Fans of F-Zero and/or WipeOut should lift up their visors and squint their eyes this way! The 0.1 version of Trackverse has just been released and all you need to know is it’s like both of those aforementioned games but focuses on letting players build and share their own tracks.

While racing games in general need to be something quite special in order to get our attention, there is a way of doing so that means you can get away with the gameplay and look of the game resembling other, bigger titles. After all, what’s more indie than basing a game almost entirely around community driven track creation and sharing? Not much, basically, which is why we’re fully supporting Trackverse.

This takes futuristic racers to a terrain of gaming that they’ve probably never visited before. There are pre-made tracks for you to have a go around, but they’re actually referred to as themes as they are intended to be taken apart and reconfigured by players. So far there are City, Post-Apocalyptic, Cartoon and Sunken City packs for players to play with. Soon there will also be Sci-Fi, Canyon, Industrial and Jungle packs added to the roster and who knows what else even further into the future.

Of course, Trackverse doesn’t look like the best racing game ever but it’s early days and so far it’s an impressive package, considering it’s free to download at the moment. So hop on and get making some tracks already.

You can download this very first alpha release of Trackverse from the official download page.

You can find out more information on Trackverse over on the game’s official website.

After a good long time in development and an ever-increasingly level of hype in its sails, A Valley Without Wind is now available to purchase and download through several different digital distrobution vendors.

And the good news is that there’s plenty of choice. The game’s up for grabs at a 10% discount on developer Arcen Games’ official site, with GamersGate and the Mac Game Store following suit with a similar price cut, effective for one full week. You can also pick up the game at IndieCity and Gamestop’s Impulse platform, the latter of which also offers a special four-pack at a slightly discounted price for a cheeky bit of multiplayer action.

Conspicuously absent from the current list of digital sellers is Steam, although Arcen Games have revealed via Twitter that “things are progressing” on the prospect of the game seeing a release on Valve’s service later today. We’ll keep you updated on proceedings. In the meantime, here’s another look at A Valley Without Wind‘s launch trailer to whet your appetite.

In a revelation that will come as no shock to seasoned indie gaming fans around the globe, it looks as though yet another edition of pioneering Humble Indie Bundle could imminently be upon us.

That’s if a recent listing retrieved from the Steam App Directory is to be believed, anyway. The new entry, added earlier today, makes mention of a package simply called “Humble Indie Bundle 7,” with no details regarding what we can expect it to consist of.

Okay, so details might be extremely sketchy right now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t speculate, right? With the Humble Bundle Mojam having been sandwiched between two versions of the Humble Android Bundle earlier this year, it’s been over four months since the last ‘conventional’ bundle – that being the Humble Indie Bundle 4, which brought us such delights as Cave Story+, Super Meat Boy, Jamestown, Shank, Nightsky, Bit.Trip Runner and Gratuitous Space Battles. Could it be time to break away from the Android platform and deliver another PC-centric package? How about something different entirely?

We’re all none the wiser right now, but it’s likely that we’ll hear some concrete details very soon. In the meantime, what are your hopes, expectations and opinions on what might be in store?

Five years. Five long, tumultuous years of intrigue, curiosity and impatient awe. Relax, everyone; the wait is over.

Polyton’s stunning puzzle platformer, Fez, is finally available for download through the Xbox Live Marketplace, chiming in at a very reasonable 800 Microsoft Points. As always, there’s also a trial version available for you to savour the game’s exquisite morsels, but I’d say you’d be well advised to go the whole hog and download the full banana already. Find out why in our full review.

Supersoul Studios, the kind of game development team in which you insert chicken nuggets and fries and get a twin-stick shooter as a result, have just released a gameplay trailer of Compromised.

Despite Compromised being another twin-stick shooter for XBLIG – groan, winge moan etc – it does have a striking style about it that casts one’s mind back to time spent as a youth playing similar games on the Sega Genesis. What on earth are you taking about? Well, Compromised has a lovely grubby industrial look to it and it slightly induces nostalgia.

One of the things about sci-fi environments is that too often people imagine a future in which everything is clean and square and perfect. Humans are sloppy so that’s a disparate reality. It was Ridley Scott when outlining the look of his 1979 classic Alien, who said he wanted a “truckers in space” feel to it all. None of those shiny, all-white walls and matching glitter space suits so frequently seen in the 60s. That is what Compromised captures and that is what has caught our eye about it.

Luckily, its gameplay seems fairly entertaining too and who can deny that, well, twin-stick shooters are very well matched to analogue controls after all. In Compromised, you’re tasked with shooting down waves of enemies who are attacking your base. There’s also boss battles which look very epic and some environmental hazards to dodge too. We’re not sure of a release date for Compromised but we’ll be on the look out. For now, here’s the game’s release trailer – meaning it’s got to be out very soon, right?

More information on Compromised can be found on the game’s official website.

The rather unique action-puzzler from Spiky Snail Games, The Splatters, comes out on Xbox Live Arcade today for 800MSP if you’re up for it? Of course you are, silly!

Reminiscent of the joy of splashing in puddles as a child, The Splatters challenges players with making the biggest color-filled mess in its levels as they possibly can, for the purpose of obtaining a high score of course. You control the eponymous liquid-filled sacks and using physics, various manipulative mechanics and sheer determination, you are left to make those little splatters of out with a bang.

