Today several indie developers have teamed up to bring you five great games at the low price of whatever you want to pay. Why would these businesses do this? For charity, of course!

Dubbed The Humble Indie Bundle, the deal, which nabs you DRM-free versions of World of Goo, Gish, Aquaria, Lugaru HD, and Penumbra Overture, sees all the proceeds being split between the developers, Penny Arcade’s Child’s Play charity, and digital rights advocate the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The cool feature of this deal is that you actually get to select where you money goes. You can choose to have it all go to the developers, all to the charity, all to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or split anyway amongst the three. Read more… »

I should preface this review with the stipulation that I absolutely adore the original Mount & Blade. It provided a unique hands-off style of story telling not seen in modern games. Rather than handing the player a narrative to follow, M&B gave gamers the tools to make their own narratives. The only other game I’ve seen do this is Sid Meier’s Pirates!. That being said, let me say that I love Mount & Blade: Warband.

For those of you who missed out on the first game, allow me to explain the basic premise. The M&B games are medieval action/adventure titles mixed with RPG elements and a dash of real-time strategy. You start off as a lone soldier, equipped with basic armor, weapons and a horse. From here you are free to do anything you want. You can go to local villages and raise a militia, fight off bandits and brigands, or go to a city and fight in tournaments. Read more… »

It’s no secret I’m fond of indie games. That’s why I’m sort of bummed about this announcement because I’m not a PS3 owner. However, for all of you lucky dogs out there who are, Mediatonic announced today that their new platformer Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess will be available on the Playstation Network on April 22nd. It’ll be available on both the PS3 and the PSP (hooray!),  with a price point of only $5.99.

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To be honest, I really haven’t the slightest idea what you are meant to do in 4FOURTHS. From the trailer, it looks like a chaotic mess of weirdness. Yet it somehow takes the ‘best trailer I’ve seen in a long time‘ award.

See for yourself after the jump.

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What happens when you mix one part Gears of War, two parts Team Fortress 2, and one part Left 4 Dead together with a sprinkling of Wild West? Why, Lead & Gold, of course. Fatshark’s flagship product is now available for pre-order discount for PC users, though console players will have to wait a bit longer. In addition, if you pre-order now, you’ll get beta access to the game!

Lead & Gold is a unique third person shooter set in the Wild West, with four classes to choose from, all bringing unique benefits to the team. The Blaster, The Deputy, The Gunslinger, and The Trapper all work together so you have a demolitions expert, a scout, a bread and butter shooter, and a sniper, practically guaranteeing you won’t get tired of any style of play.

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This week is absolutely rife with indie news, and this little bit is really drool-worthy, believe me. Until now, indie games that have any chance of making it in the main stream have to be featured on Steam, Impulse, or some other digital distribution platform for gamers to indulge. Generally speaking it’s been a sweet deal for indies, the only problem is being unable to control content.

ModDB.com hopes to remedy this problem by introducing Desura, the first digital distribution platform designed solely for indie games and the gamers who love them. Right now it’s unclear if Desura will feature a client like Steam or Impulse, or if it will be a website only ordeal like Direct2Drive, but I think it’s safe to say indie gamers and their developers should be pretty excited.

Why you ask? Hit the jump for more features and why you should be as excited about Desura as I am.

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The independent game market has exploded over the last few years, largely due to more accessible means of distribution, such as Xbox LIVE and the Playstation Network. In fact, many of the games developed for these platforms owe their huge success to the exposure garnered from their IGF wins.

Even still, the Independent Games Festival goes significantly unnoticed by the gaming community at large, despite numbers continually growing for the San Francisco based event. In fact, this year’s IGF is the largest to date and with good reason: the entries for this year are simply amazing in design, concept, and execution.

If you haven’t been following the nominations and news that have peppered gaming websites since this January, read on to learn more about the five finalists that will likely be gracing your console of choice soon enough.

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As the IGF looms closer, more and more details are being revealed about the finalists. Today, The EA Partners initiative announced that they’ll be publishing two indie games, both from successful developers. The first is Klei Entertainment’s Shank, and the second is Hothead Games’ Deathspank. Shank is a current IGF finalist in the Visual Art Excellence category.

Both games will be making their way to the Xbox LIVE Arcade and the Playstation Network, with Shank also making its debut on the PC. It’s not surprising that EA wanted to pick up these great games, as Klei Entertainment’s flagship title, Eets! was highly successful on both the PC and the Xbox LIVE arcade.
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It’s shaping up to be an exciting year for indie games as the Independent Games Festival grows closer. Today added to that excitement when indie developer Playdead announced that their flagship title, Limbo, would be coming to the Xbox LIVE Arcade this summer. The announcement was made by Playdead’s CEO Dino Patti.

Limbo is a current IGF finalist, competing in both the Technical Excellent and Visual art categories. In addition, a playable version of the game will be presented to GDC attendees, so if you’re lucky enough to be heading to San Francisco, you’ll get a sneak peek at this great game.

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This is potentially exciting stuff. A group of the biggest names in independent development have banded together to create the Indie Fund – a theoretical honey pot for fledgling independent developers to dip into to get their own projects off the ground.

Given the huge amount of independent games that never see the light of day because of the unwillingness of publishers to take a risk, or the lack of capital for the developer to go it alone, this could be a great leap forward for the whole Indie scene.

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The finalists for the Independent Games Festival D2D Vision Award have been announced, and sponsor Direct2Drive is giving you something to get excited about by offering previous IGF finalists in a package together for a mere $29.95. The Indie Bundle features a wide variety of indie games from many different genres, many of them considered cult classics.

This is the third iteration of the Indie Bundle and features such classics as Gish, The Maw, World of Goo, and Machinarium. It’s a great collection of indie games that does a great job of displaying just what indie game developers have to offer. For a complete list of games, hit the jump.
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