An upcoming 2D adventure-platformer by Gabriel Verdon, The Archer reminds me a lot of Swords & Sworcery, something that is, by no means, a bad thing. Scheduled for release sometime in the third quarter of 2012, The Archer already looks pretty damn spiffy. I can only imagine how the finished product will look like. I have a feeling it will be awesome.

But if you're not willing to wait till then to discover if the game will be worthy of your attention, why not bookmark Verdon's daily development log? It's filled with a ton of details and screenshots.

Official website can be found here.

In the latest postings over the last seven days, Gamasutra's jobs board plays host to roles in every major discipline, including opportunities at Rovio, BackBone Entertainment, WayForward Technologies, and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across Gamasutra's network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused alternative gaming news, independent games, and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted this week include:

Rovio Entertainment Ltd: Lead Game Programmer:
"Rovio is an entertainment media company based in Finland, and the creator of the globally successful Angry Birds franchise. Rovio was founded in 2003 as a mobile game development studio, and the company has developed several award-winning titles for various mobile platforms.

In 2009, Rovio released Angry Birds, a casual puzzle game for touchscreen smartphones that became a worldwide phenomenon from 2010 onwards. The Angry Birds games have enjoyed continuing worldwide chart success, and the franchise has since expanded to a variety of new business areas. Rovio is rapidly expanding its activities in broadcast media, merchandising, publishing and services."

Have you ever looked at Team Fortress and thought, 'Man, this would make an awesome side-scrolling beat-em-up sort of thing.'? No? Neither have I but I'm glad that someone did. Demaker extraordinaire Eric Ruth recently released Team Fortress Arcade, a wonderfully retro-looking side-scroller. Featuring all nine classes, it supports four-player co-operative play. Needless to say, it also looks rather brilliant in a pixelated sort of way.

Unfortunately, there won't be any hats. But there might just be something better. Game modes. Difficulty Challenges. PvP. Online Co-opt. Those features are all in the works and you will not have to pay a dime for it.

Have I mentioned the game is free? Because it is. Go check it out now. And bring a friend or three.

(Source: PixiGeek via Idealsoft Blog)

Zoo Entertainment's online independent gaming community IndiePub has announced the development of its own publishing platform, that will focus solely on indie gaming titles.

Launching later this year, the IndiePub publishing platform will be an indies-only service, and aims to be "Steam for indies."

The cross-platform service will integrate social networking capabilities, and aims to sell iOS, Android, Windows, Mac and Flash titles.

IndiePub VP David Reynolds explained, "The new indiePub marketplace will give indie developers a way to tap into the growing multi-billion dollar digital download market and make money with their games by combining innovative crowd-sourced marketing with unique developer-controlled distribution tools."

"Instead of a site telling them how, when and for how much to sell their games, indiePub will enable publishers to independently control these without limiting distribution to only one or two platforms. We're working to make indiePub run on any device that can download apps."

IndiePub is not the only upcoming indie gaming distribution service. IndieCity was announced earlier this year from Blitz Games Studios.

I wouldn't usually post a trailer for a game without any real idea regarding what the game is about, but with so much effort obviously thrown into this one for Tongue Tied, it would be wrong of me not to. Tongue Tied is an iOS game coming sometime in the next few weeks.

The official site mentions physics-based gameplay, and obstacles to avoid. That could describe a plethora of iPhone titles, so really it's not much to go on. But a proper gameplay trailer is apparently on the way very soon, so we'll simply have to watch out for that.

Today's collection of independent game links includes more indie game previews, a couple of development updates, and the usual round-up of interviews with developers from around the 'net. (image source).

DIYgamer: Terry Cavanagh Interview
"Continuing on with our Eurogamer Expo coverage, we've got quite the large build up of indie interviews. To kick things off, we decided to start with none other than Terry Cavanagh to talk about his new game At A Distance."

GameScenes: Paolo Pedercini Interview
"GameScenes is conducting a series of interviews with artists, critics, curators, gallery owners operating in the field of Game Art, as part of our ongoing investigation of the social history of this fascinating artworld. The conversation between Mathias Jansson and Paolo Pedercini took place in August 2011 via email."

Roguelike Radio: Episode 5, Frozen Depths (audio)
"Welcome to this week's episode of Roguelike Radio. Episode 5 focuses discussion on Frozen Depths, a cold-themed roguelike by Glowie. Talking this week are Darren Grey, Andrew Doull and Ido Yehieli."

A Jumps B Shoots: PAX 2011 Special, Day 1
"A Jumps B Shoots is on-hand at 2011′s Penny Arcade Expo, talking with the creators of Spelunky, Snapshot, A Flipping Good Time and Atom Zombie Smasher."

[In this revealing postmortem of The Adventures of Shuggy, Smudged Cat Games' David Johnston reveals how working with the best of intentions and inspiration can have a bad commercial result when the cards fall in the wrong places creatively and business-wise.]

In spite of being somewhat a cult hit, TV series Twin Peaks hasn't spawned all too many video game tie-ins. In fact, outside of Jak Locke's newly released Black Lodge, I don't think that are any.

Available for the PC and the Mac, Black Lodge was created in the style of an Atari 2600 game. As some have pointed out, it's a somewhat unusual choice of visual styles given that the Atari predates Twin Peaks but hey, judging from some videos out there, it seems to work pretty well. I haven't checked it out myself just yet so I can't offer much of an opinion as to how it actually plays but if you've been hankering for a Twin Peaks game, your prayers have been answered. Maybe.

Download the game here.

If you are under-aged, easily perturbed by the risque, do not enjoy choose-your-own-adventure games, or, in any way, have issues with words like 'lesbian dating sim with BDSM elements', you should probably stop here. The Case of the Vanishing Entree is not for you.

For everyone else, Anna Anthropy's visceral offering will likely be an interesting albeit uncomfortable shock to the system. It is explicit. It is dirty. It is very, very graphic. In a textual sort of way, of course. There are no graphics here. You won't have to worry about someone asking you why you're staring at random work-inappropriate images. It's a game about dating and carnal delights that was written by 'people who actually understand human desire and interaction'.

I had found The Case of the Vanishing Entree earlier today on my twitter feed, courtesy of Gnome's Lair. Somewhat skeptical of the whole affair but intrigued, nonetheless, I had checked it out. I think I'm glad I did. I'm not sure. I just found the second ending and I'm rather freaked out by the surprise twists.

That said, feel free to check it out. Bear in mind, it's somewhat NSFW and even though there are no graphics, you probably do not want to be caught playing this in the office.

The Case of the Vanishing Entree can be found here.