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Do you have a favorite independently-developed game that’s come out this year? IndieDB’s awards, now in their second year, help you show your appreciation.

2011 has been a great year for games, both in the mainstream and independent sectors. The Spike TV VGAs have the mainstream covered with a mostly predictable list of nominees, but what about more niche, less high-profile titles?

The IndieDB Indie of the Year Awards, now in their second year and sponsored by Crytek, seek to celebrate the flourishing indie community. The first phase of the awards is running for the next 10 days or so, allowing players to vote for their favorite games via IndieDB. Following this, the nominees will be whittled down until a winner is eventually crowned in the New Year.

So whether you think Minecraft deserves to win yet more awards now it’s been officially released into its non-beta form, Bastion deserves special praise or Cthulhu Saves the World needs to be appreciated by more people, get voting to make sure your favorite title makes the cut.

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Looking for some pinball action in the palm of your hand? Zen Studios brings its flipper expertise to the iOS platform.

Zen Studios’ pinball titles on PSN and Xbox Live Arcade are among the best pinball simulations that have ever been released. From today, you’re also able to play flipper on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad thanks to the new release of Zen Pinball as a free iOS app.

Unlike Pinball FX2 on Xbox Live Arcade, which is free to download but requires you to pay for tables, Zen Pinball for iOS includes one table for free, with an additional two Marvel-themed challenges available for $1.99 each and more to come soon. The included table, Sorcerer’s Lair, features the high production values that Zen’s titles are known for — slick, sharp visuals, an impressive soundtrack and plenty of things to do — assuming you’ve got the skills to flick your balls in the right places.

The game also features worldwide leaderboards via Game Center and OpenFeint as well as hotseat competitive play and friend challenges. True pinball geeks can also access an Operator’s Menu for each table, allowing them to tweak the performance of the game to their own needs, as well as track a comprehensive range of statistics.

Grab a copy for free now from the App Store.

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Square Enix recently licensed Epic’s Unreal Engine to create a new game. Speaking with Famitsu, the company has explained how it hopes to appeal to both West and East with the new title — haven’t we heard that before?

Square Enix’s last foray into an Unreal-powered RPG, The Last Remnant, met with mixed reviews.

Speaking with Famitsu (via 1up), Ryutaro Ichimura from Square Enix explained a few details regarding a new Unreal Engine-powered action RPG the company is working on.

The as-yet unnamed game is being designed “with the worldwide market in mind” but is not being specifically created as a game to appeal to Westerners alone. Rather, Ichimura hopes to “present a fun game to the entire world that only Japanese people like us can make.”

Ichimura also explained that the game would “certainly” incorporate some form of network play, and that the team was making an effort to ensure they made the “action” side of the game as good as the “RPG” side, which Square Enix is more experienced in.

This isn’t the first time Square Enix has made use of Epic’s engine, however — the last time was the somewhat weakly-received The Last Remnant, originally intended to “become a cornerstone for [Square Enix's] worldwide strategy” (source) and a previous, mostly unsuccessful attempt to woo Western gamers away from Blizzard, Bethesda and BioWare RPGs. The Last Remnant received a better reception in Japan than in the West, scoring a 38/40 from Famitsu, while we gave it three stars, contributing to its Metascore of 66.

“I think Japanese studios have a tendency to make these ‘good enough’ imitation backdrops when they’re making a game set outside of Japan,” said Ichimura. “We’re working closely with our overseas staff to keep this game from winding up that way. We’re not trying to push what we want to do on others — our approach is to gauge what gamers want right now and take that one step forward.”

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The publisher behind the renowned Sins of a Solar Empire series has made its first jump to consoles, with a title that seems somewhat out of character.

Stardock, publisher of meaty sci-fi 4X titles such as Sins of a Solar Empire and erstwhile owners of GameStop’s Impulse digital download service, probably isn’t a company you associate with colorful pixel art platformers. But this holiday season, that’s exactly what they’ve gone and released as their first foray into the console market.

Elfsquad7 is a side scrolling platform adventure featuring four player cooperative play and a suitably festive theme. Developed by one Scott Tykoski, it’s now available via the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace for the princely sum of 80 Microsoft Points, or one measly dollar for those of you who prefer to use real currencies.

“This is the perfect family holiday gaming experience,” said Tykoski. “Stardock’s successes with mainstream indie titles like The Political Machine over the past decade made them the perfect publishing partner for Elfsquad7. I’m excited the title is on the accessible Xbox Live Indie Channel for families everywhere this Christmas.”

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An upcoming independently-developed game features a superspy who evidently missed his calling as an electrician.

Looking for something a bit different from your stealth games? Check out the intriguing-looking new independent game Gunpoint. Casting players in the role of a superspy armed with a variety of gadgets (including jet-propelled pants), the game challenges players to break into a variety of secure buildings and steal all their secrets.

