Indie Links present themselves, one-by-one to make the day better. Whether it be through gaining new knowledge, a different perspective, or just a break from the trudges. Whatever button you push on the soda machine, there’s something here for everyone’s taste–and we’re not even sold out of root beer. Nope. No orange light of disappointment today.

Where Are The Road Games? (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
“And I don’t mean games of The Road – that’s an entirely different kettle of misplaced licensing. I mean this: the road movie is a fruitful, interesting genre for film, and even TV, but what is it’s equivalent in gaming? Could it have one? Or are all linear games basically just that classic story-as-journey? Are shooters our road movies? Maybe, but perhaps there’s something in the nature of travel in videogames that makes it difficult to execute something authentically “road”.”

The Rise of Indie (gamesdammit!)
“It used to be most indie games ended up on PC. But now with PSN, iPhone, and mainly XBLA and Xbox LIVE’s Indie section, you can find the indie community’s “noise” on most platforms. Developers such as Behemoth, Ska Studios, and PLAYDEAD are making quality affordable games; affordable being the keyword. There’s a new economy in the video game industry, whether it be $1 games on the iPhone, 10 bucks for something on XBLA, or even free flash games, there’s a market for indie studios to prosper.”

Two More Gaming Documentaries: Infinite Lives, Video Craze (GameSetWatch)
“It seems like video game-themed documentaries are popping up everywhere recently, like Pixel Kombat, Indie Game: The Movie, and Pixels: A Pixel Art Documentary, just to name a few. And here are two more to keep an eye out for!”

Interviews: Nifflas, Playdead, Copenhagen Game Collective (IndieGames)
“Here’s a couple of interviews from the Nordic Game 2010 event in Sweden last month, starting with Nicklas Nygren talking about FiNCK, Saira, and the upcoming WiiWare release NightSky. Interviews with Mads Wibroe of Playdead (Limbo), Cockroach Inc. (The Dream Machine) and The Copenhagen Game Collective are all in the extended.”

Great Expectations: Hegemony Interview (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
“After giving some first impressions of Hegemony: Phillip Of Macedon I started interviewing Longbow Games’ Rob McConnell. Now, with the game just appearing on Impulse and being available for a tenner over this weekend’s bank-holiday sale, I suspect it’s time to present the results. In the form of an interview. Like so…”

COLUMN: Battle Klaxon: Plain Sight, the Deadliest Dance Party (GameSetWatch)
“Battle Klaxon’ is a monthly GameSetWatch-exclusive column where traveling games journalist Quintin Smith fights to win a bit of glory for the beautiful, brave but overlooked games that people are missing in their lives. This month: robot ballet in PC indie multiplayer game Plain Sight.”

The Origins Of Canabalt: Typing Tutor (GameSetWatch)
“A few weeks ago, Adam “Atomic” Saltsman revealed a Typing Tutor edition of his popular Flash/iPhone game Canabalt, adapting its one-button controls so that a random letter is assigned as the jump button after one or two hops. He didn’t give much explanation for the release, so I assumed it was produced for a local school interested in an educational version of the title. It turns out that the educational game came at the request of Charles Watson who runs a computer project dedicated to providing computers with low power consumption parts to schools in developing counties.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Run, J-Stache Run (Joystiq)
“Being a giant, beloved video game blog has its downsides. For example, we sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we’re giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. This week we talk with Tavit Geudelekian of Primary Wave Games about the studio’s first release, Run, J-Stache Run for iPhone. Tavit previously served as a producer at Atari (N+, Ghostbusters) and worked in pre-production on Mizuguchi’s unreleased QJ for Wii.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Super Shock Football (Joystiq)
“This week we talk with Adam Meyer of Steamroller Studios to learn how his passion for art lead him to the digital gridiron of Super Shock Football.”

Review: Beat Hazard (BigDownload)
“Music games, specifically ones that generate their gameplay based on dynamic music interpretation, have been growing vastly in popularity. Games like Audiosurf or Raycatcher, which act as visualizers as well as games with virtually infinite replayability. After all, with new levels for every track, your entire music collection becomes the game. Beat Hazard is the latest entry into this expanding sub-genre, and like other games of its ilk, it’s an arcade game. However, this is not a bad thing, and Beat Hazard brings a refreshing new look to the music genre while building upon the work of earlier games such as Geometry Wars.”

