[While our XBLIG Thursday feature fights against the main issue of Xbox 360’s Indie Games channel–gaming brilliance being lost in a sea of medicore titles and cheap apps–as good as anything out there, there’s just too many total releases for us to try them all.

That being said, we can still highlight them on a daily basis, and perhaps posting these new titles will benefit both player and developer by allowing a connection to be made before the game floats on down the river and into the backlogs of the channel. Whether it be an all-time great, a one time play-through or a complete lemon; all will have their chance to speak. Here are today’s releases.]

Dossun World (80 MS Points)
“This is scroll action game. The enemy can be defeated by causing the wave. The player can make the wave by the hip attack etc. 25 stages.”

Isagoras (240 MS Points)
“The human race is in danger! The Solar System will be your battlefield, only you can stop the alien forces that are trying to exterminate our species. Join the Humanity Defense Force as Crow, the pilot of the new starship prototype Isagoras-001 together with captain Crozier and lead the battle for survival.”

Avatar Puzzle Pop (80 MS Points)
“Avatar Puzzle Pop is a frantic and fun action puzzler. Connect two groups of blocks of the same colour to remove them from the play field. Combo blocks together for big points. Avatar support for fun gameplay feedback. Multiple game modes, clear the line, disarm the bombs, shoot some dice and play a friend in 2 player mode.”

[Update] Indie Bundles and Star Ruler discount have been added.

Indie sales are here to make the many downers of September a little easier to bear. Take part in some of the solid savings offered across the following digital distributors:

Steam carries an eclectic grouping of discounts this weekend; as Scott pointed out earlier in the week, Brawsome’s adventure game Jolly Rover is 50% off (alternatively: Direct from Brawsome or D2D.) Train sim RailWorks goes for $20 off its standard $50 tag, while you can grab the music-powered casual game Rhythm Zone for 33% off ($10 normally.) Additionally, Exosyphen’s Hacker: Evolution titles have been added to the digital distribution service and given a 25% discount.

GamersGate is offering an even bigger discount on the original Hacker: Evolution title, dropping it by 50% down to just $10.

Impulse offers a solid discount on Blendo’s latest Air Forte, taking the $15 title down to $10.50. Star Ruler is $5 off at $20.

Also, don’t forget about those Indie Bundle Offerings Peter posted on.

[While our XBLIG Thursday feature fights against the main issue of Xbox 360’s Indie Games channel–gaming brilliance being lost in a sea of medicore titles and cheap apps–as good as anything out there, there’s just too many total releases for us to try them all.

That being said, we can still highlight them on a daily basis, and perhaps posting these new titles will benefit both player and developer by allowing a connection to be made before the game floats on down the river and into the backlogs of the channel. Whether it be an all-time great, a one time play-through or a complete lemon; all will have their chance to speak. Here are today’s releases.]

FS Racing (80 MS Points)
“Fight against time in this old school arcade racing game. Race in 14 circuits in 9 diferent scenarios with four cars with different characteristics. High speed at 60 frames per second.”

Notebook Shooter (80 MS Points)
“This stick shooter pins you against endless waves of increasingly difficult evil robots that must be destroyed! Fast paced fun for 1-4 people cooperatively. With 4 unique guns and 6 upgrades for each, you can choose your own path to survival. From Evil Lair Games.”

Figment (80 MS Points)
“In Figment you play as a child’s action figures who have come to life in order to save a boy from dark forces. Toys that have turned into monsters! Play as one of two characters, or both in co-op as you battle through hordes of evil figurines and mutated play things to save your human in this beat ‘em up style action adventure!”

[While our XBLIG Thursday feature fights against the main issue of Xbox 360’s Indie Games channel–gaming brilliance being lost in a sea of medicore titles and cheap apps–as good as anything out there, there’s just too many total releases for us to try them all.

