A development blog for Jonathan Blow's latest game The Witness has popped up on the official site, with some concept art adorning its pages.

While real details concerning the game have yet to be released, there are a nice bunch of images to feast your eyes on. From what is on show, I'd take a stab at it being some kind of adventure exploration game. I'm usually wrong though, so don't hold me to that.

Continuing the gardening theme for today, Guerrilla Gardening: Seeds of Revolution is a 'sneak and plant' pixel art game. Taking control of gardener Molly Greenthumb, the task is to turn a grey, boring city green by covering it in foliage.

Guards are plodding around everywhere, so stealth is the key to a successful mission. Flowers make the citizens happy, and special plants can be used to lure guards away from particular spots, scare them or simply put them to sleep. No word on a release date yet.

Extreme Gardening is a short puzzle game about trimming hedges. On each of the 15 levels, players are shown how the hedge should look, then given 10 seconds to cut it into shape using the mouse to click and drag the hedge away.

Depending on how similar your final piece is compared to the original, you'll be awarded bronze, silver or gold medals. Time is tight, so you'll need to work quickly and precisely.

Great for wasting a few minutes. Download from the Poppenkast.

Jason Rohrer, the mind behind the glorious Passage, has announced his next game. Sleep Is Death (Geisterfahrer) appears to be some sort of storytelling environment for 2 players to create any crazy tale they can come up with.

There's a slideshow which explains it much better than I ever could (apparently made entirely from actual screenshots of the game in motion), but in a nutshell, player one moves his or her character around, interacting with the scenes and talking to other people, while player two has a whole editing panel with which they can make pretty much anything happen - or so is the claim. Either way, it's undeniable that Sleep Is Death sounds like an amazing concept.

The game will be made available on April 16th for $14, however anyone who pre-orders before then will save themselves $5, and receive the game a week early (April 9th). Note that since this is a 2-player only game, buying the game once will give 2 copies, so really you're looking at $4.50 each if you can find a friend to play with. A tutorial video explaining it all in more depth is apparently coming soon, so if you're not sure whether to take the plunge, it might be best to wait for that.

And another rather agreeable trailer to feast your eyes on, this time of the just-released Shoot 1UP - an Xbox Live Indie Games shooter.

It's got multi-ship control, 2 player co-op, weapon upgrades, something called a 'Plasma Auger' and ladies who fire missiles from their bits. All for 80 MS Points! That's a dollar!

More details here, Xbox Marketplace page here.

Dangeeeer! Days after Hello Games didn't announce their bike-em-up is coming to the PSN store, we now have a lovely trailer to contend with. Loverly.

Home Sheep Home is a physics-based puzzler that features characters from Shaun the Sheep, a stop-motion animation series produced by the creators of Wallace and Gromit. The objective of the game is to get all three sheep to reach the signpost safely. This means players will have to switch between Shaun, Timmy and Shirley as needed to overcome the obstacles they come across.

There are only fifteen stages to play through, but you can also turn the hint system off for a bit of extra challenge. (official site, Kongregate mirror)

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, Sucker Punch 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: International Project Manager
"ArenaNet is seeking to hire an International Project Manager for a job opening on the International Product Team. The primary function of the International Project Manager is to manage and coordinate international projects for the ArenaNet Business team and to act as a primary contact for Asian partners. Other areas of responsibility include managing product localization, market research and data analysis."

Today's collection of independent game links include BBC News' feature on British indie game developers, more mentions of Monaco in the press, and the results of Jay is Games' Interactive Fiction game development competition.

BBC News: Return of the British bedroom game designers
"An old British cottage industry has found itself on the comeback trail producing a more modest diet of homegrown games. And these low-budget titles are more likely to be produced by a one man team operating out of a bedroom than a high-tech development lab."

Zombie Cow Studios: New News Press Release Released
"Press Release Inc. have announced the release of their new Press Release format which is available immediately for anyone who wants to release something to the press."

Bytejacker: IGF Finalist Monaco First Look
"Monaco has been getting a lot of attention lately. We've got a first look at the team-based heist game, which is bound to be your co-op obsession of 2010."

Andy Schatz: Monaco Level Editor First Look (video)
"A first look at an early build of the level editor for Monaco. In it, I build a level based on the actual floor plans of the Moscone Center in San Francisco, where GDC and the IGF awards ceremony are held."

CO-OP: Sooo Indie (video)
"One of the games up for the highest award in the Independent Games Festival is Monaco, a hugely innovative heist-movie-in-a-game that somehow manages to be retro and modern all at the same time."

Jay is Games: And the winner is
"A very special Casual Gameplay Design Competition comes to a close, one dedicated to the realm of interactive fiction. Here we honor all of the games that were entered, as well as award a few prizes, too."

Team Meat: Super Meat Boy comics
"Dropping off 10,000 Super Meat Boy comics to GDC... we somehow got all that to fit into the back of my mom's car. All attendees who pick up tote bags will get one."

The finalists for Direct2Drive's IGF Vision Award - which is picked by IGF Download Partner D2D from the more than 300 IGF main competition entries, and was won by Osmos last year -- have been announced.

The winner will be presented with the $10,000 D2D-donated cash prize during the Independent Games Festival award ceremony on March 11th.

The five finalists for the Direct2Drive Vision Award for this year are:

- HurricaneX2, a 3D martial arts brawler from You Yun Tech.
- Joe Danger, a build-it-yourself stuntman simulator from Hello Games.
- Nyxquest: Kindred Spirits, from Over The Top Games, which challenges players to fly, aim and shoot through a world inspired by Greek myths.
- Super Meat Boy, a platform game from Team Meat starring a lovable cube of meat who must race through dangerous obstacles to save his girlfriend.
- Max and the Magic Marker, a puzzle platform game from Press Play with a unique “magic marker” drawing mechanic.

More details on the D2D site.

With a trailer released just before Christmas, Eon is now available to play over at Newgrounds. It is indeed a take on Cypher Prime's Auditorium, with particle manipulation used to fill containers.

It's got a lovely feel to it, with the retro graphics and atmospheric soundtrack really doing it justice. I found it to be just a little too difficult from the get-go, but if you're looking for a challenge, this is it. There are even user-created levels (and the ability to create your own, obviously). Check it out.

There's a rather tasty indie games bundle over on Direct2Drive at the moment, featuring 10 past IGF finalists for a mere $29.95. My incredible understanding of mathematics tells me that's less than $3 a game!

The games in question are:
World of Goo
Puzzlegeddon
Gish
The Maw
Braid
Cogs
Aaaaa!
Osmos
Machinarium
Crayon Physics Deluxe

Here's the UK store link for you lovely British born and bred. Is this the greatest indie-orientated bundle yet? Short answer: Yes. Slightly longer answer: HELLS yes.

Houkaimura (Breaking Town) is an action platformer that plays similarly to the Ghosts 'n Goblins series, where you have to guide an eggplant-headed character through eight levels packed with enemies, traps and boss encounters.

There are a large selection of weapons that you can find and collect, although players are limited to the use of just one type of weapon at any time. Not an easy game, but completely beatable in under an hour or less with repeated tries. You can also switch between windowed and full screen mode by pressing the Left Alt and Enter key. Download the game here. (Windows, 20.9MB)

Let's take a look at the latest interviews with indie game developers on the web. Highlights include: the continuation of Gamasutra's Road to the IGF series, DIYGamer's coverage on Student Showcase finalists, three more IGF award nominees featured on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, an interview with Hello Games about Joe Danger.

ZillionMonkey: Like a solitary spacecraft
"Japanese creators of shoot 'em ups - professionals and enthusiasts - are a well-respected bunch. This month we feature one of them: Kenta Cho. He is a freeware game maker with a day job, guest lecturer, arcade goer. He works alone."

Gamasutra: Road To The IGF - Limbo's Dino Patti
"In the latest Road to the IGF interview with 2010 Independent Games Festival finalists, Gamasutra speaks with Dino Patti, part of the team behind shadowy Excellence in Visual Art finalist Limbo."

Gamasutra: Road To The IGF - Closure's Tyler Glaiel And Jon Schubbe
"Tyler Glaiel and Jon Schubbe discuss their design and inspirations for Closure and the upcoming expanded version of the game's subtly sinister undertones."

