Home is increpare's experimental project in which you play as __ _______ person in a __________ _____, featuring basic ____-__________ elements found in games like ___ ____. The controls might feel awkward at first but you will understand the need for it soon enough. It doesn't take longer than a couple of minutes to play this game from start to end.

Windows and Mac OSX builds are available from increpare's site.

ButaVX: Justice Fighter is a short role-playing game that features a likable line art look for the graphics and animation, although the adventure itself is an extremely short one and won't take longer than ten minutes to beat. The story is about a pig who loses his ball by accidentally kicking it through the window of a granny's house, so he sets out on a quest to retrieve it by running errands for villagers and searching for random encounters to be involved in.

There are two endings to be found in this game, both triggered by the results of your battle with the final boss. Windows only. (source: Idealsoft)

A slew of videos and trailers in this weekend edition, as we take a look at Area 5's review of Eufloria, Canabalt and Mr. Bounce (quite a bit of swearing in this clip), a trailer for Vertigo Games' upcoming freeware release Kablooey (out on November 10th), a new Bytejacker episode and a gameplay trailer for Insignificant Studios' Merry Gear Solid 2.

In our latest employment-specific 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 5th Cell, Insomniac 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 this week include:

Gazillion Entertainment: Project Manager
"We are seeking a Project Manager to be a key member of the Game Operations/IT Team. This is a full time permanent position and will report to the Director of Project Management - IT and Gaming Operations. Projects will vary from internal IT back office applications to key portions of a worldwide gaming operations infrastructure."

Insomniac Games: FX Artist
"FBI, ATV, CTU, ATF, SRPA, ETA, HR, TSA, OPEC, MIA, RSVP, RIP, CSI, WTF, WHO, FX, IMO, LOL - these are all acronyms- some real and some made up that everyone knows. Well we are looking for an FX wizard. We’re talking about creating those mind blowing fxs! Insomniac Games is looking for an artist to create effects to work and assist in gameplay, environment, and the cinematics of the game."

Team Meat is giving away a copy of their limited edition Super Meat Boy comic every week leading up to the release of the game in Q1 2010. All you have to do is be the first person to answer three Meat Boy-related questions via Twitter and they will send a free copy to you via mail, free of charge.

Next giveaway is tomorrow, so don't miss it! You can find scans of the inside pages on Kotaku, Destructoid and GoNintendo as well.

Win a free SMB comic! (Super Meat boy)

article written by Gr. Viper

Third Wire Productions is a rare indie developer specializing in combat flight simulators. Or, to be precise, old-school combat flight simulators in the spirit of entertaining games released by Sierra/Dynamix and Jane's. Think flight sims, that can be played with the simplest joystick without memorizing tons of keys and learning positions of all the switches in the cockpit.

Despite controls' simplicity the games feature a reasonably realistic flight model (it can be simplified if you wish to play with an Xbox 360-type controller). Design of various internal systems is done in a similar manner, e.g. you can fully control any in-game radar with just 4 keys, yet the game can model the inability of early radars to detect and track low-flying targets which strongly affects combat tactics.

So far the 4 games released in Strike Fighters 2 series are remakes of 4 earlier Third Wire sims for better Vista\Win7 compatibility and some extra features, but new releases are planned as well. Each game offers a different theatre of war and a corresponding plane set. The player can take part in bombing campaigns over North Vietnam, Arab-Israeli wars, a few hypothetical clashes in Central Europe or fictional conflicts between US-backed state of Parani and Soviet-backed Dimar over some oil. The latter conflict also allows the player to lead a Parani mercenary squadron, where cash received for completed missions has to be spent on new planes and ordnance.

After two weeks of experimenting with a variable pay scheme and collecting data, 2D Boy had posted about the results on their site. All the stats are gathered from the 83,250 copies sold through donations. This article is a follow-up to the one posted on October 19th, and there are over six thousand of replies that you can read in their survey results as well (for the thoughts and comments question).

Related:
World of Goo's Big Sale (Spiderweb Software)

The English version of Hammerfight (previously known as Hammerfall) is now available to purchase from Steam at only $9.99. Fun-Motion is still hosting the 20 MB demo (Russian only) which you can download and try the game out before buying it. We've also embedded the official trailer for the game in the extended.

A new trailer emerges for Brightside Games' Zeit², an IGF Student Finalist earlier this year. Everything is better with time travel. FACT.

Let's take a look at the latest interviews about indie games on the web. Highlights include: Unity Technologies unveiling a free license for their Unity engine, Machinarium designer Jakub Dvorský replying to questions about his latest commercial release, a three-page spotlight article on the development studio Broken Rules (And Yet it Moves).

Unity Launches Free Option (Gamasutra)
Unity CEO David Helgason talks about 'Unity Indie' renamed to just 'Unity' and going free, plus the announcement of upcoming Xbox 360 support.

Nigoro Talks La Mulana For WiiWare (Gamasutra)
Brandon Sheffield speaks to Naramura and Shoji Nakamura about the origin of Nigoro, game influences and their current project, La-Mulana.

Amanita Design Interview (Gaming Daily)
Jakub Dvorský answering a few questions about Amanita Design's recent release, Machinarium.

The Odd Gentlemen On Winterbottom Inspiration (Bitmob)
Matt Korba and Paul Bellezza sharing stories about pie, chicken, movies and P.B. Winterbottom.

And Yet it Moves to WiiWare (IGN)
Felix Bohatsch chats with IGN about developing And Yet it Moves for the WiiWare.

Getting to know.. Andres Bordeu (That VideoGame Blog)
An interview with the one of the co-founders of ACE Team (developer of Zeno Clash).

AureaSection Talk Naumachia (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
Lorenzo Pasini reveals new information about their upcoming indie space combat game, Naumachia.

Shank studio visit (Neoseeker)
Not really an interview, but there's plenty of new details about Klei Entertainment's beat-em-up project in this article.

Eufloria, previously Dyson, winner of the TIGSource Procedural Generation Competition in 2008 and IGF finalist this year, is all about being an almighty conqueror. Strip away its beautifully simple universe and ambient medium, and you've got an army sent out to destroy anything that is in anyway different to itself.

This kind of gameplay would normally involve tactics, planning and strategy on the player's part, yet Eufloria turns out to be nothing like that whatsoever. What could potentially have been a solid RTS title falls awkwardly into more of a casual market where the best option a player has is to have patience, build up their seedlings and finally launch a full-on attack to wipe out the enemy.

That's not to say the game suffers badly for it, of course - it's still feels devilishly fun to send an army of hundreds powering through enemy lines and the whole experience feels incredibly polished. The lack of difficulty and actual need for strategy, however, will most likely put many hardcore gamers off.

Flashbang Studios today opened up their Blurst online gaming site to outside developers, asking for any devs who make games using Unity to submit their masterpieces. As of yet only Flashbang games adorn the Blurst site, but this is all about to change.

If you have a Unity-based game which "will mesh with [their] existing portfolio", this would be an excellent opportunity to get your work noticed. The Blurst site has over 500k registered player accounts, so you can be sure people will be playing your game. They also offer a huge range of services for any developer chosen, including lots of community API features, Unity libraries, the chance to sell customized versions of your game and tons of stats and feedback for your title so you can work out what's hot and what's not about your work.

All in all, fantastic news. Be warned, Flashbang says they are going to be picky about who gets featured and who doesn't, but if you've got what you believe to be an excellent Unity game, what have you got to lose? Head over to the Blurst site and submit your work pronto!

Destroy the Level is a side-scrolling shooter in which you have absolutely no control over the ship at all. The brain roughly moves in a straight line, and it's your job to prevent it from crashing into any obstacles in its path. This is done by using your mouse to drag objects away, demolish buildings, and even divert missiles headed towards the brain.

