Tis’ the season to be bundled. This one is a bit different, though – to celebrate this most icy and expensive of seasons, lovely game-making-type chap Rob Fearon has put all his games up as a single combined free download with the option (if you feel so inclined) to donate a bit of money afterwards, if you feel you’ve got a karmic balance to work out. If you like your shooters arena’y, bright and loud, you should probably grab it now.

Dark Oceans is a horror game, set on board a boat full of zombies: So you’ll have to contend with both having your brains chewed on by the shambling undead, and being sea sick. Developed by a team of students and Spanish Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Dark Ocean released for absolutely free via their website just the other day: you can grab it for the PC from here.

Pushers of arty arcade delights, London based indie outfit Different Cloth, have got a sale going on their iPhone games. For twenty four hours, you can get their brilliant wobbly dubstep scrolling line thing: lilt line, for just $0.99/69p, and their more recent rotation based minimalist circle thing: helicoid, for completely free. It’s a limited time offer, so don’t delay, these are a pair of fantastic games.

It amazes me what some people will release for free these days in the game space. Not to say that it’s bad or anything like that, I’m just surprised is all! The latest example I have is Exiles of Chiron, a free to play top-down shmup that features 5v5 online competitive play.

Hot on the heels of the release of the PC version of their combustible sidescrolling platformer, Explodemon!, Curve Studios have got another treat for PC gamers, in the form of freebie stealth ‘em up: Stealth Bastard.

It’s along the lines of something you might have played in the 16 bit era, with pixelated art, and tight platforming controls. You’ll spend most of your time in Stealth Bastard hiding in the shadows, sneaking past robots, and getting from A to B in the classic platformer way.

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.

Quickly hurry over to the iOS App store if you want to grab this retro style scrolling shooter for not even a penny. For the next 24 hours, Fun Infused Games are giving away Hypership Out of Control for completely free, instead of the regular price of $0.99/69p. The sale is on the 26th, so the start time of the sale confusingly depends on your time zone. The freebie promotion is live in Australia at time of writing, but it should be free in all regions at the turn of midnight (local time).

Hypership Out of Control has you flying to the top of the screen, dodging asteroids and other obstacles, whilst trying to collect coins to get loads of points. If it’s not yet free in your region, you can always try the (beta) web version here. It’s nothing hugely complicated, but it’s better than staring at a wall whilst waiting for a bus.

Here’s a trailer, to see it’s lovely 8bit pixels in motion:

[Fun Infused Games]

Rockin’ Android has localized a trio of nostalgic, sexy shmups on Steam called the Gundemonium Collection. In Dominic Tarason’s review, he thought the package was quite a steal at $9.99. We’re going to offer it for $9.99 less to some lucky Facebook friends!

All you have to do is SHARE (and LIKE us if you don’t already, but how could you not?) the story on Facebook, while encouraging your indie-loving friends to join DIY’s Facebook page. Every 25 new LIKES we get, we’ll select one person randomly from the list of those who have SHARED this story to get a Steam code for Rockin’ Android’s Gundemonium Collection.

We want to facilitate a hub for indie game fans to not just read about games, but to be able to talk about them across multiple social platforms, too! We have a couple handfuls of codes, so we’ll keep giving them until we reach around 500 LIKES.

Below is a video of just one of the three crazy shmups you’ll get for free:

Get to sharing (and liking) on Facebook, and thanks a ton to everyone who participates!

Tiny invaders, the first game from UK based Hogrocket, has been temporarilly made free on the iOS app store. You can grab it for sweet nothing right here. Hockrocket were one of several studios to form out of the ashes of Bizarre Creations when their owner, Activision, decided to shut them down earlier on this year, following disappointing sales for both Blur and James Bond 007: Blood Stone.

It’s a nice little puzzle game, where you have to collect glowing orbs on a path, and chose the right path to get it done fast enough. The graphics are plenty nice, it’s got tonnes of levels (with more coming soon in an update), and it’s simple enough to kill a bit of time, but it has enough challenge to keep you coming back: Getting a three star rating on the latter levels is no easy task.

They’ve not said how this promotion will be available for, so if you’re interested, don’t delay.

Here’s the launch trailer:

[Hogrocket]

Great news! Expedition: The New World has been officially released to the public by developers Slashware Interactive for the low low price of absolutely nothing. You can download it right now via the link at the bottom of this article.

But before you do that, you’re probably wondering why you should even spend the time. Well I’ve got three words for you: discovery era roguelike. Expedition: The New World essentially takes the 15-16th century discovery era and turns it into a roguelike where you assemble your ships, crew and supplies and sail off in search of the new world. I’d almost liken it to a sort of “Desktop Dungeons meets Oregon Trail” … make of that what you will.

Here’s the game’s official description:

Expedition is a game about the human sense of wonder and discovery; it’s about taking a group of men and journeying into the unknown, playing inside a detailed sandbox of the XV century where you will be able to roam the world, discover, colonize and trade.

The game takes some elements from the roguelike genre: it’s a single player turn based free form game where no two adventures are the same… each session evolves differently, providing the player with a different challenge every time.

Better yet, if you enjoy what’s already out there, you can help fund development on some really cool extras that is sure to please the inner game developer inside of you. The guys are looking for around $1000 to create what they call the “Externalization Facet” which implements a scenario creation tool so that players can build and design their own units, items, and maps which they can share with others.

If you’re interested, head on over to the 8-Bit Funding link below. Otherwise download the game via the other link.

[8-Bit Funding, Expedition Download]

Gameplay Video