Indie links are back yet again.

Plenty to share this week, with some really solid help and advice for aspiring developers, a list of previews and impressions and a trio of interviews including a hilarious RPS exclusive with Zombie Cow on their upcoming title Privates. Quite a few to get through so let’s dive in.

How to make interesting games by accident (Wolfire)
“The blank page, is one of the greatest things ever, as well as one of the most irritating; it can become anything you imagine, the trouble is your imagination is pretty crap. Don’t get me wrong, it does some amazing things, but to most of us, sooner or later those amazing things start to get repetitive, you wonder if you are really as creative as you once thought you were, when all your ideas turn out to be more or less along the same lines.”

Three More Tips For Getting Started In the Indie Gaming Biz (The Bottom Feeder)
“In February, I wrote my first three tips for getting started in the Indie gaming biz. I am starting to feel old and outdated in this business, so I feel like I’d probably be better off not trying to act wise. Sometimes I get e-mails from successful Indie developers, telling me what an inspiration I was to them when they were young. And then my skin starts to peel off in sheets and my hip spontaneously breaks. And yet, there are still several more bits of advice that I think are genuinely helpful.”

The Indie Game Doctor (formspring.me)
“All heavens and all earths. Your indie games. I will fix them. Ask me how to fix them. I am indie game guru and I can help you make indie game better. All solution applied.”

Independent Games Festival Names Boyer As Chairman (IndieGames)
“The UBM TechWeb Game Network, organizers of the yearly Independent Games Festival and Independent Games Summit has announced that scene notable Brandon Boyer has been named Chairman of the IGF, as it continues to expand its role in evangelizing and rewarding the best indie games.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Rotor’scope (Joystiq)
“Being a giant, beloved video game blog has its downsides. For example, we sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we’re giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. This week we talk with Mauricio Garcia, one of the programmers of Nivel21, about how their game Rotor’scope proves that nothing is impossible.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Armor Games (Joystiq)
“This week we talk with Armor Games’ Daniel McNeely (Founder) and John Cooney (Head of Game Development), who converted a love of medieval Flash games into a full-on gaming hub.”

Xbox Live Indie Games: 10 Titles For 2010 (Gamasutra)
“With almost 1000 titles now available on Xbox Live Indie Games, what kind of games are breaking through from a quality — or quirkiness — point of view on the service? Gamasutra looks at 10 of the best new titles on the Xbox 360′s hobbyist and indie-contributed game service, from Mamotte Knight through Zombie Estate and beyond.”

No Longer A One-Button Game: Canabalt’s Typing Tutor Edition (GameSetWatch)
“If you’ve spent months playing Canabalt, mastering the one-button game to the point where you can vault across dozens of rooftops at breakneck speeds without increasing your heartrate or hit the 30,000 meter mark in every playthrough, developer Adam “Atomic” Saltsman has posted a slight variant of the game that adds some complexity (with a purpose!) to the simple title.”

Interviews

Exclusive: Getting Intimate With Privates (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
“Upon hearing the news of Zombie Cow’s pee-pee and hoo-hah themed game, Privates, we clearly wanted to know more. What are these “vaginas” and “penises” they’re talking about? So we got ourselves a chat with project lead Dan Marshall to find out the details on their STI-busting project. We exclusively reveal what the game’s about, how it will play, and what disgusting items lie in Zombie Cow’s search history.”

Halfbrick shares Fruit Ninja sales numbers, how to succeed on the App store (Joystiq)
“iPhone and iPod Touch gamers have likely already heard of Fruit Ninja, a game where you coldly murder different offerings from nature’s bounty — by tapping and slicing across the screen, you cut down watermelons and the like. It’s a pretty simple game and at only $.99, it’s quickly climbed the charts of the most popular Apps in the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Denmark and Sweden. So we decided to grill Halbrick’s creator and lead designer of Fruit Ninja, Luke Muscat, on all things iPhone.”