Red objects cannot be dragged, but you can still use other objects to shift them around by force. There is only one short level to play in this build, but Destroy the Level is already proving to be one of the highlights in Muse Games' Unity 3D game development competition. (requires the installation of the Unity browser plug-in to play)

Available via Xbox Live Indie Games for 240 MS Points ($3), Crate Expectations sees players sliding crates around and placing ice blocks in an attempt to get their deliveries finished before everyone else.

It's a lovely strategy title which I found myself glued to for a good few hours tonight. The action is turn-based, with 5 moves permitted per go. These moves can be used to slide your crates, build new crates at the starting area and place ice walls (either to help your cause or hinder others' progress). I'm not exactly a huge fan of strategy games, but I have a lot of respect for this one - it's great fun to play with a friend.

There's a bundle of bonuses to keep the game fresh too. Both local multiplayer and play via Xbox Live are included, with a drop-in/drop-out system in place, so players can hand control to a bot, or vice-versa. The AI can be set to a number of different difficulties, ranging from stupid to stupidly good. Throw in over 60 diverse levels and you're onto a winner.

Crate Expectations can be downloaded via the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Recently, Scribblenauts' lead designer, Jeremiah Slaczka, found some precious spare time to answer some questions about 5th Cell's design process and how Scribblenauts came to be. Colin Northway asked him about being creative with a team of twenty people, designing for an audience of everyone and how to make a level hard when your players have access to every tool ever created or imagined.

I know you are a proponent of iterative design. It seems like all my favorite games came from a very organic process where design and development happen simultaneously. I read that Scribblenauts had a team of fifteen to twenty people. Is it a challenge designing iteratively with such a large team?

Organic, iterative design is the best way to handle new, untested concepts. I usually work with a very high concept which is usually anywhere between a couple of sentences to a one-page idea. From there I flesh it out to about five to thirty pages depending on the scope of the project. Then, I usually get feedback from the programmers, artists or designers asking me questions on things I haven't thought of yet. I love that process, it keeps the GDD light, but allows both me and the other person working on a system to understand exactly what's in my brain and exactly what's in their brain on that system. When we're happy those questions are answered, usually in a separate doc, we put it into motion and see how it flies.

I'm a firm believer if you have a problem and try to solve it on paper and can't see it on paper, you probably can't see it by prototyping it. So you just make sure you got a direction to go in on paper first. That's not to say I write everything down. I don't think you should have a huge 300 page GDD, but boy do publishers love 'em. Things change too much, as long as you know where you're going on the big picture, you'll solve the questions as they come. Sometimes it's a compromise, sometimes it's an ingenious little idea, but you'll solve it.

[Just a note that GDC 2010 has just announced new summits on social gaming and iPhone games, as well as the return of the Indie Games Summit, which you can now submit to if you'd like, hurrah. Details below...]

Game Developers Conference organizers have announced that the call for submissions is open for the 2010 event’s suite of Summits, which take place on the first two days of GDC in San Francisco, March 9th-10th 2010.

This year’s GDC Summit line-up includes two new events in the form of the Social & Online Games Summit and iPhone Games Summit, alongside the GDC Mobile/Handheld, Independent Games, and Serious Games Summits, which are all accepting submissions through November 13th.

Toki Arcade is a faithful remake of the original Toki game by Tad Corporation way back in 1989. The above video shows a comparison between the original and Golgoth's beautiful creation.

No details have been released yet as to which platform Toki will be landing on or when it's to be released, but let's have a stab in the dark and say early 2010 on PSN. I can always deny everything when it turns out I'm wrong, eh? (I was! It's headed for XBox and PC!)

Run Away!, as Jon puts it, is an 'on-rails platformer' in which you scramble over and under hedges, walls, gnomes, bananas and beehives to escape your pursuers who have decided to chase you for various reasons. Succeed and the love of Angry Girl may just be yours for the taking.

There are only 3 actions at your disposal - jump, roll and jump-roll. Hit an obstacle and you'll slow down, allowing your predator to close the gap. It's all incredibly silly and rather difficult too. There are only 5 levels in total, but if you get caught just once, you'll have to go all the way back to the start again.

An additional multiplayer mode could have been wonderful fun - running away is always more exciting with company - but still, this is great as a little something to rid that Sunday afternoon boredom. Run Away! is a mere 80 MS Points ($1) via the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Just a quick note about some slides (and a taped lecture) related to independent game trends and stats that I [Simon Carless, Independent Games Festival chairman and Gamasutra publisher] presented in recent weeks in Asia and Australia, and are now available to everyone thanks to the magic of the Interwebs and file/videosharing devices.

As some of you may know, earlier this year I presented a lecture called 'Independent Games & Sales: Stats 101' at the Independent Games Summit at GDC 2009 in San Francisco. I made info on it available via my Gamasutra Expert Blog. Rather pleasingly, the full IGS 2009 lecture slides, hosted on Slideshare.net, have now had more than 10,000 views, and it seems to be one of the few comprehensive overviews of the space.

The lecture was fairly well-received at GDC, especially in terms of its content, though I rather overstuffed things for a 30-minute talk, especially in terms of calculation minutiae. So when I was invited to speak at the Digital Distribution Summit in Melbourne, Australia (at the pictured BMW Edge conference hall) in September, followed by GDC China in Shanghai in October, I decided to simplify and update the metrics, while adding a section on trends/routes to success.

I've now put versions of two slide decks online. Firstly, there's 'Indie Game Metrics - October 2009' [Slideshare.net link.] This updates my March 2009 estimates for markets like Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, WiiWare, iPhone, and PC digital download, and ends with a couple of slides on important trends in the indie market - and it's fairly easy to understand without hearing the accompanying narration.

Cat Got Lost is a lock and key puzzle game in which you have to find your cat hiding somewhere in one of the four corridors. You can press the X or C key to reset a puzzle, but players are only allowed to do that after collecting at least one key inside a room.

There are twenty levels to play in total.

In Excavatorrr you play as an adventurer who is searching for rare treasures in an unexplored network of caves, equipped with only a pickaxe and some starting items strewn on the floor. Maps are procedurally generated every time you start a new game, and you can only replenish items or offload treasures for cash back at the shop (press up at the entrance) on the surface.

An online high score submission feature is included, although you would need to add the game executable to your firewall exception list before your best scores can be submitted online.

Related:
TIGSource forum thread
Excavatorrr Ludum Dare page
direct download link
online high score table

The organizers of the 2010 Independent Games Festival are reminding entrants that there's one week left before the Nov. 1st main deadline, revealing over 100 entries and new specifics on the Nuovo prize.

Entries to the 12th Annual IGF's Main Competition are due by 11.59pm PST on November 1st, with submissions accepted for easy digital submission from game creators worldwide, in multiple PC, computer and console formats.

Games selected as finalists for the world's leading independent games competition will be available in playable form on the GDC 2010 show floor and will compete for nearly $50,000 in prizes, including awards for Excellence in Design, Art, the Audience Award and the coveted $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize. Winners will be announced on stage at the prestigious Independent Games Festival Awards on Thursday, March 11, 2010.

As well as the Main Competition entry deadline on the 1st, organizers are reminding that games are due for submission in the free to enter Student Showcase category by November 15th, 2009, and entries to the IGF Mobile competition -- encompassing iPhone, mobile phone, PSP, DS, Android and other handheld games -- are due by December 1st, 2009.

Wavives is a 2D arena shooter consisting of only three levels, each separated by an end level boss which you have to defeat to progress to the next stage. The creature that you control will lose a life when it is overwhelmed by the random objects that populate the area, but you can regain lives by collecting items that resemble red cherries seen from the top.

