Today’s Indie Links include games you should have on your radar. Which, to be honest, really isn’t different from any other day.

25 indie games that should be on your radar (ArsTechnica)
“One of the best things about travelling to shows like PAX East and the Game Developers Conference is the chance to check out titles from off-the-beaten-path, independent developers. While shows like E3 are overwhelmed by the presence of multi-million dollar booths from huge publishers, the early-in-the-year shows make a point of highlighting some of the most original and promising game ideas from game makers without big contracts or salaried positions behind them. Freed from the financial responsibilities of the major AAA publishers, these are the titles that are most likely to truly break new ground in gameplay, aesthetics, and subject matter.”

Anna Anthropy and the Twine revolution (The Guardian)
“There’s a growing realisation that games can be as much about personal expression as they are about shooting stuff. We talk to prolific designer Anna Anthropy about her reluctant role at the centre of an emerging scene based around free game making tool, Twine.”

Tigsource Devlog: Dom2D’s Visual Showcase of Awesome New Games, Issue #14 (Venus Patrol)
“This week’s selection shows some love for pixel art, with fourteen games in development showing true skill with the pixel brush! We have Chasm in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign, Tale of the Stolen Rainbow creating an epic Zelda-like adventure with minimalist black and white pixels, and then there’s The Bitter End.. oh wait, it seems to have been made in Hexels!”

Recommended Game: Reunion, A Short Horror Experience (Independent Gaming)
“Explore a dark forest and the darkness of the human mind. In these woods, nothing is as it seems. Reunion is a short horror game that surprised me with its creepy atmosphere, genuine scares, and shocking ending. You control a father searching a forest at night for his son, Waleed, who has fled from home. You must navigate the darkness, using the circle of light surrounding you and the sounds of the things in the woods to stay on a safe path.”

The Long And Brainy Road: An Organ Trail Diary Part 3 (RPS)
“The Organ Trail: Director’s Cut is a zombie pastiche of the old favourite edugame, The Oregon Trail, where you had to get a family of settlers to Portland, Oregon, past the perils of the unconquered western USA. In the Organ Trail, players must get themselves and up to four friends all the way to Portland Oregon without losing any of their innards to rampaging zombie hordes. They’re both mainly asset management games, with bastard-hard minigames included. “

Kickstarter Katchup – April 21st 2013 (RPS)
“Two $100,000 winners this week and a few other projects close to the finish line.”

Itano Alpha Flight and Heart Breaker (Indie Gamer Chick)
“Here’s some quick thoughts on a pair of recent XBLIG titles, Itano Alpha Flight and Heart Breaker. They suck. My boyfriend says I’m not allowed to leave it at that, so I guess I’ll explain why.”

Humans Must Answer (PixelProspector)
“Humans Must Answer is a really promising horizontal shmup with fine visuals and fun looking gameplay that features a nice selection of weapons.”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Links Round-Up: Killer Screen

Today’s game comes from the brilliant pool of games that have been developed for the Ludum Dare 26 competition. My Mini Castle has been developed by TijmenTio and is a great, cute little game.

In My Mini Castle you must fend off wave after wave of slimes with only a limited supply of potatoes. The whole aim of the game is to fire your potatoes correctly to hit the slimes as they come to try to take down your castle.

The most difficult thing about My Mini Castle is the aiming of the potatoes, as there is a slight delay from when you throw it and when it hits meaning you must learn to aim. Although the aiming starts out a little tricky you should quickly be able to pick it up and hit your mark.

My Mini Castle has a fantastic art style, a lot of humorous lines, and some great music all combining together to make one great little game.

Average play time – 7 minutes

My Mini Castle really is quite the stand out game due to its great artwork and interesting gameplay mechanics. The concept is simple but it has been executed fantastically really making the game a whole load of fun.

My Mini Castle can be downloaded from the official Ludum Dare site. If you like the game be sure to vote for it on the Ludum Dare site.

If you are a developer with A fun indie game that can be played over a coffee break, we want to hear from you! Private message us on twitter @IndieGameMag or shoot us an email at editors@indiegamemag.com with the subject “Indie Intermission” and you could be our indie intermission pick of the day!

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Intermission – ‘My Mini Castle’ A Mini Slime Fighting Adventure

Today’s Developer Links pass on more good PS4 vibes from indies, along with updates from games including The Witness, Clockwork Empires, and Democracy 3.