Heard it all before? Perhaps. That is, until you see some of the gadgets on offer. Besides the aforementioned rocket-powered pants, a key element of the game revolves around the use of a device known as the “Crosslink.” Using this device, it’s possible to rewire electronic devices, doors and lightswitches to work in ways other than that which they were originally designed for. For example, getting stuck behind an electronically-locked door with no key is no problem, because you can simply rewire the lightswitch to open the door instead. The video above shows some more mind-bendingly complex applications of this simple tool, too.

Alongside this rewiring action, a key combat mechanic revolves around grabbing enemies, flinging yourself through windows and landing on your foes to kill them. Thanks to your special trenchcoat, however, you can typically walk away from such falls, even as your uniformed nemeses lie battered and broken on the sidewalk.

The game is the brainchild of Tom Francis, who is a writer for PC Gamer in the UK. Art has been designed by John Roberts and Fabian van Dommelen, and Francis is currently looking for someone to produce music for the currently almost-silent game. Francis is also seeking feedback on whether or not people would be willing to pay money for the game — particularly as it becomes more and more ambitious.

Francis is aiming for a March 2012 release for the game. While you wait, you can check out the development blog here.

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Apparently it’s “retro day” today. inXile Entertainment and Konami have confirmed that Choplifter HD will be with us by the end of the year.

Computer! Game Of The Year!

What’s with all the nostalgia today? First the BBC Micro turns 30, then some enterprising young rapscallion comes up with a way to make four floppy drives sing and now Choplifter’s coming back?

Yes indeed, the ’80s hostage-grabbing Apple II hit — one of the few games to be born on home computer and then make the jump to the arcades rather than the other way around — is making a grand comeback thanks to developer inXile Entertainment. inXile has previously worked on a diverse array of titles including the 2004 remake of Bard’s Tale (itself returning soon) and the more recent Hunted: The Demon’s Forge.

Choplifter HD builds on the original by adding a variety of missions above and beyond its simple hostage-rescuing gameplay. Players have a selection of helicopters to take command of, each with different offensive capabilities. Ominously, a “very vocal” (read: annoying?) copilot is promised. Also, there will be zombies, unsurprisingly, proving that even classic games aren’t spared by the zombie outbreak that periodically infects the entire gaming industry.

Konami will be publishing Choplifter HD, and it will arrive on Xbox Live Arcade, PSN and PC next month for an as-yet unannounced price. Find out more here.

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What better way to pay tribute to Jonathan Coulton’s iconic end theme from the original Portal than by performing it using obsolete computer technology?

Performing pieces of music on ageing computer hardware is something which has grown in popularity in recent years. Back in 2008, UK filmmaker and artist James Houston produced this short film featuring a Radiohead song performed using scanners, printers, a ZX Spectrum and a bank of old hard drives. He might not have been the first to do it, but his video certainly popularized the concept to many.

Since then, we’ve seen a number of imitators using various pieces of antiquated technology to perform tunes, the latest of which is a bank of four floppy disk drives playing Jonathan Coulton’s Still Alive, also known as the ending theme from the original Portal.

Depressingly, some people from YouTube seem to be a bit shaky on what a “floppy drive” is, so for those of you who are upsettingly young, floppy drives were one of the original forms of removable storage. They’d often be used like USB sticks are now, only holding 720KB and 1.44MB of information in their most common forms. The drives that read them also made brilliant noises, which is what YouTube user Sammy1Am has taken advantage of here, using a Java application to control the drives as instruments through which a MIDI file can be played.

If all that means nothing to you, rest assured that this is most certainly not what floppy drives were designed for, but it’s awesome nonetheless.

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Paradox Interactive and Arrowhead Studios have released the latest addon campaign for chaotic co-op wizard ‘em up Magicka.

Magicka is great, because unlike most co-op games, you almost feel like you’re being actively encouraged to grief your buddies. If there’s no monsters around, how else are you going to “experiment” with a particular combination of magical elements other than by “accidentally” aiming at one of your teammates? Fortunately, there’s little to no penalty for death in Magicka — so long as at least one person is still standing and hasn’t splattered themself across the scenery, frozen themself to death or set themselves on fire while being electrocuted, you’ll be back in the game before you know it.

Today there’s a whole new campaign for you to giggle and grief your way through, and this time it comes with added insanity. The Magicka: The Stars are Left expansion pack is now live and available for $5.99, bringing with it a whole H.P. Lovecraft-themed co-op campaign alongside a revamped, improved and more efficient game engine — the latter being available to all players, not just those who pick up this latest DLC.

As with past Magicka expansions, not everyone in the multiplayer session has to have purchased the new DLC to take advantage of it. As long as the host has bought a valid copy of the DLC, friends will be able to play with them.