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: IGF Factor 2010 - Closure
"I am working on Closure for another year. After Closure, I have some concepts for the next game. It's looking like it's going to be completely the opposite of Closure."

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: IGF Factor 2010 - Limbo
"Lead Designer Jeppe Carlsen explains what the team has been up to with Limbo and the studio."

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: IGF Factor 2010 - Trauma
"UK-based PC game site Rock, Paper, Shotgun speaks to Krystian Majewski, developer of Seumas McNally Grand Prize finalist Trauma."

DIYgamer: The Future of Gaming - Dreamside Maroon
"Three members of the Dreamside Maroon team from Digipen managed to wrangle their schedules to talk to DIYgamer. You can find the transcribed interview here."

DIYgamer: The Future of Gaming - Igneous
"Igneous follows a tiki totem as it rolls its way through the innards of an exploding volcano. Part racing game, part heart attack, this title is an impressive feat for student gaming."

This Is My Joystick: Hello Games - The Interview
"Following on from our feature on Hello Games, we were lucky enough to grab the four friends living their dream for an interview about the upcoming Joe Danger."

Joey has been throwing out some brilliant browser games recently, and this is no exception. Sushi Cat is part Peggle, part feeding a cat. With sushi, obviously.

Once the cat is dropped from the top of the screen, you have no control over where he ends up, but his bouncing and body-jiggling is almost hypnotic. As he eats the sushi, he also expands, making for some tight squeezes. It's all about eating your sushi quota for each level to progress. The visuals and assorted reggae/japanese music give it a great vibe, too.

Find the fat cat over at Armor Games.

Ska Studios, the devs behind gory XBLA release 'The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai' today announced a sequel is in the works. Coming "when it's done", The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile will apparently be "bigger, better, and more badass". One to watch out for, sez I.

Nicalis has announced that the WiiWare version of Cave Story will be hitting the North America WiiWare store on March 22nd.

Some of the new features for this enhanced version include:

- New character designs and completely redrawn background and interface, exclusive to Wii
- Remastered music as well as the original soundtrack
- Mix-and-match new/old artwork and music!
- Five new play modes (including Sanctuary Time Attack and Boss Rush)
- Over 20 epic boss battles, 15 levels to explore and 10 unique weapons
- Three unique endings

No word on a release for the rest of the world, but hopefully it won't be long after that.

Official Cave Story site
Preview trailers from back in 2008

The weekend just gone saw the first ever Game Jolt Weekend Jam spew out some lovely little numbers, including Zack Banack's hand-drawn shmup Paper Dreams. Over three levels, the task is to shoot everything that moves, especially anything that is smiling.

Z shoots, enemies explode, plus and minus signs fall. Grab the plus signs to upgrade your blaster and increase your chances of survival. It's pretty difficult, even on easy mode, although a checkpoint is saved as you enter each new level. The entirely hand-drawn visuals are quite striking, turning what is pretty much your standard shooter into something pretty special.

Play at Gamejolt.

Peposoft's Sennyuu is an action platformer that features twenty stages to play, where the objective is to take out all of the enemies on screen without losing too many hearts in the process. You're armed with the same gun that the other grunts have, so it's a matter of shooting first and dodging whatever projectiles that come at you to survive. Past the first couple of levels you'll find that the difficulty ramps up a bit with the introduction of tougher enemies, lasers, barrels, and even conveyor belts.

The graphics might seem crude at first, but anyone who enjoyed Chris Roper's Destructivator will have a blast playing through this one. Download it here. (Windows, 3.35MB)

In chucino's Cactus Block you play as an unnamed blue character who has to find his or her way home on a snowy winter day. Some cliffs might seem to high to climb at first, but you can place a random tile on screen as a platform to stand on or jump off. The problem with this ability is that there's an equal chance of getting a cactus instead of a brown block, which hurts the player should they come in contact with the prickly plant.

Pressing the F4 function key switches between full screen and windowed mode. You can download the game here, or visit dessgeega's site for more Klik of the Month picks. (Windows, 1.16MB)

With one console announcement out of the way today, a second is almost announced... that is, Hello Games' Joe Danger looks like it will be landing in the Playstation Store, or so a recent blog post would suggest.

While the blog post itself merely states that "awfully exciting things" are on the horizon, the accompanying image (picture above, click to expand) pretty much confirms at least one of those "things" - the addition of the Playstation X button screaming a PSN release is on the cards.

If the upcoming announcement isn't to say that Joe Danger is coming to PSN, I will eat something unpleasant for your viewing pleasure.

Nominated for this year's IGF Nuovo Award, here's a trailer for Ian Bogost's 'A Slow Year'. It's a collection of 4 games, one for each season of the year, to be released for the Atari Video Computer System.

OK, so it will also be released for PC and Mac "in a custom Atari emulator", but it will indeed be available via a limited edition cartridge for the Atari 2600, along with a special poetry set! Lots of lovely information regarding the release over on Bogost's blog.

Here's a strange turn of events - Super Meat Boy, a two-time IGF finalist and originally penned as a WiiWare console exclusive (along with a PC release), is now headed to the Xbox Live Arcade. Not only that, but it will actually be released through the Xbox Live Marketplace before the PC and WiiWare releases.

Aimed for a summer outing, Team Meat announced the news in a rather similar fashion to a certain other XBLA-bound indie title. There's no word on exactly what changed and why this isn't a WiiWare exclusive anymore, but IGN point out that "[Team Meat] would like each version of the game to have some exclusive content, such as exclusive characters", so it should be interesting to see what each version gets.

Vatn Squid is a vertical shooter that features only boss battles, created by Ted Lauterbach during Game Jolt's Weekend Jam event. Players take control of a ship that can shield itself at the press of a button, and if you collect enemy bullets during this short period of invincibility your super weapon is charged up as well.

There are only ten bosses to beat, which means that arcade veterans should be able to complete the entire mission in one sitting. Others might need a couple more tries, although the game isn't as difficult as the bullet patterns would suggest at first. Vatn Squid can be downloaded here. (Windows, 7.60MB)

You Cannot Die is a Western-themed action game that Matt Leffler is currently working on, with a demo of first area already available to download and try out. Here you play as a colonist who had just regained consciousness in a deserted area on the planet Mars, with no recollection of the events that led to his current predicament. The only way to survive in this barren wasteland is to scavenge for items that can be used as weapons or as means of protecting yourself, since the knife in your possession isn't particularly useful during frenetic gunfights.

There is one small quest that you can complete in this test build. You'll need to have the XNA Framework already installed on your machine to get the game to run.

During my visit to Singapore last month to meet IGF finalists Ratloop Asia (creators of Rocketbirds: Revolution!), I had a chance to speak to Hampa from Nabi Studios about their upcoming WiiWare version of Toribash. We talked about a couple of things, mainly on the subject of Toribash WiiWare and upcoming features for the Windows, Linux, and Mac versions as well.

Today's collection of independent game links include the announcement of an upcoming Pixeljam project, the story of how The Indie Love Bundle came about, and the launch of new web sites for Frictional Games' Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Pixelpickle's Lylian.

Pixeljam Games: Glorkian Warrior
"We are raising funds to help the development of Glorkian Warrior, a new project with comic book artist James Kochalka (American Elf). Anyone who helps back the project will get a free copy of the game when it is released."

Broken Rules: The Story Behind The Indie Love Bundle
"This is more than just a great one-time deal, this is also an experiment. If it's successful, we plan on involving many more great indies over time to make these bundles a regular event."

Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Teaser, Web Site and Pre-order
"The first real gameplay video released gives a first look at what sort of experience we are aiming for when playing Amnesia. With an estimated release date of August 2010, you can pre-order the game now and save 20% on the release price of USD20."

Critical-Gaming Network: RO9 5 of 101
"RO9 really achieves a whole new level of strategy and depth by forcing the player to control nine independent RPG adventures at once. The final product of RO9 is so refined and to the point that it's amazing the creator didn't go overboard."