Your primary weapon shoots out alphabets that explode after a few seconds, so it is wise to stay clear of their proximity after letting a couple loose in the wild. The secondary attack are letters that suck in just about anything in a small perimeter, and there is a greater chance of causing more damage to your enemies if you alternate between both shots instead of just depending on your explosives to blow stuff up. There is also a limit to how many alphabets you can have on the screen at any time, and it is recommended that you avoid holding down either shot button for too long or you'd be left with no ammunition to use for a couple of seconds.

You might want to watch the trailer video first before downloading the game, since each stage takes less than five minutes to beat and the download size for the file is close to 200 MB.

A preview video for DrPetter's upcoming Flash game, due out sometime next month. Here's what the game is about, according to Tomas himself:

"Deflectorpool is essentially an arcade game where you must collect and deflect balls to gather sequences (combos) of like-colored balls, without dropping too many of them. It's possible to switch color by holding the mouse button and touching a differently-colored ball. You can then proceed to string up a new combo of those balls. Water constantly pours in at a higher rate, but is partially drained each time you end a combo (no matter how small)."

In our latest employment-specific 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 Bungie, Harmonix 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 this week include:

Harmonix Music Systems: Senior Technical Artist
"Harmonix is seeking a Senior Technical Artist to research and develop techniques that will increase the efficiency of our artists and allow us to continually advance the bold artistic style of our games. Located in Cambridge, MA, Harmonix is the developer of award-winning and widely-acclaimed music and rhythm games like the recently-released The Beatles: Rock Band."

Bungie: Senior Network Engineer
"Bungie requires the skills and services of a ruthlessly competent Senior Network Engineer to help us build on our already-dizzying heights of netcode excellence. Do you obsess over the number of bits required to replicate a unit vector?... Have you ever estimated the upstream and downstream bandwidth requirements for a socket into the Matrix? Bring us your brilliance, bring us your fire! Together we will conquer the speed of light and distill order from chaos."

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

Captain Forever Creator Farbs Talks to DIY (DIYgamer)
Man of the hour Jarrad Woods interviewed about his recent IGF China win and the upcoming sequel to CF, Captain Successor.

Tale of Tales Interview (DoFuss)
This interview about the duo's past and present works was conducted shortly before the release of Fatale.

The Odd Gentlemen On Winterbottom Inspiration (Gamasutra)
Paul Bellezza and Matt Korba talks to Gamasutra about their upcoming XBLA release, The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom.

An Interview with Dave Gilbert (The Trappings)
Good old Dave discusses about everything that Wadjet Eye Games currently have in production.

Klei Founder Cheng Discusses Shank (Gamasutra)
"A discussion of the conception and design ethic of Shank, and how traditional animation has influenced Klei's current creative direction."

Hazard: The Journey of Life (Uncommon Assembly)
Alexander Bruce talks about the process of developing his Unreal Tournament 3 mod.

The Indie Game Composer Scene, Explored (Gamasutra)
A group chat with the music composers for Flower, Pixeljunk Eden, Nicalis' NightSky, and Jonathan Mak's upcoming I Am Robot and Proud.

Interview with Steven Peeler (Examiner)
An interview with the developer of Kivi's Underworld and Depths of Peril.

3 Year old vs Super Meat Boy (Super Meat Boy)
Not exactly an interview, but Edmund asked me to post about this so go watch it. Good to know he's back on his feet again. (there's even a picture of him in his hospital gown at the end of this page)

GunFu Deadlands is a 2D arcade shooter in which you play a cowboy out to prove that he is the quickest sharpshooter in the West. Similar to Max Payne and the recent Call of Juarez series, our hero has the uncanny ability to react faster than everyone else, although he can only use bullet time in short bursts. The outlaws are no slouches as well, and if you're not behind cover the moment everything returns to normal, you will be shot down like a deck of stacked playing cards blown away by the wind.

The game also features a hard mode, where players are only allowed the use of one life to beat all ten stages included in the game. GunFu Deadlands also works on a Mac, but you will have to download both the LÖVE 2D engine and the game executable to run it. (source: cactus)

Gretel and Hansel is a short point and click adventure loosely based in the world of Hansel and Gretel. Gretel overhears their parents discussing some 'money-saving ideas', and decides to embark on a pebble-collecting mission as per the story.

There's some pretty dark humour to be found here (I sincerely hope I'm not the only one who accidently found the 'Kain' achievement) and unlike most point-and-clicker, you can actually die. Finding the 10 pebbles over the 4 different areas isn't too taxing, but it's definitely worth playing for the watercolour art - every little bit from the backgrounds to the character models was hand painted and scanned in. Lovely stuff.

Play it over on Newgrounds.

2D Boy have posted up the results of last week's 'Pay Whatever You Want For World of Goo' experiment and what they've found is pretty interesting, if not really that surprising.

Of the 57,000 sales of the game last week, the average price paid was $2.03, with the most popular choice of price being $0.01, would you believe (answer: yes you would). The harsh part of it all is that for every sale under 30cents, the cash went to Paypal and the 2D Boys didn't receive a penny - in fact, for all the 1cent sales, even Paypal lost out financially.

There's a ton of other detailed information over on their site regarding the likes of why purchasers chose the amount they did and what the effects of the sale were on Steam sales. The guys have also decided to extend the sale until October 25th, so if you STILL haven't grabbed a copy (but let's be honest, if you haven't yet, you're most likely a bit gaga) you've still got a few days.

After his recent retirement / migration to Flash, MDickie gradually has been releasing a lot of his old shareware games for free. Today he made four more of his old games freeware. To quote from his newsletter:

"The great game giveaway continues into the year of 2004, which saw a radical departure from wrestling projects. Popscene and Popcorn brought the managerial gameplay to two other entertainment industries, and were largely successful in doing so (although the original Popscene has now been rendered redundant by its polished remake). Meanwhile, Wrecked was my first stab at a sprawling adventure and sewed the seeds for Hard Time and The You Testament. It's crude by comparison but there are some interesting ideas at its heart. The quartet is completed by Sure Shot 3D, which I still stand by as one of my most innovative creations. Now that all of the above are free to play, they can be enjoyed by an even wider audience! Grab them now from the Downloads section..."

I haven't played all of those, but Wrecked (seen in the video above) has always been one of my favorites of his, even with that notorious "everyone just chaotically starts fighting with everyone for no reason" motif. Now you can download those four games and his older games for free, here.

Fatale was released a couple of weeks ago but I've only just got around to trying it out. For those clueless as to what Fatale is about, we're talking a first person representation of Oscar Wilde's theatrical "Salome".

Having not watched the theatrical in question, I assumed I would have no idea what was going on in Tale of Tales interpretation, and I was pretty much on the money. Yet while it's pretty clear that there is a lot more enjoyment to be had from this release if you understand the story and the scenes on show, it's still quite a beautiful piece of work.

The whole experience is split up into three parts. The intro section is set in a cistern, where you are imprisoned. The only light in the room comes from a grating on the ceiling, through which you hope to catch a glimpse of Salome dancing above. It doesn't end well.

Part two features the main bulk of Fatale. The beheading of John of Baptist has already occured and Salome is leaning over the balcony. As a floating entity, you glide around finding lights and extinguishing them until darkness engulfs. Once this is done, the moon sets in and the program ends. Upon booting it up again, the epilogue starts, in which Salome dances for you. Clicking and holding will allow zooming for a better view, but now and again your view will snap back as if you are being punished for staring too hard.

All in all it's classic Tale of Tales, yet while I didn't really get much of a kick out of The Graveyard or The Path, Fatale was definitely an interesting experience - perhaps because Tale of Tales state that this is not a game and so I went into it expecting to witness rather than play. I gave the general story a quick skim before indulging and it did make the experience that little easier to comprehend, although as I said at the beginning, not that much easier. If you're going to give it a go, I'd suggest you do the same.

