We've featured Advent calendars as a gaming theme before, but this one appears new. Started by Juuso Hietalahti, the owner of Finland-based Polycount Productions (who also writes at GameProducer.Net) each day reveals one or more Indie games, some with YouTube trailers. Of course there are links to download or play the games, be they application or browser-based. All carry the reminder that buying them supports devs directly.

There were four games behind Door No. 20 today, and there are four more days to go.

The Indie Games Xmas Calendar [site]

The show even offers an early look at 'Splosion Man developer Twisted Pixel's next game, Comic Jumper.

Plus there's some diving in a cold lake by Keighley and the creators of Trials HD (pictured above, of course). A debut of a multi-touch version of my favorite of these very good games, Osmos. Oh, and full disclosure: Someone who may or may not have written this post appears in this show as a talking head.

The games featured in the show are the nominees for the best indie game category in this Saturday's Spike Video Game Awards, which will be televised tonight. (More disclosure: Kotaku is part of the judging panel.)

The half-hour indie games special, "The Next Great Game Gods," premieres tonight on Spike at midnight. (More info about the show on Spike's site.) Check your listings. Celebrate indie games. And... let me know how I did?

"A lot of people have been demanding this in a video game for a very long time," said Carlo Sunseri, 25, a former midfielder for Robert Morris University. "But the market simply isn't that big yet. It's just not possible to do a full blown multimillion dollar game for lacrosse."

But that didn't mean Sunseri couldn't publish a full-blown lacrosse video game for about a multimillion dollars less. Inside Lacrosse College Lacrosse 2010 - hey, the game has a title sponsor, is that bigtime enough for you? - hit the Xbox Live Indie Games channel two weeks ago, a rarity even among that service's eclectic title selection. The game offers a full-featured sports simulation, with a season mode, roster customization and live human announcer, largely what you'd expect in Madden or NBA 2K10 if, you know, either were about lacrosse.

Through the years, a lacrosse video game has often been a why-don't-they-do-that topic in publications or message boards devoted to the sport, Sunseri said. "If you look on the Internet there's always petitions, forums full of kids screaming for a lacrosse video game," he said. Microsoft's rollout of the Indie Games channel last year seemed to be the best shot for such a thing to happen. Sunseri went to work, writing up a business plan built on game sales as well as in-game advertising. It was enough to get a loan, and enough to get him to step down from his coaching gig at his Pittsburgh-area alma mater, forming Crosse Studios to handle the project=

Sunseri needed a developer, of course. For that, he turned to Fritz Ackerley, a 14-year veteran of the games business whose Triple B Studios had recently published the Indie Channel hit Fitba, a soccer simulation. Sunseri figured Fitba's engine could be the foundation for a lacrosse game and he was right, with just one catch: Ackerly knew absolutely nothing about lacrosse.

But, "I've done Formula 1 games and I don't know what like to drive F1 car," Ackerley said. "I've worked on World War II shooters; I don't know what it's like to shoot someone in World War II. So you just have to get the feel for what the sport is about, and Carlo would fill me in on things I had not seen."

Sunseri sent Ackerley video of old lacrosse matches to demonstrate the game's flow, positioning, and concepts such as "forming the L," the game's fast-break offense formation. Passing was built on Fitba's mechanics, as it was a game touted for allowing player motion in one line with passes going along another, something critically important to lacrosse realism.

Shooting was assigned to the right analog stick to allow for more complex shot placement, a demand Sunseri got from potential gamers thanks to buying up ads on Facebook that pointed lacrosse fans to surveys. The surveys alone point to the sport's strong following; Sunseri boasted of clickthroughs topping 80 percent. A Facebook page for the game presently has more than 50,000 fans.

As Ackerley worked on the game, Sunseri pursued sponsorships for it, securing the title endorsement of Inside Lacrosse, the leading publication covering the sport, and other deals from sporting goods makers and sellers.

Players were hand-rendered by animator Joseph Daniels and brought into the game. Sunseri couldn't get collegiate or professional licensing, and had to make the game's 40 teams from scratch without emulating any existing club. His girlfriend consulted on much of the style and color choices.