Lylian Game: official Lylian site
"The official Lylian game website is finally ready. A new comic page has been added on it, and the media page is up with big chunky media goods."

sinisterdesign.net: The Top 6 Reasons to Support Indie RPGs
"Let's say that you have some disposable income, and that you're trying to decide whether to spend it on big studio games or indie RPGs. Here are the top six best reasons why you should spend at least some of it on indie RPGs."

Raitendo: Passage in 10 seconds
"The essence of Jason Rohrer's critically-acclaimed art game 'Passage' distilled into a 10 second long game."

Wavespark is a simple one-button action game created by Nathan as part of his weekly game release initiative, where your objective can be anything from reaching checkpoints to scoring bonuses depending on which game mode was chosen by the player. Pressing any button adds extra weight to the circular object, and if you're in the air this causes the ball to hit the ground a lot harder than it usually does. By increasing the gravity pull while travelling down a steep slope, you will gain speed much faster than if you let it occur naturally.

A browser capable of running Java applets is required to play this game.

Dinosaurs Didn't Have Keyboards, But If They Did, They Would Break (Like Yours is About to) is a short arcade game created by Sophie Houlden in under forty-eight hours for a mini-Ludum Dare competition. In it, you have to tap the number keys as fast as you can to help the dinosaur leap over lava pits and reach the finish line in the quickest time possible.

There's only one level included in this competition build, which could be a blessing in disguise as your keyboard might not be able to take an afternoon's worth of abuse if the game from your fingers. To play you'll need a browser with the Unity plug-in already installed.

[Only a couple of weeks until GDC 2010 and the 2010 Independent Games Festival now, so we compiled some of the neat coverage of the finalists over at the official site, and have crossposted here.]

As the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival at Game Developers Conference 2010 rapidly approaches, we're delighted to note that a lot of prominent video game outlets are covering this year's finalists.

In fact, the coverage is coming thick and fast, even before journalists get to chat to creators in-person at the IGF Pavilion, attend the Independent Games Summit, and see who wins at the IGF Awards on March 11th.

In particular, we wanted to highlight the following articles and series from third-party sites, and thank them for their coverage of IGF-honored indie games:

- UK-based PC game site Rock Paper Shotgun is also interviewing and speaking to a plethora of IGF finalists, with a dedicated landing page for each of the games discussed so far, including Shank, A Slow Year, and many more.

- Kotaku, the world's biggest video game weblog, is doing a daily 'Road To The IGF' feature, profiling each of the Main and Student Competition finalists, with ten articles looking at games from Owlboy through Monaco already posted.

Binary Tweed's Clover: A Curious Tale will be released March 3rd. Described as 'a watercolour side-scrolling platform puzzle game with a political agenda', the game will be available for PC via 'multiple distribution channels', although which channels isn't clear yet.

For now, you can check out more details at CloverAct.com.

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 Tencent, Epic Games and more.

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

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

Some of the notable jobs posted this week include:

BlackRock Studio: Lead Animator
"When a company the size of Disney steps into European development, it's pretty big news. Disney employs over 100,000 staff. It’s one of the biggest Entertainment companies in the world and it's getting serious about original games. We're a strong studio of just over a hundred people, based at the heart of beautiful and cosmopolitan Brighton, UK. Just a quick train ride away from London in an office where pretty much everyone gets a sea view. The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly but focused and our role is to create original racing game franchises."

Tencent Boston: Composer/Sound Designer
"Tencent Boston is a premier game development studio led by industry veterans that are driving the creation of world class online games for a global audience. We are a division of Tencent Inc., one of the largest internet companies in China. For more than 400 million people Tencent is the internet encompassing portal, shopping, community and entertainment services. We are right in the middle of one of the most dynamic and fast growing game markets in the world and we are looking for outstanding individuals with passion, talent and a team focused mindset."

The two $100,000 grand prize champions for the 2010 Indie Game Challenge were unveiled at the D.I.C.E. Summit in Vegas today, during an awards presentation ceremony that was hosted by G4's Adam Sessler. Bagging the professional category award is Lazy 8 Studios with their clever steampunk-ish puzzler Cogs. The non-professional category was won by Team 3's Gear, a puzzle platformer created by a group of students from the Digipen Institute of Technology in Redmond, Washington.

Nimbly Games also netted the Technical Achievement and Gamer's Choice Awards with their multiplayer aircraft combat game Altitude, while Rob Jagnow and the Lazy 8 Studios team takes home both Achievement in Gameplay and in Art Direction awards.

There is a chance that a video of the awards presentation ceremony will go up on G4tv.com soon, and we'll be posting a link to it here the moment it becomes available to watch. The second annual Indie Game Challenge was announced during the event as well, with the entry period set to start this coming summer.

Indie Game Challenge Winners Announced (Indie Game Challenge)

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick had announced a new Independent Game Competition at DICE yesterday, where participants stand a chance to win the grand prize of $100,000 and make their game development ideas a reality.

Only a PDF file with preliminary guidelines had been posted so far, with Activision stating that additional registration details for the competition will be revealed sometime in March. Entrants are required to submit a two-page proposal, including defining features, and a short video (up to five minutes in length) depicting development materials like concept art, animatics, previsualization, or the game itself.

More information about the announcement can be gathered from this breaking Gamasutra article, and we will keep you posted as details about the competition start trickling in.

Gamasutra: Kotick Talks Passion For Industry, Debuts Indie Contest
G4tv.com: DICE 2010 Activision CEO Bobby Kotick Presentation (video)

Pax Britannica is a hotseat multiplayer RTS game created for the Gamma IV competition, in which up to four players can command their own factory ships and send out fighters, bombers and frigates to attack their opponents' armadas. Every ship is colour-coded, and the A, F, H and L keys can be used if you don't own an Xbox controller to play the game. The type of craft manufactured and shipped out is dependent on how long you hold down the assigned button before letting it go.

You can only play against one solitary AI in this competition build, but the developers have promised to release an updated version with improvements and new features once it is ready in the coming weeks. (Windows, 9.01MB)

Let's take a look at the latest interviews with indie game developers on the web. Highlights include: Gamasutra speaks to Hello Games about Joe Danger, a chat with the developer of Solium Infernum, two more IGF finalists featured on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and Brendon Chung confirming that Flotilla should be out sometime in March.

Gamasutra: Road To The IGF - Hello Games Talks Joe Danger
"Gamasutra speaks with Hello Games about capturing the joy of motorcycle toys in Joe Danger, their Seumas McNally Grand Prize-nominated contender."

Gamasutra: Going to Hell with Vic Davis' Solium Infernum
"Vic Davis talks to Gamasutra about his hellish PC strategy game Solium Infernum, and why he wants to make games that drive away ninety percent of the player base out there."

GamerBytes: Developer Reflections - Mommy's Best Games
"Nathan Fouts made the journey to full time indie development back in 2008, and his first title Weapon Of Choice was a critical success but had troubles on the Xbox Live Indie Games space. We ask Nathan what he's learned over the past year, and what his plans are in 2010."

GameSetWatch: Morsel Team on Bringing Indie Colors to Kaleidoscope
"This interview with the trio of game creators at Morsel provides a look at Kaleidoscope's premise, execution and the often elusive goal of calling attention to the finished product."

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: IGF Factor 2010 - Aaaaa!
"If you put your heart, soul, and a heaping heap of your own character into a game, people will respond well."

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: IGF Factor 2010 - Rocketbirds: Revolution!
"Rocketbirds: Revolution! has been nominated for three IGF awards - Excellence in Audio, Visual Art and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. As the big night approaches it's time to sidle up to Ratloop Asia and desperately resist any chicken-based gags."

TheGamersHub: PixelJunk Interview
"We got a chance to talk to Dylan Cuthbert and ask him a few questions regarding Q-Games, their ideas and how they came up with such innovative games such as PixelJunk Eden."

TheGamersHub: Developer Interview - Charlie's Games
"Charlie's Games is a small indie PC development company with its' sole developer, Charlie Knight, bent on delivering the most addicting fast-paced amazing gaming experience that's available this side of a controller."

TheGamersHub: Blendo Games Interview
"Blendo Games is a one man development studio developing the XBL Indie exclusive Flotilla, an ambitious action real-time strategy game from Brendon Chung. We also talk about his future works Atom Zombie Smasher and about the possibility of bringing the game to the PSN service."

