Analogue is an anomaly – a glitch in the system. A ‘visual novel’ almost without visuals, or an adventure game without an inventory or an avatar. Putting you in the far-future shoes of a lone researcher sent to the fringes of known space to investigate the circumstances behind a recently-rediscovered Korean colony-ship’s disappearance hundreds of years ago, you’re tasked with interviewing the on-board AI’s and cross-referencing the crew’s logs to unravel the mystery. It’s a fascinating concept, but does it work as well in application as it does on paper?

Radiangames hit the XBLIG scene in 2010 with debut title Joy Joy, and has since been on a development tour de force, releasing a myriad of slick arcade-style shooters while migrating the dev’s various offerings (whether old, new, or upgraded) onto PC/Mac and iOS platforms as well. Luke Schneider, the mastermind behind it all, stops in to update us on the just released Quadtastic Collection, some reflection on marketing experimentation, and where he’s looking to go both platform-wise and genre-wise next.

The first time I played Lunar Flight I spent over half an hour piloting my little lunar capsule head first into the many rocky craters of Earth’s largest, greyest satellite. It was hectic, spiraling lunacy that almost always resulted in some marvelous catastrophe. Mostly this was hilarious and I did at least feel like I was making some minor progress with the controls before I exploded at the end of every adventure into a ball of impossible flames.

And you thought we were done talking about indie game bundles. After the onslaught of them last year, bundle fatigue was definitely beginning to set in to the general populace of gamers. Still, it feels like its been a while since we’ve had one so perhaps it’s not such a bad thing that the AGS Bake Sale has arrived.

Today is the big Internet protest day for those against SOPA/PIPA. Between Reddit, Destructoid, Rock Paper Shotgun (this one especially hurts), Wikipedia and literally hundreds of other sites I think we’ve sent out a big message to not only consumers and general Internet goers, but also to the politicians who are seemingly at the beck and call of big lobby interests.

Game developer Jonathan Blow is a busy man. So we found ourselves scrambling about in a panic when we were given the chance to get an update on what’s going on these days with his hotly anticipated adventure title The Witness, and the team behind it, straight from the horse’s mouth. Weeks were spent attempting to scratch out a few decent questions regarding his upcoming game, development style, and some habitual leisure activities (weeks may have also been spent on holiday break as well), and now you can find those inquiries below, along (happily) with his responses.

[Guest review by Ken Ellis.]

Trapped in a world of music and battles! Do your fingers have the rhythm to dance the dance of DEATH!?

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.

The original Home Sheep Home was a freely available Flash game that gave players a selection of physics-based puzzles to work their way through in the company of a trio of clever cud-chewers. Here, with Home Sheep Home 2, our fluffy friends are back and once again engaging in escapades far beyond the comprehension of any typical farm animal.

RocketCat Games should — by this point — be synonymous with iOS games… excellent iOS games, actually. Everything they have released up until this point has been gold, certified by thousands of gamers and dozens of press and industry figures (IGF anyone?). So why is it so surprising that Mage Gauntlet is their best game thus far? For one thing, it doesn’t involve hooks, although it does involve a very unique (and awesome) gauntlet. For another, it’s much more of an RPG than their earlier titles, which were based around jump/hook/platforming kinds of experiences. Either way, Mage Gauntlet is an absolute must-own on the iOS because it’s pretty much the definitive mobile action-RPG — minus some terrific RPG elements that could have improved the overall experience.