The early news rush continues this morning with India-based indie developer RealAxis Software revealing their sidescrolling platformer (platforming sidescroller?) Stained with an announcement video. A short trailer that shows off both a thematically dark and visually vibrant game, with the unique idea of creatures made out of stained glass out to impede your exploring of an ancient, mysterious castle.

Stickmen Studios’ invent and adventure game Doc Clock: The Toasted Sandwich of Time is heading to the Playstation Network sometime soon, so says the New Zealand-based developer. The port will receive Move motion control support, a sandbox level to tinker around in, and new in-game abilities.

Via press release we receive word that the first part of John Way’s top-down zombie survival RPG I Shall Remain is now available to download for free. The prologue is available for all on IndieDB, weighing in at just under a gig. Originally a Kickstarter effort that fell short of its goal, the lack of funding didn’t deter the Way’s team from going forward with the project, and now we have the first of those fruits with supposedly more in the works. Good on them I say.

Links this week has some cathartic responses to the recent IGF finalist announcements, and behind those are some hidden gems to look into, a few excellent interviews, and more news from around the indie globe.

Orbital Games snake-like 2D survival shooter Octopede has arrived as promised onto the Xbox Live Indie Games platform, and is available now to purchase for 80 MS Points. In apparent generous celebration of the release, the PC version is being offered via Desura for the next few days at $1.50 (instead of the standard, already just fine price of $3).

Just a handful of days after we received word of the IGF 2012 Main Competition finalists, we now know who will be representing the cream of the crop in the Student Showcase. Eight titles this time around have picked up $500 each for their selection, with both some new and familiar names vying for the $3,000 grand prize.

Playdead’s critically acclaimed and wholly distressing sidescrolling adventure game Limbo (another good game with featuring nasty, huge arachnids) had already made its way onto Steam for PC back in August after being an XBLA-exclusive for what seemed like an eternity. Now several months after that, Mac owners finally get the opportunity to get in on all that tense puzzle platforming action with an OS X version just added to Valve’s platform.

Game Oven Studios have revealed their hands-on iPad/iPad 2 cooperative puzzler Fingle, just nominated for the IGF 2012 Nuovo Award, is now available on the App Store. Even better, it’s being offered at $0.99 for a limited time.

To be fair in the latest trailer for the open development action-RPG Driftmoon they’re just referred to as huge spiders, but gross! The constant inclusion of those nasty things are the bane of my existence in nearly every great dungeon crawler out there (it’s why I’m a big supporter of the Skyrim spiders to stuffed bears mod.) Regardless, there’s a lot more going on in the latest alpha release, and fortunately developer Instant Kingdom is happy to show it all off in addition to those awful eight-legged monstrosities.

DiezelPower has vigilantly been improving and adding to their fast-paced zombie arena shooter Nation Red since its release way back in August of 2009. To date, it’s received dozens of content-filled updates adding new modes, maps, weapons, perks, enemies, and maybe most importantly implementing a lot of player feedback. In fact, just a couple days ago the game received drop-in online co-op and a new stats section. Those additions turned out to be a preamble for a free weekend that’s just kicked off on Steam, with a major discount on the full version offered for the duration of the event.