The long-time coming A House in California from Carboad Computer has finally arrived and you can download this surreal point and click adventure right now for free.

You follow four different characters as they look into memories and try to work their way through the game world. The context verbs aren’t your standard fare and everything about the game is intriguing.

It’s inspired by the classic game Mystery House and well worth a few minutes of your time. The limited edition preorders that I had talked about a few weeks ago sold out quickly and helped deliver a cool product to fans of what Cardboard Computer has been making.

Give this experience a shot right now.

I’m a little late to the party on this one, but I just recently discovered Desktop Dungeons, a delightful dungeon crawler that takes away the grind and monotony of the traditional roguelike and slims it down into a game that really only takes about 10-15 minutes to play.

Desktop Dungeons is, in so many words, a roguelike. It has all the characteristics of what a roguelike should be. There are randomly generated dungeons, monsters, and items/spells to acquire. All of this is mashed into a world where you’re just some hapless hero looking to rid the dungeon of the monsters within. That said, it’s not exactly what you’d expect out of a traditional roguelike.

In fact, as somebody who traditionally doesn’t really care for roguelikes, I absolutely love Desktop Dungeons. Why? Because it’s almost like the anti-roguelike roguelike. It takes everything that’s awesome about the genre, but makes it a bit more palatable to gamers who might find traditional roguelikes to be too boring/difficult/crude.

True to it’s genre, Desktop Dungeons throws you right into a randomly generated dungeon. You have no idea of the layout of the dungeon, nor do you have any items, spells, or other such things to help you. That’s all stuff you have to find. Additionally, you can join religions that will give you certain abilities (but also take some away).

Each dungeon is populated by a series of monsters ranging in level from 1 (weak) to 10 (very difficult) and at the end of each dungeon there is a boss that you must defeat to have completed the dungeon, no easy task I assure you. Completing a dungeon successfully will unlock additional game modes, races, and classes.

Starting the game may seem a like a daunting task, after all, anybody who is familiar with roguelikes will be prepared to sink a lot of time and energy into the game. But that’s what makes Desktop Dungeons so brilliant, completing an entire dungeon only takes about 15 minutes.

You see, despite starting out at level 1 each time you jump into a new dungeon, killing monsters and leveling up doesn’t take a lot of time. It’s a simple process. You wander around the map until you find monsters that are leveled appropriately to your own; then you guys take turns whomping on each other until one of you dies. Killing the enemy will give you a bit of experience while leaving you damaged. In order to heal yourself you can either drink a potion or simply explore some unexplored part of the dungeon. This means you’re basically flying through the dungeon without the need for persistent grinding.

Of course, what I like best about Desktop Dungeons isn’t the fact that you can level up really quick or that each dungeon only takes a few minutes to complete, it’s that, despite being a streamlined approach, the game still provides the level of depth and replayability that makes the genre so well loved.

Desktop Dungeons comes with multiple classes  (each of which has a different play style), along with multiple races (of which each handles glyphs differently), as well as different game modes (of which each has different objectives and challenges). All in all, there are 7 races, 18 classes, and 8 different game modes along with online leaderboards. This provides hours worth of enjoyment out of a game that doesn’t require a huge investment to get a satisfactory experience out of.

In the end, there’s little not to like about Desktop Dungeons. It provides you with satisfying gameplay that’s both deep and streamlined at the same time. It also comes with delightfully retro 8-bit graphics created by Derek Yu (of Spelunky fame). Finally, and probably best of all, it’s completely free. You don’t have to pay a dime for this game. What more could you ask for?

If you have yet to play Desktop Dungeons, I sincerely can’t recommend it enough. Go download this right now.

[download via Nag]

The latest free content for Shattered Horizon has just hit the Futuremark store and Steam. Bringing 8 new weapons and 3 new grenades, it’s no small update to the space combat FPS. The update just hit Steam, so you can snag it now.

In addition, Shattered Horizon has also dropped its price by 25% through May 12th to make sure as many new players can experience the game as possible.

Jaakko Haapasalo, the Head of Futuremark Game Studio says, “We believe players should be rewarded for supporting a game and that’s why we have released all our DLC packs for free. In fact for $14.99, the same price as ‘that other map pack’ released this week, PC gamers can now get the complete Shattered Horizon game, including both the Moonrise map pack and the brand new Firepower weapons pack, from a developer that puts players first.”