League Of Legends’ Merrill On Succeeding With Free-To-Play Core Games (GameSetWatch)
“Free-to-play games often associate with the social/casual market, but Riot Games’ neat, core gamer-centric League of Legends has topped 1 million downloads — Marc Merrill tells our own Chris Remo about growth and prospects for the DoTA-style game.”

Previews and Impressions

Impressions: Frozen Synapse Beta (Mode 7 Games) (IndieGames)
“Lagging behind with this one, but I’ve finally gotten around to giving the Frozen Synapse beta a playthrough. For those out of the loop, it’s an upcoming turn-based strategy with a Rainbow Six feel to it.”

Preview: Super Meat Boy (Team Meat) (IndieGames)
“Caution: loud music.”

Preview: Voyager (Big Block Games) (IndieGames)
“Voyager (currently in alpha) is a space trading game in which you play as the pilot of a spacecraft, transporting goods for a quick profit and earning the experience needed to access other planets around the system you’re in.”

Preview: The Wretcher (Alan v. Drake) (IndieGames)
“Made with the AGS game creation engine, The Wretcher is a 2D adventure game about a writer named Keith Morrison and his girlfriend Aileen Hayward, both visiting a town called Crowhaven to investigate the mysterious circumstances that led to the death of Ms. Hayward’s uncle. The story begins with the couple arriving at her uncle’s manor, not knowing what horrors await for the two of them.”

In the mood for an in depth indie session? Great news, we’re back again with another batch of great links from around the web. We’re not trying to send you away or anything, it ain’t that type of thing; we just want what’s best for you, to allow you to spread your wings and become a more well-rounded individual. There’s more to see out in this busy indie world than our ‘little site that could’ can currently provide dammit, so we scratch and claw to try to accomplish the impossible anyway and when we get tired we pepper in a little ILRU.

How To Make It As An Indie (Edge Online)
“It’s never been easier to set yourself up as an independent studio. Open platforms such as Xbox Live’s Indie Games and iTunes’ App Store are democratising development on consoles as well as the PC, while tools like XNA and Flash lower the barriers to entry in terms of both cost and experience. Suddenly, designers who have spent years submerged within massive hierarchies – “devoting their entire lives to modelling footballers’ noses,” as Frontier’s David Braben puts it – can suddenly have total control of their own projects. This comes at a price, however…”

In-Depth: Inside The Eerie Fiction Of The Devil’s Tuning Fork (GameSetWatch)
“Checking out student game and IGF Student Showcase winner The Devil’s Tuning Fork, Andrew Vanden Bossche examines its unique echolocation mechanic in conversation with the development team.”

Retro: Slay (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
“Too many papers, too many books, too many MP3s. Games. I need games. Games that use my mind, that focus, sharpen and obsess it. Slay. Slay is perfect. I shall attempt to gather up the pieces of my travel-maddened brain and tell you about it. Slay is an independent turn-based strategy game from 1994, created by one man (with help from his brother) in an age where indie development was a very different thing to today’s web-wide chest-beating and constant discovery.”

Xbox Live Indie-Dome: April 4th-17th (Crush! Frag! Destroy!)
“Last time we had a surprising amount of quality releases, especially towards the end. But will this new installment see the same amount of love? Or will it be nothing but a load of “Meh!”? Read on and find out. Or just skip straight to the recap at the bottom if you’re the impatient type.”

@Play: Interview – Enjoy A Coffee Break Of Victory With Desktop Dungeons (GameSetWatch)
“‘@ Play’ is a monthly column by John Harris which discusses the history, present and future of the Roguelike dungeon exploring genre. This time – an interview with Rodain Joubert about the buzzed about Desktop Dungeons.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Overgrowth (Joystiq)
“This week we talk with John Graham of Wolfire Games, whose Overgrowth, a follow-up to underground hit Lugaru, is currently in development.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: League of Legends (Joystiq)
“This week we talk with Riot Games co-founder and president Marc Merrill about how he and his team turned their passion for a Warcraft III mod into a full-fledged game.”

IGS 2010: Fantastic Contraption Postmortem (TIGSource)
“Colin Northway gave a fairly business-oriented postmortem of his game Fantastic Contraption at this year’s Independent Games Summit called (no big surprise here) Postmortem: The Design & Business Behind Fantastic Contraption.In short: Flash is good, Box2D is great, and anyone can create and publish a successful game all by themselves. (Though, backup from Andy Moore certainly doesn’t hurt!) Okay, it was a bit more in depth than that. Read on, if you dare!”

