A month back Arsen posted on Freeplay IGF announcing the inaugural Freeplay Awards, an indie competition running alonside their August festival in Australia. Now, just over two weeks away from the event, the finalists for the competition have been revealed.

Several of our down under developers (and friends) check in as finalists for multiple awards including The Voxel Agents for Train Conductor, Brawsome for Jolly Rover and Farbs for the Captain Forever series. Other stand-outs that we’ve seen before include Alexander Bruce’s Hazard: The Journey of Life (mentioned in our E3 Podcast.)

The winners will be announced during the Freeplay Indie Games Festival 2010 taking place August 14 and 15 at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne. Congrats to all the finalists recognized, the full list follows:

Best Australian Game

Up Down Ready (Sword Lady & The Viking), Jolly Rover (Brawsome), Colourbind (Finn Morgan)

Best International Game

Bo (Mahdi Bahrami, Iran), TryFail (Anders Højsted, Denmark), Last Hope (Yellow Jam, Brazil)

Best Design in a Game

Up Down Ready (Sword Lady & The Viking), Hazard: The Journey of Life (Alexander Bruce), Train Conductor (The Voxel Agents)

Best On-Paper Design

Epic Adventure (Tobye Ryan), iCrazy Man (Timothy Ryan), Galaqua (Katie Murphy)

Best Art in a Game

Captain Forever series (Farbs), Hazard: The Journey of Life (Alexander Bruce), Doodle Find (KlickTock)

Best Concept Art

Exodus (Fiasco Studios), City Ruins (Evan Raynor), Speed Demon (Catbus Interactive)

Best Technical Innovation

Captain Forever series (Farbs), Colourbind (Finn Morgan), Up Down Ready (Sword Lady & The Viking)

Best Game Writing

Captain Forever series (Farbs), Hazard: The Journey of Life (Alexander Bruce), Transumer (PVI Collective)

Best Audio

Train Conductor (The Voxel Agents), Gamebook Adventures 1: An Assassin in Orlandes (Tin Man Games), Jolly Rover (Brawsome)

Indie Links for you, ten in a row. Interviews are the name of the game today, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore those talking only to themselves.

Go learn about the innards of games, the structure of the gamer’s psyche and watch as Tim Stone goes mad conversating to the flight simulation genre itself.

Interview: Building a game out of cardboard and clay: The Dream Machine (Andrew Webster/ars technica)
“No one will accuse The Dream Machine of looking generic. Created in part as a response to the seemingly endless stream of similar-looking games on the market, the developers at Cockroach Inc. built The Dream Machine to be something different: a stop-motion, episodic, point-and-click adventure. Ars spoke with Anders Gustafsson, one half of Cockroach, to learn just how to make a game out of cardboard and clay.”

Developer Diary: How to Make Games Funny (Darren Evenson/Hothead Games)
“Now that DeathSpank is out, we thought we’d do a Developer Diary entry for July. In this installment we talk about how to make games funny. Enjoy!”

Limbo: What’s in a Length? (Kyle Orland/GameSetWatch)
“The Game Beat is a bi-weekly new GSW column by Kyle Orland examining the video game press and the process by which gamers get information about the games they love. This week, it examines the industry’s somewhat misplaced obsession with a game’s duration, rather than its content.”

A quick chat with Frictional – Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Brenna Hillier/Games On Net)
“The creators of the Penumbra series have hung up the artillery in favour of the eerie thrills of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, which appears to become sort of a … first person physics-based survival horror. What? We just had to know more, so we asked Frictional Games co-founder Thomas Grip about the lack of weaponry, plot influences – and of course, the physics angle.”

No More Sweden 2010 Video Presentations (Tim W/IndieGames)
“A complete set of video presentations from No More Sweden 2010 held earlier this month are now available to watch online, featuring talks by developers like Crayon Physics creator Petri Purho, Bernhard Schulenberg (designer of Where is My Heart?), and Andreas Zecher (Understanding Games) among others. The list of recorded presentations that can be viewed are as follows.”

