flowers-of-error posts

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.

TOJam, otherwise known as The Toronto Independent Game Development Jam, is a three day annual marathon of game-making, intended to make developers create a reasonably polished and executed game. They must create the concept, graphics, and code entirely during the three day period. Needless to say, it's like an endurance trial for game developers. The third annual TOJam occurred two months ago, and the games were released for general consumption just last month. After savoring all of the delights of the competition (and trust us, there is a lot of great content), we have decided on our favorites!

Talk about a fusion of game styles. Smacking very much of Every Extend, flowers of error has been released from the confines of TOJam 2008 and out into the freedom of the real world. To play the game, you must drag the bombs in each wave to destroy the enemies. When eneies die, they drop little letters that add to a story at the top of the screen. Everything about the game screams "experimental", from the strangely affecting music, to the trippy graphics, to the story being built as you continue to play the game. It's another brilliant game from the minds of Jonathon Mak (better known for Everyday Shooter) and Pekko Koskinen and is well worth playing.

We talked about only a measly one of the TOJam 2008 games, and that was the strange A Game About Bouncing. Now, however, we can talk about them all! Since TOJam 2008 has wrapped up, all of the excellent entries have been released to the internet at large for free. They range from experimental, to arcade, to strategy. They are all definitely worth a try for those looking for a new game to play, and some of them (such as the aforementioned A Game About Bouncing or Jonathon Mak's Flowers of Error) radiate top-notch quality. Take a look over on the TOJam 2008 site for the games, information, and downloads.

[Via IndieGames]