Interview: Loren Schmidt On Star Guard’s Retro Charm (GameSetWatch)
“In this interview for GameSetWatch conducted by Andrew Vanden Bossche, we talk to Loren Schmidt to satisfy our curiosity on his beautifully constructed, pixel-heavy PC/Mac freeware action game Star Guard, finding out just how its 1982-era lookalike retro charm was birthed.”

Issue 10 is ON SALE (The Indie Game Magazine)
“Change has arrived! Feast your eyes on the new look of IGM. Issue 10 features a brand new look to coincide with our new website launch. It is also our largest issue yet and is chock full of the best indie games of the year. The best games are shown at the Indie Game Festival every year, so we take a look at some of the best past winners and some of the new entries. We review Machinarium, Osmos, Saira, and 10+ other IGF indie games. There’s also the ultimate indie gaming quiz! You can send in your answers for some great indie prizes too! How indie are you? Find out in this issue of the new IGM and support the little guys and the geeks who write about them.”

Indie Links Round-Up is king sized this week, we deal with the prospect of being difficult, get a closer look into some Xbox Live Indies and catch up on some indie reviews and interviews from across the web. So enough with the jibba-jabba, let’s cast a line and see what reels in.

My XBLIG game sales numbers (OccasionalGamer)
“I think its about time that I shared some of my game sales so far as well as some insights into the business of making games for xblig. Let’s start of with some numbers. As of April 9, 2010 I have these stats to share.”

IGS 2010: Abusing Your Players Just For Fun (TIG Source)
“IGF Nuovo Award winner and indie mastermind Cactus’ first talk this year, Abusing Your Players Just For Fun, was ostensibly about designing games with obfuscated interactions, bizarre themes, trippy visuals, a high level of difficulty— the kind of stuff Cactus is known for— but really, to me, seemed more about encouraging people who would otherwise not develop games to try, about the desire to see an even greater variety of creative output from the indie games sphere.”

Xbox Live Indie-Dome: March 21st-April 3rd, 2010 (CrushFragDestroy)
“Welcome once again to the wonderful world of “We Sift Through The Crap So You Don’t Have To!” There were some surprisingly strong contenders last time, as well as a few complete turds. So how will our combatants fare today?”

Found Footage From A 1982 Arcade Convention (GameSetWatch)
“Coin-op fans stumbled upon a rare collection of videos documenting an arcade and console game convention in Chicago around March 1982.”

Why am I so…hard? (Team Meat Blog)
“So I’m going to attempt to write about difficulty in game design then talk a bit about the Super Meat Boy design process, namely when it comes to how we approached dealing with difficulty.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Olu (Joystiq)
“This week we talk with Red Button Games boss (and champion Omeganaut) Daniel Frandsen about his new Xbox Live Indie Game, Olu.”

The Joystick Indie Pitch: Plain Sight (Joystiq)
“This week we talk with Robin Lacey, the managing director of Beatnik Games, about his company’s brand new ninja robot multiplayer action game Plain Sight.”

Shannon Galvin’s Contributions to Sleep is Death (SleepisDeath)
“Shannon Galvin worked at Maxis starting back in 1994 and all the way up through Spore, where he did concept art and 3D modeling (remember the plants and the huts—that was him!). He’s currently working as lead 3D artist on Jonathan Blow’s upcoming game The Witness.”

GDC Video: Crashfaster @ GAMMA IV (IndieGames)
“On March 10, independent game designers and game-inspired musicians were brought together under one roof for the GAMMA IV one-button game festival at the San Francisco Mezzanine. Featuring music acts by chiptune artists and indie game creators, the GDC kick-off party was organized by Heather Kelley and the Kokoromi game collective.”

Reviews

Plain Sight Review (EuroGamer)
“You guys are lucky I’m a professional. Otherwise, I might give Plain Sight 12 out of 10 just on principle. I might even do that anyway. We’ll see.”

Wot I Think: Plain Sight (RockPaperShotgun)
“In short: Top Gun with Samurai Robots.”

Interviews

(Short) Interview: Revenge Of The Titans! (RockPaperShotgun)
“Unlikely-named Puppygames developer Caspian Prince has answered some of our questions about the splendid-looking forthcoming not-actually-a-tower-defence-game, Revenge Of The Titans. It looks proper brilliant, and you need to watch the videos I’ve posted below, as well as read the words. You need to. If you don’t then something will happen to your glands.”

GDC10: Owlboy Interview (Youtube)
“The Norwegian indie title Owlboy was one of the nominated titles in this year’s Independent Games Festival. Listen to what the team has to say about this beautiful 2D platformer…”

GDC10: Super Meat Boy Interview (Youtube)
“From the independant games festival booth, Super Meat Boy interview – vegans against animal testing?”

Spring Cleaning Contest!

Did you know we are running a kickass forum contest where you could win a copy of Machinarium, Shattered Horizon, or Aaaaa! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity?

Check it out!

A fresh batch of links from around the indie world for your essence to intake. I chose the title words to represent today’s grouping mainly because we have a lot of previews, reviews and interviews, all of which represent the depth and dedication of both the developer/designer and the journalist/reviewer.

The result? Quality insight for your brain to consume. Categorized for your organizational pleasure:

Previews/Hands-on

Bad Cop: Hands-On With Sleep Is Death (RockPaperShotgun)
“Last week, I played the upcoming two player indie adventure game Sleep is Death with its creator, Jason Rohrer. He’d created a custom story for me to follow, shape and/or resist. I did all three.”

Hands-on: Raskulls XBLA (Joystiq)
“Most Xbox Live Arcade enthusiasts likely aren’t familiar with Halfbrick Studios, the Brisbane, Australia-based studio that’s only previous work on the platform involved Indie Games that weren’t very successful. After switching gears and offering some PSP Minis titles, the dev studio is back on Xbox with Raskulls, a polished and quirky game that has a variety of inspirations, from Mario Kart to Bomberman to, most notably, Mr. Driller.”

Preview: Sleep is Death (IndieGames)
“I’m a little girl. A moment before, I made a bet with a boy (that I’ve kinda got the hots for) that I could pull a fish from a pond with my bare hands. The boy sounded a little taken aback by my absurd wager, but egged me on regardless. True to my word I dived in, grabbed the nearest fish, and returned to the boy’s side, prize in hand. Then we got naked and jumped in an open grave to talk about marriage.”

Reviews

Knot-Pharmacard Subcondition J (TIGSource)
“There is something very beautiful about the nature of the delicate and tentative interactions that can occur when encountering an unfamiliar system for the first time.”

Plain Sight (BigDownload)
“Plain Sight features robot ninjas battling each other to an explosive climax. For many gamers, the premise alone makes the game worth picking up. The low price makes for a great incentive too. Yet, although the game is fun and wonderfully fast paced, it could benefit from a little more fine tuning.”

Mobile Bomb Squad (TIGSource)
“Mobile Bomb Squad is a puzzle-action game by fuegerstef that is reminiscent of old top-down DOS games like Chip’s Challenge and Hero’s Heart. The player controls a muscled bomb technician who must destroy bombs that have been planted around the city and eventually defeat the mysterious villain who is behind it all.”

Interviews

Eskil Steenberg Explains What Makes LOVE Different (GameSetWatch)
“One-man design whiz Eskil Steenberg talks to our own Leigh Alexander about his just-launched LOVE, its philosophy of multiplayer dynamic storytelling, and his big goals — including a very ambitious mandate for his next project.”

Twisted Pixel’s Mike Wilford talks Comic Jumper (Joystiq)
“After a grinning Peter Molyneux told Joystiq that Comic Jumper reminded him of a game he would have made twenty years ago (that’s a compliment!), we stopped by developer Twisted Pixel’s humble South by Southwest booth where CEO Mike Wilford told us about the encounter.”

Vector Unit’s Small On Starting A Studio And Reviving Hydro Thunder (GameSetWatch)
“Independent developer Vector Unit just announced its first game: a sequel to boat racing classic Hydro Thunder. Matt Small, half the founding team, talks to our own Chris Remo about the studio’s history, game, and process.”

