The best indie game of 2008 was an unfinished game released in 2009?

You might want to mention that the list isn't supposed to be in a particular order.

Splunky was a best game of 2008? That seems....off, somehow.

World of Goo is not a free game, it's a DRM free and region free game, but is not free.

Sorry for my bad english.

Drufex is right, several games on this list are not free. Specifically Everyday Shooter, World of Goo, Mount and Blade, Noitu Love 2, and Multiwinia.

I think Spelunky was released to the public on December 21. So it's still 2008.

More odd is Dwarf Fortress. I mean this could easily be best game of all years since it is in continuous development.

I agree that Spelunky is an odd choice, but I'm torn because it really is a phenomenal game.

On the one had I have a problem with every "best of" including a game that just came out and everyone's still excited about, but will a game still be great when the buzz dies? Of course with indy games it's slightly different. The "buzz" isn't generated by some machine that will eventually turn it's attentions elsewhere, but I still wish folks would hold off judgment on putting a game on any best of list until after the honeymoon phase.

Who cares; jesus, it's a list of someone's games that they like, not an encyclopaedia entry.

Context, people.

Write your own list if it's important to you.

lamfivebears you forgot Audiosirf which is also not free so the only free games are Spelunky, Dwarf Fortress, Iji and Dyson. And Spelunky Isn't really an odd choice it was released in 2008 and even if it isn't finished, Dwarf Fortress isn't also and Spelinky just simply rocks.

The list doesn't say "Best Free Indie games of 2008" it says "Best indie games of 2008".

The "Free" part of this articles is talking about the other 2 articles.

I made the executive decision to change the title of the article to stop further tragedy :)

I love spelunky, but why do the shopkeepers keep on shooting me?

because you steal

I'll check it out some of them.

Hey, thanks for the write-up! There were originally links, but it appears that the gallery system ate them. D'oh! Will be fixing them today.

As for the complaints, yes, I know Spelunky was released pretty much at the last moment before 2008 ended. But it's still a good game! I'd rather not write off a game just because it was released late in the year. I have played a lot of Spelunky and it really captured a good mix of 2D action and rogue-like elements. Hence its inclusion in my list.

As for the rest of the games, well, I pretty much just went back through my column archives for games released in 2008 and picked out 10. There were more that I wanted to include (Soundless Mountain 2, Gang Garrison 2, and Verge, for example) but had to cut them in favor of other games.