The "Good, Bad and Ugly" Of PSN Downloadable Games

The major consoles' digital download platforms have the potential to offer new avenues for indie game developers and innovative titles like flOw and N+, to name just a few. But in a new GameSetWatch opinion column, Gamasutra editor and Independent Games Festival chairman Simon Carless compiles information from Sony execs and developers like Everyday Shooter's Jon Mak and Capcom's Christian Svensson to note "some of the issues that are buried" regarding PlayStation Network in particular for indie development.

It appears - from both Capcom's evidence and speaking to developers off the record - that there are significant process issues to getting games released worldwide, or even getting games released in the U.S., with slow response times and confused procedure at times.

Opinion: PlayStation Network & Downloadable Games - The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly [GameSetWatch]

Nifflas Releases Knytt Nano Minigames

You may know indie developer Nicklas "Nifflas" Nygren for his clean, surreal and critically-acclaimed platformers Within a Deep Forest, Knytt and Knytt Stories. Nifflas fans already know that his next project, Night Game, is in the works and not finished yet — but on his site's forums, the developer's just released a Knytt minigame pack called Knytt Nano to tide eager fans over until the next release.

If you haven't checked out any of Nifflas' games, I highly recommend them — they're characterized by simple gameplay, sprawling nonlinear worlds, cute creatures and neat ambient music and sound (which he often designs himself, to boot). You'll have to hit the forums for Knytt Nano, but the other titles are available for free download from Nifflas' site. [Thanks Anonymous, who tipped me off via Sexy Videogameland!]

The Last Canopy Wins Casual Gameplay Contest

JayisGames announced the winner of the Casual Gameplay Design Competition, number five, with more than $10,000 in cash and prizes handed out to indie Flash game developers.

Top of the heap was The Last Canopy, a shump which makes up for sketchy art direction with addictive play and the ability to absorb an enemies attack.

HIt the jump for the full list of winners and make sure to visit Jay Is to check out the games.

And the Winner Is... [JayIsGames]

Positech's Cliff Harris On Making the Indie Model Work

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a great interview up with Cliff Harris of Positech Games (Democracy, Kudos, Rock Legend, etc.); it's chock full of interesting bits on his games, the makeup of the indie side of the industry, and how you can make money with indie development (the horror!):

I'm unusual because I'm genuinely interested in the business side of being an indie gamer. I love the whole entrepreneur thing, the setting the right price, getting expenses down and sales up, etc. My fave TV show is Dragon's Den for fucks sake. The vast majority of indie devs are programmers, and the C++ DNA seems to interfere with the DNA that makes people enjoy marketing or business. Most indies who make no money do very little marketing or promotion, because it terrifies them ... Marketing is a big deal. I know that Introversion put a lot of effort into marketing, and you can see the results there too. If you really are the typical shy semi-autistic sunlight-hating game coder, you need to get an outgoing biz/marketing guy to work with.

It's an interesting (and sensible) look at indie development; it's refreshing to read people being bluntly honest and not going off about the moral superiority of those who develop games for purely altruistic reasons.

Deserved Kudos: Positech's Cliff Harris Interview [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

'PvP: Portal vs. Passage'

Microsoft Responds to Royalties Cut Rumor

Earlier this morning we ran a well-sourced rumor about Microsoft halving the royalties they pay to indie developers for the games they create for the Xbox Live Arcade.

Microsoft just responded to our request for comment with this statement:

Xbox LIVE Arcade has long been known as the premier destination for digitally distributed original and classic games - making it a very appealing platform for game developers. We don't disclose details on our business contracts, but what we can tell you is that we work closely with all of our partners to provide the Xbox 360 community with the best entertainment possible while making publishing a title on XBLA an attractive prospect.

While not really a confirmation nor a denial, it does sound as if they are reacting to what our multiple indie developer sources told us was fact. We will be meeting with some of the XBLA indie development folks with Microsoft later today and will make sure to follow up with them about this issue.

Stay tuned.

