Flickerstrings is a new experimental work created by the developer of FIG and Jump on Mushrooms: The Game. In it, players are required to draw an object to use as a playable character, starting from the brown box and ending when the maximum line length is reached. Once drawn, the shape can be moved around using the cursor keys. This shape turns into an immovable platform when the player attempts to draw another shape from the brown box.

The length of each string is limited, but you can cancel any mistakes by right clicking before the shape is drawn. You can also press the space key to restart a level at any time.

There are a total of twelve stages included in this version.

Other than sounding like the title of one of those godawful poems they forced us to analyze for English lessons back at school (or was that just me?), And Yet It Moves is a superbly entertaining, deeply frustrating platforming puzzler which made me simultaneously amazed at its brilliance, yet want to smash my keyboard into lots of itty bitty pieces. Unfortunately, anger management counselling didn't appear to come included as standard.

A slight departure from GUMP's usual House series (Boat House, Rental House and Guest House), the story of Neptune is about a child who happens to come across a strange structure while taking a walk in the woods. Without thinking twice, the young'un decides to enter this building and explore the surroundings within, not realizing that it will be easy to enter but unnecessary complicated to exit from this futuristic-looking complex. (walkthrough)

An Alpha Test Video has been released for the upcoming base-jumping freefaller by Dejobaan Games.

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity is nearly ready for distribution as a 'publicly-playable alpha', so we may be getting a go of it in a few weeks time. Will it be any good? We shall see, shall we not!

Sad Moon Mission tells the tale of an astronaut who was left behind by an expedition team headed into space. This is where you intervene by helping him jump from platform to platform, praying that he could catch up with the ship that is currently one crewman short.

You will need to return to the ground level occasionally to trade in the coins you've collected for new abilities. The game consists of only one playable area, which can be easily beaten in about fifteen minutes or so. (direct download link)

Two slathers of news concerning the Xbox Live Arcade: First off, The Behemoth's Alien Hominid is half price (for Gold members, sigh) for the next week, putting it at 400 MS Points - a rather nice price for the classic side-scrolling multiplayer shooter.

Secondly, the much-awaited The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai by Ska Studios is to be released this Wednesday for 800 MS Points. The press release describes it as "An undead samurai dishwasher in a dystopian universe on a quest for revenge against the evil cyborg army". Apparently it will also make use of the guitar peripheral in certain game modes:

"New game modes with guitar peripheral: The Dishwasher has arcade co-op, drop-in solo campaign co-op, and drop-in solo phantom guitar co-op using the guitar peripheral. Phantom guitar players can unload electric death by playing wicked solos, perform basic movement, and use the guitar's motion control to rip through enemies with a razor-sharp headstock."

I'll be very interested to see how that turns out. Expect a review later in the week.

[Compiling many of the statistics from XNA Community Games' first data dump, GamerBytes editor Ryan Langley takes an in-depth look at what the divulged sales numbers mean for the future of the service.]

Since the start of the XNA Community Games on the Xbox Marketplace it's been well known that the developers had no way to look at any data about their titles. As of Saturday however, download history is now available to game submitters, complete with specific details on how many trial games have been download, the amount of sales they make on a daily basis, and which regions they were bought.

Many developers have openly discussed their sales through the XNA Creators forums, or on their own websites. Several others have been in contact with us and are allowing us to display their own totals. I thank every developer who was willing to speak with us and be a part of these statistics.

Below is a chart of sales for 24 different games - the amount of trial versions downloaded, and the amount of games bought. Some of the data is incomplete, but we've done our best to be as accurate as possible.

The earnings are based on the 70 / 30 scale suggested by Microsoft for how much developers will earn through XNA Community Games, but this might change in the future, with Microsoft taking an extra 10-30% depending on the amount of promotion they give a game. (However, right now, the XNA admins says: "For the time being, we've decided to maintain the 70/30 split across the board whether your game was featured or not"):

Now this looks pretty nice! Mike Smith's Caster is headed to iPhone and it looks like it's shaping up to be one of the nicest looking games on the platform.

The iPhone version is a port of the original with new touch screen controls. Mike explained to us:

"With the new control scheme we developed, the iPhone version is VERY true to the original. Some people actually even prefer the iPhone control scheme over the 360 controller if you can believe it!"

A release is penned in for sometime in April. As for the second installment of the series (which will be available for free to all those who purchased the first part), Mike tells us that a little work has been done, however he'll be properly diving back into the developing once the iPhone version is released.

You can grab a copy of the original from the official Caster site now for the low price of $4.99.

Balance of Power: 21st Century places you in charge of the US straight after the 9/11 bombings and asks you to make numerous decisions about the welfare of the world. It's a storybook style game where all goings-on happen in text form. Every decision you make has a consequence and it's up to you to decide how to play - either be an evil dictator and scare every other leader into submission, or be kind and generous and win their approval.

It's a simple setup but there's plenty to try out, ranging from preventing nations from firing nuclear missiles to setting off some of your own. A balance needs to be struck between using force to keep the more hostile nations at bay, while staying friendly with those who may be able to offer help.

The game is a pretty mixed bag which will seem cool to some and rather boring to others. It definitely has potential and maybe if it were taken a little further (visuals, charisma etc) Balance of Power could be really quite nice. Give it a play and see what you make of it.

Source: IndieBird

Space Trophy is a take on the classic Helicopter game. Holding down the left mouse button makes your ship go up, release and you go down.

A space theme has been integrated to give the old idea a revival. Players must collect fuel barrels along the way to keep the ship going while dodging meteors and saving little spacemen. There are also stars to collect which can be used to upgrade your ship.

There's a story mode and the classic survival mode to play. There's nothing innovative here and the graphics aren't exactly stunning, but it's sure-fire fun and an interesting take on the original game. Latest version is on Kongregate.

Scenes from the Coil booth. Possibly the best IGF game on show at GDC. (high quality video)

high quality video

A look at some of the IGF finalists' booths, the awards presentation, and some afterparty footage. There's a bit of swearing in this video though. (source: Oxeye Game Studio)

A great interview segment over at Wired.com, where IGF award winners and category finalists Tejeev Kohli (Tag: The Power of Paint), Desmond Wong (CarneyVale Showtime) and Dan Tabar (Cortex Command) were all interviewed by Chris Kohler. Also mentioned: Tale of Tales' The Graveyard and The Path. (HD video)

GDC Videos: Indie Games (Wired.com)

Oh, and of course a bit more dancing.

The framerate looked a bit choppy in the tiny amount of gameplay footage we reaped from the first Stalin vs Martians trailer, but this video lets us wipe our foreheads and be excited again.

Featuring a song called "All Hail Stalinator", the above trailer shows 3 1/2 minutes worth of gameplay with a girl dancing thrown in for good measure. Well, it wouldn't be a SvM video without dancing now, would it?

The Stalin vs Martians site has all the latest details.

New features in the multiplayer version of Mount & Blade shown during a presentation at GDC recently. Titled Mount & Blade: Warbands, this expansion allows up to thirty-two players to play simultaneously on a single map in Team Deathmatch combat.

This forum thread contains a list of features that fans can expect the TaleWorlds team to deliver when the game is released this Q3 2009. (screenshots)

[UPDATE: As we guessed from the painfully obvious, Blow has now updated the blog entry: "Edit: This post incorrectly listed the new date as August 10th. It is April 10th"]

Apart from that title rhyming which is pretty awesome, Jonathan Blow has confirmed that the PC version of Braid has been delayed, which is not awesome at all.

Not only that... the new release date is August 10th! That's nearly a 5 month delay! Gee willikers!

However... if you check lower down his blog post, he then states:

"So, sorry for the delay, I know folks have been waiting a long time for the PC version and it’s not so great to have to wait an extra 10 days, but it’s only so that I can try to ship you guys a version that works well"

10 days? Either John failed Maths at school big time, or something has gone very wrong here. Could he mean April 10th for the new release date? It would seem rather likely.

We will of course keep you updated as we find out.

After we reported about the World's First Remote Controlled Internet Battle RCTiger earlier this week, the RCTiger team emailed us with some free credits to give it a go. Of course, it was impossible to refuse - I mean, would you turn down driving toy tanks around and blasting each other?

So Tim and I took to the battlefield. Driving the Snow Lion, it was a pretty interesting experience. With a ping of 250, the controls were seriously laggy but it wasn't impossible to compensate for this with early button presses. The tanks turn very quickly and it was sometimes hard to aim in the exact direction I wanted, but overall I could generally get where I wanted to go. Tim seemed to be having even worse problems with the lag, but again he was getting by fine.

Firing off the cannon provides a lovely BOOM noise and, if successful, a hit causes the enemy tank to rock around as if it had just been struck. Both Tim and I spent about half of the 5 minutes rolling around shooting at each other before we began exploring. The field is pretty empty at the moment but there's definitely enough space to drive around in.

Of course, I had a ticklist of things I wanted to achieve during those 5 minutes and, being as immature as I am, quite a few of those points included ramming myself into things. I rammed Tim's tank, random scenery and eventually, with 20 seconds left, managed to get myself stuck on a bunch of trees. Oops.

We had a good (if a little short) time playing RCTiger and I personally would definitely give it another play. For anyone who wants to have a go themselves, they are having a free weekend with lots of complimentary sessions going on - you need to get in early to secure your spot though. The free playtimes can be found on the main page of the RCTiger site.

Oh wow - 2 amazing trailers in 2 days. First we had Fez to gawp at and now Touch My Pixel have given us a Scarygirl trailer to feast our eyes on before release next month.

As you can see from the video, the game involves platforming, adventure, puzzle and even fighting-game style elements. Plus, did you see those visuals? Seriously incredible.

All this, and Scarygirl will be completely free to play! I for one eagerly await its release. You can head on over to the Scarygirl official site for more info on the game.

[Continuing the series from the marvelous Vincent Diamante (also the soundtrack composer for Flower!) here's some more really nice pictures of IGF Pavilion and the IGF Awards - sorry if you're getting IGF overload, but hey, only once per year.]