If you do an impressive stunt that places you pretty high up on the leaderboard then you may want to share it with friends. Fortunately The Splatters caters to that too via Splatter TV which lets you share clips with the world and you can even learn from the masters as to how they pull off their big scores.

The Splatters is now available on Xbox Live Arcade and will cost you 800MSP, which converts to about $10. Will we have a review for you shortly? Why, of course! Keep an eye out.

More information on The Splatters can be found on the game’s official website.

Jonathan Blow’s made his mark on the industry. The much is clear. But what’s been less clear lately is what the Braid creator’s next project, The Witness, is likely to end up looking like when it finally see the light of day. Right now, that’s still up in the air, but we might just be a little closer.

That’s because we’ve been treated to a pleasant little update from good old Mr. Blow on the game’s official website, including a new look at how the game’s much-touted island is shaping up.

Looking pretty, eh? That’s not all, though. Blow has also shed some light on how the gameplay itself is coming together, noting that the game’s more vexing puzzles are being crafted and shaped in a manner that will strike an optimal balance between lateral challenge and cognitive attractiveness. In short, that means that Blow’s teaming is aiming to ensure that each and every puzzle is thematically relevant to the in-game context in which it appears, rather than serving as a superfluous obstacle in an unrelated bigger overall picture.

On a more technical, but equally important level, The Witness‘ frame rate is also being addressed, something that Blow claims will greatly benefit how the game runs on the iPad platform. Also under the microscope are the game’s animations and tone mappings, adding a little flavour to the already splendid hues on display.

While Blow notes that the game is still very much a work in progress, meaning that various changes may still be made between now and its release, it’s certainly nice to see such openness as The Witness continues to evolve. We’re still barely scratching the surface as to what the game could potentially offer, making the wait for more information all the more tantalising.

For more information, have a butcher’s at the game’s official website.

Stuart Morgan may just be one man but that doesn’t stop him from building a huge game universe in Galaxial, one that you will be able to capacitate your very own empire and we’re talking BIG!

Despite the many space-based games in development and currently and recently released, apparently there is still room enough to impress us with a big, mouth-open “Oh my!” The latest game that caused our eyes to sporadically lust over its wares is Galaxial – a game that is as big as a universe and lets you explore every inch. You won’t want to just wander off on your merry way though, as in Galaxial‘s sandbox mode which consists of “thousands of ships and hundreds of star systems” all randomly generated, you can do as you please but if you start colonising and conquering you’ll also need to fend off attackers.

Galaxial is in fairly early stages but it’s already looking good and it seems like it will be a pretty deep experience too. Features include mining resources, space battles, customisable ships, epic scale exploration and future modding support. Aside from the “do what you want” Sandbox mode, there will also be Survival mode which will hone your planetery and fleet defending skills and there will be Missions for players who need objectives to work towards.

There’s no sense of a release window for Galaxial at the moment but we can tell you that it will release on PC, other platforms will be considered based on the game’s success. Stuart, the sole developer, is releasing video updates of his progress so here is the latest one for you to watch.

More information on Galaxial can be found on the developer’s official blog.

After having found out this information early ourselves, Capybara Games have confirmed that Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP will be coming to PC and Mac on April 16th.

So here we are, a couple of days after we discovered that S: S&S EP was coming to Steam via a Steam registry, Capybara Games have stepped up to officially make the announcement themselves. Their critically acclaimed adventure title formerly for iOS only, has now been transformed into a point and click adventure fit for the PC. Of course, a few things have been tweaked but nothing that should make the game any less of what it is:

“This edition is intended to be a faithful representation of the original touchtronic S:S&S EP experience, it has been minorly adapted to better suit player input via the two-button mouse, and some audiovisual elements have been subtly refined as appropriate”, Capybara say in their news post.

If you’re heading to PAX East this weekend then you’ll be glad to know that you will be able to play S:S&S EP. If you’re not attending then the wait won’t be too long at all as Capybara also confirm that S: S&S EP will be coming to Steam on April 16th and a Mac version will be on the way “before the summer solstice”…so soon then.

More information on Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP can be found on the game’s official website.

Ever wake up and ask yourself, “Could Mario take Master Chief in a fight?” Want to know the answer?

Well, it’s April 1st, and we’re going to buck trends here and start out with a surprising-but-true story. After another two long years in development, the latest playable build of the absurdly ambitious Mushroom Kingdom Fusion has been released into the wild.

While this sprawling freeware PC platform crossover/mashup is still not quite complete (it really is absurdly ambitious), it already features well over a hundred fully playable levels set across a dozen worlds, featuring a huge range of playable characters, many of whom can adopt powers from other characters via power-ups.

Yes, that is Mario, dressed as Guile from Street Fighter, using his powers to navigate a windows Minesweeper board. And yes, that is Arthur from Ghosts & Goblins taking on a bullet hell shmup boss, possibly from DoDonPachi. If you haven’t figured it out already, MKF plunders just about everything for content and ideas, and has a real ‘everything and the kitchen sink too’ design ethos.

It seems almost inevitable that some corporate entity, somewhere, will eventually wake up just grumpy enough to smite this project with a cease-and-desist order, but I do hope that they can reach at least V1.0 before that happens. As messy and inconsistent as this game is, it’s a clear labor of love from a gleefully demented community and well worth some of your time, even in this unfinished state.

You can download the latest build of the game over at the MKF forums, although the installation at the moment is a little convoluted. Still on the fence? Well, have a shiny new launch trailer to push you over the edge.

You can find more info and gameplay videos on the MKF forums.