Interview: Paradox’s Wester On Digital Distribution Consolidation, DRM, F2P (Simon Carless/GameSetWatch)
“Fredrik Wester, CEO of hardcore-oriented developer and publisher Paradox Interactive, chats with our own Chris Remo about his plans and thoughts thoughts on digital distribution, DRM, free-to-play, shaved heads, and more.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: The Ball (Justin McElroy/Joystiq)
“This week we talk with Sjoerd De Jong, Project Lead at Teotl Studios, about how his team has spent one-and-a-half years polishing The Ball.”

Giant Interview: Tom Wilcox, Technical Director (Jamie Evans/IndieDB)
“Paper Giant Studios’ chief programmer talks about the challenges of creating Seed Pod Shuffle, building a 2D game with a 3D engine, and the many benefits of using Unity.”

Digital: A Love Story Fanart, Talk (Eric Caoili/GameSetWatch)
“My favorite indie game of the year so far is easily Christine Love’s Digital: A Love Story, a PC adventure/mystery/romance title set in the late 1980s and presented through bulletin board systems — what other game lets you “crawl BBSes, uncover conspiracies, commit telephone fraud, and fall in love” in just a couple hours?”

Stale Air And Stolen Thunder (Tim Stone/RPS)
“I was up at Farnborough International Airshow yesterday, and, while having a crafty fag round the back of the Fuel-Air Weapons Marquee, was lucky enough to run into one of gaming’s most elusive genres. Dishevelled and smelling slightly of wet ferrets, Flight Simulation was in a surprisingly talkative mood. During the course of an hour-long chat we covered numerous topics, none more fascinating than the changing fortunes of the gent himself.”

Kongregate co-founder Jim Greer has announced that the giant flash game site has been purchased by retailer GameStop. Does this mean if we want to play a game on the site we’ll have to put down a minimum $5 pre-order through an apathetic, smelly twenty-something? Oh, apparently that isn’t exactly the case. Well good, what does it mean then?

According to this love-filled, humor-enriched announcement, not a lot–”good answer” so say we all. The site will be losing its beta tag, and the GameStop PowerUp rewards program will be integrated into the site, allowing players with the highest scores and achievements gathered to win cash prizes. Maybe most importantly, the revenue sharing system for contributors will remain and won’t deal with any changes at all.

The amount GameStop paid for the site? According to Greer that detail is “confidential.” We’ll have to see how things develop and change on the site in the coming months, for better or worse.

Our latest set of Indie Links gathered from far and wide consists primarily of conversations and connections between developers/enthusiasts and gaming journos/bloggers. There’s really nothing more easy going out there than those who work in the indie slice of the industry. Often, both sides reach out to one another often to form both a business and personal relationship and we all benefit for it. Check out today’s picks.

The Worth(lessness) of NDAs (IndieFund)
“It’s been almost two weeks since we opened up the submission process and the response has been fantastic, if somewhat overwhelming. We’ve gotten over 70 applications so far and we’re working through them as best we can. Please be patient with us… we will get back to you. One thing that has come up a couple of times is a request to sign an NDA, and that’s actually the focus of this post. We do not sign NDAs and would like to share the rationale behind this decision.”

Inteview: Andrew Goulding on Jolly Rover (Martin Mulrooney, Philip Jong/Adventure Classic Gaming)
“Jolly Rover is the debut adventure game from indie developer Andrew Goulding and his company Brawsome. Goulding is no stranger to the games industry, having worked for years as a game tester, programmer, and producer. Although comedy pirate adventures are certainly not unique to the genre, Jolly Rover seems to have taken on a new twist to an old theme by casting all of the game’s main characters as canines. Indeed, it is this unique design choice that makes Goulding’s game different from the competition.”

Unity Giveaway Contest Winners (Henley/IndieDB)
“Our Unity contest has come to a close, with over 50 entries and 10 amazing finalists, the quality of entries has been amazing. We asked for original concepts and we had an amazing response but in the end there can only be 2 winners.”

Interview: Dejobaan Games’ Lambe, Jaitley On Doing Things A Little Different (Mike Rose/GameSetWatch)
“Mike Rose sits down with two of the principals from super-quirky independent developer Dejobaan Games — creator of AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity and The Wonderful End of the World – to reference upcoming title ooo! ooO! oOO! OOO! and their unique way of approaching game creation.”