At the Pavilion, with all kinds of people checking out the IGF finalists.

Back again to cram some more IGF down your throats! James Martin has posted a panorama image of the GDC floor which is rather nice and appears to capture the scene pretty well. Check out the IGF stands absolutely heaving with eager indie gamers and developers alike.

A point for every big namer you can spot! Also check out the people who were so excited about rushing over to check out all the IGF nominees, they managed to leave their legs behind! Oh that's gonna hurt in the morning... but be SO worth it.

Nevermore 3 is a puzzle platformer created by Adam Westerman using Sophie Houlden's (of The Linear RPG fame) Platform Game Engine. In it, players assume control of a hero named Olek who must search for a treasure that will save his village. The plot and storyline is as thin as it gets, serving only the purpose of providing an objective to drive your exploration exploits.

No save game feature has been implemented, although the adventure itself consists only of a few fetch quests and shouldn't take longer than an hour to complete at most. (Newgrounds mirror, prequels)

Gamespot have posted videos of both the IGF and Choice Awards - the footage of the IGF awards is just above. They've also posted a step-by-step diary of what went down with the videos. Watch! Now!

To celebrate their getting nominated at the IGF awards, ACE Team have released a beautiful webcomic for fans of Zeno Clash.

Andres Bordeu of ACE Team contacted us regarding the comic, explaining "We’re sad that Zeno Clash couldn’t take the ‘Excellence in Visual Art’ award, but we’re still happy that we were nominated. Here we are releasing this piece of art for the fans."

It's four pages long, but Andres didn't tell us whether or not more pages will be added in the future, although you'd assume it will given the way it ends.

You can find all four pages over on the ACE Team Boards.

The BBC have reported on the highlights of the IGF awards, looking into each of the winners and interviewing Steve Swink of Flashbang Studios and our very own Simon Carless, the IGF chairman of course.

An excerpt from the article:

"In most festivals the audience award is among the most coveted because it is voted for by peers. This year more than 4,000 developers took part. The clear favourite was Cortex Command, which also picked up the Technical Excellence Award.

Double winner Dan Tabar of Data Realms was so amazed that he ripped of his t-shirt when he got on stage."

It's a nice read, although anyone who has been following the awards will most likely know everything they talk about already. Get yourself over to the BBC News site to check it out.

Winners of the second annual IGF Mobile competition were announced two days ago (March 24th), with Subatomic Studios' tower defense title Fieldrunners taking home the prize for best game. A number of iPhone game winners and finalists from the competition even appeared in a special section inside Apple's App Store, as reported by Kotaku recently. Called the IGF Room, iPhone owners can access this section to browse the games and purchase them (with some on sale at a special promotional price).

iPhone and iPod Touch platforms dominated across all categories in the IGF Mobile competition, although the festival invited entries for platforms including Nintendo DS, PSP and mobile handsets as well.

The winners share $30,000 in prizes across 7 categories, including Innovation in Mobile Game Design, Achievement in Art, Technical Achievement, Audio Achievement and Best Game overall. This year, two new categories were added: Best iPhone game and Next Great Mobile Game.

The Audio Achievement award was given to Secret Exit's Zen Bound, which uses music and sound effects to build an aural atmosphere. "Traditionally mobile audio means that you have to work with a myriad of craptastic mini handsets," said the designer as he received his prize. "All I had to do was make it work on headphones -- so iPhone is kind of changing that/"

Firemint's Real Racing, launching next month, took home the Technical Achievement award, while Subatomic Studios' Field Runners took home a second prize with the Achievement in Art award. "It's amazing to be at this forefront where gaming technology and hardware allows us to create these wonderful things that were only possible on high-end console systems," said Subatomic Studios as they accepted their award.

The Innovation in Mobile Game Design award went to Hassey Enterprises' Galcon -- the designer's wife manages the community, and his brother-in-law did the game's music, and he thanked each of them.

Representing the significant strides that iPhone has made into the mobile gaming space in such a short amount of time, the IGF Mobile Awards partnered with ngmoco to create a special nod for iPhone games with a $10,000 prize. Ngmoco's Alan Yu presented the award to Secret Exit's Zen Bound, who took the stage to thank the gaming community for the positive reception to the game.

A Crow in Hell 2 is basically a follow-up to the similarly-titled release from late last year, where once again players are asked to guide 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.

Keys can be collected to unlock additional challenges to complete, while a checkpoint system is used to track your progress and reduce frustration from retrying rooms which you have successfully navigated past ages ago. (download page, source: Retro Remakes)

The winners for the 2009 IGF competition have been announced. Below is a list of winners and nominees from each category:

Seumas McNally Grand Prize: Blueberry Garden
Blueberry Garden
CarneyVale Showtime
Dyson
Night Game
Osmos

Excellence in Visual Art: Machinarium
Cletus Clay
FEIST
Machinarium
PixelJunk Eden
Zeno Clash

Excellence in Audio: BrainPipe
Blueberry Garden
BrainPipe
Musaic Box
PixelJunk Eden
Retro/Grade

Excellence in Design: Musaic Box
Musaic Box
Night Game
Osmos
Retro/Grade
Snapshot

Innovation (Nuovo) Award: Between
Between
Coil
The Graveyard
Mightier
You Have to Burn the Rope

Technical Excellence: Cortex Command
Cortex Command
Incredibots
The Maw
Osmos
PixelJunk Eden

Student Showcase Winners: Tag: The Power of Paint
City Rain - Building Sustainability
The Color of Doom
Dish Washington
FEIST
Kid The Power Saver
Tag: The Power of Paint
The Unfinished Swan
Where is My Heart?
Wind of Orbis
Zeit²

Audience Award: Cortex Command

Direct2Drive's D2D Vision Award: Osmos

Linked below (due to me having problems getting the embedded video to work), a gameplay clip of the first level from Snapshot, Kyle Pulver and Peter Jones' photography-themed platformer game. The original trailer can be found in the extended.

Snapshot 'GDC 2009 Tutorial' gameplay clip (GameVideos)

Gen is all about guiding a bunch of spheres to a bigger sphere using the mouse as an 'attractor mechanism'. The balls of light will follow the mouse pointer in a swooping sort of way, so it's your job to make sure they don't swing about too much and destroy themselves on deadly surroundings.

The game also has simple physics-based puzzles going on too, so your spheres need to be dragged into obstacles to barge them out of the way. Cue spinning wheels and cool-looking contraptions.

With 20 levels to work your way through, Gen is the perfect puzzler for a bit of time-wasting. Check it out at Armor Games.

A recording of select GDC talks in this video, courtesy of Jens Bergensten from Oxeye Game Studio. (high quality video)

And it's pretty incredible. I already had high expectations for Fez, but the seemingly impossible has happened and now I can't wait even more. Give it a watch.

So, as per usual, I'm typing up things when I should be going to GDC parties, but don't worry, the horribly indie shindig in question runs til 1.30am, and I just wanted to make sure all those folks who didn't get to go to GDC could check out the coverage.

Please post in comments if you've found more write-ups of sessions, too, but here's what a quick scan produced - thanks to everyone who wrote up the IGS panels this year.

We're hoping to make a few (everything was video + slides recorded this year!) available for free on the new GDC Vault service - maybe the 2D Boy day 1 keynote and the plain insane Indie Game Maker's Rant? Maybe take a few days, though!

Anyhow, here's the marvellous coverage, please to have fun reading:

- Destructoid: GDC 09: The Indie Advantage?; GDC 09: Beyond Single Player; GDC 09: Making Web Games: The Indie Experience; GDC 09: The Indie Game Maker Rant; GDC 09: Crayon Physics Deluxe postmortem; GDC 09: The Four-Hour Game Design; GDC 09: Everything you wanted to know about going indie....

- TIGSource: IGS '09: The Four-Hour Game Design (Cactus); IGS '09: The Indie Game Maker Rant.

- GameSpot: The Art Of Promoting Indie; GDC 2009: Ranting, indie style; GDC 2009: The Art of Promoting Indie; GDC 2009: EA Play head explains indie advantage.

- Joystiq: GDC09: IGF Mobile Award winners announced; GDC09: IGF showcases 'the next great mobile game' concepts.

Offworld: Indie Games Summit: 2D Boy/Polytron's top 10 ways to market your indie game.

IGN: GDC 09: Making LOVE in Your Bedroom.

RANDOM BONUS: DoubleFine.com: 'Host Master and the Conquest of Humor' (Tim Schafer hasn't finished his Choice Awards script yet, but he HAS finished an awesome Flash game about, uhh, not having finished his Choice Awards script. Ohdear.)

Possibly one of the strangest acid trips you will play this year, kanoguti's I.R.P. is an adventure game where players would have to figure out the solution to the puzzle found in each room, simply by using the right combination of buttons on their keyboard. Every playthrough yields a different set of random sequences, so by replaying the game you might find some new areas that were never discovered in previous attempts.

Please note that the game has a couple of scenes with flashing images which may cause photosensitive epilectic seizures. You can also press the Alt and F4 key to quit at any time. (direct download link)

Foreign Creature is a rather disturbing point and click adventure revolving around a small creature with abnormal powers and quite a lot of blood and guts. The aim is to help the little critter escape his science lab cage and get away from the complex completely unseen.

It's simple but beautifully presented, and extremely (and needlessly) gory. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone under 16, but of course I'm not going to say that, as it will just make you young 'uns want to play it more, am I right?

Oops. Ah well, give it a shot over at Newgrounds.

The votes are in and The Behemoth's Castle Crashers has taken Game of the Year 2008 in the Xbox LIVE Arcade Awards.

The multiplayer smash-em-up also took home Best Co-op Mode and Best Original Game, leaving the highly recommended Braid to pick up a single award for Best Innovation.

The full list of winners is below.

