Proteus is a beautiful game by Ed Key with no goals except admiring natural features and exploring a procedurally generated island [some spoilers in videos], modeled loosely after the open land near Key's parents' home in Cumbria. The game also features "reactively mixed" ambient electronic music (think 'chiptune Boards of Canada') composed by David Kanaga, which changes and shifts according to your physical context. Though only in v0.1, it has already won critical accolades, as well as an award for The Most Amazing Indie Game at A MAZE 2012.
posted by p3on on May 31, 2012 - 50 comments

"Hi, my name’s Terry Cavanagh [previously], and I’m an indie game developer. I started this blog in March 2012 to talk about the sort of freeware games that I find interesting, and to share those games with more people. Thank you for reading!" [more inside]
posted by davidjmcgee on Apr 10, 2012 - 15 comments

Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack is the 10th anniversary revision of Mechaton, a fast-paced table-top game of giant robot combat. Giant robots made of LEGO! [more inside]
posted by Idler King on Mar 21, 2012 - 12 comments

Gamasutra's Top 10 Indie Games of 2011 [more inside]
posted by OverlappingElvis on Dec 16, 2011 - 19 comments

Treasure Adventure Game is a free 2D game of exploration on the high seas from independent developer Robit Studios. Dig, sail, fight, and dive across dozens of islands in search of a lost treasure. Download link here.
posted by codacorolla on Dec 14, 2011 - 4 comments

8bit Killer is an interpretation of an archetypal 8bit sidescroller within a 2.5 dimensional FPS engine. It's short, fun, and free. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla on Dec 8, 2011 - 9 comments

Shoot First is a fast paced top down shooter with randomly generated levels, a kickin soundtrack, and a Spelunky style sense of humor. (via Pixel Prospector)
posted by The Devil Tesla on Feb 27, 2011 - 15 comments

The Top Ten Experimental Freeware Games of 2010
posted by empath on Jan 1, 2011 - 28 comments

Biome Terrain Mod is a modification for Minecraft that allows tweaking the world generation parameters for the regions in the game. The Minecraft Forums are running a contest to find cool generation settings. Some of the results are quite striking.... [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Dec 17, 2010 - 94 comments

The second Humble Indie Bundle just got put up for sale. This time, the bundle contains Braid, Cortex Command, Machinarium, Osmos and Revenge of the Titans - all DRM free. You decide what you want to pay for the games, and as with the previous bundle, you can choose to let part of your payment go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and/or the Child's Play Charity. [more inside]
posted by ymgve on Dec 14, 2010 - 66 comments

Tabletop roleplaying has always had a long history of self publishing. The internet has certainly made it easy for people to share their games for free, though admittedly presentation is improving. Beyond the free models, a number of publishers have started coming up with alternative for-profit business models - The Shadow of Yesterday followed the Cory Doctorow model, releasing the whole game for free online, while charging for hardcopies. John Wick's Houses of the Blooded sells very cheap PDFs and full price books. Greg Stolze has led the charge in Ransom Model rpg sales. Following the "Whatever Price You Like" model of World of Goo and other videogames, Bliss Stage & Polaris are doing the same with PDFs. Shock: Human Contact has already pulled in over $7,000 on Kickstarter, before the game has even been published.
posted by yeloson on Nov 23, 2010 - 22 comments

The indie music and indie games scenes collide in a Brooklyn bar.
posted by empath on Aug 22, 2010 - 17 comments

Minecraft (previously discussed here) is a building game being developed by Notch. The developer (singular - it's mostly a one man show) has been busy since the last time the game was posted. Before, the focus was mainly creative, cooperative building. The recent direction the game has taken is a sprawling, single player survival game, where the player must harvest resources to build defenses against a hostile world. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla on Jul 10, 2010 - 12 comments

Hydorah is a delicious shump inspired by the likes of "Gradius, Castlevania or R-Type, but also from other classics treated worse by the time: Turrican, Enforcer, Space Manbow, Hellfire, Guardian, Hydefos, Armalyte and many others...". Also, "There is a single dificulty level, based on the 80's standards." Translation: try not to cry on your keyboard. [Windows] [via Destructoid]
posted by threetoed on Jun 7, 2010 - 35 comments

