jonathon-mak posts

Independent Minds aims to take various aspects of indie gaming and present them to you each week. From game round-ups to design elements to interviews with prominent members of the scene, it's an exploration of what makes indie gaming great as well as what makes someone an indie.

It's a phenomenon normally only seen in amateur communities, among people that do not have the drudgery of a nine-to-five job in their field. The freelancers and visionaries, the next great creators of the future. From writing, to art, to movie-making, competitions are not so much the realm of professional-level creation but rather for those that can crank out a prototype, an early draft, or a short movie in a single weekend. For these competitions, none seems to be as interesting as those created by the independent game development company.

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]