Small Worlds is an exploration game created by David Shute for JayisGames' latest Casual Gameplay Design Competition, where the controls for your character can be a bit frustrating at times but everything else about the effort shines through. Even if you take all the wrong paths, this adventure is still a rather short one that will only take roughly about fifteen minutes of your time to complete.

The first bit of the video may make you think it's an adventure game, but it actually appears to be more of a platformer. Either way, it looks nice.

More info at: http://www.lyliangame.com/ and http://pixelpickle.com/games.html.

Bullets of a Revolver is a fighting game for the most part, but also has dodging, dueling and dancing minigames thrown in from time to time. It tells the story of two bandits on their quest to discover the location of the fabled Golden Cave.

This isn't a complex fighter by any means - the controls are incredibly simple and it's easy to pick up quickly. The story mode pits you against a variety of troublemakers, with minigames along the way. There's also an arcade mode if you simply want to get into a fight, or Versus mode for those want to play against a friend on the same keyboard.

With music from the Chamber Café Orchestra, Mr. Jay Henrique isn't charging anything for his creation, but there's a big old Donate button on the BOAR site if you feel you'd like to show your appreciation.

Eufloria, previously Dyson, is released tomorrow and will be available via a variety of different digital distribution methods, including Steam. Rudolf and Alex just released the above trailer to coinside with the release. You can still pre-order it with 25% off for another day!

So... how did you do? If you've not given the first IndieGames crossword a go yet, I'd recommend doing so - it's rather good fun! For those of you who did attempt it and cannot now live another day in peace until you've got all the answers, the entire grid is filled in just below the cut.

As a good number of readers enjoyed it, I'll be keeping to my word and sticking one up here every fortnight for your indie-puzzling pleasure! Now... click 'continue reading' to see the solution!

Though the hero in Skipmore's Mamono Slayer may wield a sword, the game is essentially a collection of lock and key puzzles designed to prevent the player from finding the legendary blade that will save the kingdom. The act of attacking enemies involve pointing your weapon at them as they walk towards the knight, and you can access your inventory by pressing the space key at any time. The castle also acts as a place of healing, since returning to it will restore any hearts lost while you are exploring the deeper dungeons.

Mamono Slayer is a short game that shouldn't take longer than ten or fifteen minutes to play from start to end.

According to the Pixeltruss team, inspiration for Ripple Dot Zero includes the likes of Sonic The Hedgehog, Strider, Alien Soldier, Ristar and Gunstar Heroes, and this is "what you’ve been missing since the end credits of Sonic & Knuckles". Big words! Let's hope they can make with the goods.

The setting: a world full of robots - some wise, some musical, some addicted to oil. Our hero: The underdog, kicked out of his home town by bullies, his girlfriend kidnapped. The plan: Save the town, rescue the girlfriend, have fun doing so.

Machinarium is an adventure puzzle outing which, as I'm sure you're very much aware, is insanely beautiful. There's also plenty of humour abound, clever puzzles to decipher and situations to solve. This is a world you're going to want to visit.

Everything about the animation and the atmosphere is just astounding. It hits you when you first start playing and by the end, that feeling of awe still won't have left. That an indie team can create something so gorgeous, something that can easily rival so many of the AAA releases of recent times is such a credit to them. Amanita Design have clearly pumped their artistic heart and soul into this wonderful little world of metal.

It has an awesome name. It is an awesome concept. Hell Is Other People is an 'asynchronously multiplayer' according to creator George Buckenham. The path that each player takes is recorded and future players are then pitted against their recordings.

This means that no two games are the same. It also means you are technically playing against humans - albeit humans who aren't actually aiming at you. It's a beautiful idea which starts off pretty easy and soon develops into a full-on war. Try taking on 15 ghosts at the same time. Chaos.

It's free to play, but if you pay £5 ($8) George will send you a downloadable version complete with dogheads which bark when you shoot at them. Splendid. Give it a try, then post your three character game-name in the comments below so others will know who they just destroyed. I'm MIK, just so you know.

In our latest employment-specific 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 Realtime Worlds, A2M 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 this week include:

A2M (Artificial Mind and Movement) Lead Level Designer
"A new major action/adventure production is starting in Montreal. Still in early development, the project offers a chance to contribute to a new IP. We are looking for an innovator in level design to create truly engaging levels."

BioWare Austin Gameplay Programmer
"BioWare, the newest member of the incredible family of EA studios, has created some of the world's best-selling titles including the award-winning Baldur's Gate, the Neverwinter Nights series, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Original BioWare-created IPs include Jade Empire, the critically acclaimed Mass Effect and Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood for the Nintendo DS. BioWare is hard at work on the epic fantasy RPG Dragon Age; and Star Wars: The Old Republic, our massively multiplayer online game being developed at BioWare Austin. "

At the recent TIGJam, a number of indie developers took centre stage on live webcam to give short rants about whatever they felt necessary to rant about. The above video is a recording of the session and features 5 minute talks from the likes of Alec Holowka, Adam Atomic, David Hellman, Tommy Refenes and Derek Yu.

Spotted by Mr Phil Fish, Firefly is a game controlled using a candle. As in a real candle. In your hand.

A small firefly on the screen is attracted to the glow from your candle and will follow your path - it's your job to guide him through caves, dodging obstacles and making sure not to hit the walls. I'm not 100% sure how it all works, but a bigger question springs to mind - won't this be a little dangerous? I mean, last time I checked, hot candle wax burns!

Originally an award-winning mobile puzzler back in 2007, then ported to the iPhone last year, Capybara Games' Critter Crunch has been given a graphical beefing up, had some new modes thrown in and has headed out for the Playstation Network for the latest iteration of the franchise.

Critter Crunch is one of the those puzzlers which takes minutes to get into, but many hours to master. It's also great fun, incredibly (dare I use the word) cute, full of character and, most importantly, addictive to the highest degree. Because that's what you want from a console puzzle game, right?

Gameplay starts off at snail-pace, with three different types of critter to deal with. Flies can be fed to the medium-sized fuzzies, while the mediums can in turn be nom-nom-ed be the larger ones. Feed two flies to a medium and he'll explode, showering you with points. Similarly, two mediums will cause a large to go boom. There are some other little tricks of the trade too for those wanting to push the tactics - for example, feed a medium critter who has only gobbled on one fly to a large and that counts as feeding two mediums, hence explosion; there's also the 'Food Chain' feeding method involving feeding a fly to a medium who is directly beneath a large for multi-gobbles.

Hydorah is the new freeware Gradius-style horizontal shooter from the developer of 8bit killer. No release date yet, but the game should be available to download from Locomalito's site sometime soon.

We don't give much love to casual gaming at Indie Games very often, but an article on Gamezebo regarding Facebook game Farmville caught my eye this morning. Developed by Zynga.Inc, the farming sim has now amassed near to 60 million users who actively play the game daily.

That's a lot of active players. As Erin Bell points out, that's more players than Nintendo have sold copies of Wii Sports, the best-selling console game ever. While the game is free to play, 'exclusive' items can be purchased to expand your farm faster than normal. Of this money, part of it goes to charity and as of this time, $321,000 has been raised for good causes. It's quite the success story, now the most popular game on Facebook.

Mark Skaggs of Zynga is a little optimistic when he says he wants their games to bring back "the experience of playing Monopoly around the dinner table", but to be honest I don't use Facebook often so I've no idea whether Farmville is worth trying or not! Are there any Indie Games readers who can recommend/veto this tractor-chugging simulation?

River City Dodgeball All-Stars is an updated remake of Technos' Super Dodge Ball game, where the overall objective is to eliminate all members from an opponent's team inside the court by hitting them with the ball repeatedly until they are knocked unconscious. You can double tap an arrow key to run in any direction, then press the throw ball button to execute a power move. Players can also catch a ball thrown at them by tapping the same button at the right moment, just before it hits your team member in the face.

