Best Of Indie Games: Addicted to WhipCrack

[IndieGames.com: The Weblog editor Tim W. rounds up the week's top indie games and notable features on his sister 'state of indie' weblog.] This week on 'Best Of Indie Games', we take a look at some of the top independent PC Flash/downloadable titles released over this last week. The delights in this edition include a whipping game (for real), a blurry vertical shooter with gorillas in it, a game that features a jumping shark, a new release from the popular Flash game development team Nitrome, and an experimental project from Hempuli that explores the issue of drug addiction and their side effects. Game Pick: 'Angry Gorilla Machine Monsters' (Andrew Brophy, browser) "Angry Gorilla Machine Monsters may be a simple shmup where gameplay is concerned, but the work Andrew has put into the presentation makes it well worth a go. His signature blurring effect is there in full force, complimented by some brilliant design choices. After my fifth go, I was still coming up against enemies I hadn't seen before - the baddie deployment is completely random. Short but sweet, give it a shot." Game Pick: 'WhipCrack' (Scott Peterson, commercial indie - demo available) "Whipcrack may appear to be another space shooter (or space whipper, as the case may be) but there's a lot more going on here - it's actually more of a puzzler in shooter clothing. The task is to destroy aliens, give them to your master Recycler Twelve to harvest the energy, then use that to rebuild the downed communications tower. If you're a little dubious about the Xbox Live Indie Games collection, this may well change your mind. WhipCrack is a great twist on the shooter genre." Game Pick: 'Miami Shark' (Mausland Entertainment, browser) "Miami Shark is all about causing destruction by leaping out of the water and eating men, women, children, swans, boats, helicopters, planes and space shuttles (amongst other things). It's wonderfully simple and really, could there possibly be anything more brilliant than pulling an entire jumbo jet out of the sky with your teeth? I think not. You have to give this a try - it's too hilarious to pass on." Game Pick: 'Cave Chaos' (Nitrome, browser) "You know those situations you sometimes find yourself in where you're in a cave and it suddenly starts falling down around you, and your only chance of survival is to run on a 2D plane, dodging falling barrels and the ghosts of various dead creatures? Cave Chaos is like those times - but in a game! See, those situations in real life are incredibly stressful and just a little bit scary, but playing this game takes all the stress out of it and actually makes it really fun." Game Pick: 'Addicsjon' (Arvi Teikari, freeware) "Addicsjon is another experimental project by the developer of G-E-N-E-R-I-C and FallOver, where you are in control of a drug addict who automatically tries to collect any pills he sees. Your objective is basically to guide him towards the white flag in each of the five levels included, although that can prove to be difficult as the protagonist doesn't really feel like cooperating with the player at all."