One of my very favorite Metroidvanias is going to be getting a breath of fresh air soon on the PC. I am, of course, talking about Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet which I reviewed when it became available last year and quite enjoyed. Unfortunately, it didn’t end up doing as well as I would have thought on XBLA, which is why a PC version is so exciting!

It’s a title we’ve covered a couple of times before on this site, but it is absolutely worth keeping in mind for the coming year as well. Superflat Games’ Lone Survivor is still in development and, with any luck, less than six weeks away from completion if the recent blog posts by one man dev team, Jasper Byrne, are to be believed.

So we like to cover mods here on DIYGamer as well as indie game. I’m sure many of you ave noticed that, in fact, as we’ve actually covered quite a few really good mods that can expand some of your favorite games in bigger and better ways than ever thought possible. And then we have the mods like what we’re going to talk about today. Not to say it’s bad, just different and altogether… odd.

Three Dead Zed is an upcoming Zombie puzzle platformer that’s going to be on PC next week. Of course, there’s going to a small change to the typical archtype zombie game… this time you’re the zombie.

In the indie market a great pitch is paramount and I have to commend Gentleman Squid Studio for Three Dead Zed. They start by addressing the rather large undead elephant in the room:

It’s only been a few months since we last highlighted updates to Wolfire Games’ massively exciting upcoming rabbit-punching sim, Overgrowth, but there’s good reason for such frequent commentary. This isn’t a game that sits quietly in development limbo whilst outsiders look on, praying for news – any news – that the project isn’t dead in the water.

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.

Colibri Games’ The Tiny Bang Story is a whopping 75% off as today’s Steam Daily Deal, and if your PC or Mac is lacking the title you probably should swipe it up right now (or at least before tomorrow at approximately 10 AM PT). If the game was discounted this low during the holiday sale I completely missed the boat, as this is the first time I can recall the well received adventure, puzzle, and hidden object hybrid being available for less than lunch.

As we all know by now, Indie Fund, the funding platform run by the likes of Ron Carmel, Jonathan Blow and other notable indie developers, funded a well known indie game that recently released by the name of Q.U.B.E. Said game was originally released back in December on Desura and Playism, but was available on Steam as of approximately eight days ago. After four days of being available on Steam, Q.U.B.E. developers Toxic Games were able to repay the full amount invested in them by the Indie Fund… Amazing.

Sometimes Mojang just releases too much news in too short a period for us to keep track of, especially while we are busy trying to play this or that other indie game. Still, they’re an important figurehead for the indie industry as a whole so when they have news we should report on it. In this case, they dropped three very important pieces of news over the last few days that really should have something for everybody!

The Written World is a new game project currently on Kickstarter where playlab London, the game’s creators, have created a “Massively Multiplayer Write ‘em up,” which is a pretty accurate and endearing description. It’s essentially a multiplayer story-telling game. If you’re intrigued and simultaneously confused, I know your plight. However, upon reading the project’s Kickstarter page I have a better grasp of the concept. It’s essentially an online game that resembles an Interactive Fiction story, but it’s taken the concept to a whole new level. It’s multiplayer and it’s collaborative (or competitive, depending on how you’re feeling).