Sony recently released their brand new PSP Go system, a mild upgrade from the PSP 3000 that features downloadable only games, including the new “Mini” platform for smaller titles (less than 100mb each). My first thought upon hearing about this new service was that it would be perfect for indie developers who are just looking for a different place to distribute their game. I mean, after all, who wouldn’t want to create a portable game? Plenty of indie devs make games for the PC and Xbox Live’s Indie Games section, so it may seem to help you stand out from the pack a little bit if you were able to get your game onto Sony’s popular handheld system.

Unfortunately, it’s just not that easy…

One would think that with this title I’d be introducing a new game. That’s not exactly correct, however. You see, The Singularity is actually a new Indie Games label created by Jesse Vigil (of Psychic Bunny), Sam Roberts (Indiecade Festival Director) and Celia Pearce (Indiecade Festival Chair). Unfortunately, from there the whole idea kind of just broke down.

I have nothing against this movement and I think something like this is pretty cool. What I have a problem with is the way the creators are framing the new system. They are using references to the recording industry as to how they will run their business model.

For those that don’t know IndieCade Festival 2009 is happening in Los Angeles right now. IndieCade is a once a year event that happens to showcase all of the great new indie games from around the world. Better yet, it’s completely open to the public. If you live in the Los Angeles area or are planning on vi sting between now and Sunday then I’d strongly suggest you visit. It’s always been loads of fun and I can guarantee you than your going to find something awesome there.

Here’s the scoop:

$20/person for one day.

$50/person for all four days (although that ship has sailed)

Games will be available to play from around 11:00am – 7:00pm.

As a gamer there’s no better way to spend a Saturday afternoon to what has been termed “the Sundance Festival of games” by the LATimes.

I’ll definitely be heading down.

[IndieCade]

Zoo Games has decided to take the “community favorite” award winning game, Storm, and turn it into a published piece of work to sell in 2010. It’s always great to see indie games get the type of promotion they deserve and I can thing of no better game than Storm to get that treatment.

Storm was a very unique game that was entered into 2BeeGames.com first Indie Games Competition where it won the “community favorite” award and $5000. The game was a puzzle-based 2D platformer where in you control the weather; blowing gusts of wind, calling down rain and lightning, etc. In order to beat each level you had to manipulate the environment to move a series of balls from the beginning of the level all the way to the very end. It’s quite a unique game and I’m certainly happy that it’ll get more of a distribution stream now.

The entire game was completed by Terence Lee, by himself, in two weeks. He did all the art, programming, designing, and music. Congratulations Terence!

Most large consumer events that focus on video games usually showcases some of the best indie games as well, and the Tokyo Game Show is no different. This year ten games were showcased, a couple were from the good ol’ US of A! … Although most were still from Japan, which only seems natural.You can check out all the games at the SoWN website HERE.

My two personal favorites were Transcend and You Only Live Once (playable). Transcend is a very colorful shooter that is music-driven. I know, I know we’ve all seem variations of this concept before but it really does look like a lot of fun. You Only Live Once, on the other hand is a very unique game. In it you have one level and a way to die. There is no surviving in this game. But that’s not that point! You see with You Only Live Once when you die you witness a different story based on your death, depending on how you died. It’s an interesting concept and some could argue that it’s more of a story in that regard than a game, but its still very interesting… and funny to boot! Although be warned, you can literally only die once. The game won’t allow you to play again and refreshing won’t work either.

[CyoohTech]

Clover was a really neat Xbox Indie game. In fact, it was one of the few that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, if you didn’t have an Xbox you were left out in the cold… until now. It appears that Clover will be brought to the PC by way of Blitz Arcade. Even better the game will apparently be better than it’s Xbox brother featuring more features and a completely remastered piano score! Not too shabby for the indie devs who originally created the game.

No release date was announced.

[Kotaku]

Like with Hollywood, and the recording industry it has become increasingly harder to tell what counts as an independent game. Especially when there are so many big-time game corporations (EA, Activision, THQ, etc.) always scavenging to find the next big craze and capitalize on it. It makes sense for them. Why pay people to come up with a brilliant idea before it’s even tested when you can simply find the best indie games out there and offer the designer a once in a lifetime dream opportunity in exchange for their game? Indie games can draw large flocks of people, despite their relatively small distribution network, and it’s when one of these games “makes it” that the big companies begin to take notice of a possible acquisition target.

Anyways, seeing as how we are an indie games blog, it’d probably be best for us to lay down exactly what we believe is an independent game. This way you won’t ever have to wonder why some games get mentioned and why others do not, or why we may drop coverage of a certain title (in case of a buy-out). Anyways on to the list!

Welcome to your new site for all things student and independent gaming. Here at DIYgamer.com we’ll be reviewing, researching, rescuing, and, probably, realizing some of the very coolest games from some of the smallest game companies. That’s our specialty! We look forward to becoming your number one spot in indie game news and we are staffing up for what hopefully will become a great community of writers, readers, editors, and… most of all… commenters.

So add us to your RSS feed to keep in touch with what we are up to.

Also we’ll be setting up our very own Twitter and Facebook accounts soon cause I hear those things are, like, popular or something. We’ll see about that!