While the judges at IGF have already named their nominees/finalists, we at DIYgamer are still sifting through the list. Last year, we began a countdown to the Independent Games Festival. The way this works is easy: we simply select games at random from the lengthy (306 total) list of IGF submissions and discuss what they’re about and how they play. For this week’s column, I played through two original puzzle-platformers, both free and ready to go when you are: ride your bike to save your life in Icycle and prepare to play with colors in Color Symphony.

Before starting this I want to emphasize that this is only meant to give you my impressions and perhaps that extra kick to try out some of the IGF submissions, whether they be these or any of the other 306. I assure you, you will discover that there is something unique about each and every game. And hey, if you’re lucky, some of them are even playable for free! All right, without further ado, here are this week’s picks.

D2D continues to offer good discounts on top indie titles, today announcing Dejobaan Games’ unique free-faller Aaaaa! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity at 50% off as their Deal of the Week. In the title, you try your best to impress a crowd who watch as you base jump from the top of skyscrapers, creating and performing stunts on the plummet downward.

The title was recently nominated for the IGF 2010 award for Excellence in Design and is certainly worth the $5 its going for through next Friday, January 15.

Check out the Dejobaan’s next project Musorqua, a similar-looking music title still in early development.

While the judges at IGF have already named their nominees/finalists, we at DIYgamer are still sifting through the list. Last year, we began a countdown to the Independent Games Festival. The way this works is easy: we simply select and discuss games randomly from the lengthy (306 total) list of IGF submissions. For this week’s column, I played through two note-worthy titles: an odd fighting game with awesome rag doll mechanics in Rubber Ninjas and a top-down zombie shooter in Dead Wake.

Before starting this I want to emphasize that this is only meant to give you my impressions and perhaps that extra kick to try out some of the IGF submissions, whether they be these or any of the other 306. I assure you, you will discover that there is something unique about each and every game. And hey, if you’re lucky, some of them are even playable for free! All right, without further ado, here are this week’s picks.

What a great way to start off our new year, indie fans: the main competition finalists are in and the nominations are plentiful! In order to provide the highest-quality judging, the Independent Games Festival enlisted the help of over 150 judges from the indie and mainstream industries. That’s a good thing considering that nearly $50,000 in prizes will be given away at the event, taking place on March 11 at the 2010 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA.

This year, IGF will also be offering another category for the $2,500 Nuovo Award, picked by its own jury who have released a statement regarding their finalists at this location. The Nuovo Award is geared toward recognizing the esoteric and “artsy” titles from the long list of IGF submissions.

And so, without further ado, here are the 2010 IGF finalists!

One of the more visually interesting games to be submitted to IGF 2010 is a first-person explorer developed by students at DePaul University. In Devil’s Tuning Fork, children everywhere are falling into comas. One of them wakes up in an alternate reality and has the ability to free other children by finding their toys in the world. The catch is this kid can only navigate the world via echolocation. So you explore by making noise with the Devil’s tuning fork and watching the sound waves. It’s a very cool, if disorienting effect, and it makes even simple platforming puzzles a lot more interesting.

The 15-member team, who go by the name DePaul Game Elites, spent about six months working on the game using an engine built by a professor at the university. According to this Uncommon Assembly interview, it’s the first game for many of the students, and the echolocation theme was inspired by dolphins and the M.C. Escher illusion that shares the game’s name.

To appreciate the visuals, you really have to see them in action. So either grab the game or watch the trailer after the jump.

2010 is going to be big for the Independent Games Festival. Already with a record number of main and student competition entries, the mobile department of IGF has jumped on board with another all-time high: 172 entries, a hearty increase from last year’s field of 107.

Many brand spanking new titles we’ve never heard before grace the lengthy list of entrants. From casual sports titles to alien shooters to abstract experimentation.

Combined, IGF 2010 will see 650 entries pass through, with a select few making it as finalists and possibly capturing the hardware.

You can check out all 172 mobile titles in depth here.

Cut & Paste, one of the 193 entries to the 2010 IGF Student Competition, is an enjoyable adventure title that has you cutting pieces from the game world and pasting them back in to solve puzzles. The scenes are presented in flipbook animation that you can stop to pull an item from your cache of clipped objects.

The game comes from South Korean development team Turtle Cream, a group of students at Seoul’s Sogang University. The group plans to release a full PC version of the title sometime early next year.

You can play the in-progress build of Cut & Paste here.

A record 306 entries were submitted to the Independent Games Festival 2010 main competition. 306! This past year saw 224 entries which was the first time the total ever broke 200, so to jump nearly 100 entries in only a year is quite exciting. The interest in both creating and playing indie’s is clearly on the rise.

These submissions will be checked and distributed to 150 judges–also the most ever–and the finalists will be announced at some point in January. The winners will be announced at the award show taking place at IGF 2010 in San Francisco March 9-13.

Many of the titles submitted actually have content to download and try out for those interested in seeing the what this year’s batch has to offer. Congratulations and best of luck to all the entrants!