Today’s Developer Links include links about many aspects of game development, from funding to feedback.

Botanicula Soundtrack Vinyl Edition (Amanita Design)
“Botanicula Soundtrack is released on 12″LP in edition of 1000 copies, whilst 300 copies are on turquoise vinyl, 300 copies on amber vinyl and 400 copies on standard black. Each copy features three large format inserts [30x30 cm] with art reproductions by Jaromír Plachý, author of the game artwork, and as always, a coupon with a code to download MP3/FLAC versions of the album.”

Indie Tools: Inform 7 (IndieGames.com)
“Inform 7 is being described as a design system for interactive fiction based on natural language. Shockingly, it does exactly what it says on the tin (and quite a bit more), while simultaneously being a truly powerful tool for creating intricate pieces of interactive fiction on most platforms you’d care to mention.”

For Indies, With Love: TIGA Releases a Guide to Self-Publishing (IndieGameMagazine)
“The TIGA Guide to Self-Publishing: Liberating the Developer is designed to help out with the business side of game publishing for the small developer. In their announcement, TIGA recognises the growing trend sparked by the growing opportunities for developers to release their games without a publisher, particularly in mobile gaming and the social media space.”

A DRP Picture’s Worth a Bunch of Words, Part 2 (Dejobaan Games)
“Continuing our discussion of our first-person arena shooter prototype Drunken Robot Pornography, we discuss here the abstract HUD and the power-ups that affect it and the player.”

Swordfight is Good Art (Mommy’s Best Devlog)
“The experience here is only possible because of a game. Photos or videos don’t do it justice. No amount of reading about it (don’t quit reading! or watching conveys the full experience, it must be played. Interaction being the defining distinction of games.”

Frictionless Feedback (Cliffski.com)
“One thing that a lot of companies don’t get is the importance of frictionless feedback.
All companies perpetuate the myth that they want to hear from customers. They pretend to value their feedback, and want to hear from them, regardless whether or not the feedback is good or bad. In very few cases is this really true. I’m not referring to actually abusive or threatening feedback, which obviously just gets binned.”

The Kickstarter Video Game Report – Week of May 4 (Zeboyd Games)
“Shadowrun Returns finished up with a solid $1.836 million. Leisure Suit Larry finished with $655k. Yogventures! is up to $514k with 2 days left. Grim Dawn is almost funded with $256k ($280k goal) and 2 weeks left to go. Jane Jensen’s Moebius is up to $266k of its $300k goal with 2 weeks left. Republique is at $221k, about $100k more than they had last week, but unless something amazing happens, they’re not reaching $500k in the next week. Is snagging David Hayter and Jennifer Hale the miracle that will turn this kickstarter around? We’ll see this week.”

Luftrausers Devlog #1 (Vlambeer)
“LUFTRAUSER was about feeling like the coolest person in the world. You sat behind your computer but really you’re a pilot going 5 million miles an hour shooting enemies and making water splash up behind you and doing loopings all while smoking multiple cigarettes at once and reading the newspaper.  In the highly anticipated superlative sequel, we are bringing you more of that & we’re letting you do it your way. You will be able to get dirty and build your own RAUSER from the ground up. By destroying enemies, completing missions and all that you will unlock new parts. Parts come in 3 types: weapons, bodies and engine.”

Today’s DevLinks rounds up design musings, game updates, lovely art, and some excellent resources to refer to.

Today on DevLinks: An update on The Witness, suggestions on how to run an industry night in your town, and plenty of devs diving into and discussing the guts of their games.

Developer Links tonight has advice, game updates, and even a holiday treat from Ska Studios.

The Indie Links are strong this time around, with several nuggets of hand plucked joy from all over the web to take in. Featured today are new reviews, interviews, and editorials on games such as Amnesia, Eufloria, Cortex Command, and more.

Developer Links is here to drop a friendly reminder that there is just over 6 hours left until the IGF submission deadline. To all those getting in their last-minute touches, your time is nearly up. Good news is that you can still patch your entry after submitting, so just make sure to get everything processed before Midnight PT tonight!

Reminder: 24 Hours To 2012 IGF Main Competition Deadline (Gamasutra)
“Organizers are reminding that there are 24 hours until the Main Competition deadline for the 2012 Independent Games Festival, being held at the Game Developers Conference 2012 in San Francisco next March 5-9. The Independent Games Festival is the longest-running and highest-profile independent video game festival, summit, and showcase, and the deadline for the IGF 2012 Main Competition is Monday, October 17th at 11.59pm PT.”

Postmortem: Octodad (Game Career Guide)
“In this postmortem, first published in Game Developer’s 2011 Career Guide issue, the team of DePaul University students and graduates reflect on the development of the bizarre, yet undeniably creative Octodad.”

How Vimeo Lost Me (GameDesignReviews)
“I used to prefer Vimeo over YouTube. Vimeo was always a bit better in quality, had a nicer looking player and website. Most importantly, it had a more mature and tasteful community. So when I released my game TRAUMA, it was a no-brainer to publish the trailer for it on Vimeo. It was an arty project that was made exactly for the kind of audience I would meet on Vimeo. Today, I’m regretting that decision.”

