With just a handful of years under his game development belt, 24 year old Jonatan Söderström — better known by his handle Cactus — has already become something of a… Read the rest of the article: Cactus flowers: an intro to the indie game mind warps of Jonatan Söderström

Electroplankton [Toshio Iwai, DSiWare] This week's best and most important release is actually over four years old, but has bubbled back to the surface in a new way, as multimedia… Read the rest of the article: Please release me: Electroplankton, Bit.Trips and littler LittleBigPlanet

The true magic of LittleBigPlanet — the PS3 debut from former Lionhead designers at then upstart Media Molecule — wasn't fully understood until the game was in our collective hands… Read the rest of the article: Everything but the Game: The Art Behind the Stitches of LittleBigPlanet

It's a sure sign it's gearing up to the holidays when the games start pouring in thick and fast, and this week saw the high profile release of two just… Read the rest of the article: Please release me: Mario, MinMe & Mini Squadrons, DigiDrives & Captain Successors

For most, there will have been only one game released this week (and that most includes a number of major publishers, who, gun-shy from the competition, have pushed their own… Read the rest of the article: Please release me: Modern Warfare, Spore Islands, and Half Minute Heroes

The story of Tim Langdell's relentless and darkly fascinating trademark fight against any and all users of the name 'Edge' has been quietly storming under the surface for the better… Read the rest of the article: The Edge Case: Indies Rally To Raise Copyfight Awareness

Adam 'Atomic' Saltman's one-button action-opus Canabalt (covered earlier in a previous column) will likely go down as 2009's biggest viral surprise — to no less even than Saltsman himself, who… Read the rest of the article: The Running Man: behind the sketchbooks of Adam Saltsman's Canabalt

Though for die-hard RPG nuts it'll have been a red letter week with the release of Bioware's Dragon Age: Origins, it hasn't been enough to wean me off my daily… Read the rest of the article: Please release me: Left 4 an IGF onslaught

As with my earlier column on the new vanguard and returning classic franchises that are keeping point and click adventures alive a decade or more past their prime, there's one… Read the rest of the article: The EXAMINE'd Life: Keeping Interactive Fiction Alive

With gaming's current trend toward the nostalgic taking us on Bit.Trips and Extreme invasions, and with indies giving us de-made versions of modern classics, it more or less follows logically… Read the rest of the article: 15 Dots Enough: Alaskan Military School's low-res game demake videos

Were it any other week I might be lamenting the lack of high profile retail releases, but as it happens, both the release of a demo for Valve's upcoming Left… Read the rest of the article: Please release me: Borderlands and Bomberlands, Hook Champ and Earth Dragons

San Francisco's recent Alternative Press Expo was the last place I expected to turn up videogames, but it took less than a few minutes of circulating amongst the self-published sprawl… Read the rest of the article: What the Alternative Press Expo Taught Me About Games

Though it's nearly impossible to find a tidy way to sum the work of LucasArts adventure vet and Double Fine head Tim Schafer — with a catalog that ranges from… Read the rest of the article: Thrashing, mad, metal: the art of Double Fine's Brütal Legend

This week has seen a number of excellent and much publicized and high profile releases — Rockstar's conversion of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars from DS to PSP and Gearbox's… Read the rest of the article: Please release me: Rock Band iPhone, Small Worlds, Eufloria, LostWinds, Space Invaders Extreme

Even in their inauspicious mobile-focused beginnings, it was clear from the start that Toronto indie Cabybara Games had a keen eye for pushing the visual boundaries on whatever platform they… Read the rest of the article: Like Ghibli Barfing Rainbows: the Art and Motion of Capybara's Critter Crunch

As alluded to last week with the release of Amanita's hand-drawn opus Machinarium, the era of the point and click adventure — which reached its pinnacle throughout the 90s thanks… Read the rest of the article: Keeping Point-and-Click Adventures Alive

This week's great games

Machinarium: point & click!

Game devs take control of chaos

Art and Motion of The Beatles