The Indies

The latest edition of GameShark's The Indies is up. This bi-weekly feature is written by James Fudge, and focuses on a collection of complete (and incomplete) Sourceforge projects, casual games, shareware plus the occasional free stuff.

Also, free plug for them because they mentioned Independent Gaming.

There are fifteen issues worth of reading material so if the features index isn't already in your bookmarks then now is probably a good time to do a some catching up. How about a weekly schedule, James?

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Blackwell Unbound Released

Blackwell Unbound is now available for purchase from Wadjet Eye Games' web site, the second in a series of paranormal investigations written by Dave Gilbert. This episode features the talent of Erin Robinson (Spooks), and introduces a new central character named Lauren Blackwell, who is the aunt of Rosangela.

No demo available yet, but one can be expected fairly soon.

Wadjet Eye Games' web site
Blackwell Unbound info page

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Dare to be Digital

Dare to be Digital is an annual competition in which students from different institutions are gathered, split into teams of five, then placed in a hosting centre for a period of ten weeks to create a prototype of a game. Three winners in different categories were announced during the recent award presentation ceremony at University of Abertay Dundee in Scotland. The three winners will be included the short list for this year's BAFTA Ones to Watch Award.

Pictured above is Bear Go Home, description as follows:

Players must help Bear find his way home but, without direct control over the bear, they must influence his movement by stretching and squeezing him to keep him safe.

All competition entries are available to download from the showcase page. Use the login 'indygamer' and password 'password' to access the download section without going through the hassle of registering. [source: GameSetWatch]

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Free Play 2007 Videos

Recording of three sessions from the Free Play 2007 event held in Australia were recently posted on Sumea's web site, with talks centered around indie game development, prototyping and securing publishing deals.

Each video is roughly eighty minutes long. Jonathan Blow also provides some helpful hints to budding programmers about the basics of making platformers during his speech. The Torque Game Engine is criticized by Mahomed of Gridwerx halfway through the second video as well.

Video download page
GameSetWatch mention
ACMI web site

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The Chronicles of Oswyn Throckmorton Announced

The Chronicles of Oswyn Throckmorton is an adventure game set in a time when pirates thrife from plunder and fear. A context-sensitive verb menu much like the one used in Revolution Software's Lure of the Temptress (now freeware) will be employed for object interaction purposes. Character art is supplied by Helm.

The first episode is scheduled for a release sometime in summer 2008.

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Starfox: Shadows of Lylat Screens

A screenshot from the upcoming fan made project, Starfox: Shadows of Lylat. The game is built using the Freespace_Open engine, but a release date is still far from being announced.

screenshots forum thread
Starfox: Shadows of Lylat FAQ

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Quiescence

Quiescence is an abstract arena shooter by Jph with gameplay elements from the classic Snake mixed with some rather odd controls. Use the arrow keys to move around, and hold the left shift key to shoot. The objective of the game is to collect all green orbs in each level while avoiding yellow objects, though it's possible to shoot at them to remove the immediate threat.

Press the end key to restart at any time. Hold the control key to remain stationary, and use the space key to start a game from the main menu.

Name: Quiescence
Developer: Jph
Category: Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 2MB
Direct download link: Click here

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