Indie Links today has freeware before commercial, personal instead of professional and hot Monaco on Monaco action.

Four perspectives on personal games (Gamasutra)
“The personal games movement is providing an important, exciting new avenue for expression and a new understanding of design, many believe. At the Different Games conference in New York this weekend, four panelists presented on the theme of personal game-making and why it matters to them.”

Review: Starseed Pilgrim – A Game of Discovery by Droqen (IndieGameReviewer)
“You could be forgiven for initially dismissing Starseed Pilgrim as little more than a curiosity. Droqen’s latest endeavor is a strange, abstract title that does little to endear itself to new players; spending ten minutes with the game might leave you with the vague impression that something is missing. Spend an hour with it and you may come to the conclusion that it was designed with the specific purpose to bewilder and confuse its audience. If you stay a little longer though, you’ll begin to see something compelling and altogether worthy of your time emerge from the blankness.”

Analog Investigations in Arkham (Gnome’s Lair)
“Deduction, despite what Sherlock Holmes would have you believe, is not a science. It’s a method. A method that could arguably make the life of all fictional investigators much easier and can definitely be applied to board-games as the classic Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective so effortlessly proved over 30 years ago. What’s more, deduction is what you’ll be using when playing the freshly released and rather excellent Arkham Investigator.”

Why Vlambeer won’t stop making freeware first, products second (Polygon)
“Earlier this week, Vlambeer — an independent developer who receives as much ink for their critically acclaimed titles as they do for unscrupulous developers’ tendency to copy them — got hit once again. SkyFar, an iOS game from Bangalore’s Rubiq Lab, was criticized for nearly duplicating Luftrausers, a browser-based Flash game Vlambeer released in 2011, which the studio later planned to turn into a full retail release.”

Live Free, Play Hard: The Week’s Finest Free Indie Games (RPS)
“Heterosexual narc. More than a few games about the demise of balls. CANDY ANT PRINCESS.”

Two Game Developers Travel The World, Playing Games And Helping People (Kotaku)
“Earlier this year, Battlefield producer Daniel Matros and former colleague Tim Kjell set up something called Charitystream. The idea was simple: stream games online, raise money for charity. It’s a noble goal, yeah, but it’s also something countless others are engaged in.”

Monaco made good on Indie Fund $100K before launch, what it means (Joystiq)
“Since 2010, Indie Fund has helped launch high-profile games such as Dear Esther, QUBE and Antichamber, each one recouping investment within days or even hours. The first game in which Indie Fund ever put its faith (and money), Monaco, launched last week and made back its $100,000 investment in negative time, before the game went live on April 24.”

Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine offers the thrill of the heist (Shacknews)
“Andy Schatz’s IGF award-winning Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine is all about staying in the shadows and avoiding detection. In fact, it’s succeeded almost too well, remaining out of the spotlight since it first took the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at IGF 2010. After years of tireless work and dedication, Monaco has finally been released and like a fine French wine, it was worth the wait.”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Links Round-Up: New Heights

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

Quality-of-life, DRM, Piracy and other discussions reverberate in today’s Developer Links.

Indie Fund Now Backing “Panoramical” (IndieFund)
“We are super excited to announce our support of Panoramical, a collaborative project by Fernando Ramallo, a game developer from Argentina, and David Kanaga, best known for his work on Proteus and DYAD. Panoramical is something really different from what we’ve funded in the past, and its difficult to describe it in words. It uses an input device like an iPad or MIDI controller to explore hand-crafted musical landscapes, allowing the player to alter the visuals and music to their touch.”

Game Developer Quality-of-Life Survey (Gamasutra)
“”Game Developers: How are you doing?” That’s the question we asked approximately 1,000 of you at the end of 2012. We know that between the long hours, frequent layoffs, and crunch phases, the game industry can be a notorious grind. While we perform a yearly Salary Survey every April to check the pulse of developers’ financial health, we thought we’d supplement that with a quality-of-life survey to see how you’re doing in ways not measured by dollars and cents. Are you satisfied with your pay? Are you confident in your current project? Do you want to be in this industry five years from now? Read on to find out how your colleagues responded.”