Talking Shop: Carpe Fulgur On Recettear (Alec Meer/RPS)
“The demo of Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale is one of the best things I’ve played in a while. A Japanese indie game pitching an RPG shopkeeper as the star… well, you can read all that in the last post. Given the slightly unusual nature of the project – it’s only available here thanks to a third-party translation company- I thought I’d chat to said translators about the why, how, who and what next. Interesting stuff – there’s this whole vein of (slick) indie gaming that we otherwise hear nothing about. Take it away, Carpe Fulgur’s Andrew Dice.”

LIMBO Review (Jeff Mattas/Shacknews)
“Playdead’s action-based, puzzle-platformer, LIMBO, [is] out for Xbox LIVE Arcade and to put it bluntly: prepare to die!”

Tom Jubert Talks Projects, Plots, Penumbra (Lewis Denby/RPS)
“At the Develop Conference in Brighton last week, I had the opportunity to sit down for a beer and a chat with Tom Jubert, perhaps most famous for writing the excellent horror adventure series Penumbra. They’re dark and sinister games whose writing, and the structure of their storytelling, were often their strongest asset. Read on for Tom’s thoughts on the writing process, tales of game design tribulations, and his involvement in a major new title.”

Alhóndiga Bilbao Announces International hó Play Competition (Eric Caoili/GameSetWatch)
“Spanish culture and leisure center Alhóndiga Bilbao has announced hó Play, a new project that aims to present and promote video games that “stand out for their originality, creativeness, and innovation.”"

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Delve Deeper (Justin McElroy/Joystiq)
“This week we talk Lunar Giant Studio’s Adam Eidukas (Lead Developer) and Neil Wickman (Creative Director / Lead Artist) about how Adam FULLY beat Final Fantasy with just the thief. … Oh, also they made a game.”

Interview: Riot Games’ co-founder talks about Season One of League of Legends (John Callaham/Big Download)
“The game didn’t get a lot of attention from the mainstream game industry or the media when it launched last October but today it looks like League of Legends has been a huge success for its developer/publisher Riot Games. The company made the free-to-play multiplayer RTS-action game with some of the people behind the popular WarCraft III mod Defense of the Ancients.”

With a little over a month left and still $6,500 to be raised for its funding pledge drive, a new trailer has been released for documentary Everything, By Everyone.

The movie focuses on covering “Newgrounds and the online cultural trends it helped create and drive over the last decade or so.” With the trailer featuring clips with filmmaker Nathan Kuran interviewing the likes of Edmund McMillen of Team Meat, Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi, animator/activist Nina Paley and more.

Remember, the fund raiser offers goodies for donators (DVD copies, screening party invites, a tour of the Newgrounds HQ, high fives, etc.) depending on how much you’re willing and can contribute. Check out the new trailer and then drop by here to drop some support towards the film’s full funding and thus completion.

Independent developer and publisher Rusty Axe Games has announced the release of its RPG map design and editing tool “Dungeon Demon”, now available for purchase through the devpub’s website.

The software offers users and developers an easy to use editor, blending rapid tiling with object placement. It comes with around 200 pieces of royalty free artwork to use in the user’s own map designs, has no map dimension size restrictions and features free updates for-ev-er. That’s quite a promise and some solid commitment (and job security!) those folks at Rusty Axe are rocking over there.

The software goes for $30, but can be had for only $20 for “early adopters” who purchase before August 31. You can check out a video of the software in action here.

If you’re not looking to spend said amounts and would like a free-er RPG design tool, check out RPG Maker VX for the simple cost of nothing. I like to provide options so you’ll have no excuses, now go make an awesome game to share with us…or at least a mailable pie that you’ve baked and shipped specifically for me. No rules on sharing shipped pie.

Indie links round-up has come a knockin’, you going to answer? You better, because you’ve never seen so much raw, uncensored indie action in your life before you’ve gone over today’s list. There’s a few, clear messages that ring through in the links that certainly apply to all walks of life: Be yourself, believe in yourself and–perhaps the most difficult–stand-up for yourself.

