The festive buzz begins to fade – in part due to dwindling booze reserves already heavily depleted by family gatherings. Without the guiding light of alcohol, we’re just going to have to turn to that everpresent fallback for our daily endorphin boost; videogames – and the retail therapy so closely tied to them. Just a few days left to hoard for spring, and today is a big one – here’s the indie picks of the day:

Daily Deals

75% off – Space Pirates And Zombies

Ignore the silly acronym – this one deserves respect. Highly inspired by the classic Star Control series, this is an accessible space action/RPG. As head of a small space pirate crew, pillage systems, loot resources, build up a small fleet and eventually complete your quest to reach the galactic core, home to a legendary (rumored) cache of technology and riches the like of which no pirate has ever seen… It’s not going to be that simple, is it? Possibly a little grindy, requiring a little too much levelling up and hoarding to progress, but otherwise a very compelling experience.

75% off – Dungeon Defenders

We reviewed this distinctive action/tower defense hybrid not too long ago – it’s a crazy, chaotic mess of a game but remarkably charming, and the studio behind it seemingly don’t ever sleep. The amount of new content produced in the past couple months alone is staggering, with new playmodes, levels, challenges and even a full-blown expansion starting to roll out now.

75% off – Machinarium

Absolutely beautiful and just dripping with charm. Oil too, but mostly charm. This hand-drawn point and click adventure gem arrived to glowing reviews a while back, and was a prime fixture in at least one notable indie bundle. This is the unspoken story of a happy little robot, trying to find his way back home to the city, only to get caught in the midst of a criminal conspiracy by a band of larcenous villain-bots.

75% off – Revenge of The Titans

Tower Defense, but different. Nothing is on rails here – the enemies might approach from a fixed direction, but the path they choose can be affected by what they see as threats, what they think is able to be punched through, or the position of certain AI-manipulating structures. It feels almost like a hybrid of a traditional RTS game and a TD game, taking the best elements of both in many respects and tying it together with Puppy Games’ unique visual style. It’s a bit weird to play if you’ve just come from something like Defense Grid, but it’s a clever piece of work.

75% off – Section 8: Prejudice

At the upper end of what might be considered indie, but the studio behind it proudly describe themselves as such, so who am I to argue? This is a team-based, primarily online FPS with the interesting gimmick of being able to spawn anywhere on the map at any time (so long as there’s no anti-air guns) by sky diving out of an orbiting support ship. Chunky, heavyweight stuff once you’re on the ground, rather reminiscent of Halo, and with a fairly solid singleplayer campaign too. Questionable value at full price, but at this discount it’s an easy sell.

50% off – Serious Sam 3: BFE + 75% Off the Indies Series

We reviewed this absolute gem just recently. Buy it if you have any interest whatsoever in old-school ‘one man against a thousand monsters’ FPS action. Especially buy it if you’ve got some buddies to play co-op with, either in split-screen, online or LAN. On top of SS3 being half price for today, the entire spinoff Indies series is discounted too, including the parody JRPG Serious Sam: The Random Encounter and the demented side-scrolling platformer Serious Sam: Double D.

90% off – Serious Sam HD

As if the newest game in the series wasn’t enough, Croteam saw fit to update the first two releases to use the same engine as SS3. The result is an excellent update all round, with enemies looking more menacing, lighting and effects that rival the best, and one of the silliest, goofiest senses of humor you’ll ever see in an FPS. It’s almost worth it just to go hunting for the dozens of bizarre, creative and sometimes downright incomprehensible secret areas scattered through the two games.

As always with this particular sale, the previous day’s deals are still available for another 3-4 hours at the time of writing.

Challenges

Did you know that – primarily – achievements are a developer’s tool for tracking player progress through your game? After all, any developer wants to know how far their players got, what percentage completed the game, whether there were any particular points where players lost interest and so on. While this doesn’t exactly apply to today’s festive challenges in S.P.A.Z, Serious Sam 3, Dungeon Defenders, Sanctum & Revenge of The Titans, it’s food for thought.

Check back each day for our roundup of the Steam indie deals and challenges of the day. Tis’ the season to be playing, apparently. As always, if a game you have your eye isn’t a daily deal, skip it until the final day of the sale, just in case. You never know when the price might plunge to ridiculously cheap levels.