Meat Boy dev: DRM hurts more than piracy (Games Industry)
“The troubled launch of EA’s SimCity due to its always-online requirement has raised the issue of digital rights management and the effectiveness of anti-piracy measures once again. In a post on his own blog, Super Meat Boy developer Tommy Refenes gave his own take on the subject, arguing that developers’ attempts to keep their games from being pirated are hurting themselves first and foremost.”

Vlambeer: Mobile devs mustn’t be scared of charging more (Develop Online)
“Mobile developers should not be scared of charging more for iOS and Android games, a developer from Vlambeer has said. Speaking in a Reddit Q&A, developers from the Super Crate Box studio said that indies needed to be sell a countless number of titles at the standard $0.99 (£0.69) price just to survive on the platform, and encouraged more developers to start charging more.”

Sony easier to work with as an indie, Guacamelee dev says (Shacknews)
“With Guacamelee’s release on PS3 and PS Vita imminent, developer Drinkbox Studios took a moment to praise Sony’s continuing efforts to reach out to developers–smaller indie studios, in particular.”

Democracy 3 development blog video #2 (Positech Games)
“Another short video showing off new color schemes and some new features.”

Overgrowth a198 video changelog (Wolfire Games)
“Here is the new Overgrowth alpha video!”

Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4 Trailer! (Zeboyd Games)
“Our first trailer for our upcoming new game, Penny Arcade’s on the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4 is now live! “

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Dev Links: Natural Wonder

SoundSelf is an exploration game where players use their voice to explore a world of sound and visuals. Each tone will navigate players through tunnels of light, shapes, and into a meditative trance. The result is an elegant symmetry of image and sound that takes advantage of loopholes in the way players perceive the world around them.

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Created by Wouter Swusten

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Source: The Indie Game Magazine – IGM Under Construction – ‘SoundSelf’ Prototype

An indie developer in defense of Microsoft, a spreadsheet RPG, and curious games – all this and more in today’s Indie Links.

The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile dev defends Microsoft (VG247)
“The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile developer Ska Studios has never had any problems working with Microsoft, contrary to ongoing talk of how indies struggle with the platform holder.”

Making an RPG in a Spreadsheet is Easier Than It Sounds, but Takes Longer Than You’d Think (Kotaku)
“Last fall, Cary Walkin was enrolled in business school at York University in Ontario, taking a course called “Advanced Spreadsheet Modeling.” He quickly realized the application could be used for more than just accounting.”

The fear and loathing of N++ (Polygon)
“Metanet’s creative director and co-founder, Mare Sheppard, announced at GDC that after much trepidation the Toronto-based independent developer has decided to develop the final game in the N series. Sheppard told Polygon that the decision to develop N++ was more of a “gradual realization,” than a “lightning strike.””

Dragon Fantasy Book 1 coming to PlayStation 3 and Vita April 16 (Polygon)
“Developer Muteki Corporation’s Book 1 of Dragon Fantasy — a game originally released for mobile devices, Windows PC and Mac — will come to the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita on April 16, Sony announced today.”

Guacamelee review: more behind the mask (Shacknews)
“The ability to boil down a game’s premise to an elevator pitch can easily do it a disservice. Guacamelee has been called Metroid-vania with luchadors, a description Drinkbox hasn’t exactly shied away from. But that description, and its pun-y title, make the game seem more like a gag, and gags don’t have longevity by definition. They’re an object of fleeting fun, and the game is much more inventive and lasting than this glib explanation would suggest.”

BattleBlock Theater review: battles blocked (Shacknews)
“Following the release of Castle Crashers, The Behemoth was riding high as a stalwart of the 2D old guard. It had produced a beat-em-up that lovingly paid homage to its predecessors and injected it with a dose of Monty-Python-styled inanity. Nearly five years later, the studio has finally produced its follow-up, BattleBlock Theater. It leans less on its roots, and while greater ambition gets the better of it, it’s hard not to cheer on more of the developer’s spirit.”

Pippin Barr’s philosophy of developing ‘curious’ games (Joystiq)
“Pippin Barr’s doctoral thesis is titled Video Game Values: Play as Human-Computer Interaction, submitted in 2008 to the Victoria University of Wellington as the final stage of his degree, Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science. In the thesis, Barr highlights the act of playing a computer program rather than simply using one, with case studies in Civilization 3, Fable, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Half-Life 2, and The Sims 2.”