Mindie – Bridging The Gap Between Mainstream And Indie (Doolwind, Alistair Doulin)
“I’m a mindie game developer and proud of it. But what does that mean? I’ve noticed a trend lately when it comes to indie developers. It seems to be all or nothing. You’re either Indie, with your beard and rebellious attitude or you’re mainstream with your suit and love of money. Why does it need to be so black and white?”

Epic opinions (Cliffski’s Blog, Cliff Harris) + Cliff Bleszinski and Cliff Harris Twitter Follow-Up
“I’ve mulled over whether to say anything at all, but if you can’t say what you think about the games industry when you own your own company, when can you?”

Joe Danger dev explains why publishers don’t get downloadable games (Joystiq, Kyle Orland)
“Hello Games’ Sean Murray learned a lot when looking for a third-party publisher for his company’s recent PSN critical and sales success Joe Danger. But the final takeaway from all those lessons seems to boil down to the same thing: most of the big publishers do not know what they’re doing in the downloadable games market.”

In-Depth: Skulls Of The Shogun Team On Going From EA To Indie (GameSetWatch, Simon Carless)
“The folks at Haunted Temple Studios went from EA-sized teams to a four-man operation, and they talk to our own Chris Remo on the transition and what they’ve learned while making their turn-based strategy game Skulls of the Shogun.”

Interview: Unknown Worlds’ co-founder updates us on Natural Selection 2 (Big Download, John Callaham)
“Big Download got Unknown Worlds founder Charlie Cleveland to briefly answer some questions about the upcoming alpha test including if mod makers can go ahead and put their own maps in the alpha build, how much longer until the “final” 1.0 version is release and more.”

Review: DeathSpank (Joystiq, Randy Nelson)
“”DeathSpank? What a ridiculous name!” I can hear you saying it now. Yes, it is a ridiculous name, for a ridiculous game which revels in the fact that it’s ridiculous. Well, that and damned funny. Oh, and a super-fun, retail-caliber yet downloadable action-RPG.”

Interview: Alex Vostrov of Rocket Bear Games On Going Full-Time Indie (GameSetWatch, Mike Rose)
“Starting a new series of interviews with notable indie game developers for GameSetWatch, Mike Rose sits down with Rocket Bear Games’ Alex Vostrov to talk about his acclaimed, quirky titles and his plans for the future.”

Hands-On: Shoot First (TIGSoruce, ithamore)
“Shoot First, the latest game from Beau Blyth (aka Tenkopants), is the offspring of a run-n-gun and a roguelike. It reminds me much of my experiences of learning how to play Spelunky and Xong, and it’s addictive.”

We Want YOU – Indie Game Review (BrightHub, David Sanchez)
“Don’t let its 2D graphics and side-scrolling gameplay fool you. We Want YOU is quite possibly the most realistic war game out there, thanks in large part to its message, which plays the satire card while touching on some very serious war issues.”

Interview: Cthulhu Saves the World (RPGamer)
“People can’t seem to get enough of Cthulhu. Not only is he the monstrousity created by the late H.P Lovecraft, but he a figure that has become an icon in popular geek culture. Whether you are familiar with Lovecraft’s work or not, Cthulhu is almost everywhere –- other novels, table-top role playing games, and even video games. This lovable tentacle monster is also now starring in a new Xbox Live Indie title. With the success of Breath of Death VII: The Beginning, Zeboyd Games is at again with their hit Cthulhu Saves the World. In this interview, RPGamer talks once again with the delightful Robert Boyd on this upcoming project.”

I missed last week, so we’re twicing the standard dosage of Indie Links. That’s right, don’t make me bring the thricening! Anyway, making up words is fun, but not as much as exploring the greater indie horizon. Hello Games gets in a couple shots, and plenty of interviews, hands-on, reviews and more. Have a gander.

‘No monkeys?!’ Why publishers nixed Joe Danger (Develop Online)
“Hello Games took to the stage at the Develop Conference today to exact revenge on the publishers that turned down the Joe Danger project. Without naming any names, Murray went through a list of reasons why the game was turned down, quoting what he had heard from various publishers in meetings. Attendees at the Develop session broke into laughter.”

