Jason Rohrer's recursive shooter, which I must pick up at some point.

In which Laura Parker looks at what "mainstream" games can learn from the type of success indie titles such as Limbo have had, with contributions from Nels Anderson, Manveer Heir, and - would you believe it - me. It's a really nice feature; I hope Laura can get more of this sort of stuff published on Gamespot, because it deserves a bigger audience than being buried on the staff blog.

"This ghastly indie-art-game prose: it’s writing that tries to communicate ideas in the same way that game mechanics communicate ideas. Such writing offers allusions and suggestions, hints for the player to assemble, but it shies away from specifics or a through-line plot. Characters often go unnamed, or are named something thuddingly symbolic, or are Everyman. Theme is presented heavy-handedly (you wouldn’t want players to miss it!) and via the most cliché images. Expect frequent references to light and dark, cold and loneliness, broken hearts and shattered dreams. Memories may get a look in. Also death. It’s like reading a collage of the manuscripts sent to a high school poetry contest right after one of the students got in a fatal crash." Emily is right, and it's something I hate about certain games: just how *self-consciously* "indie" they are.

"That's why guys like Tarn Adams or Vic Davis are a thousand times more interesting. They're making games, not DLC or marketing or anything else. A game, to them, isn't the launching pad. It's the rocket."

"The Economist has published a deliberately weird 'heroes of New Labour', to mark the end of a political decade that they dominated politically. But I think that New Labour's pantheon can only be truly understood in terms of the band that they modelled themselves on: Blur."

"A computer mystery/romance set five minutes into the future of 1988." Looks jolly good.

If you're anything like me, you probably never go near the "Indie Games" tab on Live marketplace. Which is a shame: there's some great stuff amongst all the chaff there. This post points to some good stuff from last year; Leave Home is cracking, as is "I maed a gam3..." (don't be put off by the title).

"Abstract shooter with dynamic difficulty and metaphorical explosions. Fixed length game session. Score points. Increase difficulty. Split shots. Leave Home..." 240MSP, for your Xbox 360, and it's out now. That's, like £1.50 or something. It's bloody marvellous; great soundtrack, tough difficulty, lovely use of the analogue trigger, super-pretty in high-def. No excuse not to buy it, really.

Gorgeous retro-styled, genuinely-3D space combat strategy game for PC and (hurrah!) Xbox 360 Indie Games. Love the jaunty, Jetsons-y typefaces, the gentle piano music as combat plays out, the turn structure, and the hints at what's to come in the preview video. (Although: why anyone would make ships with weak bottoms (as opposed to bottoms & tops) in a genuinely 3D game seems strange. Gravity Bone was delightful, so this could be great; will buy it as soon as it's out.

IGF Finalists are announced. That's a not-half-bad list.

"Let's Go Find El Dorado is a physics-based remake of Oregon Trail which plays a bit like Excite Bike." Seriously, do you need to know any more to click the link?

Nice interview; some particularly good stuff on generative music, and a generation that grew up on iMuse wanting to do more with game music than just churn out Red Book Aduio.

Farbs quit 2K Australia. This is his resignation note. It's fun, and not in any way mean.

Even if it's got a long way to go, there's so much promise and potential here - and it's interesting to see how refined some of the puzzle ideas are. And: mind-bending in the way the best puzzle games are.

This is very beautiful, especially the 4-colour CGA cave, although Brandon's commentary makes me realise there's a generation of kids who don't know what "CGA" is, or why you'd care about graphics modes.

"LSL is a 2-D arena shooter featuring a robot that falls in love with several lovely female robots each with her own unique abilities and atmosphere... The longer our heroes stay together, the more their relationship will evolve, making them stronger; but this increases the difficulty of the game, too. When they "break up," the enemies are cleared, but so is the score multiplier. Throughout the game, the robot recalls memories of a love before..." This sounds - and looks - delightful.

Defend Moscow are a friend's new band, and their single "Manifesto" is out very, very soon; big, eighties-influenced pop, with slightly filthy bass and that classic boy/girl harmony thing going on. Hoping for good things for this, so into the links it goes!

Almost Atari 2600-era platforming, but with a couple of (big) twists. Compulsive, and cross-platform, it's almost definitely worth an hour of your day.

It's bonkers. Tiny pixel art, incredible procedural animation for limbs, massive menus, it's like Worms and Soldner (was it Soldner?) and loads of other things all rolled into one. And they're still working on it.

All 226 entrants for the 2009 IGF. Heard of - and played - some of these, but many are unknown. Exciting to see the list, though, if only to be reminded that there's this many games being made and funded independently, at the large and small scale.

"Just like the inspirations it cites, carry helps explore why we fight, and what happens to the people we send to war, all through the rules. The mechanics of the game work as well as the prose of The Things They Carried or the script of Full Metal Jacket in exploring life in the line of fire..." Sounds really interesting - games' unique ability is to convey meaning through systems, rather than prose, and it looks like carry really embraces that.

"a blog for game designers". Some great content on here.

Ambrosia release the OSX version of Introversion's Defcon. Cross-platform multiplayer, too. It's downloading as I type - can't wait...

Report from GDC '06 on what it takes to make a game for XBLA - and how much support Microsoft will give you in the process.