Simply click on any link with english text in it to grab the trial version for Windows XP and Vista. The game is available to download from the Xbox Live Indie Games service as well, under the name Downtown Smash Dodgeball.

Indie Watch: Kunio Series Returns With Downtown Smash Dodgeball (GamerBytes)

Mouse No. Probably a Rat is a remake of Oddbob's Squid Yes! Not So Octopus!, featuring similar squid controls and the same spread shot used to destroy the alien robots mushrooming out of everywhere. There are less epilepsy-inducing effects in David's creation, but it is just as difficult to survive for an extended period of time as some enemies will pursuit you relentlessly around the screen while others will continously spam the arena with bullets until they are obliterated by your patented electro beam. (high score table)

Presentations from all ten finalists for the Sense of Wonder Night 2009 event at Tokyo Game Show are now online for viewing. Games presented during SOWN this year are as follows:

Ball Carry, by Takuya Ono
Shadow Physics, by Enemy Airship
Incompatible BLOCK, by Jun Fujiki *
You Only Live Once, by Marcus Richert *
Swarm Racer 3000, by Joseph White
para rail, by Kuniaki Watanabe and Onitama
Transcend, by Zach Aikman
ecolpit, by misi
Hazard - The Journey of Life, by Alexander Bruce *
His and Her Disconnected Conversations, by Himo *

* playable build available

Sense of Wonder Night 2009 Presentation Videos

Coming to Steam and XBLA in 2010, there aren't many details on Capsized as of yet, but the above recently released trailer is looking pretty swish.

Lee Vermeulen of Alientrap threw us this little titbit of info:

"The new trailer shows off the fast physics based gameplay of the platformer, along with it's stylized art and unique setting. The game will focus on fast paced action along with physics based puzzles, as the player attempts to exit the strange alien planet."

Keep your eyes on the Capsized site for future details.

While my love for indie games blossoms by the day, engulfing every inch of my mind worth engulfing, I must admit I pine for more multiplayer releases. I'm not sure yet if Magicka is what I pine, but it definitely appears to fit the category.

Winner of 'Game of the Year' at the Swedish Game Awards 2008 and coming sometime next year, the only downside is that it may only see the light of day on Xbox Live according to the press release.

To celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the wonderful World of Goo, 2D Boy are letting you pick your price for the game - for one week only.

Until October 19th, you can visit the World of Goo site and pay any amount of cash you want for the gooey puzzler. If you're yet to give it a go, there has never been a better time to grab a piece of the action.

Head over to the WOG site and check it out (Note: at time of posting, the site appears to be getting hammered, hence it's not loading. Be patient!)

Miner 2049er Again is a remake of an old classic, where you play as a miner who has to clean up all the spilled chemicals on the floors of a mining area by simply walking over them. Falls from high heights can hurt, and critters should be avoided as well.

You start out with only a handful of lives, and only earn one back for every five levels completed. Since the game doesn't allow players to continue from where they last perished, it can be rather difficult to beat all twenty levels from start to end. (source: Retro Remakes)

Unity Technologies, the provider of the Unity development platform for PC, Mac, Wii and iPhone is proud to announce it is the Gold Sponsor of the Independent Games Festival (IGF) at the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC), to be held in San Francisco in March 2010.

As part of its Gold sponsorship, Unity is supporting all of the finalists by giving them a copy of the Unity Pro package (worth $1,500) to every winning team member - in addition to one copy for each finalist team.

Nicholas Francis, Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of Unity said, "We're honored to be sponsoring the IGF - Unity started out as an indie game studio, so in a way this feels like coming home. We can't wait to have some of these talented developers see what we do, so we'd like to give away a lot of Unity Pro copies. In short, we're proud to sign on as sponsors and show our support for Indie gaming."

Angry Gorilla Machine Monsters may be a simple shmup where gameplay is concerned, but the work Andrew has put into the presentation makes it well worth a go. His signature blurring effect is there in full force, complimented by some brilliant design choices. After my fifth go, I was still coming up against enemies I hadn't seen before - the baddie deployment is random.

Short but sweet, give it a shot.

Originally developed with the Game Maker engine, JW's Atomic Super Boss is a score-based vertical shooter that features only one enemy to shoot at for points. The fragile part of your ship is marked by a small white-coloured square, and you earn more points by sticking close to the boss while shooting at it. The ship also moves faster when no shots are fired.

There are three difficulty levels to choose from, and you can even submit your best scores online at the end of each game as well.

After the success of the original, Mr. Podunkian has recently been hard at work creating the sequel to one of our 'Best Freeware Arcade Games 2007' and has released the above development video.

Entitled 'Merry Gear Solid 2: Ghosts of Christmas Past', expect to play December 2009, giving you enough time to go back and play through the first one.

[We had a ceremony for the first-ever IGF China in Shanghai last night, held alongside GDC China, and here's the results -- it's nice to be shining a light on independent titles in this area of the world.]

Organizers of the inaugural Independent Games Festival China have announced this year’s IGF China winners during a packed riverside IGF Awards Ceremony, held on the first evening of the 2nd Game Developers Conference China in Shanghai, on October 11th 2009.

The ceremony, presented by IGF China judge and Chinese game industry veteran Kevin Li, awarded the best independent game developers and student creators from the Asia-Pacific area.

The first ever IGF China Best Game award, including a RMB 20,000 ($2,900 U.S.) cash prize and two all-access GDC 2010 passes, went to Australian creator Farbs and his unique modular 2D space adventure game, Captain Forever (pictured).

Some of the other top awards went to notable Chinese game creators, with You Yun Tech's XNA-based kung fu combat title HurricaneX2 picking up the Technical Excellence award, and Magic Day Studio's lush fantasy strategy game Donovo winning the Excellence In Art Direction award.

In addition, Best Student Game went to National University Of Singapore's Autumn Dynasty, which uses a brush and touch screen to have the player direct fantasy Far-Eastern armies with virtual brushstrokes.

The full set of IGF China 2009 winners are as follows:

Seen above, a new HD teaser trailer for AureaSection's upcoming online multiplayer space battle simulation game. If the FAQ is to be believed, Naumachia: Space Warfare should be released sometime later this year.

Preview: Naumachia - Space Warfare (IndieGames)

A couple of very informational videos recorded at the Digital Distribution Summit in Melbourne, Australia on September 29th were recently posted up for viewing online. In the first clip, David Edery (former Worldwide Portfolio Manager for XBLA) discusses about getting your game into the console downloadable market, how to do well with a digitally-distributed game, and tips on designing a great pitch for XBLA and PSN. His keynote presentation starts at the 7th minute mark.

In the second video, Simon Carless talks about the eight 'rules' for digital game distribution success, which is a great set of guidelines that developers can follow when considering marketing methods for their digitally-distributed games. More recordings can be found at the official site for the 2009 Digital Distribution Summit event.

Related:
The World of Indie Games (Gamasutra)
Nicalis' Rodriguez Talks Indie Realities (Gamasutra)

In our latest employment-specific 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 ArenaNet, Radical Entertainment, THQ 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 this week include:

ArenaNet Cinematics Producer
"ArenaNet is seeking a Cinematics Producer who will be responsible for ensuring the successful delivery of the in game cinematics and marketing videos to a high creative standard. The role will oversee the entire lifecycle of the cinematics production process from concept to delivery. The Producer will collaborate with the Cinematics Lead to execute a vision and provide the link and liaise between the Cinematics team and the art, design, programming and production teams."

Radical Entertainment/Activision Mission Scripter (Intermediate)
"Our 50,000+ square foot studio situated on the cusp of downtown Vancouver, overlooks the coastal mountains and offers a fully stocked kitchen, in-house gym, log cabin, ski lift tickets, art gallery passes and a wide variety of training, mentorship and career development initiatives. At Radical we’re here to create great games and learn and have fun doing it."