XBLA is a “slaughterhouse” for smaller developers (Games Industry — Registration Required)
“Hello Games chose to release Joe Danger via Sony’s PlayStation Network because the team regarded Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade as a “slaughterhouse” for small developers.”

The Witness: Location Development (The Witness Dev Blog)
“Much of the other work that I personally have been putting into the game is about the user interface for the puzzles. As I mentioned, gameplay is the utmost concern; this being a puzzle game, you spend a long time solving puzzles, so it’s important to make that feel good, even at this early stage.”

Rules For Games: Do & Don’t #2 (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
“I’m in charge. This is firmly established (citation needed). So it’s important I continue to decree my rulings. All must obey, for I am as bad as BP and I burn in hell. Fear me.”

COLUMN: Design Diversions – Fate/Stay Night: Choices Beyond Good and Evil (GameSetWatch)
“‘Design Diversions’ is a biweekly GameSetWatch-exclusive column by Andrew Vanden Bossche. It looks at the unexpected moments when games take us behind the scenes, and the details of how game design engages us. How do we get over our fixation on good and evil as a gameplay element? Fate/Stay Night, a Japanese visual novel, may have the answer.”

Developer Interview: Soenke Seidel (IndieDB)
“Cap’n Frie here bringing ye landlubbers fresh booty! I blabbered wit’ one of me hearties: Cap’n Soenke! Nothin’ like swashbuckling wit’ this sea dog!”

Dog Fighter: Hands-on Impressions and Giveaway (Shacknews)
“DogFighter, Dark Water Studios’ arena-based aerial combat game, took to the virtual skies via Steam about a month ago. I spent the past couple of weeks in its virtual cockpit to assess the fast-paced shooter.”

Review: Cut It (TIGSource)
“His first game about drawing, Crayon Physics Deluxe, won the IGF Grand Prize in 2008 and since then, Petri Purho has been developing experimental games on a monthly basis. Cut It is his most recent project and features similar concepts seen in Crayon Physics, but also introduces new ideas and offers a solid concept from which the crayon master can draw on.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: 0 A.D. (Joystiq)
“This week we talk with Aviv Sharon of Wildfire about the studio’s 0 A.D., an indie project nine years in the making.”

Depth Music Q&A: 4mat’s Decades (Indie Games)
“Independent game creator Matt Simmonds teased his upcoming PC shooter Depth back in December, which makes creative use of inexpensive red/cyan lens 3D glasses. Music for the title will draw on the Sussex, UK-based designer’s twenty-plus years’ experience in the game industry, featuring arrangements of previously released chiptunes.In this interview the musician relates how varied experiences as a sound designer, ranging from mainstream titles to indie games and the demoscene, are currently contributing to the shape of Depth.”

In the heat of Summer, you can always rely on Indie Links to cool you off, especially if your means of air conditioning is near your computer arrangement. I did my best to diversify this week.

Lots of interviews, in depth coverage of current/upcoming games, and in the end, ten awesome links from ten different sites.

The Big List Of Indie Game Sites (Pixel Prospector)
From the guy who brought us the 200 (or so) free indie games in 10 minutes videos. A comprehensive and categorized list of all the indie sites and coverage out there, DIY included of course. Super love!

Hands On: Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Eurogamer)
“I think a mark of quality in a game is whether you can return to a room you’ve previously been in, and know you were there earlier by the destruction you wrought. Amnesia, the new first-person adventure from Penumbra developers Frictional, does not paint rooms in the blood of your enemies, but rather in strewn desk drawers, boxes and broken glass. And light. Amnesia is looking to be an extremely dark game, but rather than offering you the opportunity to sneak silently in the welcoming shadows, here darkness is your enemy. It is the path to insanity.”

Interview: Loved’s Ocias Seeks Depth, Player Confrontation (Gamasutra)
“While E3 dominated games industry headlines in recent weeks, an unexpected candidate for people’s attentions in June has been Loved, a browser-based game by Australian artist and designer Alexander Ocias.”