2008 Game of the Year
Castle Crashers®

Best Co-op Mode
Castle Crashers

Best Family Game
A Kingdom for Keflings

Best Graphics
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Best Innovation
Braid

Best Original Game
Castle Crashers

Best Remake
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Best Single-Player Game
Portal™: Still Alive

Best Versus Mode
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Dead Like Ants is another well-written IF adventure game created by Pacian, developer of Gun Mute and Snowblind Aces. In it, you play a young daughter who had been requested by the queen to carry out a special task for her majesty.

The game is rather short with only a handful of locations to explore and even less rooms containing actual puzzles, although some might point out that navigating the maze-like tree is a puzzle in itself. You can type EXITS into the parser to reveal all available passageways inside the room you are currently occupying, while keying in HINT allows you to access a flexible hints system that only reveals solutions to puzzles you have discovered during your journey. It shouldn't take more than half an hour to complete the entire adventure, but as with most of Pacian's releases there are a couple of amusing actions that you could try out by returning to the game after finishing the main quest for the first time.

Dead Like Ants is also playable on Linux and OS X, although you will need the right TADS interpreter for this purpose.

Possibly one of the more interesting talks (or at the very least, weirdest) at GDC was by Jonatan Söderström about making games in four hours or less, which is quite likely a reference to The Poppenkast's latest game development competition that had just recently ended.

At the end of the lecture, cactus had shown a couple of games which he likes but did not make. Here is a list of the games presented which can be downloaded or played online:

String Deluxe, by Kvalsternacka (download)
Up a Lazy Ocean, by David Scatliffe
I Wish I Were the Moon, by Daniel Benmergui
I Was in the War, by Bisse (download, right-click to save)
Radian, by Jabberwock
Psycho, by Jan Willem Nijman

GDC 09: The Four-Hour Game Design (Destructoid)

All photos taken during the talk courtesy of Alex May and Dan Tabar.

In a humorous speech on the Monday of the Independent Games Summit, Kloonigames' Petri Purho talked about what he learned in creating IGF 2008 Grand Prize Winner Crayon Physics Deluxe, stressing the importance of rapid prototyping in its genesis.

As he noted in the speech, "doing prototypes really worked out well for me," and it also gave him a hint towards which of his seven-day-created Kloonigames freeware games would break out, based on download counts.

He averaged 2,000-3,000 downloads of his previous prototypes, until the Crayon Physics prototype did around 25,000 free downloads in one month, and increased again to 250,000 when his YouTube demonstration of the game became incredibly popular.

Prototypes were great, Purho said, because you can "get the bad game ideas out of your system," and also pointed out that keeping to strict monthly prototypes helped him explore ideas that might not work, but he can also sometimes tell partway through that the game isn't up to snuff.

As to how the game was conceived, most other physics games like Armadillo Run are engineering-like, and have only one or two solutions -- on the other end of the scale are sandbox-like titles like Line Rider. Purho was looking to split the difference and get both sandbox-style and goal-centric elements into his game.

He explained the concept behind Crayon Physics Deluxe: "The game is not about finding the right solution to the puzzle, it's about finding a creative one." But, he asked, how do you detect when players are being creative?

In addition, Purho noted, a lot of people are lazy and will go for the easiest solution possible. In the end, for many of the core gamers who had interest in Crayon Physics Deluxe, the game was somewhat too easy -- something Petri didn't expect because his idea of the target market for the game was not that clear, he thought.

One of the biggest issues Crayon Physics had was the number of clones it created online, and Purho actually said at one point that an iPhone game called Touch Physics offered him money as a tribute, but he felt uneasy about accepting it. Overall, the clones made him initially angry, but his game sold well despite them.

The end result was an influential and playable title, and Purho said over 80,000 people signed up via email alone to find out when Crayon Physics Deluxe was going to be released, and his method of allowing pre-orders helped to get people to sign up before the game actually debuted.

In a keynote at the Independent Games Summit on the Monday of Game Developers Conference, 2D Boy co-founder and World Of Goo co-creator Ron Carmel presented a forthright talk about how to succeed as an independent developer.

One of Carmel's key points for success? "What you need to remember is that you're not starting a company, you're making a game."

Along the way, he revealed a lot of specifics, including exactly how much money his two-man company spent making the WiiWare and PC hit. He revealed that they spent $4,000 on hardware, $1,000 on software, and $5,000 on QA, plus $5,000 for localization and $5,000 for legal fees.

Including living expenses of $96,000, it cost $116,000 for the two years they spent making the game. Even with $60,000 in pre-orders for the PC version of World Of Goo, the 2D Boy duo were each $28,000 out of pocket when the game launched.

Basically, Carmel explained, it's as simple as this - you need to "make a good game" and have something unique about it. But as an astute businessperson, he launched into some very helpful sales specifics. He revealed, via a chart, that 25 percent of all World Of Goo sales in 2008 came from 2D Boy's website, and Steam was a smaller slice.

Retail was only responsible for between 2 and 3 percent of their revenues, and WiiWare was a majority, around 55-60 percent -- though he did note that Steam was a much larger percentage in 2009. Interestingly, on 2DBoy.com thus far, 65 percent of paid PC downloads were for Windows, 25 percent for Mac, and 10 percent for Linux.

So, one of the main things that I was doing today (the Monday of Game Developers Conference) was presenting a 30-minute Indie Games Summit presentation called 'Independent Games & Sales: Stats 101'.

Since I founded the Independent Games Summit as a GDC Summit a couple of years back, it's been clear that getting good sales data (or at least decent estimates) on indie game prospects on various platforms is really important for creators. And here's the talk description:

"So sure, everyone wants to make a living from independent games. But how much money can you actually make out of PC web, casual, and downloadable indie titles, iPhone games, XBLA, WiiWare, and PlayStation Network titles, to name but a few? What's the royalty and revenue split, how well have some of the highest-profile IGF award winners done, and how well might the average indie do?

IGF Chairman and Gamasutra/Game Developer magazine publisher Simon Carless collates from his sources to examine the cold, hard financial realities of sustaining yourself by making an indie title in today's game market."

This talk, honestly, was a bit overstuffed for a 30-minute lecture, but there was so much important information I wanted to include, and I do believe this is the first time anyone has tried to collate all public sales information and estimate sales ranges from that:

[As GDC 2009 kicks off, the marvelous Vincent Diamante (also the soundtrack composer for Flower!) has been taking some really nice pictures of the 2009 Indie Games Summit for posterity - so here's a quick look at them.]

Ron Carmel kicks off the Indie Games Summit to a completely full room at GDC 2009, talking about the making of World Of Goo and their business and practical lessons.

Or so the website advertises, and to be honest I've never seen anything like this before.

In RCTiger, players register on the site then wait for a battle. The developers have connected a few remote-controlled tanks wirelessly to the net and they can be driven and even fired by players straight through their browser.

Apparently the video above isn't their 'latest version' so it's maybe best not to judge the game on that. You should also note that it's not free to play - it costs $1.50 (1 Euro) to play a 5 minute game.

However, on their official blog, you can see that they've been running free sessions frequently to try to get people playing, so if you can get in at one of those times, you'll get to try out this odd but brilliant idea.

The RCTiger site has all the details.

King is a retro 2D platformer where players would have to assist a sovereign in acquiring as much points as he can, simply by jumping and stomping on the enemies found in each level. There are basically only two keys to remember in addition to the cursor keys for movement. Pressing the Z key causes the king to jump, and if he manages to stomp on something during this action he will bounce much higher than a normal hop. Hold the down arrow key during a jump to reduce the jump height. A super jump can be executed by pressing the jump button just when the king's feet touches the head of an enemy. You can also use the Q key to restart a level if you happen to get stuck. (direct download link, gameplay video)

Philip Muwanga’s Hexy Trench is the work of one man and is a great little multiplayer XNA Community Games experience at an affordable price. Up to 4 players build trenches connecting outposts to their main headquarters, then mount offensive and defense structures on top to battle each other, destroy all the other HQs and come out victorious!

It's highly simple and full of action as each player speeds around trying to get one up on their friends/acquaintances. There's also a single player campaign against bots and Xbox Live support for playing online. Hurrah!

You can buy it now for the Xbox 360 via the Xbox Live Marketplace for a measly 200 MS Points. Alternatively, try the demo to see if it's for you.

The creators of the brilliant Lemmings-gone-wrong indie hit Eets have announced development of their next game.

Titled Shank, a blog has been set up by a few of the Klei team. It's rather bare right now, but we are promised regular updates. All there is to go on as of yet is the above concept art, the design for main character Shank.

We'll bring you all the latest on development of the game as it comes. Of course, if we get any details on Klei Entertainment's other in-development project Sugar Rush, you'll hear it here.

DefeatMe is a simple shooter which involves attempting to kill the enemy with as few shots as possible. See, the problem is that on each subsequent level, you're put up against clones of yourself from each of the previous rounds.

Put simply, the less shots you fire off, the less shots will be fired back at you next round. And vice versa, of course - take your time killing the single ship in the first round, and you may find it rather difficult to complete the next.

There's a time limit too, making the gameplay even more intense. The question is, what is the best way to play? Fire off one by one and hope your accuracy skills are up to the challenge, or dart around dodging all the incoming projectiles? See what you think over on Wonderfl.

Source: the2bears

[Just wanted to pop in to note all of the indie-related goings-on at GDC next week. We'll be covering some of the Indie Games Summit sessions for Gamasutra and IndieGames.com for sure!]

We're all very busy preparing for this week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, but here's all the information you'll need to know about the awards, summits and showcases taking place this week:

- The Independent Games Summit takes place on Monday and Tuesday, March 23rd-24th from 10.00am to 5.30pm, during GDC 2009 at the Moscone Center, with some of the top independent game creators talking about the art and business of making indie games.

- The IGF Mobile awards ceremony takes place on Tuesday, March 24th at GDC Mobile, from 10:45am to 11:30am, immediately following the morning keynote. (The ceremony's winners will also be highlighted at the main IGF Awards on Wednesday night.)