PS4 will support indies, agree optimistic devs (Develop Online)
“A number of developers have stepped forward to state their optimism about the PlayStation 4′s support for indies. Speaking to Develop individuals from companies as diverse as Gearbox and nDreams have expressed hope and positivity that, in contrast to previous sony consoles, the PS4 will be accessible and affordable for indies. Their views appear to reflect comments made to Develop by Sony Worldwide Studios SVP Michael Denny, who insisted indies are set to be core to the PS4.”

A Little Something For The Pipe Fanciers Out There (Gaslamp Games)
“From just about the beginning we’ve been into the idea that Clockwork Empires should involve running giant assemblies of pipes and cog-laden axles across settlements to transmit energy and water and completely harmless high-pressure superheated steam between various machines and factories. The basis for this came early: if we’re to embrace the aesthetic we desire we need to fully embrace the visuals of mechanization, of machines and factories and the wonders of technology of this Age of Progress & so forth. If we hide the machines inside the factories then you won’t be able to see any of the Fun gears and pipes. So, the breakthrough: put the machines, the pipes, the gears on the outside of the factory.”

Low-Light Combat Art Asset Overview (Wolfire Games)
“We recently made a charity jam game called Low-Light Combat. In this jam, I wanted to try cutting out the most time-consuming steps of the traditional art asset workflow, to see if it would make any real difference in the final product.”

iPad video update #1 (The Witness)
“Andy’s got the iPad port far enough along that you can sort of play the game now. Here’s a short video…”

More Democracy 3 simulation fun and games (Positech Games)
“The core mechanic of Democracy 3 is going to take a lot of careful explaining in tutorials and tooltips and help windows. Essentially, it’s pretty simple, in that you implement policies, and you can adjust the intensity of a policy using a slider. So with a policy like income tax, the slider adjust the rate of tax from low to high. A series of bars show you the effect this policy has on everything, such as voter happiness, GDP, and so on. Sounds simple so far right? This is where it gets complex because there are three additional factors, which are implementation times, effectiveness and inertia. I’ll explain each one…”

Even Ugly Babies Need Hugs (Dejobaan Games)
“Our good friends at Zapdot and Hybrid Mind have been working hard on Ugly Baby. Ichiro continues to rest as evidenced by this picture from yesterday. This is most excellent news because a rested Ichiro is worth at least 3 times as many points as a tired Ichiro! This week we look at visualizers and also the in-game HUD that tells you when your stunts are X-Games worthy.”

Managing Risk in Video Game Development (Gamasutra)
“How do you best manage risk when creating a game? Using this article and the attached spreadsheet, you can better identify the problem areas in your game and get a sense of whether any decisions you are making actually make business sense.”

The Language of Monetization Design (Gamasutra)
“Automobiles and computers were so simplistic in their first 10 years that today we have a hard time looking back and appreciating just what a leap in technology they were at the time. Like all technology, they benefited from the iterative process, slowly adapting to changes in allied technologies, consumer demands, and infrastructure. Today both cars and computers have components in them that did not even have names 10 or 20 years ago. Before they could be added to these products, they had to be thought about and given names so that they then could be optimized and adapted to various uses.”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Dev Links: Pipe Dreams

Today’s Developer Links cover one week of game development, 30 weeks of game development and a plea to avoid too much development.

30 Weeks of Game Development (AltDevBlogADay)
“Outland Games is an iOS game I’ve been working on at Uber Entertainment since late last summer. We just released the game to the app store this week (iTunes – $0.99). This post is the first in a short series on it’s development.”

Overfunded Kickstarter Projects – Please Avoid Feature Bloat (Zeboyd Games)
“We’ve seen a number of video game kickstarters raise a lot more money than they requested. Inevitably, these projects take this extra money and drastically scale up the ambition of the project with the result that they miss their projected release date by a huge amount.”

Seven Day Roguelike, Day 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6- 7 (Distractionware)
“So, I’m making something for 7 day roguelike. This compo has an uncanny knack for clashing with other things, so this is the first year I’ve ever actually been able to do it!”

Forbidden space (Auntie Pixelante)
“my friend andi was really excited that nasa was hosting a game jam on her birthday. she wanted to rope a bunch of us in to making games with her thirtieth birthday – then she found out that you had to book tickets months in advance. BULLSHIT. not to be deterred, she had a bunch of friends over to my place for a KICKED OUT OF NASA GAME JAM. (they’re still here. it’s still going on.)”

Making wrong choices (Winter Wolves)
“I’m at one point where I fix a plot hole, and a new one appears. I check a variable, one path works, the other doesn’t. A scene that before was fine, now plays out of order. I’ve worked like crazy in past 3 days, I’m stressed like never before and then I came to a simple conclusion. There’s no hope to make this work. Every time I open the script I have a headache now. Writer doesn’t have time to help. So I’m thinking what to do. It’s really embarrassing for me. Despite all the efforts, I know that I can’t make this work, unless I make some really big changes.”