The Evolution of Super Crossfire (Radian Games)
“Games have to start somewhere, and this is where Super Crossfire began…”

How Can Entry Level Game Designers Stand Out? (#AltDevBlogADay)
“I recently spent some time back at Full Sail on the Advisory Board to look at the current curriculum and give feedback on how they can improve the game development programs. When I attended over a decade ago, there was only the Game Development program which is geared heavily toward programming. I’ve always preached that having that technical background helped me become a better Game Designer and tried to encourage others interested in the program.”

Neptune Gasoline is Coming Early 2012 (Vertigo Games)
“Hey folks, just giving everyone a heads up that Neptune Gasoline has been pushed back a bit to early 2012.I had a release date set in mind that I never divulged (October 2011) and I was working at a good pace to make that date. And while there have already been 22 levels designed, the actual gameplay was something I was struggling with.”

TGC at Fantastic Fest! (thatgamecompany)
“As you may have heard, Journey was recently shown at Austin’s annual Fantastic Fest! The game was featured on several stations at the Highball Lounge – which is just next to the Alamo Drafthouse (where the festival takes place). The Sony portion of this event featured several of PSN’s upcoming indie releases – including Retro/Grade, Okabu, Papo y Yo, PixelJunk 4am and Closure. And the Fantastic Arcade showcased even more indie greatness!”

Let’s all go to the igf! (auntiepixelante)
“the independent games festival normally has a ninety-five dollar entrance fee. for a hobbyist game author who expects to lose against better-publicized games anyway, that can seem like a tremendous waste of money. but this year, a bunch of us have decided to compile a bunch of our little games into a single compilation, and someone has generously agreed to foot the bill for the entrance fee. in the interest of making the igf more diverse and accessible, in the interest of demonstrating that a bunch of small games, each with a single idea, is a lot more INNOVATIVE than a single “polished,” well-marketed game, we’re asking anyone who’s made a game or two and would like to be in the igf to JOIN US. the deadline is monday! climb aboard!”

Memoirs of IndieCade (#AltDevBlogADay)
“Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend IndieCade, for the second year in a row. Yet again, IndieCade has proven to be my favorite game development conference. In this post, I will be covering some of the finer points of IndieCade this year.”

Today’s Developer Links share exciting new announcements, poignant postmortems, and other editorials from thoughtful folk around the web.

AltDevConf Announced! Get Your Ideas In NOW! (#AltDevBlogADay)
“This is my first post here on AltDevBlogADay, and I am both blessed and honored to bring you some potentially industry changing information. This has been almost a week in the making. I was hoping for a solidified logo to post with this report, but one has not been firmly decided on as of the date of publishing this article. The information is more than good enough to speak for itself. With no further gilding the lily, I give you the future of game dev conferences. I give you #AltDevConf!”

IndieCade: A Post-Post Mortem Of Sword And Sworcery (Gamasutra)
“As the closing keynote of IndieCade in Culver City over the weekend, Capy Games’ Nathan Vella and Kris Piotrowski discussed the development of their cult iOS hit from the perspective of a seven-month gap since the game’s launch and a “real tangible separation” from the project, developed in collaboration with pixel artist and design film Superbrothers, Inc. and musician Jim Guthrie.”

Thoughts on Limbo (Frictional Games)
“A while ago I played through Limbo for the first time. I thought it was quite an interesting experience for many reasons and been thinking for it on and off. Now that I have collected most of my thoughts on the game I thought it was time to write a little post about it.”

A warning to others: I fell into the Game Engine Trap and lost 7 months of development work (/r/gamedev)
“Ignored the warnings of falling into the Game Engine Trap, fell in head first, and lost about half a year’s development time. Has it happened to you?

Onslaught! — a history of violence (in images) (Lost Decade Games)
“HTML5 is taking off, the web is evolving, the Chrome Web Store is available in more countries than ever and one of these days we’ll be announcing our next game, so I thought this would be as good a time as any to walk through Onslaught! and its near-successes. Here’s a history of Onslaught!, in images…”

A Vertical Slice of Ugly Baby: as Messy as it Sounds? (Dejobaan Games)
“Team Dejobaan has been iterating on Ugly Baby in an effort to make it massively, unbelievably fun, using what’s called a vertical slice. Here’s a little bit about what we’re trying…”

Ticker (Instant Kingdom)
“We’ve finished creating the new monster types, and right now I’m adding them to the game. We wanted to give the Driftmoon combat a little more variety, so we’ve tried to think of monster types that would create interesting situations when combined with the game world or with other monsters. The Ticker is one of the new ones you’ll get to meet, along with the crab colony at the end of the video.”

The Making of a Trailer (#AltDevBlogADay)
“Today I released a trailer for my iPhone app Alcohology. This is the first trailer I’ve ever worked on1 and I documented the process. This post is a behind the scenes / making of / evolution / post-mortem rolled into one. It’s got a little bit of everything.”