Originally Sunseri figured on offering the game for $10, with college and professional indoor-rules variations, but he and Ackerley decided late in the development cycle to limit this version to a collegiate outdoor format, name it College Lacrosse 2010, and halve the price to $5. When it released in November, Sunseri held his breath. But Inside Lacrosse College Lacrosse 2010 clocked 40,000 trial downloads in its first two weeks, and today is in the top 5 among highest-rated and downloaded indie games.

It might be too early to declare financial success - Sunseri demurred when asked for development costs or sales figures - but when it comes to evangelizing for the game he loves, College Lacrosse 2010 is a hit,.

"I think the game has the potential to push lacrosse more into the mainstream," Sunseri said. "You look at the youth numbers, they're exploding. It's kind of at a tipping point now, and I hope through video games we can push it over the top, and start getting everyone to notice the game of lacrosse."

Sunseri said work's already begun on a successor version - the professional-rules version, which is played indoor and has different scoring options, is due for January he said. After that he hopes to have a college lacrosse 2011 sequel out around the time of the NCAA lacrosse finals, contested in late May.

"It's amazing, the opportunity Microsoft's built for indie developers here," Sunseri said. ‘I remember back when they announced it. I was still in college, and they said, ‘We're going to be doing the YouTube of video games.

"I said back then it would be perfect for doing a lacrosse video game, finally," he said, "and it ended up working out."

Stick Jockey is Kotaku's column on sports video games. It appears Saturdays at 10 a.m. U.S. Mountain time.

Zombie Driver's name caught my eye, and then the gameplay trailer we posted in October took said eye out and played with it for awhile. Looking very much like an old-school Grand Theft Auto title, Zombie Driver sees players driving through an undead-infected city, plowing through hordes of zombies as they race to rescue survivors of the apocalypse. As you play you buy and unlock new cars, upgrading them with various implements of destruction, such as flamethrowers, rocket launchers, or dual railguns.

EXOR could have very well just released a free-roaming zombie killing widget and I would have been completely satisfied, yet they've gone above and beyond, with 17 story missions with sub quests and bonus missions, just in case you get tired of mindlessly slaughtering the undead and wish to mindfully slaughter them. There's even a combo system to make the slaughter even more rewarding.

GamersGate currently has the game available for $9.95, while steam is selling it for $8.99 for a limited time. That seems like a ridiculously low price. The game unlocks on Steam in a couple of hours, so check out the screens and trailer to see if they make your heart sing as much as they did mine.

Inside Lacrosse College Lacrosse 2010 hit the Indie Games channel. While it does not feature actual, licensed college lacrosse teams, it does have the title sponsorship of the sport's top magazine in the United States. The game costs 400 Microsoft points, and lets you choose from 60 teams (or create your own side) in single-play action or in a simulated season of up to 14 games with a two-round championship. It features Xbox Live and LAN support, stats tracking and more.

"In the 12 years we've been publishing Inside Lacrosse, there is one topic that's been addressed in letters to the editor, probably more than all the other individual topics combined: When is someone going to produce a lacrosse video game?" Bob Carpenter, the Inside Lacrosse founder, said in a statement announcing the game. "Producing a multi-million dollar game just isn't going to happen for a sport our size, so this Indie format – particularly when it can be played online against others – is the way to go."

The game is the product of a year's worth of development begun by Dundee, Scotland studio Triple B Games and Carlo Sunseri, a Pittsburgh-area businessman and lacrosse coach. College Lacrosse 2010.

B&H Publishing Group has put together "Bible Navigator X" for the Xbox 360. Unlike the Gideons, they're not giving it out for free. It'll run you 400 points. Yeah? Well, the God I believe in isn't short of Microsoft Points, mister ...

According to Media Bistro, Aaron Linne, B&H's executive director of digital marketing, said:

The Xbox isn't just secular entertainment anymore. We can use technology that other people developed to study Scriptures through a new medium. Some people are just more comfortable with a controller in their hands than a book.

The version used is the Holman Christian Standard Bible. I'm not sure how that one differs, but then, I was raised in a part of the country where there literally are bumper stickers that say "If It's Not King James, It's Not Real Bible." So if you drive that truck I saw on I-40 in Burke County, this probably won't appeal to you.