That being said, we can still highlight them on a daily basis, and perhaps posting these new titles will benefit both player and developer by allowing a connection to be made before the game floats on down the river and into the backlogs of the channel. Whether it be an all-time great, a one time play-through or a complete lemon; all will have their chance to speak. Here are today’s releases.]

Hypership Out of Control (80 MS Points)
“Go fast. You cannot stop. Explode when hit asteroid! No fun at all!”

Check out today’s XBLIG Thursday features as well:

XBLIG Thursday: My Hypership [is] Out of Control!
XBLIG Thursday: An Interesting Duo… Mama & Son: Clean House
XBLIG Thursday: Killing At a Snail’s Pace… Snailien Invasion
XBLIG Thursday: Platformers Cross All Cultural Barriers… へっぽこ騎士

[While our XBLIG Thursday feature fights against the main issue of Xbox 360’s Indie Games channel–gaming brilliance being lost in a sea of medicore titles and cheap apps–as good as anything out there, there’s just too many total releases for us to try them all.

That being said, we can still highlight them on a daily basis, and perhaps posting these new titles will benefit both player and developer by allowing a connection to be made before the game floats on down the river and into the backlogs of the channel. Whether it be an all-time great, a one time play-through or a complete lemon; all will have their chance to speak. Here are today’s releases.]

Ricochet Assassin (80 MS Points)
“Ricochet Assassin is a hybrid of Bowman where you have to ricochet arrows off of walls and objects to assassinate your target. Play through 30 levels of insane ricochets or play against a friend in 10 multiplayer Levels.”

Avatar Baseball (80 MS Points)
“Avatar baseball is the original and funniest way to play baseball with your avatar. Face CPU or a friend and make as much runs as possible. Prepare your fingers for the action.”

Cryptic Comet has released a new update for its turn-based strategy title Solium Infernum, bringing a list of bug fixes to the title that has you competing for the crown of Hell.

The 1.06b patch fixes an error introduced in the previous 1.06a update, along with bringing a handful of fixes and improvements to the game’s AI. The file is available for manual download now and is currently being mirrored over on The Patches Scrolls, owners of the game can grab it their and any other past patches they may have missed along the way.

From the change log:

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed bug introduced in 1.06a that could cause script error if a player tried to frame another player for attacking Pandemonium with a ritual that resulted in excommunication
• Fixed bug in AI for Goal Wage Offense Operations In Blood Feud that could result in script error if a specific attack option was selected
• Fixed bug in AI for Goal Support Blood Feud Legion Movement that would result in script error if Secret Manipulation ritual was chosen and path could not be determined
• Improved AI selection process for attacking enemy legions during Vendetta. Weak legions supporting Places of Power or other legions have an increased probability of being attacked first
• Improved AI goal priority architecture so that actions are spread out more logically based on which threats have legions in threatening positions….. i.e. prestige differences are still big factors but that multiplier has been decreased.
• Improved AI threat assessment algorithm so that threat reassessment of opponents is now done for the AI’s every turn.
• Fixed error in Demonic Trance combat move resolution where infernal damage from neutralized opponent’s moves was not being negated

Ahead of the proto-release of Pirates of New Horizons, Exit Strategy Entertainment has released the action platformer’s original soundtrack as a free download for your listening pleasure.

Four tracks in all, the music was composed by game audio designer Harry Mack, who has several credits under his belt, including having worked with Jon Blow on his hit puzzle platformer Braid.

The file weighs in at around 7.5 MB and is currently being hosted on ModDB. Exit Strategy mentions that the soundtrack is there to get people in the right mood as the “[Pirates of New Horizons] prototype is nearing its completion.”

From what they’ve been telling us, it should be available for play as a free download on PC/Mac as well as in-browser by the end of the month. Pins and needles, for serious.

[Exit Strategy]

Team 17 is apparently seeing some nice returns on their latest release Worms Reloaded. The game grabbed the top spot on Steam’s best sellers chart for the first week of September and still remains on the list in ninth position in the latest numbers release.

