 2009 Independent Games Festival (IGF) has revealed the finalists for this year's ninth installment of the pre-eminent indie game competition, and from a record field of 226 entries, 30% over last year’s totals, a number of notable games scored multiple nominations this year.

These include orbital osmosis sim Osmos (3 nominations), abstract PSN action-er PixelJunk Eden (3 nominations), time-reversing guitar-compatible antishooter Retro/Grade (2 nominations), and atmospheric ball-ambulator Night Game (2 nominations).

Other examples of the finalists, which are viewable on the official IGF website, include charming exploration-game Blueberry Garden and music-based block puzzler Musaic Box, both double nominees, and several of the finalists for the new Innovation award, including Ratloop’s Mightier, Jason Rohrer’s Between and Tale Of Tales’ The Graveyard.

Finalists were decided by a panel made up of over 40 industry-leading game creators and journalists, including the makers of previous IGF honorees World Of Goo, Braid, Aquaria and N+; industry veterans from studios including Maxis, Big Huge Games, and SuperVillain Studios; and noted writers from Wired, Newsweek, and MTV.

The price for Konjak's gorgeous 2D platformer, Noitu Love 2 has been reduced from $19.95 to $10. If you haven't played the full game (doubtful, I know) then here's the perfect chance to get a taste of what you've been missing out on.

konjak.org -- games, art and women

Crayon Physics Deluxe will be widely available from Kloonigames' web site starting tomorrow (with digital distribution partners to be announced later), although customers who pre-ordered the game would have received the download link in their inboxes by now. (YouTube video)

It was announced today that Pocketwatch Games' next project will take us back to the age of dinosaurs, something that Andy had hinted about a couple of weeks ago. Titled Dinosauria, the game currently has no completion date set although fans of the Venture series can pretty much expect a release for both Windows and Mac when it is ready. You can help shape the game from its infancy by contributing suggestions and feedback in the official forums as well.

Announcing Dinosauria (Pocketwatch Games)

Squid Yes! Not So Octopus! is a new arena shooter from the author of War Tw... Bus and the Tempest-inspired G-Force. Alien robots from the planet Thwip are invading the home of a mutated radioactive squid, so you must assume control over this deadly creature and drive back the invasion with your patented beams of electro death.

You earn a point for every minute you survive in the game. The enemy assault last a whole eight minutes, and if you manage to make it past that point then the aliens will concede defeat and return to their homeworld, allowing you to have your cup of tea in peace and serenity once again. (forum thread)

Name: Squid Yes! Not So Octopus!
Developer: Oddbob
Category: Shooter
Type: Freeware
Size: 5MB
Direct download link: Click here

The Manipulator is a 2D puzzle platformer created by Virtanen Games, developer of Seven Minutes and Virtual Silence. In it, you play a psychic who has the ability to control the minds of others and influence them to carry out your orders. Use the cursor keys to move, press the Z key to jump, tap the X key to shoot, and hold the C key to read someone's thoughts.

There are multiple endings to discover in this game.

Name: The Manipulator
Developer: Virtanen Games
Category: Platformer
Type: Freeware
Size: 5MB
Direct download link: Click here (download mirror)

Featured on this week's Free Indie Rapid Fire: Derek Yu's Spelunky, Virtanen Games' The Manipulator and KNPMaster's Kung Fu II. (YouTube video)

Free Indie Rapid Fire 01/05/2009
Interview: Daniel Remar, Iji (Bytejacker)

This week on Wolfire Games' Design Tour series: Bit Blot's Aquaria is examined in detail, where David discusses about everything from Alec Holowka's technical proficiency and musical talent to Derek Yu's mastery of the (digital) painting brush.

Aquaria design tour

[From now until early January, IndieGames.com: The Weblog will be counting down the best independent and freeware games of 2008, with descriptions, screenshots, and links of the best games in each major category.]

The seventh of the 2008 Best Of Features here on the IndieGames.com blog, we're proud to present twenty of the best freeware shoot 'em ups released in 2008.

Fans of Galaga, Space Invaders, Warning Forever, and Everyday Shooter, step right up. Only a courageous pilot would stand any chance of saving Earth from being enslaved by an invading alien race, once again. Leave your Zero Wing quotes behind, because you will need every ounce of your arcade skills to make it through our picks for the best twenty freeware shoot 'em ups of 2008 alive.

Here's the top freeware shoot 'em ups of the year:

Best Freeware Shoot 'em ups 2008

  1. Alien Assault
  2. Nobody Shooter
  3. Debrysis
  4. Harpooned
  5. Pasta Master
  6. Nanosmiles
  7. Armed Generator Doom Machine
  8. Hello Panda
  9. Ceramic Shooter
10. Made in Wired
11. The Hordes
12. G:plus
13. War Bus
14. Self Destruct
15. Artificial Nature
16. The Last Canopy
17. Attack of the Meeplings
18. 41st Reality
19. Areas
20. pararalyzer

[Got feedback? Reasons to disagree? Post a response and we'll do a special 'best of reader comments' round-up at the end of our chart countdowns.]

[From now until early January, IndieGames.com: The Weblog will be counting down the best independent and freeware games of 2008, with descriptions, screenshots, and links of the best games in each major category.]

The sixth of the 2008 Best Of Features here on the IndieGames.com blog, we're proud to present twenty of the best freeware adventure games released in 2008.

We've compiled a list of twenty adventure games to proof that the genre is still very much alive, with picks such as a western-themed IF, an educational game for both adults and children, a chatroom simulator, a couple of sequels, and even a remake of a past Sierra classic in full VGA glory to satiate anyone's desire for more questing.

Here's the top freeware adventure games of the year:

Best Freeware Adventure Games 2008

  1. Dirty Split
  2. Life of D. Duck II
  3. The Vacuum
  4. Fedora Spade 4: The Last Job
  5. Yume Nikki
  6. Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire
  7. Broken Sword 2.5: Return of the Templars
  8. Gun Mute
  9. NES Quest
10. Nanobots
11. Sydney Treads the Catwalk
12. Ben Jordan Case 7: The Cardinal Sins
13. Limey Lizard: Waste Wizard
14. Beauties and Beasts
15. Chatroom
16. Questionaut
17. Everybody Dies
18. Daymare Town 2
19. Pragaras
20. The Maze of Madness

[Got feedback? Reasons to disagree? Post a response and we'll do a special 'best of reader comments' round-up at the end of our chart countdowns.]

Gravity Bone is a short standalone game powered by the Quake 2 engine, in which players assume the role of a secret agent who has to undertake a couple of mission-based objectives to advance the story. There are only two short levels to play, and the entire adventure takes about twenty minutes or so to complete.

The game comes in a zip file, no installation is required, and the original Quake 2 is not needed to run it. (source: GameTunnel)

Name: Gravity Bone
Developer: Brendon Chung
Category: Action, Adventure
Type: Freeware
Size: 20MB
Direct download link: Click here

In this round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section, including positions from Planet Moon Studios, Microsoft Game Studios, and Blizzard Entertainment.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted in each market area this week include: