Summer has arrived. To help players keep their financial cool, indie developers are banding together to create some great game bundles! This is the second bundle announced this week. The games end up costing less than $1 each, which is pretty damn amazing.

There are six titles in the bundle:

• Citeremis’s Aztaka (RPG platformer reviewed here)
• Ovolo Games’ City Rain (Tetris + Sim City game reviewed here)
• Pieces Interactive’s Puzzlegeddon (puzzle brawler)
• Ludosity Interactive’s Bob Came in Pieces (puzzle game reviewed here)
• Different Pixel’s Vizati (puzzler)
• Pixel Pickle’s Lylian Paranoid Friendship (action/adventure game featured here)

Without further ado, here’s a comprehensive trailer of the games for sale.

David Amador, from Different Pixel stated, ”We’re making this effort to raise the money to finance our next project ideas–which could lead to even bigger ‘bundle pack’ deals.”

Interested gamers can order the six pack on the official Indie Games Pack website for $10, and the order page gives gamers the chance to share the news on Facebook for a $5 discount. Positech and other indies offered a great indie bundle earlier this week, which is still available.

Amanita has this little game called Machinarium. The game has earned critical acclaim and has been featured in the most recent Humble Indie Bundle. There is no real need for Amanita to be humble, but they politely remain so. It is with that same, genuine spirit they ask for the indie community to support Canadian friends Citérémis, who today have released Aztaka Developer’s Edition. In a “Quest for Profitability,” the developers have included the game’s source code, an exotic French art book, and the game’s professionally recorded soundtrack for the next 21 days at a 50% off launch deal of $9.99.

Citérémis describes Aztaka as a side-scrolling role-playing adventure that blends classic gameplay with modern technology and high-end graphics. The game appears to be painstakingly hand-drawn, achieving an attractive overall design. Despite receiving positive reviews, Aztaka has achieved total revenue of about $35,000 against the $235,000 budget borrowed from friends and family.

“At the bottom of this quest for profitability also lies the idea of a stronger community. Let’s work together to stay independent and innovative! If we stick together to increase everyone’s project visibility, we have a greater chance of success,” says Citérémis president Jonathan Mercier. The quest for profitability begins today with two main objectives: to generate enough sales from this edition to let them keep doing what they love while reimbursing their friends and family and to bring together indie developers. The devs appear to have a relatively large debt to repay to those who supported their indie dreams, but those people who had helped will hopefully inspire future generations to give the same financial support. The open source material could bring together many devs interested in expanding Aztaka.

For those willing to take the plunge, Aztaka appears to appeal to old-school gamers who yearn for a 2D side-scrolling game and those of the new-school, with the prevailing thought of customize, customize, customize:

aztaka

Regarding Citérémis’ quest for profitability, as of this writing, the goal was 14% completed. Care to start out the New Year by spreading some indie cheer and indulging in some source code?

Sources: Amanita blog, Citérémis

[CLICK HERE FOR UPDATED INFORMATION]

We all love those awesome indie game bundles that ask you to pay whatever you feel like paying, right? I mean, who doesn’t? We usually get 4-5 great, awesome games for a price that is easily manageable for the average gamer, especially when many of these great indie games are priced at $15-$20. It’s much easier to swallow $30-$50 (I’m being generous, I know) for the lot of them rather than the combined price of $100+. Still, that doesn’t mean all indie game bundles are legit.

Case and point, a new indie games bundle that is promising a lot of 6 games for a “whatever you want” price, but has not been delivering either the games to the people ordering the product, nor have they been giving a piece of the profits to the developers. Here are the games involved:

Aztaka
Bob Came in Pieces
Kingdom Elemental Tactics
Gravitron 2
Bridge Construction Set
PutUp

So far, both the developers of Bob Came in Pieces and Gravitron 2 have come out and acknowledged to IndieGames.com that they do not condone nor support this bundle, however they are giving copies of their game to anybody who purchased the bundle but has not received any sort of download.

And before you ask, no I will not be linking to this bundle until I get confirmation of its legitimacy from some of the developers involved. I’ve already contacted a couple of the involved developers about this to see if they, in addition to the developers mentioned above, condone this “sale”.

For now, if your at all curious about the games involved please follow the links above to legitimate distribution websites.

We’ll update as we get more information.

Amanita Design, Broken Rules, Cipher Prime, Citeremis, Hemisphere Games and Omni Systems are feeling generous. The six developers have got together and decided to offer their games in one bundle for a very low price.

The Indie <3 Bundle comprises six games: And Yet It Moves, Auditorium, Aztaka, Eufloria, Machinarium and Osmos. You can have them all for just $20. Considering Machinarium alone goes for that price (and is worth it), it’s a hard offer to pass up — unless you already own the majority of the list.

And if you own all of them save Aztaka, it might be easier to just win it.

[via The Indie Bundle]

Alright, the end is finally near.

You still have exactly ONE more week to get your submissions in for our Aztaka contest, partnered with Citeremis. It will close at midnight on February 19, 2010. Read the official rules and steps to take, and you could bring home a copy of the game.

Read ahead and get crackin’!