2D BOY made around $100,000 in a week. That’s $50,000 each for writing a blog post about a game they finished a year ago. By letting people pay whatever they wanted. 2D Boy stirred up a lot of discussion (previously) about game piracy when they used online scoreboard data to estimate an 82% piracy rate for their fantastic indie game World of Goo (previously). For World of Goo's first birthday, they decided to try the Radiohead model and let people buy the game for any price they choose. Now they've released extensive data about the results. Short version? "A huge success," even though the most commonly chosen price was only a penny. [more inside]
posted by straight on Oct 20, 2009 - 64 comments

Hell is Other People [more inside]
posted by flatluigi on Oct 19, 2009 - 61 comments

flixel is an ActionScript 3 framework abstracted from Adam Atomic's raster-based games, including FATHOM (previously) and Gravity Hook. [more inside]
posted by archagon on Jun 5, 2009 - 33 comments

Spelunky is a (Windows-only) game that blends roguelike elements with a platform game reminiscent of La Mulana or the original Spelunker. Add this to the pile of fantastic indie platformers, I guess. [via]
posted by sonic meat machine on Dec 31, 2008 - 8 comments

Nearly a month ago jbickers made a post that mentioned the TIGsource Demakes competition. The competition is over, and the winners have been announced. All of these are playable. Most are for Windows, except for those that are Flash or something else:
1. Soundless Mountain II (Atari 2600 Silent Hill) (from previous post)
2. Gang Garrison II (Kyntt Stories-like Team Fortress 2, complete with multiplayer)
3. Aquarium (NES-ish Aquaria)
4. Little Girl in Underland (Soviet McGee's Alice)
5. House Globe (Homeworld)
6. S.T.A.C.K.E.R. (Nuclear Tetris)
7. Squish
(Crush is a PSP game where the player can switch the world between a 2D and 3D representation. Squish is a game in which the player switches between a 2D and a 1D representation. See for yourself.) 8. (tie) Fillauth and Advanced Set The Rope On Fire Cartridge (an Intellivision-like remake of this, previously mentioned)
9. Sexy Seaside Vollyball (NSFW, pixelated breasts) (Sinclair Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Vollyball)
10. Macarena of the Missing (A thematically-appropriate demake of Limbo of the Lost)

Lots more after the jump! [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Oct 7, 2008 - 29 comments

Muslim Massacre. Satire or just for shock value? You decide. Windows only.
posted by pancreas on Sep 9, 2008 - 57 comments

Do you enjoy classic 2D platformers? Then boy, are you in luck! The indie game community is thriving, and a good majority of its games are exactly that. I've spent many hours playing these unique, beautiful, and often exceptional projects, and there's quite a few - more than I can count on my fingers! - that could stand toe-to-toe with the finest contemporary games. Inside is a list of some of the greatest indie platformers, based on community recommendations and my own experience. Enjoy! [more inside]
posted by archagon on Jun 24, 2008 - 48 comments

Alex Adventure and Space Barnacle are both freeware platformers that have small cult followings but have possibly been overlooked by a wider audience.
posted by pancreas on Jan 2, 2008 - 11 comments

2007 Independent Games Festival Finalists. Most have downloadable demo and full versions (on the PC, anyway). Share and enjoy.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken on Jan 29, 2007 - 3 comments

Why aren't there any indie video games: "Indie rock fans may prefer somewhat muddy sound over some lushly orchestrated, producer-massaged score; indie film fans may prefer quirky, low-budget titles over big-budget special FX extravaganzas; but in gaming, we have no indie aesthetic, no group of people (of any size at least) who prize independent vision and creativity over production values."
posted by JPowers on May 26, 2006 - 29 comments

Publishers must die, claims Greg Costikyan, industry insider. But can he win out in the end, or is his princess in another castle? It seems that Mr. Costikyan is putting his money where his mouth is. I'm pulling the trigger. At this point, I have no funding, other than a little money myself; nothing ready to launch, either. But I do have a partner, the offered support of some other companies, a clear sense of what I need to accomplish in the next few months, and a draft (not a final one) of a business plan and financials. This is, of course, terrifying. Mr. Costikyan mentioned previously here and here. [via] [personal opinion inside]
posted by shmegegge on Sep 28, 2005 - 26 comments