Who's reviewing this? Totilo talked about "XBLA Chasers" and this qualifies, so I volunteer him!

The Bible on Your Xbox [Media Bistro via Destructoid]

I took a look at the virtual pumpkin carving sim not too long before Halloween and liked what I saw. So I'm glad to see its done well enough for itself to make the top 10 purchased Indie Games on Xbox Live.

In total, three Halloween-themed games made top slots on the Indie list. Besides Pumpkin Chop, Halloween HD made the cut at number eight and I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 held the number two spot. With a name like that, I can understand how it did so well — I don't even need to play it.

Sadly, though, Halloween is over. So I won't expect to see Pumpkin Chop on anyone's top 10 'til next year at least. But if you've got a copy, I guess you could practice your design skills for next year's Kotaku Pumpkin Patch.

LIVE Activity for week of Oct. 26th [Major Nelson]

College LaCrosse 2010 is on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel and, yeah, yeah, my smirking lede aside, a team sports title on that service definitely deserves some recognition. It carries the sponsorship of Inside Lacrosse magazine, but it does not, however, feature actual universities - for obvious licensing reasons. But some team colors do look familiar. See the video below.

The game costs 800 Microsoft points. Unfortunately, the roster editor only allows you to change players' names to "Seth," "Trevor" or "Landon."*

College LaCrosse 2010 [Site]

* - This is not a fact, it is a cheap-shot.

For game enthusiasts who may find themselves in the greater Los Angeles area, you'll be lucky enough to have access to indie game exhibitions for a nominal entrance fee. That means more than two dozen selected independent games, all of which will be on hand at the Wonderful World of Art Gallery, Culver Hotel Mezzanine and Gregg Fleishman Gallery daily from 10 AM to 7 PM.

Also attending this year's IndieCade will be game development luminaries such as Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, Will Wright, Henry Jenkins, Jenova Chen and many, many more. Some will even give thrilling keynote speeches! Hearing those in real-time might cost you a little more.

More information on IndieCade 2009 is available at the official site. I'll be there. Will you?

IndieCade 2009 [Official Site]

It won't be long now before the Zune HD is swamped with indie game titles, thanks to these new extensions freely available for XNA Game Studio 3.1. The new extensions add the ability to target and develop for the Zune HD, support for the device's touch screen controls, and accelerometer support. The post suggests that aside from adjusting controls, porting over games should be relatively easy.

So the developers have the tools to create the games, but there's still no word on a distribution channel in which they can peddle their wares. It can't be long in coming, however, making me wonder if I should add the shiny music player to my growing collection of shiny music players.

XNA Game Studio 3.1 Zune Extensions [XNA Creators Club Forums thanks Epsicode!]

If you're having difficult answering the question "What are you playing this weekend?" here's a list of what you could be playing for mere pennies on the dime. Steam's "Weekend Deal" features no less than ten of the top indie games from the past year, including Audiosurf, Blueberry Garden, Braid, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Darwinia, Everyday Shooter, Gish, Mr. Robot, The Path and World of Goo all for just $29.99 USD. Insane! I paid fifteen bucks for Braid alone!

If that's simply too much game for too much value for you to handle, Direct2Drive is similarly blowing out indie games, with the Best of Indie bundle. That features Zeno Clash, Defense Grid: The Awakening, Democracy 2, The Path and Cogs for just $17.75 USD. Bonkers, really.

Don't less these offers pass you by. Web servers are standing by to take your credit card information then send you data packets bursting with fun. Act now!

Best of Indie Bundle [D2D]
Indie Sale [Steam]

The contest invites both professional and non-professional game developers to submit betas and pitches, which will be judged by officials from the AIAS. The Challenge is open to submissions from July 14 through October 1, 2009. Twelve finalists chosen by the AIAS will have their games shown at the AIAS's annual Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain (D.I.C.E.) Summit. The grand prize winner in both the professional and non-professional categories will receive $100,000. In total, contest winners could win up to $300,000 in prize money and scholarships.

But indie games aren't about the money, right? The real reason anyone would want to get in on this contest is to get the attention of big name game publishers like Sony, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Capcom, Microsoft, NAMCO/Bandai, THQ and Ubisoft. According to the Challenge press release, winners will score meetings with these companies so that "competitors [can] receive valuable input and have the opportunity to open up commercial avenues for their games."