- Starting Wednesday, March 25th through Friday March 27th (Wed and Thur, 10am-6pm, Fri, 10am-3pm), the IGF and IGF Mobile Pavilions will be open on the show floor in the Moscone Center. All GDC attendees will be able to play the Independent Games Festival Main Competition, IGF Student Showcase and IGF Mobile finalists, and the developers will be on hand to talk and demonstrate the year's leading independent games.

- Finally, on Wednesday, March 25th, the Independent Games Festival Awards will be held in the Esplanade Room starting at 6.30pm, with thousands of developers on hand to see this year's IGF Awards given out, before the Game Developers Choice Awards take place.

Once again, Pocketwatch Games' Andy Schatz (Venture: Dinosauria) will be giving out the IGF Awards, with video skits from Mega64, introductory comments from IGF co-content directors, Flashbang Studios' Matthew Wegner and Steve Swink, and last year's Grand Prize winner, Crayon Physics' Petri Purho, giving away this year's $30,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

- BONUS: other indie happenings at GDC that I'll note in this blog post include Student IGF Postmortems on Tuesday as part of the IGDA Education Summit, plus Experimental Gameplay Sessions, Jon Blow's unmissable 'extending the boundaries of games' session on Thursday 26th from 3pm-5pm (check out the speaker list!) And LOTS more, I'm sure.

Trying to find words to describe The Path is not easy, especially without throwing in too many spoilers. So here goes - wish me luck.

The Path is not a game. Sure, it contains elements found in this generation of gaming (most notably mass-collecting) but it's clearly not meant to be a game at all. It just all feels incredibly... messed up.

You probably know the setup by now. Choose from 6 Little Red Riding Hood-esque girls, then make your way to Grandmother's House by walking The Path. Of course, while you're told 'Don't Stray from the Path', curiosity (and trying to find some actual fun) tells you to take off into the forest and explore.

Since the dawn of man, there's always been one question for which the answer has eluded scientists and gamers alike - how do you get people to notice your penguin-orientated golf game which is rather similar to every other golf game on the internet?

Now finally Sir Andrew Garrahan (for he will surely be knighted for his solution) has found the answer - dress like Father Christmas, grab a 9 wood and film a rap which is so god-awful that it's funny.

I can't honestly pick out my favourite bit, but Andrew's dance moves did make me cringe in a fantastic sort of way. As for the game, it's exactly what you'd expect. But hey, his video made me give the game a go, so his marketing skills are clearly spectacular.

Well this is a bit nice - not only are Steam adding a ton of indie games for download - for example Caster, Space Giraffe and Dyson - but they are also having a huge indie game sale this weekend!

There's 10% off nearly every indie title and in some cases a lot more than that - 33% off World of Goo, Defense Grid and Dangerous High School Girls? Don't mind if we do!

You'll find a nice list here, but for the full list go here instead.

Cogs is a sliding tile puzzle, where players must move pieces around a grid in order to align a series of pipes, cogs and mixtures of the two. While that may sound rather boring, it's the way Lazy 8 Studios have put it all together which makes Cogs so enjoyable.

And so difficult, too! The video above starts off by showing the simpler, linear-plane levels, but just check out some of the later, crazier puzzles to get an idea of what you'll be dealing with. It's extremely polished and brain-bogglingly good fun.

Cogs will be released through Steam "at the latest early april", most likely for $9.99 according to the Lazy 8 guys, so I'm going to play it a little longer before I give you my verdict. Head over to the official site to grab a few more details.

A playthrough of The Path using Ruby. Since there's no demo available for sampling yet, this video might provide a better idea of what the gameplay is all about. Note that very little is revealed in this playthrough, as the player doesn't stray from the path to discover other parts of the forest. (HD video)

Physical# is a physics-based game where the objective is to roll a ball Marble-Madness style from the starting point to the checkered goal platform. Thing is, you only control the platform the ball is currently on, so to move it you would have to tilt the platform using the mouse and help the ball build momentum. If you're skillful enough, you can even bounce the ball across several platforms using quick back and forth movements.

Being a student game, it lacks the polish seen in most modern 3D games, and there are only three short levels to play in total. (direct download link)

Online Front Lines is an Advance Wars style war battler. If you've played this kind of game, you'll know what to expect - strategic movement, using certain units against others to gain the advantage, achieving extra cover in specific areas - it's all there.

What's great about this browser-based warmonger is the amount of online playability. Players can pick out those who are also online to play against, and can make clans, join together and take on the world.

Unfortunately the player count appears to be a little on the low side, but if you can scout out a couple of people to play (or maybe get a few friends to join you), potential fun awaits.

Play it over on the OFL site now.

With the recent release of a trailer for their next project, Anoop Gantayat has given a demo of the game a go at the Tokyo International Anime Fair and explains on his blog 4 different modes he played:

- Block painting game
As players run around the play field, they turn any blocks that they touch to their own color. The goal is to do this for more blocks than your rival. You don't have to do anything to the blocks to change their color -- just walk over them or bump into them from the side or below.

- Soccer game
Players attempt to knock a soccer ball into a goal. This is done by simply bumping into the ball or punching it.

- Gold collecting game
There's a giant goldfish floating about the stage. When struck, it releases gold. The goal is to collect as much of the gold as possible.

- Soul collecting game
In this mini game, when an enemy is defeated, his soul floats away. Collect an opponent's soul, and you get big points. If you lose your soul, you can chase after it once you've respawned, assuming it hasn't already been taken.

He also notes that the demo which he played was on an Xbox 360, although Behemoth have stated that they are not discussing which platforms the game will be released on yet. So you can bet it will be at least on the 360, with most likely the PC getting a version. Don't count on a PSN store entry, though.

Head over to Anoop's blog for more details.

[UPDATE: ACE Team have posted on their blog saying that once the day is over, the game will continue to sell for 25% off until release on April 21.]

Steam have an offer on Zeno Clash today, the upcoming first-person fighter from ACE Team. Anyone who pre-orders the game today will get a whole 50% off - a rather incredible offer, I'm sure you'll agree. This means you can grab a copy for just $9.99/£7.49/7.99€.

To be released on April 21st, the Steam description of the game explains:

Play the role of Ghat, a man banished by his own brothers and forced to begin a desperate journey past the forbidden desert and to the end of the world.

If you were planning on picking up a copy of this beast, today would be an extremely good time to do so. Of course, no-one actually knows if it will be any good yet, but many have their fingers crossed including ourselves.

Head over to the Steam store and check it out.

[As well as the $50,000 we're giving out at the IGF Awards next week, download partner Direct2Drive is kicking in another $10,000 for their own special award - here's the info.]

IGN's digital retail store Direct2Drive announced the four finalists for the Independent Games Festival's D2D Vision Award, which seeks to celebrate independent developers exemplifying innovation in design coupled with excellence in game-play.

The sponsored award will be presented at 2009’s Independent Games Festival on March 25 in conjunction with the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco.

The team behind the winning title will take home a $10,000 cash prize and will be recognized during the 11th Annual IGF Awards show taking place in conjunction with the Game Developers Choice Awards at GDC.

In DungeonMinder, you play as an invisible fairy tasked with assisting an adventurer as he makes his way into the catacombs in search of treasure. This requires casting spells which immobilize enemies, increase the adventurer's stats or even change the shape of dungeon walls and floors.

Casting spells require one of the three types of mana, with a list of nine spells readily available for review at the press of the tab key. You regain mana by staying in close proximity to the hero, and whenever you are out of range the power text will change color from white to red.

DungeonMinder is actually one of the more innovative games to come out of the recent 7DRL challenge, but a bug that causes the hero to stop moving after opening a random treasure chest is the only reason preventing this roguelike from getting on the recommended list. (source: zolyx.co.uk)

Now and again I play a game that my brain tells me just shouldn't be my cup of tea at all and yet... I end up liking quite a lot. Kivi's Underworld definitely falls under this category. Reading exactly what it was all about while installing, it didn't sound like my kind of thing at all. So imagine my surprise when I booted it up and began enjoying myself an absurd amount.

I know, it's unprofessional of me to go into an analysis feeling negatively biased towards Soldak Entertainment's dungeon hack and slasher, but sometimes it's rather difficult not to. Kivi's Underworld leads with a simple premise - make your way through dreary dungeon after dungeon laying into every skeleton, zombie and undead being who happens to cross your path.

Tale of Tales' horror exploration game The Path is set to officially launch later today, and will be made available for purchase from the official game website, Steam and Direct2Drive (with GameTap and Metaboli to be added soon) in just a couple of hours from now.

An OS X port of the game is currently in the works, which will be released sometime before the end of April. If you're attending GDC next week, then don't forget to drop by their IGF booth at the showfloor. You might just end up with some limited swag to take away as well. (preview: The Path)

Thought I'd make a small mention of this since GameTunnel has been around longer than most indie game-related sites, but has gone through some rough patches recently with the original owner Russell Carroll being unable to dedicate enough time to run the site while handling a busy day job and raising a family with kids.

Joseph Lieberman is the man in charge now, and based on his enthusiasm about the new direction of the site it does seem like GameTunnel deserves another chance in the spotlight. Expect to see some interesting changes to the site soon, starting with the February 2009 edition of the popular Indie Game Round-Up feature.

The Behemoth team have released a trailer showing their latest creation in a 'very super early development stage'. The trailer manages to show off lots of lovely gameplay while giving away barely anything at all.

We learn: It's a platformer, it's very multiplayer-orientated (as if you couldn't have guessed that Behemoth would make a multiplayer game) and it's to be released 2010. Sometime. From what it looks like, it would appear that there are both multiplayer co-op and versus modes bundled in there to enjoy. Let's hope we'll be getting some online action on the go come next year!

Pandora's Gearbox is a physics-based puzzle game in which players must work their way through darkness, finding paths and moving machinery. At your disposal is a small flying robot which can shine a light through the pitch-blackness, allowing you to see the surrounding walls. Using this source, a ball must be guided through a maze and into the drop zone.