Races #2: The Empire (Purple Orange Games)
“Nobody knows the origins of the Empire, how it was formed or by whom. Scientists speculate that a once peaceful race, the Lirri, endured some kind of disastrous genetic disease which made them seek salvation by means of complex genome modifications. Unfortunately, the process went wrong, and the newly created creatures turned on their masters and, not encountering any resistance, quickly conquered the planet. Soon, there were no Lirri. There was only the Empire.”

The Metrics Aren’t the Message (Gamasutra)
“Metrics can rule you — but should they? The Workshop Entertainment’s new design director and Free Realms veteran Laralyn McWilliams explains how a pivotal moment in her life showed her that overreliance on analytics and friction in social games isn’t the answer.”

Port Wine, Live-Streaming, Drunken Robots and Ugly Babies (Dejobaan)
“This week’s blog post is brought to you by the letter T and the number 2! It has been a fun week for all of us over at Dejobaan. Ichiro is in Portugal taking a much deserved vacation. We are laying on the beach did our second live-stream on Twitch (more on that below) and we continued working hard on Drop That Beat Like An Ugly Baby, Drunken Robot Pornography and Monster Loves You. Did I mention that we are working HAAAAAAAARRRRDDD! But first Ichiro drinking port, because everyone should drink port!”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Dev Links: Lost In The Woods

From this point onward, Steam Greenlight will release “greenlit” games in smaller batches, according to a new post on the official Greenlight blog.

“We have decided to Greenlight a smaller batch this time, so we can move more quickly,” the post reads. “There are lots of titles getting attention, so we are likely to continue Greenlighting titles in this quicker, but smaller batch fashion.”

The post goes onto explain that the four titles (three games, one program) were selected using the same criteria, despite the smaller amount of time in between Greenlight release announcements, as has regularly been used to select the chosen titles.

Edge of Space, Papers, Please, and Venetica were the three games released with this batch.

Steam users can continue to browse through the massive catalog of games attempting to become verified on Steam through Greenlight, on the official Greenlight website. All games which are “greenlit” will become available on Steam when completed, or through Steam’s new Early Access program, for development build releases.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Greenlight To Announce Games In Smaller Batches, Quietly Approves Three New Games

Although not really a conventional game Cow Clicker is more of a commentary on the casual Facebook game market that has grown over the past couple of years.

Cow Clicker distills the fundamental mechanics down from Facebook games and puts them into a new setting that involves the mundane activity of clicking on cows.

Like every social game in this genre you must wait a predefined length of time before you can click your cow again and of course you are encouraged to invite friends so you can click their cows to improve your own game play.

Cow Clicker was created by Ian Bogost as his take on Zynga and their style of games found on Facebook. He has even included numerous microtransactions for speeding up the time in between clicking on the cows along with various cosmetic items for your cow.

Average play time – 20 minutes

Cow Clicker really is a very ingenious game that helps to sum up what the whole industry is about by showing the genre in its true mundane light. Cow Clicker really is quite the eye opener showing Ian Bogost’s true genius.

You can play Cow Clicker on Facebook for free, however if you would like to find out more about the game check out Ian Bogost’s site now for more insight into why he created this very interesting title.

If you are a developer with A fun indie game that can be played over a coffee break, we want to hear from you! Private message us on twitter @IndieGameMag or shoot us an email at editors@indiegamemag.com with the subject “Indie Intermission” and you could be our indie intermission pick of the day!

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Intermission – ‘Cow Clicker’ A Cynical Look At The Causal Game Industry

For just $1 or more, you can get a DRM-Free copy of Flotilla, Atom Zombie Smasher, and Air Forte, as well as Thirty Flights of Loving if you pay above the average.

Earlier in the week, six students working on a game for the National Graduate School of Games and Interactive Media (known as ENJMIN, Ecole Nationale du Jeu et des Medias Interactifs Numériques) released a trailer for their game, Lune. The game has quite an interesting hook: instead of playing as the protagonist, players control the moon, to help the protagonist through the levels.

In an idea that seems straight out of the faux-Peter Molyneux Twitter account, @PeterMolydeux, Lune will have players controlling the moon, rather than the protagonist, to manipulate gravity, the tides, and shadows to assist the main character through the game. Yesterday, I chatted with Lune’s game designer and scripter, Sergey Mohov. He explained to me that apart from considering the Moon a character itself, Lune really focuses around just one character: a masked girl.