The American Dream: Are We Not Drawn Onward to New Era? is a collection of mini-games held together by a common theme called Life, a subject that all of us are very familiar with. Players are presented with a circular menu at the start of the game, in which they can either select the first option to play the entire adventure in a randomized sequence or practice any of the smaller arcade sequences at their own choosing.

There are plenty of ways to score or lose points in Life mode, but only one mini-game allows you to spend it on a particular action. Time also passes rather quickly in the game, and once your five minutes is over a final inavoidable sequence will be shown regardless of how well you did up to that point. (Windows/Linux, 0.96MB)

In Girlfriend vs Boyfriend you play as the guilty partner who had just been caught ogling at another woman, and as a result of this your other half will try to chase you down and punish you for committing the act of unfaithfulness in her presence. Objects on the roadside will be thrown at you to hamper your escape, but you can knock these things away at the cost of stopping for a short moment for your girlfriend to catch up with you.

The game pretty much ends at around the five-minute mark, which is in accordance with the guidelines set by the Gamma IV competition this one-button project was submitted for. Download it here. (Windows, 0.53MB)

BiBimBap Arcade is a collection of three arcade classics that you can play at any time, simply by moving to the side of the screen to appear on another cabinet of your choice. The concept is interesting enough to warrant a mention, although it could have been better if the overall difficulty of the Pong game and the speed of the tilt effect in this Gamma IV submission were lowered by a notch or two. (Windows, 5.23MB)

This is the Only Level Too is sort of an unnecessary sequel to a puzzle platformer released by jmtb02 late last year, featuring a new set of thirty stages to beat and some pointless rewards to unlock. Players are always given a short description of each area in the information box at the bottom of the game window, which usually ends up being a piece of friendly advice on how to solve that particular level if you can figure out the cryptic meaning behind the message.

There's a panic button that you can use to restart an attempt quickly, and a link to the walkthrough video is included as well should you need some visual help in getting through a tricky sequence.

Attack of the Paper Zombies sees a small group of marines going it alone against a horde of the undead. Each level contains a number of enemy hivse from where the bad guys spawn, and the job is to fight your way through the masses, take down the hives and capture the points, securing the area.

Along with upgradeable weapons for your soldiers, there are also structures to build that will aid your progress. Turrets provide a little bit more firepower, poison gas can take out a huge number of baddies in one go, and the teleporter can help you reach places otherwise unreachable. There's a lengthy tutorial to help you through the basics, but if you're not into being told what to do, it's pretty easy to figure out on your own.

All in all, good zombie-slaughtering fun. Download it from the IndieBird's Lair.

Let's take a look at the latest interviews with indie game developers on the web. Highlights include: Joystiq's feature on Zombie Cow Studios, RPS's chat with IGF main competition contenders, DIYGamer's spotlight on Student Showcase finalists, and GameDev.net's interviews with the developers of Aaaaa! and Super Meat Boy.

Joystiq: The Indie Pitch - Zombie Cow Studios
"We're currently working on a game called Privates. It's an action-platformer about a squad of teeny-tiny Space Marines rummaging around peoples' stuff, shooting things. It's pretty nuts. Privates will be free on PC, and if it gets an Xbox Indie Games release, some of the cash will go to charity."

DIYgamer: The Future of Gaming - Boryokudan Rue
"I contacted Josh after the announcement he made it into IGF and got the chance to take the game for a spin and sit down with this bright young developer in a coffee shop just off the UCLA campus to talk about his experience."

DIYgamer: The Future of Gaming - Continuity
"We've begun work on an iPhone version of Continuity. We're hoping to make it fun for people that have already played Continuity, so it will be more of a sequel than a port."

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: IGF Factor 2010 - A Slow Year
"Ian Bogost's A Slow Year picked up a nomination for the IGF Nuovo Award. It's available later this year. Until then, we talk to its creator about A Slow Year."

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: IGF Factor 2010 - Monaco
"Monaco is a four-player co-op stealth game that's been shortlisted for both the Design and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. This is our interview with Andy Schatz."

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: IGF Factor 2010 - Vessel
"Strange Loop Games' Vessel picked up a nomination for a technical award this year, in its fluid-based character-puzzle game with a mass of glorious steampunkisms. We talk to John Krajewski and Martin Farren about it, the IGF and the future."

GameDev.net: IGF 2010 - Strange Loop Games
"The first time I got fluid working was a huge moment. Opening a flood gate and seeing a mass of water flow and splash and churn, pushing objects away, forming waves naturally that crash and recede, all these beautiful things you expect from real fluid that were now taking place from the equations I'd written."

GameDev.net: IGF 2010 - Dejobaan Games
"We're now prototyping an iPhone version (of Aaaaa!) with fellow indie Koduco Games. While we haven't announced whether that'll officially become our next title, we expect the playable test to be done within a few months."

GameDev.net: IGF 2010 - Team Meat
"I heard Andy Schatz is famous for making burritos."

No question that The Spirit Engine 2 is our Freeware Game Pick of the week. Mark Pay's sequel to the original TSE released way back in 2003 (also free to download), this side-scrolling RPG now doesn't cost you a single cent and will offer you hours upon hours of gameplay enjoyment. There are only a handful of download mirror sites for the freeware version at the moment, but Mark will be updating the official TSE-2 page with more links as they become available in the coming weeks.

The original discussion thread for the decision to release TSE-2 as freeware is here.

Balloon in a Wasteland takes the tower defense wave attack and upgrade system and puts a nice little spin on it. Having crash landed in a terrible wasteland where evil beasts roam, your job is to fix your hot air balloon up whilst killing anything that comes your way.

The gameplay itself is pretty easy, yet there is lots to see. Firearms can be bought and upgraded, a tower can be built to hide in, an automatic turret erected to help deal with the pesky passers-by, traps laid to slow them down... and all while you're fixing that balloon up. There doesn't appear to be any time limit, so you're free to experiment regarding how you deal with the situation.

Wholesome fun for the whole family. Go play.

Darkfate is a lo-fi exploration platformer which tells the story of Chris Freeman, a man who suffers from a bout of amnesia and doesn't recognize the wintery tundra that he is in. The only way Chris will get any answers is by venturing forward and braving whatever challenges that he might find, in hopes that he could somehow recover his memory if he encounters things that he has seen before.

The game automatically saves at checkpoint locations, and you can replay any chapter by selecting the load option from the main menu. Both English and French versions of Darkfate are available for download from the official site. (Windows, 9.83MB)

Uchuusen (Spaceship) is an arcade game that puts you in control of a ship with two rockets attached to each side, and by selectively activating the thrusters you can navigate around tight corridors and obstacles in this twenty-level challenge. Fire both thrusters and the ship will float upwards, and collect the shiny yellow objects to unlock the portal to the next area.

It takes roughly fifteen minutes to half an hour to beat all of the stages included, and at the end of the game you will be presented with a results screen charting the total time and retries attempted. (Windows, 5.42MB)

Cat Tank Battle is a turn-based multiplayer game in which up to six players can join a room to battle it out against one another and be the last tank standing at the end of the conflict. In addition to the normal artillery rounds, you can also teleport, fire a high-powered warhead or even three consecutive shots with just one turn, although players are only allowed to use each of these just once in every game.

You can find Cat Tank Battle on Mogera and Facebook too. No registration is required to play the game.

Here's a lovely looking indie gaming bundle you may want to pick up - for the next 7 days, get And Yet It Moves, Auditorium, Aztaka, Eufloria, Machinarium and Osmos for $20. Hell, you might have even paid $20 for Machinarium on its own, so that price for all six is pretty ridiculous. Grab before you regret.

Our reviews:
And Yet It Moves
Auditorium
Eufloria
Machinarium
Osmos

A third in Bonte's series of puzzle ballers, the idea of Factory Balls 3 is to decorate each ball exactly how it looks like on the box using the tools provided. For what sounds so simple, it's pretty difficult stuff.

Tools include paint, hats, sunglasses, belts and gardening tools... and need to be used in a specific order to achieve the right effect. It's a great little mind-bender to pass some time. (Source)

High Speed Chase 2 is a top-down driving bash-a-thon which expands somewhat on the original. Given a number of targets, your job is to hunt them down, then ram and shoot them into a fiery submission.