In fact (warning: tangential paragraph approaching) the latest Steam Top 10 has what might be a record for indies, with three such titles on the list at the same time and no major discounts in sight. Along with the aforementioned Worms title, Recettear makes its debut in the fourth position and Amnesia climbed all the way up to the runner-up spot for its launch week–but back to Worms: Reloaded and the two new updates the game has received over the past few days.

The two patches bring lobby improvements, bug fixes and adjust the timing to the Jump key to make double jumping easier to perform. The multiplayer-heavy title is available now for $20 with a demo offered as well.

From the patch notes:

Worms Reloaded

• Enabled Steam crash mini dumps to get additional feedback on the crash issues some people are experiencing
• Lobby search distance filter added so users can select from regional, far and worldwide. This is set to worldwide by default
• Added a time out on lobbies so that redundant lobbies won’t be found in a search

Worms Reloaded

• An adjustment has been made to the Jump key timing to make double jumping easier
• Additional fixes have been implemented for frontend navigation with game pads.
• The Game Style name in the “Show Player Games” screen is now localized
• A fix has been added to ensure that Sentry Guns are always the correct team colour when placed in Online Multiplayer games
• A fix has been implemented to ensure that the ordering of players in the lobby is now consistent between all players. This should fix issues whereby player avatars did not match up with the correct names and also alleviate some of the issues experienced with the “Ready?” light.
• The ability to create a lobby has added to the Multiplayer Options menu. This will allow players to host their own lobbies without the need to search for available lobbies beforehand

[Team 17]

Positech Games has rolled out a new update for its space strategy title Gratuitous Space Battles, bringing several new fixes and usability improvements to the game. Better battle sounds, a new tutorial hint, mod support additions and more highlight the latest patch from Cliff Harris:

Version 1.47

• Usability: The battle sounds now work much better in cases where they overload from playing too many identical sounds at once.
• Usability: Added a new tutorial hint to point out the range overlay in the battle screen.
• Bug Fix: The supply limits window on the choose battle screen now sizes to show all limits correctly.
• Bug Fix: When creating a custom challenge, the ‘challenge’ button is not correctly disabled until some ships have been deployed.
• Bug Fix: Improved code to prevent ‘stacking’ of ships on the deployment screen (works more reliably now).
• Usability: New feature, there are now short strips under each icon on the deployment screen to show the name of the ship to aid selection.
• Mod Support: Added new ‘num_submunitions’ (limit 6) and ‘flaresize’ (default 16) to missile data for modders.
• Mod Support: Found the bug that prevented modded ships from being larger than 256. No known limit now.
• Usability: The game now checks that any challenge you are about to fight has not been removed from the database, so you are prevented from running corrupt and deleted challenges.
• Usability: The buttons that filter ships by size on the deployment screen now remember their settings.
• Bug Fix: Limpet launchers now record shots fired and hit like other weapons.
• Bug Fix: Usernames that are too long to display now get sensibly cropped in challenge list.

Gratuitous Space Battles is available now for $20, check out the demo here and our review as well.

[Positech Games]

Steam alerts us to a new update for Makivision’s quite excellent boar-capping strategy game Sacraboar, available now for owners automatically through the Steam client.

The patch includes some big additions including a flock of new bonus missions and over 50 achievements, as well as Steam Cloud and multi-monitor support:

10 new Bonus missions

51 Steam Achievements

Steam Cloud support

Multi-Monitor support

Also, my good eye noticed the game is now running just $9 on Steam, GamersGate and Impulse, that’s $11 less than what was believed to be the current price of the game–no sale, special offer or anything. There’s been zip as far as a dev blog post or a press release about a price cut or otherwise; so either someone dropped the announcement ball or they’re relying on the always questionable “do something awesome and don’t tell anyone about it” tactic.

Geoff stated in his Sacraboar review that at $20, the game was worth it for RTS enjoy’ers. I’m sure at less than half of that price he’d recommend it to most everyone. Haven’t stolen a boar yet? Check out the demo here (also available in German.)

[Makivision Games]