Retro Arcade Adventure Remade (Indie Gamer Chick)
“It’s been a little over a year since I reviewed Retro Arcade Adventure, a hack-and-slasher that was sort of like Smash TV for the dark ages. I didn’t really like the game. It was short, repetitive, and boring. You could see potential in the developer, but the experience was tedious. So I was skeptical when I saw that they had decided to remake the title instead of patching the original. Ballsy for sure, since the first wasn’t very good. It would be like burning a steak and trying to correct it by throwing it back on the grill for ten minutes.”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Links Round-Up: Beat The Spread

The contents of today’s Dev Links come together to demonstrate how many different stages of development there actually are. (Hint: a lot.)

The Making of: ROM City Rampage (8-BIT Hardware Accurate Prototype) (VBlank Entertainment)
“How Retro City Rampage’s core was crunched down to a REAL 8-BIT game and how 8-BIT games are made!”

Yet Another Technology Status Update (Gaslamp Games)
“Last time I wrote a programming team update about Clockwork Empires, I made a comment that was somewhere along the lines of “the game is starting to hit that point where it transitions from a bunch of technology bits to something that looks like a game.” Well, we’re a lot closer to that goal than we were last update.”

Race Selection Screen (StarLife)
“Our new race selection screen. The custom race button will take you to another screen, which I will be working on the next few days.”

More about the complexities of Democracy 3 income… (Positech Games)
“Wealth is a complex thing in Democracy 3. far more so than before. I’ve been wrestling with bugs in it today which have reminded me how intricate the new income simulation is. How does it work? Well here is a rough synopsis.”

XXL Love for Serious Sam Double D (Mommy’s Best Games)
“Serious Sam Double D XXL is out now on XBLA–go download the demo if you’ve not yet! Critics are chiming in with some intense praise, see what they have to say.“

Oddy Smog, Oddy Smog EVERYWHERE (PlayMedusa)
“What a huge week for Oddy Smog’s Misadventure. The game that was our second title, back in 2010, has been released for Android and has received a big update in the App Store.”

The Video Game Kickstarter Report – Week of March 1 (Zeboyd Games)

Playnomics partners with Unity to help indie developers (Polygon)
“Games-focused data science company Playnomics has partnered with the Unity Technologies Asset Store to provide indie developers with better tools to engage audiences and monetize their games, Playnomics announced today.”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Dev Links: A Fresh Start

Games based on depression, an award winning game we’ll never get to play, and other interesting titles in today’s Indie Links.

How Jason Rohrer Won The Game Design Challenge (RPS)
“A real high-point of every GDC is the Game Design Challenge. Well, was. Sadly the tenth year of this annual treat was the last, with organiser Eric Zimmerman bringing proceedings to an end. And wow, did it go out in style. With the apposite topic, “Humanity’s Last Game”, some of the biggest names in the industry put forth their pitches for the last game we’d ever need. And one man entirely stole the show. For a second year, that man was Jason Rohrer.”

Voiceless and forgotten: facing depression through play (VG247)
“Depression Quest and Actual Sunlight are two games based on depression. Dave Owen speaks with their creators to find out how they can help.”

The Cat that Got the Milk sequel revealed, leaps from freeware to commercial (IndieGames.com)
“The Button Affair super stylish developers, now called Modern Dream, have announced The Cat that Got the Milk will receive a sequel. Titled Abstract No.3, it will expand on the series’ twitchy, path-weaving gameplay and will be the team’s first commercial release.”

Mobile review: Ridiculous Fishing (Shacknews)
“Fishing is a tough endeavor, one that isn’t as easy as it looks on TV or in the movies. Homer Simpson once had an idea to dump a plugged-in bug zapper into a lake and it resulted in a whole lot of easy-to-catch (if somewhat high voltage) fish. That’s a ridiculous idea. Yet it’s not as ridiculous as some of the heavy artillery that’s used in Ridiculous Fishing, the latest iOS title from Vlambeer (Super Crate Box), Greg Wohlwend (Puzzlejuice), and Zach Gage (Halcyon).”

Storyteller preview: In the eye of the beholder (Joystiq)
“”Wait, save that. No one’s done it that way before. You made it more complicated.” Daniel Benmergui reached out to grab the mouse and save a screenshot of my panels in his comic-book narrative game, Storyteller, where I had just concocted a tale of love and loss based on the page’s prompt, using a trio of static characters. One click and Benmergui let me regain control – he resumed his place over my shoulder in a quiet room off of the main GDC concourse, paper and pen in hand, taking notes on my visible thought processes as they played out on-screen.”