Various projects kept me awfully busy these past three months. They’re fantastic stuff to work on, but it hurts not being around here all the time anymore. For here resides my favorite place to share what I or others have found in the limitless indie games toy chest.

Let’s resume Indie Links and get it back to form as if it never took that awful hiatus.

Hooray For The Indie Games Arcade Winner! (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
“If you were lucky enough to be among the gaming hordes at the Eurogamer Expo you might have noticed a booth with “PC Gaming Since 1873″ emblazoned upon it. Inside are twelve games. Some of them are even PC games! We saw them. We judged them.”

The IGF is Broken (#AltDevBlogADay)
“The Independent Games Festival is broken and needs to be fixed. To my knowledge it is the only respected award of any industry that is given to something that is not only unfinished but may be unfinished for years. That is absurd and the submission requirements should change.”

Interview: The Stanley Parable developer Davey Wreden (Shacknews)
Developer Davey Wreden made quite a few waves in the indie gaming pond with the relatively recent release of his free, narrative-driven adventure, The Stanley Parable. Built using Valve’s Source SDK, The Stanley Parable effectively plays with pre-established conventions when it comes to storytelling, and raises some thought-provoking questions about game design in general.

Indievania doesn’t want your dirty, stinkin’ money, but its indie devs might (Joystiq)
“Indie-game developer Lee Vermeulen began Indievania with a dream, a dog and a 9 percent rate for hosting indie games — now his dream is coming true, the 9 percent rate has transformed to 0 percent and the dog has mutated into a dashing young prince (OK, maybe we lied about the dog). Just as magical though, Indievania doesn’t keep any of the money developers charge for their games, which is exactly how Vermeulen wanted his site to operate.”

The Last and Final Word: David Shute (Quote Unquote)
“David Shute showed his immense promise as an independent videogame developer by winning the JayisGames Casual Gameplay Design Competition #6 with Small Worlds.”

8-Bit Night (Pixel Prospector)
“8-Bit Night is a pretty clever puzzle platformer with a fresh swapping mechanic that allows you to turn the world around you vertically and horizontally. In the game you control 2 guys at once (the main character and his phantom counterpart) with the goal to collect all golden pixels on the screen.”

Interview: Lifeless Planet’s David Board Bursts Onto Indie Scene (GameSetWatch)
“Who says that an indie developer needs to build up a presence in the scene before they can truly capture the imaginations and hearts of the close-knit community? Sometimes an indie title fires out of the blue, instantly grabbing the limelight and building up unfathomable intrigue.”

Indie Jeff’s Weekly Picks: September 26-30 (Shacknews)
“I’d like to kick things off this week by recommending one of this year’s IndieCade finalists, called Loop Raccord (see top image). Developed by Plural Games (Nicolai Troshinsky), it’s a game centered around manipulating a number of brief (and completely disparate) video clips in such a way that the action from one flows seamlessly into the next.”

Interview: Soldat’s Marcinkowski On Why Alpha Funding Will Save The Games Industry (IndieGames.com)
“How many games do you know that still have an active player base nearly 10 years after the original release? How many of those originally had just one developer? Polish 2D side-scrolling multiplayer shooter Soldat was released in August 2002, and still now receives updates to keep its fanbase happy.”

T-17 Tanky (TIGSource)
“As our column of tanks rushed down a hill towards an enemy column, one of my fellow tank commanders – apparently a raven wearing a top hat – screamed, “Kill them all!” That was the moment I decided that T-17 Tanky was a game for me.”

[Earlier in the month we were able to stop by IndieCade's mobile game jam, hang out, and chat with various developers (and other people of interest) about what they're working on and the event as a whole. During our rounds we were able to get the camera rolling a few times and churned out a few video interviews to share. We'll be diving into the event's outcome more when we get back from PAX Prime, but for now enjoy another helping of our video content and an exclusive look at the jam.]

Interview with Developers David Leonard and Michael Lewis

Interview with Akira Thompson and Chris Bell of IndieCade

Interview with Andy Doe of LG Electronics — Sponsor of Event

Well everyone, a handful of the DIYGamer contingent sets off for Comic-Con this morning, with a car full of audio and video equipment no less.

Off the bat I freely admit there’s not a lot of actual “on schedule” indie game love going on at the eccentric and massively over-produced event. However, I’ve been busy as always setting up interviews with indie devs and other industry types and will be attending a few developer-related panels to make up for a small but exciting line-up of announced games for us to check out.

That would be The Behemoth’s Battleblock Theater (much has been updated since last year’s preview), thatgamecompany’s Journey, and Twisted Pixels’ The Gunstringer. There’s always the hidden gems too, as exhibitors from all over the world come to show off their products; never know what you’ll get (a publisher with a half dozen Japanese indie titles to show off as an example from last year.)

We’re bringing a full production crew to test out our audio/video capabilities on the road for this one. So expect some new content in those departments along with plenty of pictures straight from the event (any indie cosplay we will be snapping, where my Meat Boy’s at?)

Check back each day for new coverage, image dumps, and more! Should be a great warm-up for PAX Prime next month, where we’re guaranteed to be up to our elbows in indies and the cool folks who made them.