There's a tutorial level to get you going and then 9 more levels on top of that, each even more difficult than the last. It's interesting to see just how much the lack of light is a factor in these puzzles - simple switch flipping, bridge building solutions become so much harder when you can't see what you're doing. The darkness is also used many times to completely hide whole sections of the puzzle, so solutions which at first seem impossible are following by 'Ohhhh!' as realisation sets in.

The game feels a little clumsy and sometimes the physics on levers and pulleys seems a little off, but this is brilliant, head-scratching fun and will eat away hours of your time if you let it. Download Pandora's Gearbox from IndieBird's Lair.

Direct Download Link

Music composer Josh Wechel has grabbed a load of his indiegame-developing friends and asked them to provide music for a Relay for Life album. Including work by such indie entrepreneurs as Kyle Gabler of 2D Boy fame and Alec Holowka, composer for Aquaria, all proceeds will go directly to funding cancer research and helping those affected by cancer.

It really is a great cause and we're willing to bet it's worth every penny. $10 will get you a digital copy, while $25 will also get you an exclusive physical copy of the album. Of course, anyone wishing to donate is welcome to pay as little or as much as they choose.

Donators will also get a free copy of Josh Whelchel's upcoming album as a bonus gift, so you can't really turn your nose up at that! Again, it's an excellent cause and definitely worth donating towards.

Read more about Relay For Life and the Indie Music CD over on Josh Whelchel's site and then head over to the Relay For Life site to donate.

If you've played any of the Nintendo 'Warioware' series, you'll love this. Tiny Trials is a fast-paced minigame bonanza in which lots of small, simple games are thrown at you one by one and the speed at which they are each completed will determine how good a score is achieved.

The selection of different games is brilliant, which a variety of puzzles, clickathons and plain silly. At the end of each minigame you're given a star rating and a score and clearly the better you do, the higher you'll fly on the scoreboard.

It's all wonderfully stupid fun and definitely worthy of your free time. See how high up the scoreboard you can get over at Tinymania.

TetRLs, another notable 7DRL entry, is a roguelike take on Alexey Pajitnov's classic puzzler, where players assume the role a prisoner forced to participate in a series of experiments inside the laboratory of a mad Soviet scientist. By pressing the D key a new block is dropped at the starting point of a room, and it is up to you to shuffle it downwards and arrange them so that there is enough space to place the next one.

Note that only capital letters are accepted as valid inputs in this game.

Fruits of the Forest, created for the 7DRL for 2009, is a simple roguelike with few character stats, based around the idea of foraging food for the villagers in your town. Purple berries indicated by semicolons have to be collected and passed on to villagers in yellow to feed them, but watch out for the bandits who are roaming around the forest in search of wanderers to murder and loot.

The numeric keypad can be used to move your character, and pressing 5 makes him or her wait for one turn. This is useful when attempting to lure bandits into your path, as most healberries are placed at the far reaches of the map and combat damage from each melee encounter can be reduced to just one point with careful planning and execution. You can press the E key to consume a healberry and restore your hit points fully.

Doors can be opened by bumping into them, or closed by standing next to one and pressing the C key. There is no penalty incurred when a villager escapes from his or her home. The game does have a proper end screen, which is displayed once you've managed to feed all hungry villagers as indicated by the yellow counter on the left side of the screen.

Transmover is a platform puzzler based around the classic 'grab the key, take it to the door' scenario. Our little stickman can walk over obstacles which are just 1 block in height or depth, but to get past bigger problem areas, the zapper must be used.

When the zapper is fired at one of the moveable blocks in a level, our hero and said zapped block swap places. As I'm sure you can already tell, lots of puzzling ensues - and this game is no pushover. All together there are 20 'easy' levels, 20 medium and 20 hard and if you're planning on having a go at doing a full run-through, you might want to keep a few hours aside.

Transmover is great fun and is a prime example of how simple puzzling can be done. Play it now on the Polygon Gmen site.

Source: Logic Games

[Originally published on sister site GameSetWatch, these interviews from UK-based journalist Phill Cameron will explore neat nooks and crannies in indie gaming. First up is a chat with Arizona-based Flashbang Studios about their smart 3D web browser indie game projects.]

Flashbang Studios are an independent studio focusing on making browser based games using the Unity engine, hosted on Blurst.com. While for the most part they've focused on bringing us Dinosaur based fantasies - for example, allowing you to kill dozens of velociraptors with a jeep in Velociraptor Offroad Safari.

Heck, that's not all. They also let you peek voyeuristically into the sleeping mind of an Aptosaurus as it dreams of a Jetpack Brontasaurus that sails lackadaisically through the air collecting various fruits, and they've begun to branch out a little more recently.

For example, they also made the absolutely brilliant Minotaur China Shop, where you played a mythical Bull-Man with an anger management problem trying to run a pottery shop, and they very recently released Blush, where you play a neon attack squid.

And that's just the first of this year. There are five more games that will be with us by Christmas. We talked to Flashbang - led by Matthew Wegner and Steve Swink [who also help to organize the Independent Games Festival for IndieGames parent company Think Services] - about their background, ideas, and crazy concepts, and this was the result:

JW's 4 Hour RPG is an action game with randomized maps and player class, created for The Poppenkast's friendly four hour competition. All characters start out with the sword as their primary weapon, but they also have access to an ability unique to their class.

The F4 function key can be used to switch between full screen and windowed mode. There are four maps to play in total, and you can restart a game at any time by pressing the R key.

The Favored is basically a remake of robotfindskittens with some changes to the original rules, created by Joseph for the 7 Day Roguelike Challenge. The game involves collecting rabbits by walking over them, then depositing enough of the creatures at the exit point so that the passage to the next level can be opened.

You can only carry a maximum of four rabbits while walking around, and there is also the danger of accidentally grabbing the one bunny that has the power to strike you down. Had the game included some element of strategy to increase the chances of avoiding the all-powerful bunny, then Joseph could have a winner in his hands.

[Continuing our series of interviews with the 2009 Independent Games Festival finalists, Eric Caoili talks to Nicalis' Nicklas Nygren and producer Tyrone Rodriguez about Night Game -- a physics-based ambient action puzzler nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and the Excellence in Design awards.]

Nicklas "Nifflas" Nygren gained a strong fan following with his indie games Within A Deep Forest and Knytt, and IGF title Night Game marks his first WiiWare effort.

He's known for an innovative, dreamlike style backed by soft skies, detailed sprites, and ambient music and sound he usually composes entirely himself -- Night Game gets musical aid from Chris Schlarb, of Twilight and Ghost Stories and experimental jazz duo I Heart Lung.

Night Game also differentiates itself strongly from Nygren's previous work with a strong silhouette style outlined against vivid sunsets and surreal backdrops. He's working on it alongside a Wii port of Pixel's Cave Story, and ahead of the 2009 Independent Games Festival, We spoke to Nygren and producer Tyrone Rodriguez to get details on both projects:

If you're hankering for some cheap games, Big Fish Games are having a 50% off sale leading up to St. Patrick's Day (March 17). I must admit, I've not exactly sampled many of the games on their site (that is to say, I'm not even sure that I've played a single one) - however, there are demos supplied for each and every game and from what I've read, there's some nice finds on there.

Simply add a game to your basket, then use the discount coupon LUCKOFTHEIRISH to receive your 50% off.

Eliss is a multi-touch based action game for the iPhone/iPod Touch developed by Steph Thirion with innovation written all over it. Lots of different coloured planets pop onto the screen and it's your job to grab them with your fingers, build them up in size by sliding them into planets of the same colour then plunge your creation into the squeesars that appear.

The problem is, if two planets of different colours collide, your health bar will decrease rather rapidly and if you don't pull them apart in time you'll meet your doom. There's other little additions here and there, like wiping stardust to keep your energy up, but this is the game in a nutshell and it's pretty fantastic to play.

Perspectite is a short puzzle game consisting of four screens in total, where the solution can only be derived by aligning the right objects in the foreground and background to reveal the path to progress. Only the cursor keys are required to play, although one particular puzzle in stage two might require a bit of trial and error when attempting to slide objects into their correct positions. (source: David Scatliffe)

As if the trailer for Mezmer Games' Stalin vs. Martians wasn't the most random yet brilliant thing we've seen in a while, a video of equal strange/awesomeness has appeared on their site.

Russian heavy metal band ANJ have handed over their thrash song 'Gorbachev' to be included in the Stalin vs. Martians soundtrack and the music video is every bit as odd as you'd expect. Apparently this video will feature in the game - intro video perhaps?

The website exclaims that we should 'prepare for the raging heavy metal thunder!', so you can't argue with that. And for those of you who, for some strange reason, would like an mp3 copy of the music from the original trailer (called 'Stalin Loves Disco'), that is now also supplied.

Had these links for a while but it was never on a weekend whenever I thought of posting about them.

The 20 Best Free PC Games (ExtremeTech)
Twenty of the best freeware games unveiled in this special feature published just last month. Not a bad list at all, although some picks aren't actually indie games.

The Indies, February 2009 (Crispy Gamer)
A couple of indie game picks which Mr. James was playing in February.

reasons why it's worth to be a pcgamer (Adrian Werner)
A big list of freeware and browser games released in 2009. Might take a while to download the page though.

Physical Combat is a 3D tank game where the act of replenishing shells shot out of your cannon requires collecting pieces of enemy tanks you've destroyed or debris from shattered walls and structures placed around the level. You can move the tank using the arrow keys, shoot with the left mouse button, and absorb ammunition for your cannon by holding down the right button.

The game is pretty fun to play, but the lack of content makes it a very unfulfilling experience and may leave players wanting more of the same once they've completed the three stages included with this version. (direct download link)

Social Experiment is a puzzle platformer for one or two players, where the objective is to get both characters to the checkered point safely while avoiding pitfalls, enemies and traps carefully laid to hinder your progress. Throughout the game, you'll be required to swap characters frequently to access their unique abilities for overcoming challenges. While directing the actions of one protagonist, the other can be ordered to follow you or remain stationary in one spot with every press of the control key.