Microsoft Cuts Indie Royalties in Half [Kotaku]

WiiWare: Smaller Companies Welcome

Hot Flashes: Presidential Paintball Has You Shooting the Candidates

It's about time someone's come up with a video game that lets the presidential hopefuls face off in a forum befitting their partisan manner: Paintball. Presidential Paintball pits your candidate of choice against the other presidential hopefuls in a rolling paintball match that takes place in and around the White House. While the game is fairly easy to beat, I never get tired of watching a huge-headed Clinton or Romney roll across the floor. Oddly enough, when I got to McCain, he kept standing up and shooting at the floor by his feet. Statement or coding mistake?

The Independent Games Festival today announced the dozen finalists for the Student Showcase. The 12 finalists will all receive a $500 travel stipend to help them get to GDC 2008 in San Francisco and the winner of the IGF Best Student Game Award will receive a $2,500 cash prize.

All of the games will also be shown off at the IGF Pavillion during the show. Here's the list:

Crayon Physics Deluxe, by Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia, Finland
Empyreal Nocturne, by DigiPen Institute of Technology
Gesundheit!, by Sheridan Institute
Galaxy Scraper, by Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
Mayhem Intergalactic, by The Australian National University
Poesysteme, by ENJMIN, France
Polarity, by Carnegie Mellon University
Ruckblende, by Uni Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Synaesthete, by DigiPen Institute of Technology
The Misadventures Of P.B. Winterbottom, by University of Southern California- School of Cinematic Arts- Interactive Media Program
Flipside (Half-Life 2 Modification), by National Academy of Digital, Interactive Entertainment, Denmark
Foamzilla (Unreal Tournament 2004 Modification), by Vancouver Film School

Among the short-list is a Half-Life 2 mod called Flipside which has me very intriguied. I haven't had a chance to play it yet... mostly because I'm sitting in a van writing this on an energy-efficient, but graphicically-crap laptop. But I plan to check it out in the new year just as soon as I get back home. You should do the same, same with the rest of these finalists. Remember, these are the sorts of games that can sing on the Playstation Network or Xbox Live Arcade.

Indie Picks #4, #5 - Blackwell Unbound, Chocolate Castle

My final set of indie game picks as Guest Editor follow my previous ones - Professor Fizzwizzle & The Molten Mystery, Venture Arctic and Deadly Rooms Of Death.

However, this time two under-publicized independent games for the benefit of the Kotaku audience are squished together in one post (so they appear before my time as Guest Editor is up). They're dissimilarly wonderful, so check them out:

Firstly, Wadjet Eye Games recently released Blackwell Unbound, a classic point and click-style adventure game in the LucasArts/Sierra style (pictured) in which "...embittered medium Lauren Blackwell and her spirit guide Joey Mallone" solve mysterious New York crimes. It's the follow-up to the critically acclaimed Blackwell Legacy, and it's the kind of game that deserves a second look. So do so.

Secondly, a chap from New Zealand called Joseph White has been doing quirky, individualistic puzzle-ish games for a few years now, and his most recent effort is called Chocolate Castle. As is explained, it's "...a tricky sliding block puzzle game. The object of each puzzle is to arrange blocks of chocolate into large connected regions so that they can then be consumed by a team of hungry animals." The art style is adorable and the gameplay twistedly interesting - thumbs up.

And that ends my look at indie games. Don't forget - if you like stuff like this, go check out the usual suspects when it comes to major indie game blogs - particularly TIGSource, Indygamer, and GameTunnel - you won't be disappointed.

Blackwell Unbound [Wadjet Eye Games]
Chocolate Castle [Lexaloffle]

Five Indie Picks: #3 - Professor Fizzwizzle & The Molten Mystery

The third of my Guest Editor-impelled picks for great indie games you might have missed, following Venture Arctic and Deadly Rooms Of Death, is for Grubby Games' indie/casual puzzle title Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery.