Many, many indie games get released each year. Big ones, small ones, ones that suck, ones that are great. In fact, in some ways, the indie “industry” isn’t all that different from the mainstream video game industry. We have our superstar, sure-to-be-a-hit titles like: Torchlight, Machinarium, and Trine and then we have our sleeper hits like: I MAED A GAME WITH ZOMBIES!!!, JUMP! and Osmos. Finally, we also have our games that should have been a hit, but, for whatever reason, just seemed to slip through the cracks of the gaming world. Here are our top ten picks for 2009′s most under-appreciated titles:

Before I begin, allow me to simply state that I am, in no way, calling these titles a commercial failure. I don’t know the goals set out for these titles, nor do I know the final sales numbers. This list is largely based on my own opinion about games that should have been more appreciated but, ultimately, weren’t. For all I know, every single one of these titles could have been a commercial success.

Impulse has given a 50% discount to Aztaka as part of the digital distributor’s weekend sale, taking the game from its typical $15 price tag down to $7.50.

Developed by Citeremis, the action-RPG/plaformer hybrid is based on the ancient Aztec civilization. The game takes place during a depression in society and as the hero of the Aztecs you must right what is wrong and fix the trouble caused by the witch Cihuac.

The deal goes through the weekend ending Sunday, January 17. Check out our review of the title.

[Buy Aztaka]

DIYgamer.com has teamed up with Citérémis to bring you an entertaining new contest. Up for grabs are 1 of 10 copies of the game, courtesy of Citérémis. If you missed it, check out our review. You can find the full contest info below.

The DIYgamer Aztaka Divinity Contest

Describe your Aztec divinity, win a copy of Aztaka!

Hi, we’re Citérémis, the guys behind Aztaka, an Aztec-inspired action-RPG side-scroller. Our game got reviewed by the good folks at DIYGamer, and to celebrate this, we’re having a contest and giving free copies of the game to DIYGamer readers!

Our protagonist, the Aztec Huitzilo, is caught in a battle pitting humanity and its gods. We all know what being a lowly human feels like, but what about being an Aztec god? Tell us what you would be like if you were an Aztec divinity, and win a copy of Aztaka!

To enter, you must send in a description of your Aztec god character. How do you do that? It’s simple:

•Pick your Divinity’s Name; what your worshippers need to call out to you. Bonus points if you make it sound Aztec. Or stick ‘tl’ at the end; whatever works.

•Pick a Divine Symbol: your worshipers need tattoos to look cool. It can be an animal, a thing, a special design, anything. It would be cooler if you picked some kind of mesoamerican big-ass predator, but that’s just us!

Bonus points if you send in a picture (you need one if you opt for a special design).

•A Short Description of what your divinity stands for, what it influences in the daily life of the Aztec, or what its worshipers need to do everyday to make it happy.

And here’s the bloody twist – the Aztec performed human sacrifices on top of their pyramids. Oh yes they did.

•Describe Who or What Must be Sacrificed to your god, and what good comes out of it for the people. The sacrifice must have a good outcome. The Aztec go through a lot of trouble for the ceremony (dressing up, sharpening their blades, gathering the children, chanting songs nobody remembers, and then there’s the clean-up afterward too…). So they deserve something back from you!

Following the dual-color format of DIYGamer reviews, you must write the sacrifice bit in red, and the beneficial consequence in blue. You can send multiple entries if you feel creative (or have multiple God complexes), more chances for you to win!

So to recap:

1. Name and symbol of your divinity.
2. Description of that your god stands for.
3. Who or what gets sacrificed.
4. What is granted to the people in return.

Send in your submission to DIYGamer (peter.eykemans@diygamer.com). The best written and/or funniest entries, as judged by DIYgamer and Citérémis, will be posted for all to read here and on Aztaka’s forums, and the winners will get a free copy of Aztaka.

Good luck to everyone who participates!

The contest is currently open through the end of January, so get working!

It’s a rare sight to behold when two very distinct genre’s blend so perfectly that you almost have to ask yourself why this game didn’t happen sooner. Games like Diablo successfully blended the action and RPG genre into an awesome experience. Morrowind and Oblivion took the modern FPS and merged it with the RPG… beautifully. Uncharted melded together the platformer and adventure games effortlessly. Now, Aztaka has successfully combined the RPG and the patformer in what’s certainly not the first of its kind, but a great addition nonetheless.

Aztaka, like I stated above, is a platformer/RPG hybrid that’s based on the ancient Aztec civilization and all the religious deities held within. The game takes place during a sort of depression in the Aztecan society. Strife is everywhere and the people are in an overwhelming state of disarray. That’s where you come in. As the prophetic hero of the Aztecs it’s your job, like in most RPGs, to right the wrongs and fix the mess being caused by Cihuac, a witch who not only seems to hate you but also sees you as her main competition. A fairly typical “save the world” type scenario it may be, but one that works for the unique setting within.

All right, RPG fanatics, gear up for another brilliant-looking RPG! Citérémis released their side-scrolling title, Aztaka, to the Steam Digital Distribution Platform yesterday. Are you ready to dive in the middle of the war between humans and gods? Based on Aztec legend, the game pits you in the role of Huitzilo–the hopeful hero that seems to be the only one who can save the Aztec people from the wrath of the deities–for 21 levels of action-RPG immersion.

“We’re thrilled to have Steam host Aztaka. This opens up a new audience to us, and we’re confident people will appreciate Aztaka’s combination of an Aztec-inspired world and old school action-RPG gameplay.”
- Citérémis president Jonathan Mercier

Steam will treat Aztaka well in the weeks to come and you can be sure one of us at DIYgamer will be working on a review for this. In the meantime, check out the game for yourself on its Steam page and take advantage of the 25% off until November 10 sale!