Check out Magicka and its DLC on Steam.

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The popular-in-the-UK, unknown-in-the-States microcomputer that gave us the original space-trading sim Elite is 30 years old tomorrow.

If you’re a longtime gamer, you may fondly remember the home computers of the ’80s and ’90s. In the States, you may well have been using a machine by Commodore, Apple or Atari, while Europe was dominated by the runaway success of Sinclair’s Spectrum series.

In 1981 in the UK, though, there was an interesting development in home computer technology that came in the form of the BBC Micro. Released by the Cambridge-based (and now-defunct) Acorn Computers, the computer was designed for the state-sponsored British Broadcasting Corporation’s Computer Literacy Project, itself a response to a documentary series from rival broadcaster ITV known as The Mighty Micro. Computing was still in its infancy at this time, and The Mighty Micro accurately predicted the upcoming revolution that computer technology would have on the economy, industry and lifestyle of not just the UK, but the whole world — something we take very much for granted today.

As part of its computer literacy project, the BBC wanted a computer to demonstrate a variety of concepts and common tasks, including programming, graphics, sound, music, controlling external devices, artificial intelligence and TV signal-based “proto-Internet” Teletext. The corporation put together an ambitious specification, which only Acorn was able to meet with its prototype Proton computer.

The Proton eventually became the BBC Microcomputer (affectionately known in the vernacular as the “Beeb”) and was released to the UK public on December 1, 1981 alongside the BBC’s The Computer Programme TV show. Launching in two models costing £235 ($367 at today’s exchange rate) and £335 ($523 today), the cost of production caused the price to quickly rise to £299 ($466) and £399 ($622). Compared to the £99 ($155) Sinclair ZX81 and £125-175 ($195-273) Sinclair ZX Spectrum series around at a similar time, this was very expensive, pricing it out of the range of many computer enthusiasts — though this didn’t stop the initial shipment of 12,000 computers selling out quickly.

The Beeb did find a spiritual home in the educational market, however, with the vast majority of UK schools adopting the system for early computer literacy and information technology lessons. That and games, of course; a standard reward for finishing all your work in an ’80s school classroom was to get the opportunity to play kid-friendly text adventures Dragon World or Granny’s Garden rather than sitting around twiddling your thumbs. Since many kids didn’t have computers of their own at home at the time, this was a real treat.

The BBC Micro took a brief foray into the United States around 1983, but didn’t catch on thanks to the already widespread adoption of machines like the Commodore 64. It did see some success in other Commonwealth countries like India, however, though not until the late ’80s.

The BBC had one major impact on gaming at large: Elite by David Braben and Ian Bell. This game, originally published in 1984 for the BBC Micro and its budget-priced successor the Acorn Electron, set the template for many of the open-world sandbox games we play today — particularly space trading sims. Unlike many other games at the time, there were no levels, no linear progression, just a vast virtual universe through which players could fly, fight, explore and trade. It was also notable as being one of the first games ever to use polygonal 3D graphics, albeit without textures or even flat-color shading. Braben later went on to produce LostWinds, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and Kinectimals, and is the brains behind the $25 USB stick “Raspberry Pi” PC.

The BBC Micro series was discontinued in 1994 to make way for its more powerful younger brother, the Acorn Archimedes. By this time, though, popular home computing was moving towards the more well-established Atari ST and Commodore Amiga brands, which in turn eventually gave way to the non-standardized, customizable PC formats, descendants of which we’re still using today.

Curious? Try out a virtual BBC Micro for yourself here.

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An upcoming new free to play Sims title for iPhone and iPad gives the series something of a shakeup with new real time play.

Image via IGN.

IGN reports that a new Sims title is on the way for iOS. Like The Sims Social, it’s a free to play game, but unlike the Facebook offering, it’s not based around the coin-op style “pay to play” energy model. Rather, in a striking departure from the rest of the series’ accelerated time, FreePlay Sims complete their tasks in real time, with some of the game’s monetization coming from impatient players wanting to speed this process up.

If you think sitting for two hours watching your Sim put a load of laundry on and then having an extended visit to the bathroom might be incredibly tedious, you’d of course be absolutely correct, which is why the game allows you to control up to 16 different Sims. The game is designed to be dipped into periodically rather than played for extended sessions. In this sense, it’s somewhat like Nimblebit’s addictive but ultimately pointless Tiny Tower, occasionally harassing you via push notification to come and pick your carrots or put the washing up away.

The game is set to hit iOS devices in December. It’ll be free, with in-app purchases available to speed up tasks and unlock premium items. Supposedly, however, all content can eventually be unlocked through normal play, unlike The Sims Social, which keeps the best items behind a paywall.

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