Whipcrack may appear to be another space shooter (or space whipper, as the case may be) but there's a lot more going on here - it's actually more of a puzzler in shooter clothing. The task is to destroy aliens, give them to your master Recycler Twelve to harvest the energy, then use that to rebuild the downed communications tower.

Enemies are easy enough to destroy with one sharp crack of the whip, but then once the recycler has had his way with them and turned them into power, they will hoard around him and try to eradicate the collected balls of electricity. You can harvest the power instantly to make it disappear, but if you hold the enemy back instead and don't harvest it straight away, collecting multiple balls will lead to upgrades, making your life a whole lot easier.

As the main campaign progresses, different types of enemy are introduced which require new ways of thinking to use them to your advantage. This progression is really well thought out and each new level feels like a brand new challenge rather than just the same thing, only harder.

There is multiplayer too, for up to 4 players. I managed to give a 2-player game a go and it turned out to be good fun, although I'll assume that adding extra people to the fray would make it a whole lot crazier. If you're a little dubious about the Xbox Live Indie Games collection, this may well change your mind. WhipCrack is a great twist on the shooter genre and, at 240 MS Points ($3), well worth at least trying out the demo.

Another great game to compliment your glorious Friday evening, Miami Shark is all about causing destruction by leaping out of the water and eating men, women, children, swans, boats, helicopters, planes and space shuttles (amongst other things).

It's wonderfully simple and really, could there possibly be anything more brilliant than pulling an entire jumbo jet out of the sky with your teeth? I think not. There's also a whole combo points system going on, so you can attempt to string together lots of death and annihilation for massive score.

You have to give this a try - it's too hilarious to pass on. Release the teeth over on Newgrounds. (Source: The ever wonderful Rock Paper Shotgun)

You know those situations you sometimes find yourself in where you're in a cave and it suddenly starts falling down around you, and your only chance of survival is to run on a 2D plane, dodging falling barrels and the ghosts of various dead creatures? Cave Chaos is like those times - but in a game!

See, those situations in real life are incredibly stressful and just a little bit scary, but playing this game takes all the stress out of it and actually makes it really fun! That feeling of anxiety is replaced by some all round good fun and there's even a 2-player mode so you and your friend can re-construct some memories you may otherwise have rather forgotten.

So yes, I heartily recommend checking out Nitrome's Cave Chaos. What's with those extremely annoying bouncy mushrooms though? So completely unrealistic. (Thanks for the tip Mr. Dave Harkins!)

Paul posted a few weeks ago regarding Kickstarter, a site where people can post up their projects in the hope that users will find their causes worthwhile and help fund them. It's been especially helpful for some independent game developers who have used Kickstarter to fund their latest games and even entry fees into the IGF.

Unfortunately it was rather difficult to find all the indie projects as there was no tagging system to speak of and a pretty poor effort of a search mechanism. Lucky for us, the guys behind Kickstarter are good listeners and a new update has arrived, one of the latest features being the addition of a tagging system. It's now possible to check out every gaming project by clicking here.

It's definitely worth checking through the entries as there's some great-looking stuff to find. Of course, you may even want to donate a little bit of cash to a project if you decide it worthy enough!

Capybara Games' eat-em-up puzzler Critter Crunch is now available to download via PSN for your Playstation 3. Going for $6.99, the above trailer was released in the hope of taking your fancy.

According to a post on the Playstation blog, there are four single player (Adventure, Puzzle, Challenge and Survival) and two multiplayer offline/online modes (Versus and Co-Op). I'll be giving it a gander sometime in the next week and writing some word-a-thinks.

Related: May Trailer

The Black Heart is a fighting game from Argentinian developer Andrés Borghi. The release date set is Halloween (31/10/09).

The art style is reminiscent of old fighting games like Mortal Kombat and the special attacks look just as silly too. 7 years in the making (in Andrés' spare time, of course), there are barely any details at present regarding multiplayer, modes etc, but it's all looking delightfully atmospheric and needlessly gory. You may also spot a 4 player free-for-all going on round about the 1:17 mark in the trailer, hence expecting up to four players on one computer would be a safe bet. Let's hope it turns out to be good fun.

With IndieCade in Culver City now all over, it's time for the independent gaming festival to visit the Europeans with all its indie gaming goodness! Details of the IndieCade Europe Expo have begun to emerge on the GameCity website. The event will be hosted in the IndieVillage at Gamecity Squared in Nottingham, starting 27th October and running for 5 days.

Featured games which have been announced up to now are as follows:

Akrasia - Team AHA!
Classic Night - JoYoung Won / Akarolis
Dear Esther - Dan Pinchbeck
Moon Stories - Daniel Benmergui
Nanobots - Erin Robinson, Vince Wesselmann
Papermint - Avaloop
The Path - Tale of Tales
Shadow Physics - Steve Swink, Scott Anderson
Sowlar - Odd Man In

Sister site Gamasutra are reporting that Randy Pitchford, co-founder of Gearbox Software, has said that Valve is exploiting independent developers with its Steam digital distribution service.

While we normally hear developers proclaiming that Valve is boosting the indie gaming market, Pitchford commented that there is too much "conflict of interest" involved and maybe a little too much money-grabbing. He said:

"Steam helps us as customers, but it’s also a money grab, and Valve is exploiting a lot of people in a way that’s not totally fair. Valve is taking a larger share than it should for the service it's providing. It’s exploiting a lot of small guys. For us big guys, we’re going to sell the units and it will be fine."

He finished by saying that as a distribution system, "Steam isn’t the answer".

I'm personally one of those who believe Steam is doing a great amount of good for independent gaming, but Pitchford's comments seem to throw that a little. If there are any independent developers who have dealt with Steam in the past, we'd love to hear your take on the issue. Are Valve helping independent gaming develop and be taken more seriously, or is it all about the moolah?

Read the full story over on Gama.

[Not to beat everyone over the head, but here's the latest IGF-related news, as the November deadline for IGF 2010 nears, including specifics on competition deadlines, related events, and more.]

As the Independent Games Festival continues, we thought it might be a good idea to update periodically with the latest news on submissions, previous winners, judging, relevant events, and so on. Here's the final update before the November deadlines, with info on those dates, news from IGF China and the Independent Games Summit at GDC Austin, plus a new indie event that's debuting at GDC 2010.

Deadline Reminders

We've heard from a lot of you who are preparing to submit your game to this year's Independent Games Festival, so we know you're getting ready. But another reminder doesn't hurt -- and you'll need to submit by November 1st, 2009 for the IGF 2010 Main Competition, and by November 15th, 2009 for the IGF 2010 Student Showcase Competition. Don't be late!

One notable new thing this year - several indies such as Resonance's Vince Twelve and Flywrench's Mark Essen are funding their IGF entrance fee and time to prepare their games for our Festival through the pledge-based website Kickstarter -- an interesting new method of bankrolling independent games.

Also worth noting, for those who didn't see our recent announcement - the Independent Games Festival Mobile is returning for 2010, with handheld-specific submissions being accepted at the official IGF Mobile website through December 1st, 2009. We're looking forward to a host of interesting game entries for platforms like iPhone, cellphone, DSi, PSP, and even perhaps new platforms like Google's Android operating system.

Here's an extended trailer for the upcoming boxed version of Machinarium, to be published by Daedalic Entertainment.

Addicsjon is another experimental project by the developer of G-E-N-E-R-I-C and FallOver, where you are in control of a drug addict who automatically tries to collect any pills he sees. Your objective is basically to guide him towards the white flag in each of the five levels included, although that can prove to be difficult as the protagonist doesn't really feel like cooperating with the player at all.