Though pleasing to the eye, the game does have a couple of notable flaws here and there. Switching characters isn't exactly a smooth process, high jumps are tricky to execute at times, and the difficulty can be a huge turn-off especially during the last few levels where one mistake would mean having to press the R key for another quick restart. Still, it's a decent effort from a promising developer looking to emulate cactus and 2Dcube's success with Mark Overmars' versatile game maker engine.

Penny Arcade Expo's "PAX 10" competition for indie games is now accepting submissions for display at the three-day major gaming event, to be held at Seattle on September 4th, 2009. The first PAX 10 featured in last year's Penny Arcade Expo received more than eighty submissions in total, which was then reduced to ten finalists for showcase at the exhibition floor with Twisted Pixel's The Maw being selected as the eventual Audience Choice award winner.

All eligible submissions must be received before May 9th. while names of the ten finalists and their games will be announced sometime around July 15th.

Full rules and submission guidelines for PAX 10 are available at the expo's official site.

PAX 10 Indie Game Competition Accepting Submissions (Gamasutra)

In this round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from Capcom, Volition, Monolith 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:

Bloody Fun Day is a strategic arcade game where players control the Reaper as he ploughs his way through little critters. Everytime Death sticks his scythe into one of the creatures, he gains points but loses health. Destroying red creatures will bring his life back up.

Each set of creatures killed leave behind eggs which need to be left alone to hatch into even more critters. Building up points also gives Death special abilities which can be activated in order to grab even more points. It's all about bagging as many points as possible before you run out of life.

The game mechanics work really well and it's a very nice concept. There's a tutorial to get you going and a couple of game modes to choose from. Play it over at Kongregate.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers are running a game creation competition with some fancy prizes. Create a game which shows how real-world events affect the Earth and impact the population and you could bag yourself $20,000.

Sponsored by the likes of the DigiPen Institute of Technology, the 'Save Earth Game' competition has two different tiers to enter into. The first way to win is to simply 'suggest an idea for a computer game to show how using earth observations can make the world a better place'. No coding is necessary and the winner will grab them a cash prize plus the chance to attend a computer game workshop at DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, Washington. The entry deadline is April 10, 2009, so if you are thinking of entering, you'd better get your skates on!

The second contest is the playable game design contest. Available to both individuals and teams, you must 'create a game for players to use Earth Observations of our environment for solving issues of the world around us'. You need to get your proposals for ideas in by June of this year, and those who qualify have from August 2009 to August 2010 to create and submit their game. The winner will receive a whopping $20,000, plus an expense-paid trip to the GEO 2010 Summit.

For more information on the competition, head over to the SaveEarthGame site where you'll find rules for the contest and the like.

Leaf Blight is a puzzle game based around picking dead/dying leaves off trees to keep the branches healthy. Leaves can be pulled off in bunches as long as they are the same colour along the same branch. Gameplay starts off fairly easy with only a couple of different colours to begin with, but the puzzles start to become more tricky as certain sets of leaves need to be removed at specific points to stop bad ones spreading.

Production feels a little low (check out the Comic Sans-style text used) but it's a nice little thought-shaker with some great ideas. It's got plenty of levels to plough your way through too.

Check it out on the Terrapin Games site. There's also a level editor so you can make your own tree puzzles.

The Flashbang guys have posted a new video on their Vimeo account called 'Crane Wars Prototype'. Potentially their next big project, Adam and Matt from the team talk about the idea for the game and show how much they've managed to pull off quite a hefty amount after just 4 days of work.

It's a whole 23 minutes long so you might want to skip through it a bit, but it's an interesting insight into how they work as a team none-the-less. And if you still haven't got round to trying out their latest game Blush, you really should do.

Music Catch 2 is a simple, relaxing browser game which asks the player to catch notes with their mouse. The sequel to (would you believe) Music Catch, Reflexive Games have taken a great concept and improved on it, adding a host of beautiful arrangements to listen to and making the game look and play a lot nicer.

Notes appear on the screen in time with the music and it's your job to rake them all in via the mouse. It's as challenging as you want it to be - high scores aren't the name of the game here, just enjoying the experience. The visuals really are quite beautiful for such a simple flash game and coupled with the great musical pieces, Music Catch 2 is a masterpiece.

Give it a play at Armor Games now.

Robokiller is a Doom-esque style shooter by some of the students in Carnegie Mellon University's Game Creation Society. Created during their spare time, it's pretty much like your average old-school first-person shooter - but with a twist.

Rather than simply hitting a button to fire, the player must draw with their mouse on enemies to kill them. Initially equipped with a handy welding gun, deadly robots can quickly be rendered defunct via gorging out their circuitboards. It's a really nice idea, and of course the game is a little jerky, the music is unbearably repetitive and the keyboard controls are difficult to use à la your favourite shooters from days gone by.

Just be warned - it takes a rather long time to load, so you might find yourself sat contemplating life while you wait. Or not. Give it a play over on the Game Creation site.

U.S. consumer magazine and website GamePro is preparing to enter into the world of game publishing - more specifically and oddly, independent game publishing.

Under the guise of GamePro Labs, they are aiming to help some of the latest indie development talent out there, working on a variety of formats including XNA, iPhone, the Playstation Network and, of course, the PC. GamePro claims that "by letting us handle all of the sales and marketing for your products, you get more time to code".

They are currently taking applications from any budding developer ready to sign their life away - presumably for a cut of the resultant royalties. Developers will not only find their game being published under the GamePro brand, but also have access to perks as regular promos in GamePro magazine, developer access to their community, and tools to promote your games, apparently.

GamePro will apparently only be taking 'a select number of games to publish each year', so for more information - or at least a submission form - head over to the GamePro Labs site.

This really shouldn't be called Tetris HD, rather Grand Canyon Tetris, or maybe Time-wasting Tetris. Tetris HD (or Tetoris) is quite simply a huge resolution, widescreen version of the game we know and love and we warn you now, trying to get even just one line is a mission in itself.

We advise having a look at it, thinking that's a really bad idea and then giving its opposite Alleytris a go instead. Even trying to die in that big open space is pretty impossible. Screenshots below if you manage it!

Only recently did we introduce you to Ouch!, a game for the iPhone in which throwing a small person would score you points. And only recently did it remind us of the original Stair Dismount and make us wish for an iPhone version.

Then today some divine intervention occured and Secret Exit announced Stair Dismount Touch! Or didn't announce it as the case may be. In a forum post at Touch Arcade titled 'The Official Thread of Denial and Misinformation', the guys from Secret Exit completely did not announce the game whatsoever and had this to say:

"If such a game existed, it might theoretically be a small-scale evolution from the original Stair Dismount - with perhaps support for custom faces on Mr. Dismount. It would be foolish to add a button for taking screenshots into the game, that would only make it easy to... take screenshots. Any such speculations should be dismissed for being redundant."

For those still quite confused, this is their own special way of saying 'Stair Dismount Touch is Coming Soon!'. Check out the forum post for more information.

Sew 'Em Up is a stitching simulator with an arcade feel to it, created by the famed developer of IGF finalist You Have to Burn the Rope. The game is surprisingly relaxing to play, although floating buttons do add a bit of challenge by bouncing you off your path whenever you collide with one. Your performance is rated by the amount of thread used to stitch all the patterns, but for players who can't get enough of the intense action there's even a map editor included to appease all your c*ck drawing needs.

A Death Foreordained is another entry in RPGDX's Lofi RPG competition, the same contest which featured Sophie Houlden's The Linear RPG. Here you play as an agent who must travel back in time and join forces with the local resistance group to assassinate a political figure. The rebels have ordered two of their finest soldiers to follow you on your mission, doing their utmost to help you take out any enemy units encountered during infiltration.

Note that you can shoot at enemies using the W, A, S and D key.

The objective of Yellow Goo Love is to guide an elastic goo ball to the end position marked by a red flag, simply by using the mouse to launch it in a forward or upward trajectory motion. A new tile, rule or obstacle is introduced every few levels, although the game does end rather quickly since there are only a total of twenty stages to play in this build. (download page)

A Typical Wednesday Afternoon is a score-based vertical shooter with plenty of bullets to dodge and enemies to shoot at. Destroy enough enemy ships, and your weapon gets an automatic upgrade. Bombs can be used to clear a small area on screen for temporary invulnerability, but use sparingly as there are only three bombs available to you for the duration of the entire game.

The M key can be used to turn off music at any time.

Impetuth is an arcade game in the style of an old MSX release called UndeadLine, where the screen scrolls in a vertical direction automatically and you lose a life if you cannot keep up with the pace of the action. Treasure chests can be shot at using the Z key to reveal treasures or power-ups, while invisible chests are only revealed after being hit by your weapon several times. Save a couple of civilians or knights, and you will boost your defense and firepower by some margin.

Only the third level is playable in this trial version.

The very successful IndieCade showcase event is now accepting submissions for the 2009 tour, where everything from downloads to browser-based games, casual, mobile, mods and even art games can be submitted for consideration to be showcased at one of their upcoming roadshows. A list of upcoming event venues can be found at IndieCade's official site, and entries should be submitted before April 30th, 2009 in order to be eligible for selection by a jury panel consisting of industry veterans.

IndieCade open call for submissions

After a year of silence from the guys over at RGCD, the discmag aimed at retro and indie gamers is back!

Headed by James Monkman and Chris Allcock, issue 5 covers the entirety of 2008 since they have been out of the loop for most of it. It contains tons of news, reviews, articles and little extras including emulators. Their featured game for this issue is ThrustBurst.

You can download the discmag over on the RGCD site - it comes in iso form, but if you're not sure how to use this type of file never fear! There's a handy explanation over on the site too.