It all starts off pretty easy, but once the enemy start shooting back and the police get involved, it can get a bit hectic, especially at the silly speeds you'll be travelling at. There's a bunch of different power-ups to collect that will make the job easier, medals to obtain by driving like a carefully calculated maniac, and of course lots of explosions.

Play it here. Available for your iThing too!

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 2K Marin, Foundation 9 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:

38 Studios: Game Designer
"Would you like to become part of the team that includes the creative visionaries behind Drizzt Do’Urden and Spawn? 38 Studios is currently seeking a Game Designer to join our Design department. This is a full-time position with competitive salary, full benefits and 401(k), and the chance to be part of online gaming history!."

Foundation 9 Entertainment: Marketing Director
"This Marketing leader will provide Marketing and brand management leadership for Foundation 9 Entertainment Studios and serve as the primary Marketing advisor for Studio leaders. S/he will take an active part in developing strategic corporate and studio marketing plans that will enhance F9E’s its market position and brand value within the traditional video game market. The Director will also help F9E grow into new markets."

Today's collection of independent game links include an article about pricing indie games, the release of flixel version 2.0, and an announcement for this year's Seven Day Roguelike Challenge event. (image source)

Farbs.org: Words about money
"In this month's piece I wobble around near the issue of indie game pricing. While researching the article I emailed a bunch of people and received way too much in reply, so I'm posting the raw interview data here."

flixel.org: v2.0 released
"Huge performance boosts, massive API improvements, some nice new features to speed things up here and there."

Kotaku: The Road to IGF - Trauma
"This year we've decided to help give some of the IGF finalists a bit more time in the spotlight. Over the next twenty weekdays we will be talking with, writing about and previewing the finalists for this year's Independent Games Festival."

Braid Blog: A new, short speech about game design
"A speech called 'Games as Instruments for Observing Our Universe', given by Jonathan Blow at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont in February 2010."

Gnilley: A game about yelling at everything
"We're working on a full-sized game, plus an iPhone edition. We're just a couple of poor, starving indies though, so you can help us out."

P.B. Winterbottom: The Origins of Winterbottom
"At the time of Winterbottom's conception, few games featuring recursive replay and recording of actions existed. Only recently had games been technically able to record actions and allow for play back."

7DRL Challenge 2010: Date is Chosen
"The 7DRL Challenge is an annual event in which all the world is challenged to create a roguelike in a one-week span. Within the week of March 6th to March 14th, you are hereby challenged to write a roguelike in 168 hours."

MegaDrill is a browser-based excavation game in which players are given twenty-five weeks to amass as much money as they can to pay for a dream vacation out at sea. Treasures collected can be traded in for upgrades, while awards are doled out depending on your performance after every foray into the earth.

The game also offers five different endings to achieve, although it is quite unlikely that anyone would want to replay the entire adventure a second time just to view another poorly-done cutscene.

EX -extra- is a vertical-scrolling shooter with two ships to choose from and five levels to play in total, featuring the usual array of power-up items and boss fights seen commonly in the Seibu Kaihatsu's Raiden series. Each ship is equipped with their own set of primary and secondary weapons, but by holding down both shot buttons together a powerful beam with a limited range can be fired instead.

Arcade veterans should be able to finish the entire game using just one credit, and extra lives are awarded whenever a player achieves a milestone score during the mission. There is no end sequence, and if you beat the final boss you will be sent back to replay the entire thing again from stage one without any noticeable increase in the difficulty level. Download EX -extra- here. (Windows, 23.3MB)

Let's take a look at the latest interviews with indie game developers on the web. Highlights include: the continuation of Gamasutra's Road to the IGF series, DIYGamer's coverage on Student Showcase finalists, Kieron Gillen speaks to two Nuovo award contenders, and Petri Purho sheds some light about the socks he wears.

Road To The IGF: Developer Interview - Star Guard's Loren Schmidt
"Schmidt explains why the term 'retro game' makes him uncomfortable, the inspirations for Star Guard, and expressing narrative within the confines of 'low-fi.'"

Road To The IGF: Developer Interview - Klei Entertainment's Shank
"Jamie Cheng (CEO of Klei and executive producer on Shank) gives more background on the development of Shank, life after releasing the digital release Eets, and why the studio decided to explore the classic 2D brawler genre."

DIYgamer: IGF Student Winner Interviews - Puddle
"The French students behind the physics based liquid-motion title Puddle took a moment to answer a few questions about their game and talk about their future."

DIYgamer: IGF Student Winner Interviews - Devil’s Tuning Fork
"Our latest Q & A is with the team behind the title Devil's Tuning Fork. It's an innovative title and were able to discuss the game with four members of the development team."

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: IGF Factor 2010 - Tuning
"As the Independent Game Festival approaches, I thought a series of short interviews with all the PC-relevant short-listed entries would be an idea. First up is cactus who received a nomination for the Nuovo Award for the abstractly beautiful platformer Tuning."

Rock, Paper, Shotgun: IGF Factor 2010 - Today I Die
"Today I Die is a poetic, short-form work which has been shortlisted for the Nuovo award in this year's festival. Read on to find out what's on Daniel's mind in our interview."

Uncommon Assembly: Valentinel Hopes
"Ika (Aliceffekt) is a Montreal-based illustrator, designer, musician, and experimental game creator who somehow managed to take a break from all that to answer a few questions about creating the amazing world of Valentinel Hopes."

Kloonigames: Gamereactor Interview with Petri Purho
"While I was at Nordic Game Jam I bumped into some journalists from Gamereactor, who decided to do an interview with me. We talked mostly about Crayon Physics Deluxe and covered some other areas as well (like what I'm working on now) and talked about my socks."

With the IGF Mobile category winners announced recently, Powerhead Games have released a brand spanking new trailer for their DSiWare title Glow Artisan.

The game won Best Mobile Game Design and is now in the running to be crowned Best Mobile Game. It's available in the DSi store now, so if this looks like your kind of deal, you know what to do.

Prose and Motion is a physics-based word game. Yes, you did read that right. Given a bunch of letters, the task is to rearrange them in order to make a word - you do this by grabbing them and putting them in place.

Of course, this being a physics game, it's never that simple. The first few levels ask you to stick the letters next to each other to progress, but very soon you're being asked to build bridges and sit your word across them, or shuffle pieces around to make space available. There is also a 'perfect word' for each level - i.e. a word which can be made using the available letters, and has some relevance to the prose on display.

Grabbing and placing the letters can be a little fiddly, but let's face it - we've been dealing with awkward physics controls for years now, so let's not take it out on Mr. Beige. It's interesting stuff anyway, and well worth a go.

Today's collection of independent game links include some friendly advice about getting your game on Steam, an article about developing RPGs, and a look at the very successful community support that Wolfire Games is providing to their fans. (image source)

Indievision: How to approach Steam
"The Valve guys will see hundreds of games a day all from hopeful developers who are keen to get their game published. There is no easy way to make sure your game is ahead of the queue. There are however, some fundamental things to get right."

Play This Thing: Xong
"Xong is an odd and idiosyncratic munge of a Rogue-like, a level-based puzzle game, and an Arkanoid clone. It's Rogue-like, in that it's an ASCII graphics game with procedurally-generated levels, but the actual gameplay is puzzle solving with Breakout-like aspects."

World of Banov: The Problem with RPGs
"Making an RPG is hard and not to be attempted by the inexperienced. In terms of game making RPGs pose way more obstacles than any other genre of video game. So as a cautionary tale I'm going to talk about what I've learned about making RPGs and some of the pitfalls in designing them."

DIYgamer: IGF Submission Picks - Flywrench and About a Blob
"For this week's column, I played through an incredibly difficult masterpiece in Flywrench and for the second time chose a platformer, About a Blob, which I didn't get to play but was attracted to its style."

Oxeye Game Studio: Secret Gifts – Video Leaked
"A secret source deep within the Oxeye team gave me a MiniDV tape of a heavily damaged video. I was able to retrieve some pictures and share them with you. This is what I was able to recover."