Gryzor87′s Retro-Inspired Sound: Hydorah Music Q&A (IndieGames)
“Freeware game Hydorah is the brainchild of Locomalito of Andalucia, Spain. For the soundtrack, whose cover art is by illustrator Marek Bayej, musician Gryzor87 drew on the established audio styles of retro sidescrolling shooters, while also infusing his own rock and classical-inspired tastes.”

Review: Fault Line (TIGSource)
“This month Fault Line was released. I don’t know if you’ve been following Nitrome. I know I sure wasn’t. Their game Tiny Castle got a plug on the Indie Games Weblog as well as the AV Club’s Sawbuck Gamer column. And it was an interesting game, more for it’s idea that for how well it pulled it off. But Fault Line has got me digging into their backlog.”

Interview: We chat with the founder of Joystick Labs (Big Download)
“There are a number of ways game developers can find money to help fund their projects; through publishers or awards, grants and more. But what about actual help during the development process to make the game better and to establish contacts in the game industry that will allow the developers to sell the game? That’s the plan of the newly announced Joystick Labs, a Durham, North Carolina-based company that was officially announced this week. The company will not only pick games and development teams to help fund their creations but also to mentor them in various aspects of game development and business.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: iBailout (Joystiq)
“This week we talk with Nick Marroni, who, after deciding he’d had enough inferior games that combined Ms. Pac-Man and the Federal Reserve, set his mind on making his own.”

Interview: Brendon Chung of Blendo Games — What did the Rastafarian cat say to the Glowing toucan? (Level Forty-Two)
“I had the chance to interview Brendon Chung, a videogame developer and the founder of Blendo Games. We talked about his future endeavours, his games Flotilla and Gravity Bone, the nature of game development and the origins of Blendo Games.”

June 2010 Video Spotlight — UFO: Alien Invasion (IndieDB)
“Just when you thought it was safe to walk in tall grass again a wild Spotlight appears! Introducing the first IndieDB Spotlight video, jammed packed with umm well Indie games.”

Interview: Hothead Games on DeathSpank (GamingNexus)
“”When confronted with the idea of developing Ron Gilbert’s DeathSpank character introduced by his Grumpy Gamer comic series, the Penny Arcade duo gave the go ahead to Hothead to transition gears from their series to start work on the action RPG game. We had an opportunity to delve more into the back story of both the development of DeathSpank, as well as the details behind the gameplay itself via a roundtable discussion with Executive Producer Vlad Ceraldi, Lead Designer Darren Evenson and RPG Designer Dennis Detwiller.”

Back at GDC, a bunch of popular indie developers took the stage to announce a little-known project called Indie Fund. It was aimed at helping other, even smaller, indie developers and games get adequate funding without having to sell their souls games to a big time publisher who would almost definitely take the majority of profits to be had.

Since then, the crew who are running the organization have been quietly working away preparing for the day when the effort was ready to go live. That day being… today.

Yep, you heard that right. The Indie Fund is now accepting all applications for games to be funded by them.

Here are the details on funding/repayment:

1. Flexible budget with no milestones. This means that once your game is approved, you’ll begin receiving monthly payments to help with your ongoing game development costs. All you need to do is give them monthly builds to ensure progress is being made.

2. Repay is proportional. All profits first go towards repaying the funding and from that point on a percentage goes back to refund the Indie Fund so more games can get funded. Make sense? You were funded by Indie Fund and now you have to turn around and help fund new games with your Indie Fund-funded game. It’s only a percentage though, you’ll still get to keep a large portion of the profits.

3. Don’t make the money back? No problem! Should your game not sell well, or become a flop (bummer!) you don’t have to worry about repaying the full funding. Basically your game will be on a 3 year term. Once those 3 years are up your game no longer has to worry about repayment.

All that sound good to you? Great, head on over to apply your game to get some extra super awesome funding! Although, developers beware, the application process looks like it could be a little difficult to break into. Make sure you meet all the requirements before submitting. There’s no need to waste anybody’s time if you don’t READ THE REQUIREMENTS.

Good luck and hats off the the Indie Fund guys for doing something amazing.

[Indie Fund]