Preview: Hiversaires (TIGSource)
“After years of releasing engaging short-form games, prolific digital artist Aliceffekt is nearing completion of his first independent commercial project, Hiversaires, for iOS. Committing himself to full time development at the beginning of February, Aliceffekt has worked solo on the game, handling design, code, art, and music.”

Little Inferno scores big sales (Destructoid)
“Little Inferno didn’t have a lot to help it become a financial success. A fireplace simulator made to parody and critique current trends in videogames isn’t exactly what the big publishers would call “a surefire hit with a huge pre-installed fan base.” Thankfully, word of mouth, positive reviews, and the reputation of the game’s all-star development team seemed to have made up for any lack of marketability.”

Second Thoughts with the Chick – Terraria (Indie Gamer Chick)
“I reviewed Terraria for PlayStation Network/Xbox Live Arcade. I said that I did have fun playing the title, but I didn’t recommend it because it was too glitchy and unfinished. I also said that I had lost interest in the game. Since then, there hasn’t been a review up at my blog. Why? Because I’ve been busy playing Terraria. So allow me to eat some crow and do a 180 here. Terraria IS worth your time, glitches and all.”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Links Round-Up: Intangibles

With eleven days and just under $30,000 to go on the Chasm Kickstarter campaign, Discord Games is anxiously eyeing the clock. So far, over 4,500 backers have pulled together $121,800 in funding, but Kickstarter campaigns have fallen short on much smaller budget gaps. With an updated demo and a new trailer, Discord Games is hoping to generate the momentum needed to meet the complete goal of $150,000.

Discord Games in incredibly optimistic.

“The response to our Kickstarter has been overwhelming positive,” developer James Petruzzi said to IGM. “A community of passionate fans has quickly sprung up in the last few weeks, and the demo has given them a lot to talk about. We’ve had many people tell us it’s the first Kickstarter they’ve ever backed, primarily due to the demo.”

To reinforce their optimism, Discord Games hopes to not only meet, but surpass the $150,000 goal, as evidenced by the stretch-goal announcement, made yesterday. The very first stretch goal, at $160,000 is an extended soundtrack, followed by the implementation of Achievements into the game at $170,000. The extended soundtrack will come along with the regular Chasm soundtrack, which is available entirely for free on Discord Games’ SoundCloud page.

Some of the changes to the demo of Chasm include revamped graphics, a hardcore and time-trial mode, additional weapons, as well as over a dozen bug fixes.

Visit Chasm’s Kickstarter campaign page where the demo is available for download.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Chasm’ Gets New Trailer And Demo Amidst Funding Campaign

They Came From The Sea is a well put together mini game that reminds me greatly of the early Nintendo Gameboy games such as Pokemon and Zelda.

This game however has you protecting a bunch of eggs from strange creatures that are coming from the sea, with your only task to prevent the eggs getting eaten by these creatures.

The game starts out quite easy with you just having to protect the eggs from a few of these sea creatures. However it is not long before you must protect the eggs from all manner of creatures that are coming from the sea.

The game mechanics are quite simple as you just have the arrow keys, space, and S which give you all the utility you need to defend these eggs. Space will use your sword to slash at these creatures and help you protect the eggs from these sea creatures, but don’t let them get too close or else your HP will take a beating.

Average play time – 10 minutes

They Came From The Sea is a fantastically simple game with some great retro graphics and great music. Everything comes together well in this  fantastic little arcade game.

They Came From The Sea was created by Omaromeir and can be played now on Newgrounds.

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 – ‘They Came From The Sea’ A Great Little Arcade Game

Welcome to IGM Under Construction, where we cover indie games that are not finished quite yet. Be they Alphas, Betas, or Preview Builds, we will be covering them once a week.

In Guns and Robots, the robots come in three module classes based on the player’s assembly and unlimited options for character customization.

If you’d like to see your game featured in an upcoming Under Construction video, send us an email at editors[at]indiegamemag[dot]com .

Guns and Robots

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Created by Zephyr Moore

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Source: The Indie Game Magazine – IGM Under Construction – ‘Guns and Robots’