Or, you know, you could just enter the Challenge if you need something to put on your application to SMU's Guildhall. It's one of the largest graduate-level game development programs in the country — and with the economy the way it is, now is a good time to go back to school.

Check out the contest site here.

Goodbye Xbox Live Community Games, and hello Xbox Live Indie Games. The name is being changed in response to community feedback, in order to increase understanding and promote....here, just read:

The launch of XNA Game Studio 3.1 begins the process of renaming Xbox LIVE Community Games to Xbox LIVE Indie Games. We're starting the communication about this transition with you – our incredible Creators. With your help hopefully this name change (along with other new features such as User Ratings!) will increase understanding and discoverability of your games! Late July, when we update Creators Club Online, we will begin revealing the name change to the Consumer side of our business. We believe this name better represents the independent spirit of XNA Game Studio gaming and creations!

I for one think the new name is a huge improvement. Now we can simply call them Xbox Indies now and folks will know what we are referring to, instead of having to spell out Xbox Live Community Games every time someone releases a particularly interesting massager.

XNA Game Studio 3.1 is here! [XNA Creators Club - Thanks Nick!]

The grand prize of $2,500 went to Daniel Bryner, Bradley Johnson and Chris Webb who managed to create Lava Ball on Wild Pocket's new 3D engine. How they did this with only so much coffee and cookies available at the event is nothing short of gross admirable dedication.

Lava Ball has players rolling a metal ball using W, A, S, D keys to move across bouncing platforms that rocket your ball over a pit of lava. It's actually pretty addictive, if you can get Wild Pocket's site to stop eating your browser long enough to try it.

The other two entries that scored prizes didn't seem to have it as together as Lava Ball, which is probably why they didn't win the grand prize. Save the Boy is a Boom Blox-ish clone that has spiffy music and fugly character models while Bumper Bash! has the most annoying music ever and the simplest gameplay.

And if just now you're thinking "Wow, some of the winning games look like crap," I'd like to see you do better in 48 24 hours. No, seriously, I would.

Check 'em out, if you dare. Fair warning that the game hosting site doesn't seem to like Firefox.

My bad, the whole event is 48 hours, the duration for coding your game is 24.

The game consists of a series of mazes that you navigate using the directional keys to move and the mouse to look around. Unlike that old Microsoft Windows screensaver, these puzzles actually have an endpoint – though it may take a few tries before you can figure out the right path to get there.

What wins me over is the soothing score and utterly uncomplicated gameplay. Whoever said indie games need to be clever, pretentious brain-stretchers needs to be punched in the face.

Check out Rock-Paper-Shotgun's review of it and hit up IndieGames to get Where for free.

Where [Rock-Paper-Shotgun]

Freeware Game Pick: Where [IndieGames]

Singled out for praise in a feature titled "If Jackson Pollock Were a Gamer" are De Blob, World of Goo, Echochrome and Flower, coming out soon on PSN.

"Independent, low-budget movies changed Hollywood. Niche cable shows revolutionized television. Digital music toppled record labels. But for decades, console video games have remained overwhelmingly corporate," New York mag writes. The drop in development costs and the opportunities presented by digital distribution have given rise to art houses "unshackled from the blockbuster-or-bust mentality of the big corporations," and free to deliver "a new golden age of smart, beautiful, and really weird games."

High praise indeed. Chalk down another one for the serious discussion of video games as an art form.

The New Art Form: If Jackson Pollock Were a Gamer [New York Magazine]

His case is largely for the indie community, and anyone seeking growth — so it's not a challenge to the top publishers to take us all back to the Gil Amelio days when they actually wrote more than one AAA title for the Mac in a year. Or five. But at first blush, one can see shared values in the indie and Linux communities (and to some extent in MacOS), so the idea that they represent an extremely profitable five percent, given the right game, is not a real stretch.

Rosen, in his company's official blog (picked up by Ars Technica) uses Wolfire's game Lugaru as the lesson. According to their sales stats, the game's Linux and MacOS versions account for 50 percent of its overall sales. "Not all five percents are created equal," he says. For the right game, hee has a point.

