2011 was an amazing year for indie games. Huge releases seemingly every week, discounts all over the place, bundles, addons, expansions and general greatness upon greatness. However, gears were set in motion in the final months of last year ensuring that the first few months of this one might well bring us some of the best games of 2012. Here’s a few personal picks to keep an eye on in 2012, many of them available as public alpha builds at the moment.

The Indie Fund finally bears fruit, and the art-style looks almost festive on this one; A sea of white with primary-colored highlights awaits in Q.U.B.E. (Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion), a first-person puzzle game clearly inspired by Portal, but thankfully doing enough different to stand proudly by itself. A full review will have to wait until I’ve dug a little deeper and shaken the cobwebs out of my brain, but here’s some thoughts on the first couple of levels, along with a trailer after the break.

Update: The developer of the game has divulged the promo code ‘STARBEAR’ which drops the price of the game down to $13.

The tagline for Rocket Bear Games’ Infested Planet paints an interesting picture: 5 men against a horde of 100,000 alien bugs. It’s an enticing concept, with strategy games usually presenting more-or-less symmetrical battlefields, with even the Starcraft’s Zerg only outnumbering humans by 2 or 3 to one. I jumped down into the gore-splattered trenches to have a look at the current work-in-progress beta build of this interesting ‘popcorn strategy’ title.

The space 4X genre has been on fairly thin ice these past few years. While there’s been a steady stream of releases, very few have been really worthy of praise at launch – some (such as the original Sword of The Stars and Star Ruler) recieved enough post-release support to become fine games in their own right, but very weak launches hampered their sales badly. It’s a rough scene, with an unforgiving audience. StarDrive by Zer0Sum Games might just be just what people have been hoping for, though.

This November has been an enormous month for gaming, with major mainstream titles coming out every other day. Now, the indie scene rolls out its own heavyweight in the form of Serious Sam 3. Developed by tiny Croatian studio Croteam (named after their own country, as it is so unknown in game development circles) and boosted into stardom by equally tiny indie publishing outfit Devolver Digital, Serious Sam 3 promises old-school FPS gameplay with hundreds of weird and ugly monsters to kill per level, mixed in with modern production values and online co-op for up to 16 players. Beyond the break, a very metal launch trailer, and play-by-play first thoughts on the initial sections of the game.

Minecraft is a great game. No doubt about it. What Notch and subsequently Mojang did was create one of the best sandbox games to ever get released. That said, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the graphics (voxels) weren’t becoming a bit tiresome. That’s where Lords of Uberdark comes in to fill the void.

Typically I either do previews or interviews for DIYGamer due to the fact that most developers aren’t physically within my reach. Therefor I’m forced to do interviews over email/IM and then preview the game later, separately. Today, I’m trying something a little different because, well, Dirk (the creator of ScrumbleShip) happens to live in Portland. Huzzah!

Great news! Yesterday the fine gentlemen over at Dejobaan Games sent me a deluxe preview, special edition, awesome copy of AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome, the indie dev companies semi-sequel to the incredibly popular free falling game: AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity. I know, my ‘a’ key is getting pretty worn out too.

Last night, Carbon Games were kind enough to let me get my grubby mitts on the work-in-progress alpha build of their upcoming action/RTS hybrid AirMech. Having sunk a few hours into it, I’m almost ready to tell you why you should be very excited about this game. But before I can really explain why AirMech is such a big deal, we need to take a stroll down memory lane. After the jump, a gameplay video and the reason why AirMech is your daddy’s RTS. Read on.

Konjak is no stranger to making some absolutely gorgeous and amazing games. His Noitu Love series is often touted as being the best of the best when it comes to indie game development. So it’s really no surprise then that his newest game, The Iconoclasts, is right up there with the best of what he currently has to offer.

Before I begin with the preview, let me just get this out of the way, you (yes you!) can play a version of The Iconoclasts right now! It’s fully playable and quite extensive. What I am previewing today is his IGF build which adds some extra niceties like widescreen and game fixes. But don’t let that stop you from checking out what is easily one of the best indie Metroidvana titles to ever be released.