“She’s a young woman in a mask,” Sergey said, “and you don’t really know much about her apart from the fact that she has the power of the Moon…she’s no different from you and me. She doesn’t jump especially high, she’s not particularly strong or fast, she doesn’t do any magic tricks, doesn’t have a mana bar above her head. All in all, she’s quite normal.”

“Except she controls the Moon.”

Lune takes place on an island full of mysteries, and terror. A lone tower dominates the landscape, and Sergey told me that the masked girl isn’t the only inhabitant of the island: giant rock guardians roam the island, protecting its secrets for unknown reasons. “[The guardians] can smash our character’s head with one blow, but they can’t see in the dark. So what you do is you manipulate tides, gravity, and light to hide from the guardians, avoid dangers, and remove obstacles.”

Sergey is part of the six person team working on Lune. The rest of the team includes Fabian Bodet (art/modeling), Matthieu Bonneau (sound design), Leonard Carpentier (project management), Raphael Chappuis (gameplay programming), and Alexis Payen de la Garanderie (graphics programing). Previously, Sergey has worked with Fabian and Matthieu on both Paradis Perdus and Spotlight for Game à Niaque and Indie Speed Run competitions, respectively. The trio, along with Leonard, Raphael, and Alexis, are now working hard to get Lune ready for the Hits Playtime competition, this June.

The Hits Playtime competition is for French game design students, and only the ten games with the most Facebook “likes” will be entered into judging for the grand prize.

“We’re a bit under pressure because of Hits Playtime…forced to fight for every like on Facebook, really annoying…hence the trailer,” Sergey said.

Luckily for the team, the trailer is not only completed and they can go back to focusing on developing the game, but the trailer generated a solid amount of publicity for Lune, giving them a better chance of succeeding in the Hits Playtime competition. However, there are thirty other student projects in the race to win, six of which are from Sergey’s own school, ENJMIN, so Sergey asks that anyone who wishes for the project’s success to visit Lune’s Facebook page, and give them a “like” as that will greatly help their chances of becoming finalists.

I asked Sergey how the team plans to distribute Lune, upon the game’s completion, and if they plan on attaching a price-tag to the student-built game.

“Yeah, we’re planning to sell it and we hope that people will find it good enough to pay for it. It’s been more than just a student project to us from the beginning. We just happen to be lucky to study in a school that lets you keep rights to your games and encourages any kind of further development.” As far as game distribution goes, Sergey said the team plans to distribute Lune in all the typical ways: through direct to consumer methods, Steam, GOG, and any other option that makes itself available. But nothing is certain, yet.

While talking to Sergey, I learned that he already has a Bachelor’s degree in Automation and Computer Science, and turned down a job at Crytek, choosing instead to pursue a Master’s degree at ENJMIN.

“AAA [game development] is not really my thing. Thankfully, I have met some wonderfully talented people at ENJMIN, and I think that there’s a good chance that we will do something together when school is over,” Sergey said.

That “something” could be a more extensive version of what they’re currently planning for Lune, but that all depends on the game’s success with the Hits Playtime competition.

To help Sergey and the rest of the Lune development team, just visit Lune’s Facebook page, and “Like” it. The page happens to be the best place to keep up with the latest information about Lune, too.

If Twitter is more your cup of tea, then follow Lune on Twitter.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Editor’s Notebook: Control The Moon In ‘Lune’

For anyone who has followed the Ludum Dare contests over the past few months you may have seen one game by a small developed team known as Shiro Games who created Evoland.

Evoland won the Ludum Dare 24 contest for its highly innovative take on RPG history. In Evoland you play starting with a monochrome top-down view which was seen in the early Zelda games. This then gradually progresses through the ages right up to the 3D rendered worlds we all know and love today.

Evoland quite obviously has had a great deal of influence from classic RPG titles like Zelda and Final Fantasy but it’s able to combine them here in a rather unique and fun way not seen before in RPGs.

Evoland really is quite the trip down memory lane, bringing back many of the awesome features we have seen in the past, while making for a completely unique game that really does stand up on its own.

After doing so well in Ludum Dare the team decided to flesh out the game even more and even managed to get it Greenlit earlier this year. Now, several months later, Shiro Games have finally released Evoland on the PC via Steam.

Evoland has evolved from the critically acclaimed mini-game created for Ludum Dare into a full-fledged title now available to buy via Steam.

Evoland was released yesterday on Steam and is currently on sale, allowing you to save 10% until the 10th of April.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Evoland’ Evolves From Game Jam To Full Release