Wolfire Games Blog: Oh no, more Meebo
"Our live chat widget proved its worth again during the preorder pack promotion. At times I seemed like I was giving support to ten people at once. A lot of good can come from maintaining a live chat but since productive conversations are boring, I humbly submit to you, another smattering of silliness."

Wolfire Games Blog: John's development environment
"Last month, we put a call out on the blog asking for community questions to answer. The most popular question was if we could do a video tour of our development studio."

2010 Independent Games Festival organizers have revealed the five IGF Mobile category finalists battling it out for Best Mobile Game at GDC, also debuting the IGF Audience award and revealing the hosts for this year's IGF Awards.

IGF Mobile Category Winners

After announcing finalists and honorable mentions late last month, the 2010 Independent Games Festival Mobile has named the category winners that will show their games at GDC and battle for the Best IGF Mobile Game prize.

After battling it out from a field of 170 top-notch entries, winners thus far include Secret Exit's physics-heavy Stair Dismount for iPhone, Powerhead Games' cunning color-based puzzle game Glow Artisan for DSi, and Tiger Style's acclaimed action game Spider for Apple's handheld.

The category winners for the 2010 IGF Mobile competition -- an event that celebrates excellence in games for the iPhone, other cellphone and smartphone OSes, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, and other handheld devices -- are:

You may recall that we've run some stories about the awesome Gamma IV 'one button games' event that's having an open-to-all showcase evening in San Francisco, around the time of GDC 2010 next month (as well as having the selected games playable on-site, for those who have GDC passes).

Well, some very generous indies have stepped up to help sponsor a chunk of their offsite event, but they need just a little bit more help with event funding and other costs, so they've established a Kickstarter appeal to do just that. We'll turn it over to them for the details:

"Kokoromi here. We're an experimental art game collective based in Montreal; perhaps best known for our annual Gamma event. Since 2006 we've showcased all-new short-form video games created on a specific theme, at a one-night-only music and gaming party. Our format of challenges + limitations + showcase has yielded such games as Jason Rohrer's Passage and Paper Moon by Infinite Ammo with Adam Saltsman.

increpare's Starfeld is a simple horizontal-scrolling shooter where the player's job is to just pilot the ship while the lasers onboard are fired automatically in regular intervals. The game features small bits of cutscenes to break up the action, although the conversations can get a little raunchy, disturbing, and possibly offending at times.

Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition aka the XBLA release now has a confirmed release date, landing in the Xbox Marketplace on March 30th. Between now and then, ACE Team are planning on showing off each of the enhancements and additions, starting with the above demonstration of the new attacks.

Along with the fresh ways to hurt various faces, the Ultimate Edition will include a rebalanced combat system, improved animations and some new modes and content. The Tower Challenge will also be available as a multiplayer game, both online and split screen.

If you've been looking for something to spend those spare 80 MS Points on, look no longer. Your Doodles Are Bugged! is an absolute steal for $1, and deserves a place in your game library. I mean, it's Lemmings with a pen, for crying out loud, what more do you need!

Each level sports lots of little jumping bugs, random drawings all over the place and a finishing point. Your job is to draw bridges connecting a route from the bugs to the finish, so they can bounce their way to victory. Your pen doesn't have unlimited ink, however, so you need to find the shortest route possible - you might need to erase some of your past work to make room for further passage.

It's a little buggy (yeah, I went there) in places and the critters will try to venture everywhere but where you want them to actually go... but honestly, you'd be foolish like a huge fool not to check this out. Well worth the price, download it from the Xbox Marketplace.

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 Black Rock Studio, Blizzard 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:

Black Rock Studio: Lead Vehicle Artist
"When a company the size of Disney steps into European development, it's pretty big news. Disney employs over 100,000 staff. It’s one of the biggest Entertainment companies in the world and it's getting serious about original games. We're a strong studio of just over a hundred people, based at the heart of beautiful and cosmopolitan Brighton, UK. Just a quick train ride away from London in an office where pretty much everyone gets a sea view. The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly but focussed and our role is to create original racing game franchises."

CCP China: Senior Programmer
"CCP, makers of the largest game universe in existence, is looking for a Senior Engineer to be a part of the creative team that brought the world the groundbreaking MMO title, EVE Online. Successful applicants will join a seasoned team based in Shanghai, China where they will work on original games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3."

Today's collection of independent game links include the return of 1UP's annual free games feature, a couple more contest announcements, and the release of a new iPhone game from last year's IGF finalist Tale of Tales.

1UP: 101 Free Games 2010
"Maybe not all of them will perfectly suit your taste, but with 101 to pick from you're sure to find something that'll keep you busily avoiding anything resembling work."

GameDev.net: IGF 2010 - Pocketwatch Games
"I actually tried to get Monaco made as a big 3-D AAA title when I was at a game company about 6 years ago. We prototyped the thing but we couldn't find enough publisher interest to get the game made."

Phil Hassey: Galcon Fusion announced
"Galcon Fusion is a port of iPhone Galcon plus Galcon Labs to the desktop, this time with hi-def graphics and a full interactive soundtrack. It's going to be coming to Steam and direct on my website on February 11th."

Kotaku: 2010 Life Love Game Design Challenge Offers $2.5K Prize
"It's the kick off for the third annual Life. Love. Game Design Challenge. This flash design contest challenges budding developers to create a game that deals with teen dating violence without using any violence in the game."

MochiLand: "The Reality Bytes Flash Game Contest" announcement
"In the Reality Bytes Flash game contest, you have three months to create a game in the simulation or resource management genre. The contest will be running from February 2nd to April 30th, and there's $15,000 to be split among the winners."

GameSetWatch: Tale of Tales Releases First iPhone Game
"Indie game developer Tale of Tales launched its first iPhone/iPod Touch title, Vanitas, a meditative piece designed without rules or rewards. It's now available through the handset's App Store for $0.99."

Puppyblog: Revenge of the Titans - latest screenshots
"Revenge of the Titans is a game that has all of the great bits of Titan Attacks, like shooting things and buying stuff in a shop, but completely playable with a mouse."

Aztez Development Blog: Impact Effects
"I have created a piece of Unity content that showcases the different effects Aztez will use."

Finally your dreams have come true - it's Canabalt... with robot unicorns!

OK, so technically Robot Unicorn Attack is a 2-button game, but the whole experience is just as beautifully polished as the Balt. The unicorn can double jump, and also rush then jump to allow for making big gaps. Score goes up as you run, and extra points are obtained for collecting fairies and smashing stars.

It looks lovely, it has an awesome name, and that music... Fantastic stuff. Give it a play over at Adult Swim.

[Originally published on Mod DB, these interviews from Leo Jaitley of Dejobaan Games explores the neat nooks and crannies in indie gaming. This week the spotlight's on Rob Jagnow, founder and CEO of Lazy 8 Studios.]

What do Lazy 8 Studios of San Francisco, CA and Dejobaan Games of Watertown, MA have in common? Both studios are Independent Game Festival (IGF) Finalists in the "Excellence in Design" category. In this, the latest in Dejobaan's interview series titled "Half a Million Seconds with and Indie Developer," Leo finds out why Rob went Indie and gives you some insights into what it takes to be an IGF Finalist.

They say your name is Rob....tell us more...

RJ: Hey, folks. I'm Rob, Founder and CEO of Lazy 8 Studios in San Francisco. In a way, I feel like I stumbled into game development. I interned at Pixar for a couple summers while I was getting my Ph.D. and I fully expected that when I finished school, I'd travel around the world for a year and go back to Pixar. But when graduation finally came, I found myself in an accidental relationship -- one of those, "when you're least expecting it" relationships. So I went ahead with my plans to travel the world for a year and then ended up back in Boston to be with my boyfriend. The job hunt led me to Demiurge, a small game studio in Cambridge, and I fell in love with game development. When my boyfriend graduated, his job hunt led him to Google, so we moved together to San Francisco and I decided to try my hand at starting a company of my own. And thus, Lazy 8 Studios was born.

Chokotto DiaRunba (thanks to Tacashi and anonymous for the name translation) is a small puzzle game in which you have no direct control over the main character, but you can select which tiles to slide vertically to create a path for her to move forward. Pressing the Z key speeds up the action, and it is game over if you let her touch an enemy or get crushed by a tile on the left side of the screen.