If you like what you see, check out all the past issues - they're all archived at RGCD for your downloading pleasure.

You know how sometimes you just want to put down the clever puzzle game and grab a dose of mindless shooting fun? Death vs. Monstars could fill that void. It's a Geometry Wars style blaster containing such silly gimmicks as 'Berserk Mode' and 'Bullet Time' and it's great fun.

Enemies spawn all over the screen and it's your job to destroy them and grab the plunder. Money can then be used to upgrade your little floating skull, making the killing easier. Of course, with each level the difficulty gets ramped up, so making use of the provided Berserk Mode (crazy firing all over the screen to wipe out all enemies present) and Bullet Time (take a wild guess) is essential.

It's even got a Boss battle to deal with at the end which is pretty challenging. So if you're looking for a nice, brain-dead way to pass the time, help Death beat those crazy Monstars over at Game Reclaim.

Today I Die is Daniel Benmergui's latest project and he's now at the 'looking for a sponsor' stage meaning that it's probably coming rather soon!

Benmergui simply describes his new game as being "about the daily choice of waking up in the morning" and while there are no other details than this, his past work suggests that we should definitely look forward to it.

For now you'll have to make do with the soundtrack which he has made available, created by Hernán Rozenwasser. Head over to his Ludomancy blog to grab your copy.

percussONE is a musical, multiplayer take on the classic Bejeweled-style game available for XNA Community Games on the Xbox 360. By flipping colours on a grid, the object of the game is to line up 3 or more in a row or column - of course, the more in the line, the bigger the score.

What sets it apart is the frantic nature of multiple players all trying to score combos on the same grid. Just playing 2-player is crazy enough, with shouts of 'Hey, you stole my line!' to players just going completely insane and roaming around the board randomly swapping tiles willy-nilly. percussONE supports up to 4-player grid-grinding and it can be pretty action-packed stuff, if a little frustrating at times.

[Something I've worked on for a good few months now, and has just launched, is Dr. Dobbs Challenge Deuce, a commission from Microsoft for IndieGames' sister property Dr. Dobb's Journal. Notably, Adam Saltsman from Semi Secret Software (Wurdle for iPhone, Gravity Hook) co-created the game and level editor, and there's almost $10k in prizes for in-browser level modders and more hardcore Silverlight coders and artists - check the fun user-made levels already up.]

Gamasutra sister programming brand Dr. Dobb's Journal has launched Dr. Dobb's Challenge Deuce, a game competition from the world-renowned Dr. Dobb's website for software developers and Microsoft's Visual Studio.

This program builds on the success of the original Dobb’s Challenge game competition, which debuted in March 2008, and allowed visitors to the site to download Windows and Windows Mobile source code and mod an existing game starring Dr. Dobbs and the 'Defy All Challenges' machinima crew to win up to $10,000.

The new Dr. Dobbs Challenge once again gives away almost $10,000, but switches things up by going in-browser. As one of the most advanced uses of Microsoft Silverlight technology to date, it allows full in-browser game play of an addictive platform title, again starring Dr. Dobbs and the machinima characters.

Stalin vs. Martians is a real-time strategy game to be released in April this year and, if the above trailer and the official website are anything to go by, we're in for an extremely odd experience.

Based around the idea of aliens landing in Russia in 1942 and Stalin leading his troops to victory over these unruly martians, the game depicts Stalin as a huge, playable colossus who... like to dance. A lot.

Honestly, Stalin vs. Martians looks like it's going to be hilarious. Quoted from the SvM site:

"Under the Stalin's command we must take control over Red Army forces and kick some alien ass. What shocks the most is that the martian forces look like a gay parade of Nintendo-styled cartoonish creatures."

Quite. Just take a look at the FAQ section of their website to see what kind of developers you're up against. Strangely enough, the game is actually developed by 3 different studios, hence why we have provided the name of the publisher (Mezmer Games) above instead of piling all 3 names into the title line.

We'll have more news on the game in the next few weeks leading up to release.

If you still haven't picked up a copy of the brilliant World of Goo yet, give yourself a big slap in the face then head over to the Steam store and grab your copy for just 5 measly dollars. This weekend only, mind!

Also on the subject of World of Goo, 2D Boy have decided to treat their fans to early screenshots and playable code of the game in its infancy, starting with the screenie above which was taken on August 20, 2006. Try to guess where the background is from, then download the playable code from here. Or head over to the 2D Boy blog and read all about it in depth.

In this round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from 2K Marin, Infinity Ward, ngmoco 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:

Each year at the Game Developer's Conference a special Game Design Challenge is held where 'three amazing game design greats create original concepts around a very unusual game design problem'.

This year's is a little unusual. Entitled "My First Time", the participants will be asked to come up with a concept which revolves around sex and autobiography. Once each has presented their idea, the audience will then choose who is crowned winner of the Game Design Challenge 2009.

2009 sees some interesting choices stepping up, with Infocom veteran Steve Meretzky, Portal co-creator Kim Swift and Habbo lead designer Sulka Haro all giving it a shot. The event has been organised by Gamelab chief design officer Eric Zimmerman.

The talks will be held on Wednesday, March 25 from 2:30 to 3:30pm at this year's GDC at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Check out the GDC blog for all the latest.

Ouch! is a ragdoll physics game developed for the iPhone and iPod Touch which looks like absolutely brilliant fun. Presented with a little person on the screen, the player tilts the device, causing him to fly about and smash into objects, walls and anything else that features in his trajectory line. He can also be knocked about my touching him, as too can objects around the world be interacted with in order to real him even more pain.

As if it wasn't enough to be able to give a man with no face immeasurable agony, you can even slot a picture of a friend's (or enemy's) face onto the little guy and have fun terrorizing them too!

Finally, the icing on the cake is that, as well as the 40 levels supplied, there is a level editor so that you can create your own worlds of hurt and then share them with your friends! Did I say that was the icing? No, the real icing is the price tag - a mere $2.99.

All looks like hilarious fun. According to the Hondune Games blog, it will be hitting the App Store soon. For now, watch the gameplay trailer above. I personally have not seen a more fantastic sight than that of a grinning boy being struck down by two racing cars.

[UPDATE: Since this review was written, the price of Raycatcher has been dropped by $5 putting it at $14.95. As discussed below, one of our main problems with the game was the steep price, so the drop is very welcome. It just needs some online features now for a definitive recommendation!]

Raycatcher is a unique offering from Thinking Studios which demands quick reactions and a sturdy music collection. Utilizing the ability to import all your musical purchases into the game, each song is transformed into an array of rays which must be caught appropriately.

Let me explain a little better. A ball of colours sits in the centre of the playing field. The rays created from your music are fired at the ball as the piece plays and it's your job to spin the ball via the mouse so that each coloured beam meets up with the same tinted side on the ball. It's a simple premise and, for the most part, is pulled off fashionably.

Don't worry - it's only a slight delay and it looks like it's going to be quite worth it.

Zeno Clash, the debut from ACE Team, will now feature a new game mode called Survival Mode. Taking place in a tower, players must complete challenges and defeat enemies to progress up the tower. Score will be dished out based on the speed and performance of the player and scores can be uploaded to a ranking system to allow comparison with friends.

Andres Bordeu of ACE Team explained the addition of this new mode:

"We took in consideration the feedback we were getting from the community and decided Zeno Clash needed a game mode with a competitive component where the players could enjoy the fun of the combat mechanics without having to go through the single player campaign again."

The addition of this new gameplay mode has pushed the release of Zeno Clash back ever so slightly, with the new release window now being April. A definitive release date will be announced soon.

Check out the Zeno Clash blog for all the latest details on the game. For now, watch the development video above which gives a nice insight into how the combat mechanics will work.

The Path is a horror game inspired by the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Developer Tale of Tales calls it a 'Slow Game' for the simple reason that nearly every activity in the game is optional - you can volunteer to do as little or as much as you want. The Path has purposely been created with accessibility in mind - there are no difficult puzzles to solve or raging monsters to defeat. It's all about how much you are willing to explore.

With the game penned for an 18th March release, Tale of Tales are now churning out the teaser videos in order to gather as many followers as possible and the latest (shown above) is just as odd as the rest. You can check out all the trailers over on Vimeo.

Head over to the developer's blog for all the latest info or take a trip to Grandmother's house and get spooked.

Don't Look Back is Terry Cavanagh's latest indie offering under his label Distractionware. It's a platforming affair this time around and it's simply quite brilliant.

As we mentioned in our recent preview, Don't Look Back exposes Terry's dark side, plunging the player into hell-like surroundings with the likes of quick-moving snakes and spiders which drop from the ceiling to cope with. As you'd expect, the difficulty initially starts low and ramps itself up bit by bit throughout play. There's even a few boss battles thrown in there to make the package feel complete.

All in all it's great platforming fun that deserves to be played. Descend to the depths of Kongregate and give it a spin.

Exploit is a puzzle game about terrorism through hacking. By using ports to fire packets of data, the object of the game is to break the code and access the root node. Along the way you'll encounter many a hinderance, including blocker nodes, buffers and port keys.

The tutorial is the best place to start, as it explains the gameplay very nicely. Once you understand the core elements to the game, there's a brilliant Story Mode to play through as well as a Challenge Mode. Not only that, once you've managed to beat the 70+ puzzles available, you can even use the Puzzle Editor to create and share your own!

It's a great little game which very early on feels extremely complicated, yet once the solution has been identified, it exposes itself as actually quite a simple set-up which makes you feel rather clever from figuring it out.

Head on over to Kongregate and see if you can hack it.

One of the highlights of the recent Global Game Jam has been taken into full production. Pulse was originally the work of Team 4lfa from the Netherlands. Two players work together to try and keep a beat going - the better the timing, the better the beat sounds, the more full the music gets and the faster the sparks fly on screen. While it didn’t exactly keep my attention for a great amount of time, it definitely did wonders to my senses.