Developing for MacOS and Linux has a word-of-mouth effect disproportionate to what you get with a game written for Windows, Rosen says. Maybe the spread isn't as large, because of the numbers involved, but within those communities, that kind of endorsement can really drive sales. Lugaru's went up 122 percent thanks to his decision to develop for those languages, he says.

"Having a Linux build meant coverage on Slashdot," he says. "A lot of people heard about and supported Lugaru simply because we had a Linux build. ... A small minority of your users will go crazy with your game and spread it all over the place. On the Internet, all it takes is one thread on a popular forum, and you've literally got hundreds or thousands of new visitors. Basically, a small amount of your users can make a huge difference for you."

Two barriers stop the Linux/MacOS conversation before it gets started — the perception that it's harder to develop on those two platforms, and the idea that they're so unprofitable that only unusual up-front guarantees make it worthwhile.

"There is the famous case of Half-Life 2. Valve wanted a $1 million dollar advance on the Mac OS X version. No Mac developer has this kind of cash to front, and Apple decided not to foot the bill either, perhaps on principle of the unusual request. There is no technical reason that Mac users can't have Half-Life 2—it's simply messed up business development."

It's a reasonable argument if you keep it in its proper context — indie gaming, where developers with a good idea, their own agenda, and where Steam distribution serves their purposes just fine, can see some growth and throw Mac and Linux gamers a bone. No one's suggesting this overrides the financial prerogatives of a mammoth like Electronic Arts or Activision. But it is something to consider.

Indie Dev Suggests Peers Should Support OS X, Linux Gaming [Ars Technica]
Why You Should Support MacOS and Linux [Wolfire Blog]

Gambit Game Lab, a collaboration of developers at MIT and Singapore, have developed AudiOdyssey as a proof-of-concept that games can be created for the disabled to enjoy, too. (You might remember Gambit as the winner of the grand prize of Microsoft's Dream-Build-Play game development contest.)

Gambit's mission is to develop games for a global market, rather than build for one language/culture and translate it elsewhere. One MIT designer got to thinking about markets in something other than a geographic sense, and wondered if a game could be built to include both blind and sighted gamers.

Thus AudiOdyssey, which served as Eitan Glinert's master's degree thesis at MIT. In it, one performs as a club DJ (named Vinyl Scorcher) who matches clapping beats to pump up the crowd and bring more clubbers onto the dance floor. A Wiimote or a keyboard is used to match the beats — hear one to your right, swing the Wiimote in that direction, or hit the right arrow, for example. The game was engineered to deliver the same experience for a gamer regardless of sight.

“Choosing music as our central game theme works perfectly since both sighted and nonsighted users are equally familiar with music,” Mr. Glinert said. You can download the game here.

The New York Times' Education Life section mentioned it among 22 other student innovations in the past year. Since graduation he's gone on to found Fire Hose Games, in Cambridge, Mass., to develop video games with a positive social impact.

Update: Eitan wrote to provide a link to his thesis, and says he'd be happy for any devs — pro, amateur, dabblers, whomever — in the Kotaku community to take a look at it in case they might find it useful for their own efforts.

Bright Ideas: See Me, Hear Me, a Video Game for the Blind [New York Times, thanks Sensai-N]
The Human Controller: Usability and Accessibility in Video Game Interfaces [Eitan Glinert's master's degree thesis at MIT]

People have been having hissy fits because because some of the downloadable titles of the year (e.g., Braid) weren't on the list, but take note:

The games picked are the editors' choice, and span PC free-to-play titles released during 2008's calendar year to date, with a mixture of Flash and Windows executable games. (Many other fine pay-to-download games for console and PC that might be considered 'indie' were ranked in the Top 5 Downloadable Games earlier this week.)

There are some nice titles on there if you haven't been keeping up with the free indie game scene; the other lists are worth a looksee too. I always like seeing the yearend roundups, even if I don't agree with all of their picks.

Gamasutra's Best Of 2008: Top 5 Indie Games [Gamasutra]

It's a pretty melancholy day today, and The Majesty of Colors just hit me in the right spot.

The Majesty of Colors [Kongregate via auntie pixelante]