More Indie Links for you blue bloods, cold-blooded individuals, red blooded patriots and so on. Lots of quality previews, interviews and video coverage to share from across the web this time around, let’s jump right in shall we?

Less Talk More Rock (BoingBoing)
“A project starts with an idea, a vision, something that is hard to define, something kind of magic and amazing. This is step 1. This is gold. This is beautiful.”

GDC Video: Alec Holowka on Holistic Game Design (IndieGames)
“Alec Holowka of Infinite Ammo presented together with Andy Schatz (MONACO) and Adam Saltsman (CANABALT) at the Independent Games Summit this year. Their talk “Savvy Indie Solutions to Difficult Development Problems” posited three unique approaches to game design.”

GameSetInterview: Space Lions? Neptune’s Pride Have a Word (GSW)
“Continuing a series of interviews with the indie developers who live on the edge of the cultural consciousness, Phill Cameron has a chat with one of the guys between the sloth of the PC browser based space-expansion RTS genre, Neptune’s Pride.”

Hands-on: Sleep Is Death (Joystiq)
“A lot of game critics you talk to will tell you that, after making a career of playing games, it takes a lot to impress them. But that’s not exactly the truth…All it really takes for a game to knock my socks off is that smallest yet boldest of features: A single great, new idea. I’m talking about an innovation that takes a single step back from the whole idea of what video games are and reapproaches it in a way that feels utterly fresh. Sleep Is Death is just such an idea.”

PAX East Interview: Towards a Paris & outpt Indie Game (IndieGames)
“Since their first collaboration at Blip Festival 08, Mary Ann Benedetto (outpt) and Paris Graphics have appeared onstage together at close to a hundred chip concerts. This past weekend, while joining Anamanaguchi at the PAX East Friday concert, the two offered us details on an experimental indie game they are developing together: an interactive environment in its initial phases of development.”

Coming Into View: Plain Sight Release Chat (RPS)
“We haven’t spoke about Plain Sight since its Open Beta early last year. Beatnik game retreated, got back to work and are finally ready to release. As in, as we speak. To celebrate the event we thought it time to talk to Beatnik’s Robin Lacey about the long road to Plain Sight’s release…”

LIMBO Preview: A Profound Silence (Shacknews)
“The first project out of independent developer PlayDead, LIMBO is a stylish black-and-white side-scroller that simply must be experienced.”

Crate Expectations Review and Interview (TIGSource)
“Crate Expectations is an Xbox Live Indie Games title released in October last year. It didn’t receive a lot of coverage at the time which is a real shame. XBLIG is a strange service with an eclectic mix of the great and the terrible and sadly real gems such as this can just sink into the depths of Xbox menus never to be seen again. The developer recently released a patch for the game and so now seems as good a time as ever to shed some light on this lovely game that may have passed you by.”

GDC Vault Adds Carmel’s IGS Indie Fund Talk, More (IndieGames)
“GDC organizers have released two new free lecture videos recorded at Game Developers Conference 2010, including 2D Boy’s Ron Carmel on funding independent games”

Interview: Intellectual Asado With Today I Die’s Dan Benmergui (GSW)
“In his latest interview for GameSetWatch, Patrick Dugan catches up with IGF Nuovo finalist and thought-provoking independent game creator Daniel Benmergui, quizzing him about his titles and his thoughts on game creation in today’s market.”

Back with another installment of Indie Links for your reading pleasure/pain. Today’s batch is a good one, with some more Indie GDC wrap you shouldn’t miss, interviews, previews and even the broader thinking stuff.

GDC Gallery: How The Indie Fund Could Change Game Dev Destiny (boingboing)
“Like UK studio Introversion’s indie-rallying clarion call at the 2006 Independent Games Festival, the announcement of an indie-led investment strategy — simply called the Indie Fund — could be the next watershed moment for the future of independent gaming.”

GDC 2010: Please Finish Your Game (TIGSource)
“The inimitable Chris Hecker ranted at GDC this year. His rant, titled “Please Finish Your Game”, addresses the issue of development time in the mainstream and indie communities. Specifically, he asks developers to pursue good ideas to their “logical and aesthetic extent”.”