Enemies can be turned into crystals to collect by leading them towards each other. When two of the bearded red enemies are positioned side by side, they will disappear in a puff of smoke and a pair of gems will appear in their place. The green ones break out of their eggs after appearing on screen for a couple of seconds, and continue to proceed left until a block prevents them from going further. You can download the game here, but it won't work on PCs that cannot read Japanese file names. (Windows, 9.68MB)

Desktop Dungeon is a puzzle-based roguelike with an emphasis on resource management, where the health of your adventurer is restored by walking into unexplored rooms or corridors. You can choose to engage an enemy immediately upon finding them, or save the tougher encounters for later after you've gained some battle experience with weaker inhabitants of the dungeon first. That is basically the gist of the game, yet once you've spent about an hour or two with it you'd realize that Desktop Dungeon has plenty of complexity to offer anyone who is willing to learn the advanced strategies, bonuses and random elements that Nandrew has implemented in this gem of a time sink.

There is only one floor to play and a boss character is hiding somewhere in the area, although you can retire from your quest at any time and have the final score tabulated based on your actions and achievements. Players can switch between windowed and full screen mode using the F4 function key. (Windows, 2.33MB)

One Button Bob is a single-button action game in which you have to help Bob survive an obstacle course to reach the treasure he desires. The control scheme is switched around in every room, meaning that you could be running away from a boulder, climbing a set of ladders or jumping from one platform to another as you venture further into the cave.

It takes about ten or fifteen minutes to finish the entire adventure, and there isn't really any incentive to replay it after you've completed your quest.

Organizers of GDC 2010 are reminding that today is the last day to register for up to 35% off pass prices for the March 9th-13th event, with the free Android phone offer also expiring today.

The Moscone Center, San Francisco-based event has just announced a raft of new lectures, including highlighted talks from Pixar notables, Lionhead's Peter Molyneux, Double Fine's Tim Schafer, and Final Fantasy XIII's director Motomu Toriyama, and a surprise lecture from Metroid co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto.

However, Thursday, February 4th is the final day that GDC is accepting registrations at the early rate, which includes up to 35% discount from final pass prices. The early reg rate will be open until 11.50pm ET this evening.

In addition, today is the final day to register for free Nexus One and Verizon Droid by Motorola phones with GDC 2010 attendance, as part of a promotion between Google and Game Developers Conference. Select All-Access Pass and Summits & Tutorials Pass attendees will receive the phone, and more information is available on a GDC website page.

As well as the nine major Summits, from iPhone to indie and social games -- and notable tutorials on the first two days of the show, there are six main Tracks - programming, art, production, business, audio, and design - for GDC 2010. These include lectures from the creators of Assassin's Creed II, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Uncharted 2, Braid, God Of War III, Dante's Inferno, APB, and a host of other acclaimed games.

Game Developers Conference 2010 -- part of Think Services, as is this website -- will also play host to the GDC Expo Floor, including a host of notable tool companies, the recruitment-specific GDC Career Pavilion, the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival plus Awards and the 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, open to all pass holders.

More information on many of the highlighted areas of GDC 2010 is available on the official Game Developers Conference weblog, and the GDC 2010 website has a full list of lectures, passes, and opportunities at this year's event, as well as specific on registration pricing and options.

Attendees are also reminded that they can email GDC 2010's registration staff -- or call them at 866-535-8997 or +1 (415) 947-6926 from 9am to 4pm PT each weekday -- if they have any issues registering. (All GDC 2010 registrations commenced before the 11.50pm ET deadline will be honored, even if any technical issues occur.)

A Gamma 4 showcase submission, glorg is an action RPG in which all the actions of the main character can be executed by just using one button. According to Martin Jonasson, this procedural generation Flash game currently has more than sixty unique items to find, with one already previewed in the video shown above.

Let's take a look at the latest interviews with indie game developers on the web. Highlights include: an interview with The Odd Gentlemen about P.B. Winterbottom, DIYGamer's article on one of the IGF Student Showcase finalists, Gamasutra's continuation of their Road to the IGF features, and a chat with the ridiculously prolific adventure game developer Ben Chandler.

DIYgamer: IGF Student Winner Interviews - Ulitsa Dimitrova
"We almost finished our new game Ute. It's about a woman who has to have sex as much as she can before getting married. I hope we will have it finished by March."

Gamasutra: Road To The IGF - Daniel Benmergui's Today I Die
"Benmergui explains how impacting a player emotionally is more important than having his work 'classified as game or even a good game,' and other aspects of Today I Die."

Gamasutra: Road To The IGF - Sidhe's Shatter
"Mario Wynands (managing director for Sidhe) offers some background behind the making of Shatter's audio, describes his excitement for the evolution of the indie game development scene, and why nostalgia isn't necessarily the 'driving force' behind the popularity of retro-inspired games."

Gamasutra: Slick Entertainment's Waanders on Scrap Metal Engine
"In this interview, conducted after Scrap Metal had gone to alpha, Nick Waanders discusses about the game's network code, damage arbitration, physics system, and even the implementation of 3D using red and blue glasses."

Gamasutra: Behind High Frequency Bandwidth's PixelJunk Shooter Tracks
"We catch up with The Orb's Alex Paterson and collaborator Dom Beken, the folks behind the soundtrack to PixelJunk Shooter as High Frequency Bandwidth."

Examiner: Q & A with The Odd Gentlemen on P.B. Winterbottom
"We asked Matt and Odd Gentlemen CEO, Producer and Janitor Paul Belleza to share their thoughts on Winterbottom, indie game development, and the creative process."

Gnome's Lair: Ben Chandler
"Ben Chandler (or Ben 304) is the creative mind behind such freeware indie gems as !, Annie Android, Featherweight, Heed and Awakener. He's been nice enough to let me pick his mind and present you with this enlightening interview that sports some pretty mouth-watering exclusive info."

Where We Remain appears to be a simple 'save the girl' Zelda-style adventure at first glance. Yet look a little closer, and you'll find that there is so much more to it. Trapped on an island by a mysterious being, our hero must find his sweetheart and rescue her. But is there a way to escape the island?

The land looks safe enough, but stand around outside for too long and you may regret it - hiding in the caves is a good way to counter this, but the caves aren't exactly safe either. There are a bunch of pick-ups to grab, although most of them aren't pretty confusing - fortunately there is a handy guide to help us through and explain what the hell is going on.

There are three endings to find in total. Check out the video below the cut for Ortoslon finding the normal ending.

Like Rotatspin before it, Duck and Hover made me cry. I think it was round about level 25, and that was only halfway through the game. There is fire to dodge, bouncing faces to weave around and Goomba-like stalkers to jump on. There's a princess at the end of it all, though, so it's totally worth it.

This is about persistence, timing and just a little bit of luck now and again. As you jump and hover around enemies, your deaths will rack up, but you'll carry on playing anyway because, let's face it, you can't let a simple Flash game beat you, right?

In Super Space Rogues you play as a trader who owes a big sum of money to an alien overlord, and must find means to repay him back or suffer the consequences. This basically involves mining asteroids for precious minerals to be traded at a friendly spaceport, or destroying pirate ships and making off with the loot that they drop.

Throughout the adventure you will have plenty of chances to upgrade your ship on other planets, but don't forget to fix the ship's armor plating and refuel regularly before embarking on a long trip in space. The competition build submitted to Game Jolt's Rogue Contest does not have a progress save function, so be sure to put aside half an hour or so to play the game if you intend to finish it in one sitting. Download it here. (Windows, 12.2MB)

Record Tripping is a collection of five mini games that players have to complete in a specific order, and there is a time limit to adhere to although you aren't exactly punished if you couldn't finish a chapter before the seconds run out.

A mouse wheel is required to play this game, but playing it on a laptop might be possible if you can somehow emulate the scroll function or substitute touchpad controls with a USB mouse. It takes roughly five to ten minutes to beat all challenges included.

Caution: loud music.

Here's a rather interesting collaboration between the metal band Last Chance to Reason and game developer Tom Vine. Level 2 is both the name of an upcoming album and videogame due out in 2010, and in the game players get to 'blast through' tribute sections loosely inspired by classic arcade releases such as R-Type, Contra, and Super Metroid while the music is blaring in the background.

