We have to admit that if we were more juvenile, the title of this game would garner an unprecedented amount of jokes. But since we are mature, the only thing that intrigues us about Sticky Hands is the gameplay. Controlled entirely with the mouse, you must climb along surfaces by guiding your hands to stick to them.

This isn't all, though, as there are turrets and other baddies that seek to knock you off by attacking the hand that is on the ground. Not to worry. You can deflect bullets and kill enemies with your free hand! This competitor in the Third 3 Hours poppenkast competition certainly has some meat to it, and it's a concept that could definitely see further execution.

Have you ever wanted to annoy someone without them actually getting mad at you? Now's your chance. An entry in the Third 3 Hours poppenkast competition, BOB and the Fly is all about driving a simple man named BOB crazy by buzzing around his head. He will try and squish you with claps, though, so it's not all that easy. The biggest thing we had to get used to was the controls scheme and how you moved places. Make sure you switch directions at the middle of an arc and you'll do fine in the realm of navigation.

It's always a shame when a game with so much promise doesn't end up being completed. 10800 Zombies is an entry in the Third 3 Hours poppenkast competition, and it has a lot of promise. Featuring incredibly simple graphics and gameplay, it shows a lot of promise, especially if something procedural had been put into place. Instead it's just a game that has immensely satisfying deaths and no true ending. There are about 4 levels to play through, each one only taking a minute or two. Here's hoping the developer does something more with it.

Welcome to a new regular feature here on Big Download. Since indie competitions are such a large part of the independent community, ignoring them would be very foolish. There's lots of undiscovered talent out there as well as established masters, and indie competitions are the best way to bring them out of the woodwork. They are held everywhere from TIGSource to poppenkast, and always bring together lots of great talent.

Indiedaze takes the best entries from a recently finished indie competition and showcases what we think are the best of the best. Sometimes they coincide with what the original competition's top three were, sometimes they are completely different. In any case, they are always the games we liked most, and worth all the attention you can give them. A recently finished competition is the TIGSource Procedural Generation Competition, having finished up around a month ago. Since such a long time has passed, the games have had a chance to be played and decisions have had a chance to be weighed. So here is our top three and honorable mentions that were just so good that they couldn't be passed up.

Talk about a name that reminds us of one of the best puzzle games to ever be released for PC. Fantastic Contraption (which is also a synonym of Incredible Machine) is a physics-based game in the same sort of genre as Crayon Physics, Armadillo Run, and Tower of Goo. Your goal is to get a block to the goal. You do so by placing various wheels and rods to make a contraption that can propel your block into the goal. It's elegant, well done, and best of all, can be played anywhere with an internet connection, as it is a browser game. If you love physics games, you'll adore Fantastic Contraption.

[Via TIGSource]

We do love a good sniping game. In the arcades, one of our favorite games was Silent Scope (and by extension, its sequels). It's with great pleasure, then, that we play Super Sniper. A new game by Radnom, it's part of the third 3 Hours poppenkast competition, meaning that the entire game was created within 3 hours. It's extremely simple and small, only taking a few minutes to complete. For a 3 hour project, though, it's absolutely amazing. Since it only clocks in at 2 mb, it won't make your HDD weep.

[Via IndieGames]

There's not a lot of games quite like Choon. The only other game to have the player digging for treasure (as far as we know) is the excellent browser-based Motherload. In Motherload, however, you don't fight off enemies trying to destroy you. A TOJam 2008 competitor, Choon has you digging through a mountain of cheese with your laser to find the right cheese. Fighting off (or squishing) rats, finding a path, and various other nuances await you. On top of this, the graphics and sound are superb. It's not persistant, but it's great if you just feel like digging and not stopping. And sometimes that's all one feels like.

We've run across some extremely strange concepts for games, and Wire Robo is easily up there in terms of just plain bizarre. You play a robot who must swing around in space using your grappling head. Not only that, but you are controlled by a sleeping girl inside said head. It's not all fine and dandy, though. You must destroy platforms scattered around space be converting your angular momentum into a blast of energy (in other words, change directions). It's strange, but has some beautiful pixel art and charming sound, and the concept is very fun, if weird.

[Via TIGSource]

Ha55ii, perhaps most famous for his browser-based physics sandbox game Powder Game, has released another physics game. This time, though, it's an action RPG called Stick Ranger where you control four characters that you can completely customize however you want. Thankfully, there's no such thing as permadeath in this game.

The characters all react with exaggerated physics and things such as arrows and fireballs travel like you would expect them to. You move them around by dragging them into position, although they react physically, so you can drag and throw them if you so feel like. It's an interesting control scheme and gimmick. The gameplay itself is pretty much the same as any action RPG. You go up to stuff, hack it with your sword (or shoot it with arrows, fireballs, whatever) until you kill it. WHen you go up a level, you improve attributes. Simple.

[Via IndieGames]

There's a particular kind of game which isn't exactly common, and that's the rotating kind. If you've ever played the original Sonic the Hedgehog, you know what we are talking about. That bonus level! Well, Rotavision is another game in that vein, made by one man in the Game Maker community. You must rotate the world to get your ball to the end of the level, all the while avoiding various traps and objects. It's simple, but the simplest concepts tend to be the most endearing. The graphics are also very delightfully retro, which means they are made of bright colors and pixels.

We here at Big Download love indie games. From telling you about them, playing them, or offering downloads for them, we are all about helping lesser-known developers get their name out into the world. Each week on Saturday, we'll give you the Indie Wrap-up, a collection of all the indie news stories and features during the previous week.

There was no big features this week, unfortunately. Most of our staff was gone at E3, after all! Just Freeware Friday was this week. However, the TOJam 2008 competition recently wrapped up, so there's a ton of games that were released this week! Dwarf Fortress also finally got the first update in the Army Arc, adding battles and wars to the historical records of the game.

Features

Freeware Friday: Off-Road Velociraptor Safari James Murff takes Freeware Friday to a new place: browser games.

Okay, so we lied. We had to make another pun, because this one was just too easy. In the TOJam 2008 competitor Cheese Blaster Extreme, you play a man with a large gun whose goal it is to destroy an army of cheese. You can see how our awful puns relate! The game itself is fairly simple, consisting of just mouse control and your goal of killing the oncoming hordes of cheese. You can control a tank along with your regular guy. The character is no pushover either, being armed to the teeth. The graphics and sound are both phenomenal, and the gameplay is just simple arena action, making this a great game to chill with.

We apologize for that pun up there. We just couldn't resist it. We promise it will never happen again. The game itself, Cheese Beats, is a TOJam 2008 competitor with lots of violence and absolutely no puns. We promise! The goal of the game is to beat the cheese against a surface to kill it. After killing the cheese, you must place it on a delicious cracker. The gameplay itself is simple, if silly, but where Cheese Beats really shines in the graphics. They remind us of Don Hertzfeld's Rejected short film, among other various excellent pieces of traditional animation. The game is small download with no install, so have fun.

Much like another game we talked about that was a part of the TIGsource Procedural Generation Competition, Cowgirl and Gospelboy ["Sue"] is about surfing along a line while doing some sweet tricks. Unlike sin(surfing) though, Gospelboy dynamically generates the line based on the music. You can either go with the default 2 minute songs or add your own by editing the songs.all file. It's not so much a game as a fun way to relax to your music, almost as if it's a musical screensaver. This TOJam 2008 competitor was also designed and coded by the TOJam founder Nelson Yu. It's a fairly lightweight install, so enjoy!