Best Of Indie Games: Greetings From Down Under

[IndieGames.com: The Weblog co-editor Tim W. rounds up the week's top free-to-download and commercial indie games from 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 2D platformer from the developers of Solipskier and Fig. 8, a pair of Ludum Dare 18 submissions, a point-and-click adventure game that rivals the best of Lucasarts' offerings in their heydays, and a browser-based exploration game that features bouncy planet surfaces to sink your ship and time into. Here's the highlights from the last seven days: Game Pick: 'Fib' (Sophie Houlden, browser) "Fib is Sophie Houlden's Unity-based puzzle game created for the Ludum Dare 18 competition, where players get to control a character who can subtly influence the actions of his peers by complementing or insulting them. A character will follow you around if you offer a word of praise or two, but they will turn against the player when insults are traded." Game Pick: 'Liferaft: Zero' (Mike Boxleiter and Greg Wohlwend, browser) "Liferaft: Zero is set in a testing facility, where little girl clones are made to run, jump and swing their way around dangerous chambers. There are lots of little details here and there that make it all the more entertaining - the scientists watching you from behind glass, the dialogue changing depending on how many girls you've managed to kill, and the blood-stained spikes which get more and more soiled as you fail that swing for the umpteenth time... it's lovely stuff." Game Pick: 'Collateral' (Jonathan Whiting, browser) "Collateral follows a soldier who is given the task of infiltrating an enemy base to find proof that the bad guys have nuclear weapons. Created for Ludum Dare 18, the twist is that you can't die - instead, getting hit by enemy fire will launch you higher, which is especially useful for later in the game." Game Pick: 'The Journey Down, Chapter 1: Over the Edge' (Theodor Waern, freeware) "The Journey Down, Chapter 1: Over the Edge (pictured) is a point-and-click adventure game that tells the story of Bwana and his friend Kito, two individuals who run a gas station but were forced to find other means of making money when the power company threatens to cut their electrical supply off. Fortunately at about the same time a young woman arrives at your doorstep looking for a book, and she willing to reward you handsomely should you be able to help her out with an errand." Game Pick: 'e7' (Jonas Richner, browser) "In e7 players are assigned the mission of inflitrating an alien planet and disabling a bomb that has been targeted at Earth. This 2D platformer features roughly twenty levels to play and some clever implementation of puzzles and challenges, many of them centered around the idea of launching your ship high into the air after getting it to sink into the ground for a couple of seconds."