According to Ryan, Arkedo Series 01 - JUMP is an Xbox Live Indie Games release from a French development studio previously involved with producing DS titles. The game doesn't look particularly difficult compared to the stuff we've been regularly exposed to in the indie games scene, yet surprisingly many of those who played it have been requesting for a save system.

Arkedo Studios had also commented that they will be releasing another XBLIG game sometime next week.

SLOTBAHN is a 3D simulation of slot car racing that features four tracks to race on. Players only need to hold down the Z key to accelerate their car, or release it so that their vehicle slows down before negotiating a sharp corner on the road. This is because if you go too fast, the momentum will push the car off the track and you'd lose valuable seconds waiting for it to be placed back on the road. (download page)

In Another Château is a physics-based platformer in which you play a hero with a crate-shooting gun, out to recover his beloved biplane that was stolen while he was taking an afternoon stroll. You win a level by reaching the red telephone booth found in every area, though most times they are placed just out of your reach. To solve this problem, all you have to do is stack crates continuously until a platform or staircase is created for you to walk on.

[Though the main Independent Games Festival doesn't close entries for a few weeks, we've just announced the finalists for IGF China. I'll be in Shanghai at GDC China in a few days to give out prizes, and we're really pleased to be honoring indie titles across Asia and Australasia.]

Organizers of the inaugural Independent Games Festival China have revealed that over 100 entries were received for the first-ever showcase of Asia-Pacific indie games, and finalists have now been decided for both the Main and Student competitions. Winners will be revealed next week at GDC China in Shanghai.

Chinese submissions for the first-ever independent games event targeting this area -- a newly formed sister event to the main yearly IGF in San Francisco -- were received from Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Jiang Su Province, Guang Dong Province, Sichuan Province, and Zhejiang.

In addition, overseas submissions from Asian, Asia-Pacific and Australasian nations including the Philippines, Israel, Japan, Singapore, Pakistan, Australia, Iran, South Korea and India were considered.

Finalists were chosen by a panel of distinguished local judges, including representatives from IGDA Shanghai, FZD School of Design, Activision and many more. IGF China winners will be showcased at the GDC China event, and are eligible to win up to RMB20,000 ($3,000) in cash prizes, awards, and All Access Passes to GDC San Francisco 2010.

"The quality of work by the finalists represented at the Inaugural Independent Games Festival China is a great indicator of the developing indie movement in that region," says GDC China event director Meggan Scavio. "We are excited to announce the finalists and celebrate the creativity and innovation in the Asia-Pacific independent game industry."

The Main Competition finalists for the 2009 Independent Games Festival China are:

[The just-concluded IndieCade seems to have been an adorably disheveled, community-oriented success in Culver City this year, and we asked Flower composer Vincent Diamante to cover it. As well as pieces on odd keynotes and iPhone artgame projects, here's his round-up of the games in attendance.]

This weekend, game designer Eric Zimmerman was overheard discussing how this year’s IndieCade, even more than in previous years, felt like a film festival. Indeed, Culver City felt just a bit like a reduction of Park City, Utah, as groups of game developers and fans made beelines between art galleries and theaters to see and hear everything that these independent games and their creators had to say.

Of course, one big difference in presenting games compared to screening movies is that you don’t need to schedule the games. There’s no predetermined start time, no immutable running time, no non-trivial changing of reels or emptying of theaters.

Instead, each of IndieCade’s twenty-nine (29!) games simply lived in their places, whether they be in the lobby of the Culver Hotel next to a factoid about the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, or in the Wonderful World Art Gallery, sitting underneath an animation cel from Disney’s Snow White.

Each game in its place, they ran from sunup to sundown -- sometimes with their creators there to explain the game and sometimes not, but always with the unfailing ability to draw someone in, even if only for a few minutes. Maybe that person grew up playing video games, or maybe that person couldn’t tell Pac-Man from Pikmin; regardless, the games would send that person off with a new understanding of what the game world was capable of.

Star Guard is a 2D platformer (for Mac and Windows) in which you play as a spaceman on a mission to defeat an evil wizard, armed with only a gun that fires in the direction that you are facing. A quick trigger finger helps, because enemies have a tendency to spring out of nowhere and take you by surprise. Slow to react, and you'd end up back at the last checkpoint location or the beginning of the level you are on.

The game isn't particularly difficult to beat, considering that players have infinite lives to waste on getting shot at or springing traps. There are nine levels to play in total, and instructions on how to unlock an extra mode are given after completing the entire quest.

[UPDATE: Version 0.97 released.]

Over the weekend I posted about the brilliant Grappling Hook - a first-person puzzler all about navigating your way back to Earth via a handy lazer grappling hook thingy. Now is your chance to win a copy of the game for free! Hurrah!

To have your chance of winning, just answer the following question:

At various points during the demo (available to download from the GH site) there are 3 wall tags in black letters. What do these 3 tags say?

Give the demo a playthrough if you haven't already, find the 3 tags, and then email your answer to walltags@speedrungames.com. The competition will run until Thursday evening (8/10/09). Happy hunting!

Fatale, developed by Tale of Tales (The Path, The Graveyard), is an interactive first person representation of the story of Salome. Released on the 78th anniversary of the first performance in England of Oscar Wilde's theatrical "Salome", you'll most likely be unsurprised to read that 'it may appear somewhat unconventional to the seasoned gamer' according to the Tale of Tales site.

The official description is as follows:

'Salome is a first century Judean princess mentioned in the Christian Bible by Matthew and by Mark. But it is Oscar Wilde's 19th century play “Salome” that really inspired Fatale. In the Bible, Salome is a child who dances for King Herod and asks the head of John the Baptist as a reward. In Wilde's version, Salome falls in love with the prophet. He rejects her and she has him executed. The play ends with her kissing the lips of his decapitated head.

Most of Fatale takes place in the aftermath of this event, when all has turned quiet and the moon brings comfort to troubled hearts.'

I've not personally given it a playthrough yet, but it sounds like it follows the ToT formula of 'experimental play experience that stimulates the imagination'. Fatale is available to purchase from the ToT site for $7 and is available for both Windows and Mac.

In RedRive you destroy enemies by drawing a rectangle around them, with the size of the shape that can be drawn determined by a gauge shown at the bottom of the screen. The smaller the rectangle used to take out enemy ships, the higher the score multiplier will be. (instructions)

Digital Eel's Strange Adventures in Infinite Space is a space exploration game in which you play an unemployed space pilot, hired by a smuggler to embark on a dangerous ten-year mission in the Sector Prime system. Your employer is willing to part with handsome rewards for any discoveries that you find during this dangerous journey, but return to him late and you will be charged extra in ship rental costs.

The map is randomized every time you play, and interplanetary travel is initiated by left-clicking on a nearby star and pressing the engage button. Your ship can only travel in a straight line, and flying through the Purple Void nebula will only slow you down even further.

Combat is conducted in real-time, with information about the current ship selected shown on the left side of the screen during a space battle. The green bar indicates your shield status, which recharges automatically during combat. The orange bar shows your ship's condition, and when this gauge runs out the ship is pretty much reduced to space debris.

Both the Windows and Mac versions of SAIS are now available as free downloads, and there are a bunch of mods that can be applied to change your ship's appearance, the types of aliens populating the system, and even the effects of new artifacts that you can find during your adventure in space. Some mods like Red Planet and Even Stranger Adventures in Infinite Space act as full-fledged conversions as well, offering a new storyline, GUI and alternate objectives for the players to achieve. (encyclopedia)

The Mold Fairy and Paladin 0 are two new games released by Gregory Weir. The Mold Fairy is a game about achievements, where you are in control of a fairy tasked by Queen Titania to spread mold across the land and teach humans a lesson about the beneficial and destructive nature of spores.

