Nitronic Rush, which was featured in our 2011 Indie of the Year list, was a beast of a game that blew many of us away. It had smooth, dynamic driving and stunning Tron-like visuals… plus it was free. Of course, the main story mode game was somewhat short, consisting of only a handful of levels. Still, no one had the right to complain, considering we got a highly enjoyable driving experience at no cost, and there were also the old levels and the challenge levels for the more adventurous players.

So, it seems Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw of Zero Punctuation fame/notoriety/loveliness is currently working on something entirely new, as officially announced on his personal blog. The project is to be called Poacher and will be a Metroidvania platformer, which is pretty intriguing given his past tendency towards old school adventure gaming.

A couple choice tid bits of information regarding Notch’s recently developed Ludum Dare 22 game entry: Minicraft, a game which has not only become popular but was also the most watched Ludum Dare challenge game during this last challenge. Some 2,000 people tuned in to watch him code apparently.

Wow, I’m impressed. I just got finished watching a 12-ish minute long gameplay tour of Castle Story and it could, quite possibly, be an early contender for Indie Game of the Year in 2012. It has that perfect combinations of great looks with gameplay that, on initial inspection, looks to borrow some key ideas from mega-popular indie game Dwarf Fortress.

I’m aware that this was announced in the midst of the festivities last week, but better late than never, eh?  Race Away’s 2010 first-person puzzle platformer, Bounce! for PC is now being given away completely free… forever. Being previously purchasable, the developer stated last Tuesday that through selling the title they ’still broke even which is all we ever really wanted for the project.’ So, for those whose who originally missed it, now is an excellent time to check the game out.

After the impressive success of Recettear and Chantelise, it was clear that indie localization team Carpe Fulgur were on to a good thing. Now, they’ve unveiled their third translated Japanese indie title – Fortune Summoners: Secret of The Elemental Stone, due for release on January 17th for $25. A steep price, even compared to their previous two releases – it’s going to be a hard sell.

Can’t say I’m too surprised by this, considering that Wolfram von Funck’s (aka Wollay) game Cube World has been lighting the internets (yes the ‘s’ is there on purpose) on fire for the last few days. We’ve been quite happy with what we’ve seen as well in it as well as we’ve monitored the game’s growth over the last 6 or so months.

Our Indie Game of the Year for 2011 is set to get a bit better with an official expansion pack from developer Edmund McMillen. The expansion pack has been dubbed “The Wrath of the Lamb” and is supposedly coming soon, although no hard date has been set. It’ll also be released for $3.

Indie Royale’s newest bundle has, once again, launched to the public. This means that there are four new games for you to get you mits all over for a fraction of their original retail price. This week’s haul is pretty good. I reviewed one of the titles personally and came away fairly impressed. Also worth noting is that each game is available for the Mac as well as PC so if you count yourself amongst the Mac gaming clan then you should check this one out.

Hot on the news of some certain XBLIG changes, comes a rather exciting announcement from Zeboyd Games with regards to their most recent RPG: Cthuhu Saves the World. The title is now 80 MS Points, or $1, on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel. This was not possible before under Microsoft’s rather strict pricing requirements which required Cthulhu Saves the World be at least 240 MS Points ($3).