An Untitled Story has some dodge-heavy boss fights, and some items which you can only earn by going through areas without getting hit.

Got a three year old Dell Inspiron. It's... quirky. The laptop speakers emit a barely-audible, insanity-inducing, high-pitched whine *unless* Bluetooth is on. Every graphics driver I've used loves to either crash or get sluggish after an hour of play, and if I ever were to put the computer on my lap, the bottom plate would probably be hot enough to render me infertile.

Reminiscent of the game SCALE.

Love the time dilation mechanic!

Is the ending that I fall forever after leaving the playfield containing all previous levels or was that a glitch?

1048 after 2 tries.

Nice aesthetics. I really like how each of the three states has a different visual and aural feel to them.

Name's a reference to Squidi's White Noise concept?

That game with the green astronaut that solved math problems.

Math Blaster?

Ten seconds of gameplay in a five minute game? I can't wait to see the Kongregate comments for this.

Only disappointment is that the dialogue didn't seem to change when you're intentionally trying to lose (though I only played through the first quarter the second time).

Whenever the giraffe isn't on the screen, the other characters should ask, "Where's Giraffey?"

Make a puddle of radioactive goo. Stepping in it causes you to grow an extra head, but does not change the game's mechanics at all.

The main character is named Patrick Masterson. He is a 35-year-old painter from Brooklyn, New York with a slight lisp, a moderate fear of heights, and an embarrassing tendency to fall in love at first sight. His first love was a pig-tailed redhead by the name of Shirley, with whom he shared but a single kiss before her father moved to Alaska to pursue his dream of being a professional whaler, taking his only daughter along with him. Patrick's father was a veterinarian, though Patrick did not share his love of animals.  When he was eight years old, Patrick had a pet dog, a ferocious Labrador called Smiles, who tragically died at the age of four after young Patrick fed her two bowls of chocolate. After that incident, Patrick refused to let himself get emotionally attached to any other animal, domestic or wild, though he did cry when seeing Bambi for the first time at the age of 26. While he does not like to admit it to himself, he also fears attachment to other people. No relationship of his has lasted more than a month, and he has few acquaintances who would call him a close friend. He earns money for his small apartment through contract design work. His art is drab, but functional. Patrick wants to make a living selling oil paintings of skylines and concrete structures, but he isn't thick skinned enough to put his art before a large audience, due to deep seated insecurities. He is beginning to think that, perhaps, this dream will never come true.

Interesting style. Looking forward to seeing how it plays. 

• The first indie game in the world based on Shakespeare's "Hamlet".

After a five second google search, I found this. Sorry. 

Interesting how people are complaining about the lack of an explicit story, since the endgame seems to be a statement on how much a player had to use his imagination to fill in the narrative gaps when playing old games. When everything is represented by symbolic blocks of color, it takes more work to impose even the simple fiction of a spaceman exploring a red planet and collecting gems.

Aw, man. That sucks. I was looking forward to seeing the results, especially as a possible counterpoint to the IGF awards.

I really hope I didn't break their spirits after submitting this for kicks.

Worth every second of the wait. Amazing job, everyone!

Anyone want to rip apart the path or fatale? (or marriage, or any other one?)

jwaap made a hilarious Graveyard parody called The Gutter.

My PCG entry Apophenia was an abstract artgame generator that makes minigames with mechanics similar to The Marriage regardless of whatever title or abstract concept you specify.

Edit: And who could forget Movius' Weißer Punkt in der Schwarzlücke? A game consisting of nothing more than a white dot on a black background, and a lengthy artist's statement.

Now that it's popular to bash art games I too have stopped making art games and instead started making games that bash art games.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/raitendo/passage-in-10-seconds

I actually like Passage, but that made me laugh.

Terms and conditions aren't even out yet. It's only this press release atm: http://www.activision.com/ROOT/media/sweepstakes/indie_game/Indie%20Game%20Competition%20FINAL%20-%20WEB.pdf

Guessing people (like me) are being snarky since it's Activision and all.

Meta game: predict what generic "innovation" their next franchise entries will have, then submit that as a pitch. Document the entire process publicly. There's probably a clause saying you can't sue them if they steal your idea, but it won't prevent you from starting a viral smear campaign. Bonus points if you're an adorable little kid who can cry on cue.

How's 'bout we send in all 371 KNP games for the upcoming Pirate Kart II: Kart Harder?

My first games were Choose-Your-Own-Adventure games "programmed" in Hyperstudio, this early Apple equivalent to Powerpoint, around 4th or 5th grade. One was about Mickey Mouse trying to take over the world by mind-controlling Godzilla. Another was about an invasion of mutant killer potatoes. The latter actually had an honest-to-goodness adventure game bit where I simultated a Lucasarts-style inventory puzzle using nothing but slide changes. Design was really wonky (chewing wintergreen lifesavers makes sparks. pepper looks like gunpowder. sparks + gunpowder = explosion, right?) and unfair (7 buttons. One correct sequence. Guess a number from 1 to 7 factorial without hints). Good times. They're probably lost forever, unless my elementary school was so underfunded that they're still using decade old computers.

First "programmed" game was some CYOA Calvin and Hobbes fangame about Hamster Huey made in QBasic that has since been lost in both my hard drive and my memory.

I do still have a copy of my first Klik & Play game from the late 90s...

Eh, why not?
http://www.formspring.me/Noyb

Nice style. The look of fear on the coffee cups' faces is hilarious! Deeper than it seems at the start, since most enemies will own you if you try to rush them head on, and they don't even shoot/explode if you don't get close to them. I like the little touches, like turning the score red when you get 666. Awesome music, especially on the title screen.

I'm currently 5th on the leaderboards with a mediocre run, which means a lot of people aren't giving this a good try. I wanted to try for level 4, but 50 seconds without challenge is a lot to ask the player to repeat every time you return to level 1.

Odd that audience choice doesn't let us vote for non-finalists that might have been overlooked...

Also, Today I Die has this description:

Step away from the computer! Welcome to Mightier, the action puzzler that pulls you away from the screen to solve puzzles by hand with pencil and paper.

Using a color printer and web camera, the game prints puzzle pages for you to draw on, then captures the results when you're done.

What purpose do boobs serve in a fighting game?  Only to titilate.

Ah, the horny watchmaker argument.