Paladin 0 is a vertical scrolling shooter created in under three days with the help of Adam Saltsman's Flixel framework, and seems to be the better game of the two although there is only one short level to play. You cannot activate both shields and fire a laser beam at the same time, hence a balance has to be struck between the two when absorbing bullets and destroying enemy ships.

It's no secret that both myself and Tim are rather big fans of Andrew's stuff - it's to his credit that he is merely 16 years old and has already developed such fantastic stuff. The above video shows off some of his upcoming projects.

Past coverage:
Scrapp
Takishawa is Dead
Spectre
Polkadot
Social Experiment
Sworrd Buster

Tobe's Vertical Adventure is a retro-style platformer coming later this month to Xbox Live Indie Games. I think I might be in love. Hopefully a great addition to the XBLIG catalogue.

In our latest employment-specific 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 Propaganda, Insomniac, Rockstar, 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 this week include:

Like with Portal, the use of momentum and timing is crucial to success. Many puzzles involve letting go of the grappling hook at just the right time to propel yourself to safety, while others require firing in mid-air and latching onto surfaces that may not have been visible when firmly on the ground.

It's wonderful stuff. Starting off at a slow pace, you're giving the opportunity to get used to the grapple gun before the more taxing situations come into play. Just check the video above for examples of just how difficult it can get - perfect, precision play is essential for making sure you land on the required platform and not across the other side of the room instead, and later levels love asking you to jump into the unknown, seemingly destined for death but then a glimmer of green emerges and, with a skillful aim, you're back on track.

Bullet Candy Perfect by Charlie's Games is an updated version of the older indie game Bullet Candy, which I remember playing back when it was on Manifesto. I don't remember it well enough to be sure about what has changed (his blog says the graphics and engine have been updated), but one thing I'm sure has changed is the price: you can now choose your price, with only a $1 minimum. I went with 3$, since Charlie had recently bought my game for the same price too.

Overall it's pretty fun, my only complaint is that the bullets sometimes are very similar in color to the power-ups you need to collect, making them harder to distinguish by eye. Other than that, a nice abstract shooter.

It was but a mere week ago that the Dyson devs began hunting for a new name for their upcoming indie title, and after receiving over 400 names from enthusiastic gamers, Alex and Rudolf have made their decision:

'There were some very interesting, entertaining, baffling, horrifying, charming, and “almost right” entries out there… However, we feel there is one that stands out for a number of reasons and that is the delightful: “Eufloria”.

We love the name as it nicely sums up the general mood of the game, and ties it in with the “flora” theme that sets our game apart from many other titles. It is also easy to remember, nice to say and hear, and nicely compact. In short: an excellent name!'

I personally quite like the new name - it's on the verge of being a little corny, and may make a few people let out a disappointed groan, but it's also kinda clever and, as Rudolf rightly points out, fits with the general theme of the game.

October 20th is the date to watch out for!

A short interview with the developers responsible for Nicalis' upcoming WiiWare release, La-Mulana. Naramura and Samejima discusses about getting the difficulty right for the game, and how music will be remixed for the new version.

The second video (after the cut) was also recorded at the same TGS event that the Nigoro team attended, where Q Games' Dylan Cuthbert talks about their upcoming PSN release Pixeljunk Shooter and Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe for the PSP. (source: Jeriaska, GameSetWatch)

In the extended is also a presentation by Phil Fish about Power Pill, a collaborative iPhone project between Polytron and Infinite Ammo. This one was recorded at the Pecha Kucha event in Montreal recently.

Altitude is an online multiplayer dogfight-em-up. Players roam the skies, shooting down rivals, picking up power-ups and gathering XP to level up and gain access to special perks and better aircraft. The game can be played through your browser or downloaded and booted straight from your hard drive.

It's a lovely little thing, bursting full of challenges, missions and general good fun. As well as gaining experience from shooting down enemies, XP points are also awarded for completing certain tasks - for example, 'shoot down 3 enemies in four seconds' or 'kill 100 enemies using the Bomber'. Perks can then be added to your winged avenger like the ability to bounce off walls rather than crash straight into them.

The general feel of Altitude is really nice too. The controls, while simple, can be mastered to devastating effect (as I learnt when trying to take on a few guys who were way higher levels than me) and the package as a whole is pretty slick. Note, however, that if you want to properly get into the game, it costs $19.95 to unlock everything - that is, receive special planes, perks and maps.

Still, for free you're getting some great, sky-diving fun. Check it out at AltitudeGame.com.

Normally free downloadable games would come under the 'Freeware Game Pick' category, but I'm making an exception for RunMan: Race Around the World. Yes, it may be free to download, but to be perfectly honest, it is your DUTY to throw your money at Tom and Matt.

Simply put, RunMan is utterly fantastic. The whole experience comprises of pelting it through zone after zone of levels which look like they were draw in MS Paint with the biggest size brush, bouncing off walls, smashing through bricks and baddies and then picking up a medal at the end depending on how fast you were and how much stuff you crashed into. All the while a glorious mixture of folk, blues and jazz accompanies the action, somehow perfectly complimenting the hilarity.

And that's just the basics down. Each zone map is set out like a SNES-era Mario title, while the gameplay itself manages to feel like some mad cross between said plumber and that blue hedgehog of yore. Then each level itself has 3 different medals to achieve - a bronze, silver and gold - the latter of which requires complete control and concentration to master. Oh, and the game saves ghost runs of your performances which you can then race against. And there are boss levels too.

What I'm trying to say here is, I'm only up to zone 4 and I'm already wondering to myself... could this possibly turn out to be Indie Game of the Year? Grab it from Tom Sennett's site (for free or otherwise) and decide for yourself. Oh, and if you don't like it, it most likely means you're allergic to fun. You should see a doctor about that. (Main download page)

[Once again, I was very privileged to take part in Sense Of Wonder Night at Tokyo Game Show this year, both as onlooker and judge. Here's a full write-up of the presented games, and there's screenshot-based overviews on the TGS website.]

At a busy event on the Friday night of Tokyo Game Show, CESA presented the second Sense Of Wonder Night, showcasing 10 presentations -- each of 10 minutes -- from creators of interesting, innovative experimental games, including notable titles such as Shadow Physics and Transcend.

In the introduction, organizer Kiyoshi Shin of IGDA Japan presented an update on some of the previously showcased titles from 2008's event. He noted that Gomibako launched worldwide as a PlayStation Network title in 2009 (it's called Trash Panic in North America), and that Ian Dallas' Unfinished Swan is now in production as a full game, as Dallas founded a company to make it after leaving university studies.

This year saw 65 worldwide submissions from 18 countries and regions, with ten games picked for creating a 'sense of wonder' by a judging committee (pictured below) including noted shmup creator Kenta Cho, Enterbrain's 'Maker Series' producer Kenji Sugiuchi, Katamari Damacy/Noby Noby Boy creator Keita Takahashi, Vector's Takashi Katayama, and IGDA Japan's Kiyoshi Shin, as well as the writer of this article (IGF Chairman and Gamasutra publisher Simon Carless).

Finwick is an action platformer created by SmallGreenHill, whose other previous work was the mildly popular episodic Platform - The Game. You play as a boy assigned with the task of delivering a package to Prattle Barker, an ecologist who lives somewhere in Fargrown Forest. Along the way you will encounter pitfalls, traps, obstacles, contraptions, and monsters that won't hesitate to eat you alive if you do not stomp on them first.

Some areas are structured as puzzles that you will have to solve before Finwick can continue with his journey. It gets slightly trickier at a later stage when Finwick's friend Pentella joins him on his search for the elusive scientist, since you have to get both characters to the exit in order to progress.

The full game costs $6, but you can play the first twenty-five levels for free without the need to login with a paid user account.