This is a game straight out of a 12-year-old boy’s ‘most awesome game idea ever’ notepad. It’s about vampire ninja/samurai assassins (one of whom has a chainsaw/gun arm) battling evil cyborg zombies on the moon. The premise is absurd, the screen is almost always caked in gore, and the soundtrack is pure grungy guitar all the time. But is it good enough to be worth your $10/800 MS Points?

One-man Spanish indie powerhouse Locomalito (and much credit to his musical compatriot, Gryzor87) has come up trumps once more. Today marks the release of his fourth game, Viriax. Like his previous three titles, it is two things above all else: Brilliant and free.

Some of you in tune with the ebb and flow of the indie scene might remember a little game called Poto & Cabenga, developed by Honeyslug as part of the Gamma IV one-button game development contest. A charming little flash game, it set out to push the limits of just how much you can control with a single button. With just your space bar, you were expected to control two seperate characters, able to sprint, jump and brake seperately. An experience akin to trying to pat your head and rub your tummy simultaneously, while hopping on one leg and humming your national anthem of choice.

Elementally, My Dear Watson

Hogwarts this ain’t. A generic fantasy world is being threatened by a generic, creeping evil, so the generic magic school has dispatched 1-4 terrifyingly powerful (but comically inaccurate) wizards on a generic quest to save the world. Is Magicka, the first release by small swedish studio Arrowhead truly magical, or does it struggle to even pull a rabbit from a hat?

Believe it or not, this is a relatively peaceful scene in BWR+

Throughout the Japanese indie scene, one genre seems shockingly prevalent; arcade shooters of the Bullet Hell (aka Danmaku) variety. Millions of incoming shots, explosions everywhere and evasion more akin to threading a needle than doing a barrel roll. It’s a daunting prospect for newcomers, but here’s a pair of remarkably accessible freeware games ideal for anyone who likes spaceships and/or explosions.

Three big Hurrahs for Youtube, Chiptunes and Free Games!

It’s a lazy afternoon. There’s not much going on and you’re bored out of your skull. You want something new to play. Something fast, and something free, right? Well, here’s a handy bundle of useful videos from around the internet, giving you a vast plethora of indie, freeware or otherwise expense-free games to pick up and play right now.

A shiny new cockpit, added in a recent build. Graphically tasty.

There’s more than one game in the works about making your fortune through bashing rocks until shiny things fall out. Ambitious indie outfit Keen Software have been hard at work on Miner Wars 2081, a sprawling space-combat genre-blend that seems to take as much inspiration from Descent, Allegiance and Red Faction as it does from Minecraft. Along with finally catching the eye of lumbering compu-giants Intel and an invitation into their Software Partner Program, they’re now offering a sizable playable demo to be updated in parallel with their Minecraft-esque 70% discounted preorder Alpha.

Touhou: Cute girls, frilly hats and COSMIC LASER DEATH

Disclaimer: This article contains copious quantities of saccharine anime stylings, and very little in the way of space marines shooting things. If such things bother you, retreat now. Also, be warned that this article ended up far longer than I first intended, so feel free to skim.

Introduction ~ Welcome To Gensokyo

If the rags-to-riches, one-man indie success story of the western world is Minecraft, then the eastern equivalent is undoubtedly the long-running Touhou series. You’ve almost certainly heard of these games, but due to none of them having ever gotten official English-language releases, they remain a confusing and alien prospect for newcomers. Who is ZUN? Why are there so many frilly hats? How on earth are you meant to dodge all those bullets? In writing this, I hope to lay out the basics here, and make the series (and now-sprawling franchise in general) a little more friendly and accessible.

As the festive cheer of Christmas leaves us all behind, we’re left with the icy chill of winter. And what better to drive this home than a little bit of the ol’ horrorshow with suteF, by Ted Lauterbach. (Thanks to indie horror-guru Amon26 for bringing this to my attention on Twitter.)

I gave a few column-inches to Metroid: Confrontation back in my second Fangame roundup article, but it has since gotten a couple of minor updates, and now a major one, so it gets another few words written about it.