Inside Lacrosse College Lacrosse 2010 hit the Indie Games channel. While it does not feature actual, licensed college lacrosse teams, it does have the title sponsorship of the sport’s top magazine in the United States. The game costs 400 Microsoft points, and lets you choose from 60 teams (or create your own side) in single-play action or in a simulated season of up to 14 games with a two-round championship. It features Xbox Live and LAN support, stats tracking and more.

“In the 12 years we’ve been publishing Inside Lacrosse, there is one topic that’s been addressed in letters to the editor, probably more than all the other individual topics combined: When is someone going to produce a lacrosse video game?” Bob Carpenter, the Inside Lacrosse founder, said in a statement announcing the game. “Producing a multi-million dollar game just isn’t going to happen for a sport our size, so this Indie format – particularly when it can be played online against others – is the way to go.”

The game is the product of a year’s worth of development begun by Dundee, Scotland studio Triple B Games and Carlo Sunseri, a Pittsburgh-area businessman and lacrosse coach. College Lacrosse 2010.

Fans of Audiosurf, scrolling shooters and music in general have reason to be excited about Symphony, Empty Clip Studios’ new title in which your songs shape the game you’re playing.

Like Audiosurf, Symphony allows you to search your music collection in order to create a unique game experience for every song. Instead of a roller-coaster puzzle game, however, Symphony creates colourful 3D arcade shooter levels based on your musical tastes. A slow song might transform into a slow, relaxing shooter experience, while a fast electronic track with heavy beats morphs into something much more challenging.

Your music collection is the key to unlocking the full potential of Symphony, with hidden powers and unique enemies lurking inside your MP3s, waiting to be unleashed.

Symphony is still several months away from its 2010 release, but all the elements are in place for a truly unique shooter experience. I’ve already started building my playlist, and I’ve a feeling my psytrance collection is about to get a whole lot less relaxing.

Hit the official website for more about Empty Clips Studios and Symphony.

The Best of Indie: Volume 2 includes Crayon Physics Deluxe, Aquaria, Aaaaaa!, I-Fluid, And Yet it Moves, Project Aftermath, and Acceleration of Suguri. All told, these seven games go for $US94.65 purchased separately, but until November 16 you can get them all for $US25. And DRM-free, to boot.

Crayon Physics is almost worth that alone, so yeah, this is a good deal. (So’s Aquaria – AU Ed.)

Some of the shame-they’re-not-real-games we have to look forward to include tranScEEnD:

You are a seed, the manifestation of potential. The wind is your means of transportation – and the deliverer of your fate.

Embark on a relaxing journey through a visionary world unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.

tranScEEnD features a one-of-a-kind gameplay experience that blends time manipulation with gravity. In the end it turns out you weren’t really a seed at all, but an alien ship and the whole thing was a metaphor for sexual abuse.

Little much? You may prefer the more down-to-earth inspiration behind Cosmope:

I woke up. The dawn had scrubbed her scent away. All these mistakes, all these regrets were as nothing and somehow… I knew they were everything.

When lives take different directions, it is as a starling bursting forth from infinite realities. Each different. Only one way back to her.

Best part? Were this not a list put together by Something Awful, you’d be forgiven for thinking these were actual, real, upcoming games.

2010’s Most Promising Bullshit Indie Games [Something Awful, via GameSetWatch] [image: listen to me]

Indie developers Alientrap have just announced Capsized, a sprawling 2D platformer full of shooting and physics-based environmental puzzles, scheduled for release on Steam and Xbox Live Arcade next year. It reminds me of something. But what?

Can you guess which classic old game it reminds me of?

And, in light of this afternoon’s discussion of 2D gaming, would you pay full price for this type of gaming experience?

Capsized [Alientrap]

“Pro studios looking at this marketplace with growing interest,” he said in an email. “I know quite a few French studios for instance (but also some US and Canadian ones), with great track records on published games, who are working on XBL Indie projects right now.”

I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with a published developer deciding to explore indie venues — but then, I’m not a struggling indie dev with no game titles to my name. Nor am I a middling professional game developer in a savage economic situation. So I can’t really judge if it’s “fair” for a developer with a wealth of professional design experience to put their product out on a platform where it’s in direct competition with products from new-comers.

I guess it all comes down to what you define as “indie.” Is it just that you’re low-budget and off-beat, or is there some unspoken rule that once you “make it big” with a published title on a platform like the Nintendo DS that you’ve “sold out” and become mainstream.

From my perspective, the answer may not matter. All I know is I’m going to start seeing more games on the Xbox Live Indie service, and many of them might benefit from the experience a professional dev. And I won’t have to pay an arm and a leg — so win!

Captain Forever, a gloriously neon top-down shooter that sees you upgrading your craft through scavenging parts from defeated enemies, won the award for overall best game during the second Game Developers Conference China, announced on Sunday night.

The winner is a local lad called Farbs, whose previous work includes the demented genius of Rom Check Fail.

Also nominated as a finalist was S.H.M.U.P. by fellow Aussie designer, Aaron Styles.

Captain Forever is finished. To find out what the fuss is about, you can buy it now from Farbs‘ website. Watch the clip below to whet your appetite.

First IGF China Awards Topped By Captain Forever [GameSetWatch]

Maybe I’m not to be blamed for my morbid curiosity. Tale of Tales is known for its creepy, upsetting games and from what I understand of the parts Christianity added to the Torah, the Salome’s story is certainly both of those. She dances what passed for a striptease back in those days and then demands the head of some guy on a silver platter. Talk about heavy tipping.

Here’s what the developer has to say of the 3D adventure game:

Explore a living tableau filled with references to the legendary tale and enjoy the moonlit serenity of a fatal night in the orient. Fatale offers an experimental play experience that stimulates the imagination and encourages multiple interpretations and personal associations.

You can check out the trailer and pick up the game for a dollar here.

For game enthusiasts who may find themselves in the greater Los Angeles area, you’ll be lucky enough to have access to indie game exhibitions for a nominal entrance fee. That means more than two dozen selected independent games, all of which will be on hand at the Wonderful World of Art Gallery, Culver Hotel Mezzanine and Gregg Fleishman Gallery daily from 10 AM to 7 PM.

Also attending this year’s Indiecade will be game development luminaries such as Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, Will Wright, and much, much more. I’ll be there. Will you?

IndieCade 2009 [Official Site]

Puzzle-based platformers are a staple of indie development. Time Fcuk gets the basics right, as you’d expect. Each screen is negotiable via running, jumping, picking up and stacking boxes, and considered use of your ability to switch between two planes to reveal an alternate layout of platforms and passages.

What makes Time Fcuk really stand out is its presentation. McMillen’s characteristic art is once again the highlight, but the way the narrative is told by your “future self” smothers the whole thing in paranoia. There’s a hint of Portal in the way you feel like you can’t quite trust what’s happening, but you follow along because, frankly, there’s nothing else to do.

Time Fcuk [Newgrounds]