Now this short 48-hour made game will receive full production treatment courtesy of online games production company Virtual Fairground. Ilja Goossen of Virtual Fairground had this to say on the decision:

“We recognize a kick-ass concept when we see one... With 97% of the audience voting for Pulse during the Dutch Global Game Jam final, it was clear that the concept struck a nerve. This idea holds such strong promise, we just had to do something with it.”

The team hope to have a full demo ready for the Game Developers Conference 2009 later this month where they plan to show the concept to potential publishers and distributors.

The original Global Game Jam version of Pulse can still be downloaded via the official Pulse site.

Heroes and Villains is an iPhone game from developers Infinite Ammo. Given a set of super-powered beings, the objective of the game is to use their abilities to either give a helpless citizen a hand in making it to the exit, or to completely destroy them, depending on whether your mission is to be a hero or a villain.

The above beta video has just been released and shows the gameplay in action. According to Alec Holowka of the Infinite Ammo team, they are now in the 'polishing' stages, where tweaking the level design and bumping up the sound effects are their top priority in preparation for showing off a demo at the Game Developers Conference later this month.

Check out the Infinite Ammo site for all the latest.

The official Xbox Live Arcade Awards have begun and you can now register your vote for your favourite Live Arcade game of 2008. As you'd expect, a nice chunk of the nominees are indie efforts, including Castle Crashers and, of course, Jonathan Blow's Braid. You can vote for your pick all this week, until Tuesday, March 10 at 3:59 P.M. PT (11:59 P.M. GMT).

You must own an Xbox 360 console to be eligible to vote and the process is as follows:

1. From your Xbox LIVE console, locate the Arcade Awards Voting Application slot in the Spotlight or Game Marketplace channel, and then press A to download the application.
2. Once the application has finished downloading, launch the application in either of the following ways:
* In Spotlight or Game Marketplace, navigate to the slot image that now says Vote Now instead of Download Now, and then press A.
* In your Game Library, browse Game Demos and Trials to locate and launch the application.;
3. Select your favorite arcade game in any or all of the nine different categories, and then select the appropriate button below:
* To vote, press A.
* To view game screenshots, press X.
* To download the game demo, press Y.
* To exit, press B.

For more information, including a copy of the rules, head over to the official Xbox site.

Blush is the latest offering from the guys over at Flashbang Studios and, if first impressions are anything to go by, Flashbang have another hit on their hands.

Given a time limit of 4 minutes, players direct a squid-like creature around the depths of the ocean. Collecting eggs and disposing of nasty swimming beasts is the key to scoring, while stringing together combos of sea creature-squishing and egg-stealery is your ticket to the top of the leaderboards.

All afore-mentioned killing and collecting is done via the tentacles lugging around behind our watery hero. The method needed is as follows: First approach your victim, then when in close proximity, give the mouse a spin causing squiddy to flick his tentacles around in a circle and slap the bad guy dead. The deceased explode into beautiful colour, leaving behind eggs which can then be collected in the same tail-swishing manner.

[UPDATE: For those concerned about 'Rule 5' in the T&C's for the competition, Adam from Zoo Games has posted a comment claiming that it is intended to apply to 'using things like a screen shot on our website, or the ability to mention the name of the game in a press release or something like that, NOT actually publishing or porting a game.' ]

Zoo Games, Inc. today announced the launch of an indie game competition called 2Bee Games. Open to all independent developers, the contest will run from now until the 15th April 2009, with the grand prize set at a lovely $10,000 and 2 runner-up prizes of $2,500. Not only that, but every entrant stands the chance of bagging themselves a publishing deal - not bad, eh?

After 15th April, the 2Bee Games judges will pick their top 10 - these 10 finalists will then be put up to public voting and each week the lowest scoring game will be eliminated until 1 stands victorious!

Mark Seremet, CEO of Zoo Games, Inc. had this to say:

“2BeeGames is really the brainchild of a few gamers who came to us with a brilliant idea—let the gamers in the community decide what games they want to see out there, and reward these developers for their unique point of view and creativity. The best games will win cash prizes and the ability to be published on all home and mobile consoles as well as downloadable platforms. Zoo Games is incredibly excited to build 2BeeGames around this vital channel of talent while searching for the next great video game developer.”

It all sounds like jolly good fun! Head over to 2Bee Games now to check out more.

Organizers of the 2009 Independent Games Festival (IGF) have launched the IGF Audience Award voting website, allowing game fans everywhere to download, play, and choose a favorite all of the eligible Main Competition finalist indie games which submitted a publicly playable demo.

Online voting is open now and continues through Friday, March 20th, with the award given out at the IGF Awards taking place alongside the Game Developers Choice Awards at the 2009 Game Developers Conference on March 25th.

The games with eligible demos or full versions on PC, XBLA, XNA Community Games or PSN are: Retro/Grade, Dyson, Brainpipe, The Maw, IncrediBots, Osmos, Musaic Box, Cortex Command, CarneyVale Showtime, Coil, The Graveyard, PixelJunk Eden, Mightier, You Have To Burn The Rope, and Between.

The winner of the Audience Award will be awarded a $2,500 prize, part of the $50,000 total in prizes being given as part of the IGF Main and Student Competitions.

Downloads and web-playable versions of eligible Audience Award games -- or information about how to access them -- are available at the official IGF Audience Award website; the full list of IGF finalists is available at the Independent Games Festival website.

In addition to those available to play via digital download, all finalist games will be playable at the IGF Pavilion, March 25-27, on the Game Developers Conference (GDC) Expo floor.

Finalists were chosen from a record 226 entries and represent the growth of the independent games movement with innovative games of excellent quality, across various platforms. GDC, Think Services' annual conference dedicated to the art, science and business of games, takes place March 23-27, 2009 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

The IGF was established in 1998 by the CMP Game Group (now Think Services) to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers, in the way that the Sundance Film Festival honors the independent film community.

Mountain Dew's Green Label Gaming is the 2009 Platinum Sponsor, alongside Microsoft’s XNA division and Sony as the Gold and Silver Sponsors respectively, and DigiPen Institute Of Technology as the Platinum Student Showcase Sponsor.

For more information on the Independent Games Festival and to register for GDC, please visit the IGF website and the the 2009 Game Developers Conference website respectively.

In Another Brothel is a noir-style platformer set in the 1940's. Equipped with a gun which can fire crates, our hero must rescue his girl by creating platforms and stairways with said crates.

It's got some really nice cutscenes going on and the gameplay itself works pretty well. As you'd expect, it's all physics based so the crates will fall around and generally not go in the place you want them too, but finally managing to pass a particularly tricky level feels quite rewarding.

Check In Another Brothel out over on Andreas' games page.

Direct Link to Download
Source: RockPaperShotgun

Blush is to be released later today, so check out the latest trailer for Flashbang's gorgeous-looking project.

While you're at it, why don't you check out their back catalogue over at Blurst - Minotaur China Shop in particular is rather good fun.

Of course we'll keep you up to date with the release of Blush, but if you want to keep yourself informed, watch the Blurst development blog for updates.

Card Game! is exactly what it says on the tin... except that it's like no card game you've ever heard of. In fact, it's no card game that anyone has ever heard of i.e. it's a joke.

Grab your cards and play a game against Nicholas, but be prepared for some strange goings-on. It's definitely one of those completely silly experiences where you're either going to find it hilarious or wonder how anyone could find this humourous in the slightest. Just don't forget to take a snack break!

Play your cards over at Newgrounds.

Shifter's Box - Outside In tells the tale of a girl named Sally who happens to come across a magical box during one of her leisurely walks. Being curious, she decides to open the box, only to find herself sucked into a strange world with no clue as to how she would return home safely.

Right click to examine an object on screen, or press the left mouse button to use an object or inventory item accordingly. The puzzles are fairly easy to solve for an adventure game, although one or two combination puzzles may take slightly longer than usual to figure out due to the lack of hints provided.

Name: Shifter's Box - Outside In
Developer: Ben Chandler
Category: Adventure
Type: Freeware
Size: 10MB
Download page: Click here

Atomic Super Boss is a score-based vertical shooter, in which players rack up points by firing at an enemy while dodging bullets for as long as they can. The closer you are to the boss, the more points you earn. Enemy projectiles will only destroy your ship if it touches the cockpit.

The game comes with an online high score submission feature.

Name: Atomic Super Boss
Developer: Jan Willem Nijman
Category: Shooter
Type: Freeware
Size: 2MB

The Linear RPG is Sophie Houlden's entry into RPGDX's "LoFi" Indie RPG Jam. Play is set along a single line and battles happen automatically, with health and experience being altered randomly.

Along the linear mission there are circles which represent inns, places to restore your health. To make it all the way to the end, players need to work their way forward and back along the line, visiting previous inns in order to build their experience up before tackling harder and longer lines.

It's not a breakthrough in RPG gameplay, but it's an interesting concept and the story which is simultaneously told in the background adds to the experience. Walk the line over at Sophie's site.

Terry Cavanagh has had this finished for a while now, but he's been holding it back while looking for sponsorship - and thank goodness he finally has, as Don't Look Back is really rather nice.

From the creator of the brilliant Pathways, Don't Look Back is a challenging platformer with quite a dark side. Everything from the hell-like visuals to the atmospheric soundtrack set the scene perfectly and it has all the elements you'd expect from a platformer - pitfalls, speedy baddies and big boss fights.

It's nice and lengthy too, providing a good amount of gaming. Don't Look Back is definitely going to be worth a play. According to Terry we're looking at a release sometime early next week.

Pixeloids4k may just be 4KB in size, but that doesn't mean it ain't packing a whole lotta gameplay. Given a play-area full of goo, the task is to create shockwaves and force the goo into the designated target zone, then keep it there for 5 seconds.

Of course, goo being goo, it won't just sit around nicely for you and, especially in later levels, you'll have a hard time keeping it exactly where you want it. It's an interesting idea and certainly a good time-waster. Give it a goo (I'm sorry) now.

Source: MOUSE NO!