Created by the small Canadian-based studio, the puzzle-based 2D platform game was recently reviewed on indie site GameTunnel, who explain handily of the gameplay: "Your goal is simply to guide the kindly professor and inventor through levels from one teleporter to another teleporter. Along the way you'll need to ensure that the Professor can cross all manner of gaps and blockades and dangerous bat-bots that bar his passage."

So it's logic puzzles in a cute family-friendly manner? Yep, and you just don't see this kind of thing from the mainstream any more - also worth noting there's a prequel and the Katamari vs. Breakout fun of Fizzball also in the company's line-up - neet.

Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery [Grubby Games]

Cactus Interviewed On Indie Game Smartness

There are all kinds of interesting game creators hanging out in the 'crazy indie freeware' bucket, and Cactus is just one of those.

He makes odd retro-looking freeware shoot-em-ups and action titles, such as the well-reviewed 'Clean Asia', many available for download on the Cactus Software website, and Tim at Indygamer has interviewed him on his new projects.

He's pretty much the definition of bedroom programmer, though: "'I'd very much like to create a game for XBLA, WiiWare or PSN. Dunno how I'd go about getting there, though. I don't even own a nextgen console." There needs to be more of a talent pickup program to console for some of these talented but tiny developers, already.

Cactus Interview [Independent Gaming]

Five Indie Picks: #2 - Pocketwatch's Venture Arctic

After the first of this week's Indie Picks fingered the bizarrely named (but rather smart) Deadly Rooms Of Death, the second pick for worthy, but underpublicized PC independent game goes to Pocketwatch Games' PC ecological sim Venture Arctic.

Andy Schatz's one-man band effort, a sequel to the similarly interesting Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa, acts as a sort of Al Gore-ish god game, in which "...the player controls the forces of earth, sun, wind, and water to bring summer and winter to polar bears, orcas, and more." You need to manipulate nature, and the modeling of ecosystems has brought a unique angle to the regular 'tycoon'-style game.

Most of all, you can "...experiment with how animal relationships change when the weather is unseasonably warm or when a species is knocked out of the food chain... strategies for success revolve around understanding the authentic animal behaviors and the challenges of ecosystem stewardship." So, Douglas Adams' 'Last Chance To See' meets Black & White, then? Fascinating.

Venture Arctic: Official Website [Pocketwatch Games]

Five Indie Picks: #1 - Deadly Rooms Of Death

Those who can remember back to June and Kotaku's call for votes for Crecente's Game Club might recall some odd games (including the eventually-picked Mr. Robot) hanging out on the list.

Well, I'm afraid that was my doing, and as Chairman of the Independent Games Festival, I get to see a whole heck of a lot of interesting indie games. So I'm picking one per day that deserves a wider audience on Kotaku and 'a little respect', as Erasure and Rodney Dangerfield both noted.

Firstly, let's focus on Caravel's turn-based PC dungeon crawler, the Deadly Rooms Of Death series. It's like almost nothing else out there - we profiled it on GameSetWatch earlier this year, calling it "the most inventive pure puzzle-solving computer game ever written". The latest iteration, The City Beneath, came out earlier this year. If you like thinking and computer games (see: Portal), you will like D.R.O.D. - go check it.

D.R.O.D. homepage [Caravel Games]

I'm a huge fan of Everyday Shooter, but if you read Kotaku you probably already know that. I first played it last year while judging for the Independent Games Festival and was blown away. I've since played through the entire game on my PS3 debug and remain blown away, mostly because the Sony folks were smart enough not to touch the game in any real way when it made the jump from PC to PS3.

I happened to run into Jonathan Mak, the creator of the game, on a Tokyo train bound for TGS last month. We got into a long discussion about his game, his surprise success and how he finds inspiration. He's a pretty interesting guy and the first developer I've met who's really struck me as an "artist."

Today he posted a slew of pictures and comments on the official Playstation blog to illustrate his life as a "one-man developing crew." I think they only highlights my first impressions of him.

Personality Profile: Everyday Shooter Creator, Jonathan Mak [PS Blog]