Here are all the weapons headed your way, I daresay that mining pick is going to be awesome:

UPDATE

This was just buzzed my way and I must pass it on for any and all gamers with a mac: Today only The Mac Game Store is giving away super-indie Machinarium. Just giving it away for free!

Even if you don’t own a Mac like me, you feel like you’d want to grab a code just to hoard it away like a precious gem you could never unlock–except by obtaining a Mac of course. The Store is actually offering something special each day for the next seven, though I don’t think they’ll all be free award-winning adventure games.

The offer only goes through today, April 24, so hurry you only have a few more hours!

Free use of the Unreal Development Kit for indie developers? That’s like giving a fledgling filmmaker a RED camera and telling them to go make a movie (daunting, but awesome).

This move is sure to spawn some amazing titles next year, the likes of which we can only currently guess.

Having professional development tools at one’s fingertips is an amazing step forward for those used to doing all of their work simpler programs. The use of this kit is sure to create some terrible and broken games as well, but at least the opportunity for beautiful end-products is there.

Here’s to a hopeful 2010.

[Via  1up.com]

More great indie music for your enjoyment as developer Polytron has released an EP for its upcoming Xbox Live Arcade platformer Fez as a free download.

The soundtrack includes three previously unreleased demo tracks made for the IGF award winner. The download is available now via the developer’s site but they encourage the use of this torrent instead to save them bandwidth.

Fez is set to arrive on XBLA in 2010.

If you’re finding that originally great ‘four day weekend’ feeling melting into a puddle of confusion on what to do with the extra 48 hours, may I suggest a little flash gaming? I was directed to the browser-based puzzler Red Remover from a Reddit post I came across yesterday, though I’ve been informed from a couple friends that the game has been out for a little while now, so if you’ve played before consider this a classic callback.

In Red Remover the goal is to get rid of the red while keeping the green shapes on screen. As you make your way through, new obstacles and challenges are introduced,  and while there’s a par score for amount of clicks it takes to solve the puzzle there appears to be multiple options to solve at least some of the levels. It holds the standard of an enjoyable puzzle game as when you complete a level your left with a sense of satisfaction, and when you fail a few times in a row you’ll want to head butt your monitor.

The game really isn’t too difficult, but its challenging enough with its simple, yet progressive gameplay. Definitely a great way to eat up a portion of that long-winded weekend. Have a go-round with it here.

Amanita Design has released a free download for the Machinarium Bonus EP, a set of five songs that didn’t make the official soundtrack of the game. The tracks were originally only available to buy individually or free through the developer if you purchased the title.

The set includes such favorites as ‘The Robot Pipe Tune’ and ‘Game in the Brain.’ Anyway, something excellent and free to add to any video game music collection.

Machinarium released October 16 and has since received high praise from both critics and players. Certainly a GOTY contender among the indie community.

The one bummer about the recently released zero gravity FPS Shattered Horizon is the development team at Futuremark Games Studio don’t have any plans to release a playable demo for the high-end title. Fortunately through Steam they can offer something along the same lines.

Going by the title’s forums, all current Shattered Horizon players have or will be given three guest passes that they are free to share with anyone. The free guess pass enabled a Steam user to download and play the full version of the game for three days. I know at least one person who’s played the game, and I call immediate dibbs on one of his GP’s.

Don’t have a Shattered Horizon owning buddy? We have you covered with our giveaway of the game, as long as you get in before the November 20 deadline. Even if you don’t win, you can beg the lucky one who did for one of his/her golden tickets.

David Shute’s Small Worlds isn’t for next-gen folk. Nope, the find an exit game stands up on the legs of simple, enjoyable gameplay with a unique atmospheric twist.

As you’re moving/jumping character your goal is simply to find the level’s exit. The area reveals itself as you journey through it, retaining all of the space you’ve occupied thus far and adjusting the camera view accordingly. Since your character’s size is relative to how much of the level you’ve exposed, the more you explore, the more you discover how small you are in relation to your surroundings.

In the end, the longer it takes you to uncover the exit, the tinier you’ll be. Though there is a sense of satisfaction from uncovering an entire area and basking in it’s grandeur. Check out the game here, as an entry for Casual Gameplay Design Competition 6.