Tom Vine's last two releases, Paroxysm (a Prince of Persia-type platformer) and Plasma Warrior (shades of Metroid) have been decent efforts, so there is a bit of expectation for the Level 2 game to do rather well when it is released later this year. (source)

Press Tilda is a Unity-based puzzle platformer in which you can bring up a console to type in commands and change the layout of a level directly. By typing in certain keywords, players can swap the position of their character with another item in a stage, send an attack order to one of the robot guards, push objects or even set them on fire.

There is a version of the same game that can be downloaded and played offline as well. This Global Game Jam 2010 submission has about seven individual room challenges to beat. (Mac/Windows, 27.4MB)

Today's collection of independent game links include the announcement of a new Experimental Gameplay Project theme, a look at the IGF 2010 Student Showcase finalists, the introduction of a new Boing Boing section for indie games, and Mod DB's feature on the best mods and indie games of 2009. (image source)

Experimental Gameplay: Theme - Rejection
"Another month, another theme. With everyone focused on love this month, what better theme than Rejection?"

Mod DB: 2009 Mod of the Year Awards
"From now until Feb 20th, we shall be sharing a year in review and showcasing the editors' picks of 2009, culminating in the announcement of this year's best mod and game as voted by you."

Guardian: How to become an indie developer in eight steps
"These days, anyone can make a game. Here's how to get started..."

Opposable Thumbs: Student-developed games show bright future for industry
"One of the more interesting aspects of the annual Game Developers Conference is the Independent Games Festival, a showcase for some of the best and brightest people and ideas in the industry. Hidden among the next big indie games is the Student Showcase."

GameSetWatch: IGF Finalist Cogs Rotates Into iPhone
"Lazy 8 Studios's Cogs -- recently shortlisted for the 2010 Independent Games Festival's Excellence in Design category -- is now available on iPhone for $0.99." Cogs is also 50% off on Direct2Drive right now - just $4.95.

Boing Boing: Introducing our 'Games To Get' Page
"A compiled list of 2009's top games across all platforms, with quick descriptions and links to each game's original mention."

Indie Game Magazine: The Pay-What-You-Want We Heart IGM Sale
"Starting today through Valentine's Day, you can purchase a non-renewing digital subscription for the Indie Game Mag at any price you want. You can pay as low as $1, the usual $25, or more. You'll get a year of the bi-monthly magazine, six downloadable issues in total."

IndieGameMusic.com: The Music Resource For The Indie Game Developer
"This site was created to make it easier for indie game-developers who's on a tight budget to find music for their games. Prices should be rather low compared to other music libraries, because it's an indie to indie concept. Regardless of you're a game-developer or a musician, this site is a free service."

War and Peace is a one-button remake of the classic strategy game Civilization, created by Stéphane Bura as a submission for the Gamma 4 game showcase competition. The technology tree which was the highlight of the original series has been distilled down to just two branches of research, and your task is basically to choose whether to dedicate all of your resources into developing war machines or encourage the cultivation of technology advancements.

The implementation might feel simplistic at times, but there is definitely some real potential in this project if the developer decides to take it further. (Windows, 2.30MB)

A Very Brief Story is a two-day project created by Alexitrón over the course of a weekend, featuring a collection of puzzles separated into four different locations for the player to explore. In it, you play as a young woman who sets out on a quest to prove herself to her family and peers, which means retrieving a couple of crystals from the four corners of a very small world and bringing them back to a clearing just outside of town. (Windows, 1.36MB)

Behold, the name of The Behemoth's third Xbox Live Arcade game is revealed! Feast your eyes on all its lovely goodness and stuff like that. The story is described as follows:

"Having shipwrecked on a mysterious island you find yourself both betrayed by your best friend Hatty and captured by the locals. All of this is happening while being forced into deadly performances. This however, is just the start of your problems."

Yep, it's a Behemoth game alright! An official site for the game will be launching in the next few days.

As we've previously mentioned, in partnership with the Independent Games Festival's organizers, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne is running a free exhibit featuring a selection of IGF 2009 competition finalists and winners.

The Best of IGF 2009 showcase invites visitors to not just view but also play ten indie games, some even projected on walls (Blueberry Garden, Night Sky, PixelJunk Eden, and Osmos).

ACMI sent over these photos from the show since it opened last December, showing kids and adults exploring the games and their concepts -- the gallery's curators say it's a popular exhibit for both experienced gamers and neophytes. The space also provides a pleasing sonic atmosphere with Osmos and NightSky playing over the speakers in different rooms (other game setups use headphones).

The Best of IGF 2009 showcase runs until February 15th, so you still have time to check it out if you're in the area! You can find more information on the exhibit and see the full list of games on display at ACMI's site. We've included more images of people playing the games in the extended entry:

The twelve finalists for the Indie Game Challenge competition were announced today, with information about each of the selected games and their developers already available to view from the official site.

The finalists in the AIAS, Guildhall at SMU and GameStop-organized event are competing for more than $350,000 in prize monies and scholarships this year, with the winners to be announced during the awards presentation ceremony following the D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas this coming February 19th.

The selected finalists are as follows:

Non-Professional Category
Climb to the Top of the Castle (TwO Bros. Games)
Dreamside Maroon (Terraced)
Galactic Arms Race (Galactic Arms Race)
Gear (Team 3)
Waker (Poof Productions)
zeit² (Brightside Games)

Professional Category
Aaaa! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity (Dejobaan Games, LLC)
Altitude (Nimbly Games)
Cogs (Lazy 8 Studios)
Fieldrunners (Subatomic Studios)
Miegakure (Marc ten Bosch)
Vessel (Strange Loop Games)

The voting process for the Gamer's Choice Award ($10,000 cash prize) is also now open to the public. No registration is required to cast a vote, although you'd need to send a mail entry to participate in the sweepstakes for an all-expense paid trip to the event.

More details about the competition and the finalists can be found over at the Indie Game Challenge web site.

Hope is a collaborative game project created by Steven Poulton and Ben Chandler in under two days, featuring a couple of easy puzzles and a hint of a storyline written for the small cast of characters that you'll meet during this short adventure. Your inventory is accessible by floating the mouse cursor towards the top left corner of the screen, and there is also an option to save your progress even though there's very little use for it here. (Windows, 11.7MB)

Boxplode is a nifty little puzzle game created by David Newton, in which the player's objective is to destroy all boxes with numbers on them by causing a series of explosions to blow everything up. The chain of explosions work like a domino effect, and you have a limited number of clicks to clear all blocks in a single level to progress.

New elements like solid steel blocks and nukes are introduced to the player at a steady rate, while certain blocks require more than just one explosion to destroy. There are nine levels to play in this test build version.

Announced just over a month ago, Desura is ModDB's take on the digital games distribution service. Yet whereas the likes of Impulse and Direct2Drive have kept their shops mainly browser-based, Desura follows in the mighty footsteps of Steam and takes the form of a downloadable client, nesting itself in your system tray.

Desura is currently in private beta with regular ModDBers and developers getting the run-around with it. The big question is, given that Desura will launch with the ModDB's community backing of hordes of users, and its intent of bringing a big community focus to the system, will it have a chance of living along side the almighty Valve juggernaut?

I've been playing around with the client for a few days now, and although this is just a beta build at the moment, it's already looking like interesting stuff. My concern is that it maybe takes just a little took much inspiration from Steam (although, let's be fair, it's not surprising given Steam's success and appeal). After the cut I'll go into some detail, and you can decide for yourselves.

Which is a short horror adventure game about escaping from a house that you are trapped in. A 3D mode is included if you have the right glasses to view the images with.

Note that Which has a bit of violence that might be seen as disturbing, and if you're worried about jump scares then you should probably avoid playing the game as well. (Windows, 20.9MB)

Here's the first trailer for JBurger's upcoming adventure game, Boryokudan Rue. This one-man production (Nathan Allen Pinard contributed the musical score) was developed using the AGS engine, and is one of the Student Showcase finalists in this year's IGF.

Boryokudan Rue should be coming out for Windows sometime this year. More details about the game can be found on the production thread and the IGF information page.