Though its reach may frequently exceed its grasp, The World Is in Your Hand is such an ambitious and interesting game (especially considering that it was originally crafted in less than 48 hours) that it bears repeated plays. Don't get the impression that developer Jack LeHamster's execution is entirely flawed; on the contrary, the silhouetted graphics are beautiful, and the gameplay is satisfying more often than not. The lack of precise controls can get frustrating, and the puzzles can be on the obscure side, but what can we expect from a one-button exploration-puzzle adventure?

Bladeless, a Ludum Dare 26 jam entry by kidevil, really captures the swiftness and brutality of what samurai duels must have been like (or at least as they are in chanbara flicks). This is a game of tactics, observation, and reaction. By paying attention to the position of your opponent's sword as he draws it, you can predict his attack and block it, then counter with your own blade. That's the rhythm of the gameplay: approach an enemy, wait for his thrust or slash, block it, return a devastating counter, repeat until one of you is dead.

Developer Codrer tweeted us about their tunnel battlefield, RTS and god game Iubes coming to Windows, which is described as mix of Populous and Age of Empires. The intelligent cubes (iubes, get it?) gather food, seek materials, fight and defend all by themselves. You just tell them where and what to build. You can speed up or slow down time to make the game progress. However, you must be careful of when the Iubes die. I think this is why "we hate them all," as the game says.

Tokyo Game Show officials have announced several ways for independent developers to showcase at the September 19th-22nd event, including its annual Sense of Wonder Night (SOWN) experimental session and a new Indie Game Showcase.

The Experimental Gameplay Workshop-inspired SOWN is now accepting free entries for its 2013 session. Antichamber, Incredipede, Q.U.B.E., Eufloria, and several other critically acclaimed, innovative titles have made an appearance in previous years. Instructions for SOWN entry are available on the main website, and the submission form is available here.

The Indie Game Showcase offers two different spaces, the bigger of which is for its business days. Pricing ranges from roughly $200 for one day to $1,000 for four days, and space is limited to 50 games a day. Applications are available here.

Mulled is a simple puzzle game made by HakoGames (the people behind Reunion game). The goal in Mulled is to make all white balls go in the golden holes. It sounds simple but it is super challenging. The game provide more than 200 levels and more than 90 badges and adorable music and different backgrounds.

Indie developer azurenimbus (André Camacho) has proven himself to be a master of minimalism with games such as Microscopia, Linescape, Oneway, and escuro. So when the theme of minimalism was chosen for Ludum Dare 26, I was sure that he was going to come up with something special. What approach did he take to make a game even more minimalist than his usual work? In A Trigger Darkly, his Ludum Dare jam entry, he did away with graphics entirely.

Abbey Games' gorgeous 2D god game Reus is now available, allowing us mere mortals to create vibrant colonies from dying planets. Thanks to helpful tutorials, I easily learned first how to control a water giant to bring forth the ocean, the origin of life. From there, other giants could build forests, deserts, and mountains and nourish over 100 plants, animals and minerals... or bring it all down. Reus is about maintaining balance, after all.

I recently had the pleasure of spending some time with a preview of the upcoming co-op focused, twin-stick shooter: Assault Android Cactus by developer Witch Beam - a three man team from Brisbane, Australia. Although you may have seen a few games with a similar premise (in a broad sense it feels like a modernized version of Smash TV with a number of twists), the execution and general polish of presentation in Assault Android Cactus set it apart from many others for me. Players will need to shoot through wave after wave of enemy robots which get progressively more chaotic while keeping kill chains up. Players must also adapt to frequently changing and dynamic environments, or even other quirks like the lights going out. If that wasn't enough, every few levels leads up to a huge boss battle which may contain some bullet-hell style dodging madness.

Terminally Ill, a game made by Sebastian Lague for Ludum Dare 26 (his first time participating), has one of the darkest set-ups I've ever seen for a collection of minigames. The framing story is that you are paralyzed and dying, but your doctors have hooked you up to a computer terminal in order to stimulate brain activity. The theory is that if your mind stays engaged, you'll be able to stave off brain death for a few more minutes. The way you do this is by playing games.

[by Daniel Cook]

The good people in my life come from all sorts of walks of life.  Some women, some boys, some rich, some poor, some gay, some transgender, some young, some old, some confused, some depressed, some wildly liberal and some staunchly conservative. Some embrace labels. Some can't abide labels. They sport different cultures, colors, nose shapes, hair types, sizes and everyone single one of them has a bizarre personal history full of dreams, joys and misery.   

I'd like all of them to play my games.