‘Splosion Man Dev Reveals Next Project: Comic Jumper (GSW)
“Twisted Pixel, the indie studio behind beloved downloadable titles The Maw and ‘Splosion Man, revealed its next XBLA game at SXSW yesterday: Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley.”

Interview: Markus ‘Notch’ Persson On The Making Of Minecraft (GSW)
“Minecraft is an interesting case when it comes to indie games. Based on the ideas of another indie game, Infiminer, Minecraft is the product of Swedish developer, Markus “Notch” Persson. His game is currently available to play for free at www.minecraft.net and players have congregated to the multiplayer side of the game”

Towering Inferno: Sol Survivor Preview (RPS)
“It’s that time of year again when the fresh spring towers erupt from the ground and begin to gun down passing alien body-snatchers. We’ve seen tower defence games overhauled again and again, but the greenest and most flexible of these rejigs is probably Sol Survivor, which I’ve been playing on and off all week. Read on for some thoughts on a game which makes titanic efforts to raise this least-appreciated of genres.”

Preview: High Strangeness (IndieGames)
“With the above pre-alpha footage just released, now is as good a time as any to discuss High Strangeness. In development for Xbox Live Indie Games and iPhone, the game is an attempt by a team of four to create the kind of experience they used to play on the SNES as kids.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Promethium Marketing (Joystiq)
“”We sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we’re giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. This week we talk with former Xbox community staffer Chris Paladino, who’s in the unusual position of working with a games consulting firm, Promethium Marketing, that decided to step out with a game of its own, an unusual hybrid of Twitter and tower defense called Tweet Defense.”

Semi-Indie Related:

Budget Win: Tax Break For UK Developers (RPS)
“British videogame designers have long been campaigning for tax breaks in the UK, similar to those in New Zealand and Canada. In today’s budget, it seems that something has finally been done to help. Alistair Darling has today announced a pledge for a tax credit system that will aid creative industries, including game development.”

Study claims hardcore PC gaming hardware revenues will continue to rise (BigDownload)
“The PC game industry may be switching from a retail business to a digital download revenue model but gamers still need to buy hardware to play their games.”

Unmissable Mods Month (UserCreated)
“Mods are awesome. Like, really awesome. So awesome it hurts. Do you know what else is awesome? Lists. So what have we done? Why, we’ve only gone and written down the names of our 20 favourite mods of all time in an unordered list, and we’re only going to write about one of them every day for the next month (except weekends, when we’ll do a sleep).”

Here’s a handful of links to indie coverage across the web, today’s collection includes Wolfire Games chatting about Overgrowth, Tommy Refenes chatting and getting his game pulled from the App Store, and the story behind how Clover dev Binary Tweed got the name.

Bunny Brawler: Wolfire Talk Overgrowth (RPS)
“It’s time to talk about cute animals kicking each other to death. We haven’t covered upcoming indie action game Overgrowth much on RPS, which is a sad side-effect of its much-adored precursor Lugaru arriving before the Hivemind had coalesced into being. Let’s correct that now.”

Machinarium Creator Working On Fantasy Puppet Film (GSW)
“As you’ll see in this trailer, Machinarium creator and Amanita Design founder Jakub Dvorský’s talents aren’t limited to game development.”

GDC 2010: No More Giggles (TIGSource)
“A week after Tommy Refenes (Super Meat Boy) declared the Apple App Store to be the Tiger Electronics handheld of this generation (part of the Indie Game Maker Rant session), Apple has removed his zit-popping game Zits & Giggles from the App Store.”

Announcement: Nordic Game Indie Night, Presenters (Indie Games)
“The Nordic Game Indie Night is a one-day event that is held on the eve of the Nordic Game 2010 Conference, which runs from the 28th to 30th of April in Slagthuset, Malmö, Sweden. The event kicks off with a two-hour long presentation by developers, with Jonatan “cactus” Söderström and Nicklas “Nifflas” Nygren already confirmed as speakers for the evening.”

What’s In A Name: Binary Tweed (Joystiq)
“Every once in a while, we bring you the story of how a developer or publisher settled on the name for their company. Today we bring you the harrowing tale of Binary Tweed, the developer behind Clover: A Curious Tale.”