Best Of Indie Games: The Spirit of Indie

[IndieGames.com: The Weblog co-editor Tim W. rounds up some of the week's top free 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 goodies in this edition include a full-length freeware RPG, a lo-fi exploration platformer, a tower defense number, a physics-based word game, and a puzzler centered around the concept of dipping balls into paint. Here's the highlights from the last seven days: Game Pick: ''The Spirit Engine 2' (Mark Pay, freeware) "Gorgeous pixel art, engrossing gameplay, captivating soundtrack and engaging storyline - this side-scrolling RPG by Mark Pay has pretty much everything going for it. Originally released as a commercial title, the developer had recently decided to update the status of TSE-2 to freeware so that more people could enjoy the full game." Game Pick: 'Darkfate' (Kevin Soulas, freeware) "Darkfate is a lo-fi exploration platformer which tells the story of Chris Freeman, a man who suffers from a bout of amnesia and doesn't recognize the wintery tundra that he is in. The only way Chris will get any answers is by venturing forward and braving whatever challenges that he might find, in hopes that he could somehow recover his memory if he encounters things that he has seen before." Game Pick: 'Balloon in a Wasteland' (John Cooney, browser) "Balloon in a Wasteland takes the tower defense wave attack and upgrade system and puts a nice little spin on it. Having crash landed in a terrible wasteland where evil beasts roam, your job is to fix your hot air balloon up whilst killing anything that comes your way." Game Pick: 'Uchuusen' (Chris Nimmo, freeware) "Uchuusen is an arcade game that puts you in control of a ship with two rockets attached to each side, and by selectively activating the thrusters you can navigate around tight corridors and obstacles in this twenty-level challenge. Fire both thrusters and the ship will float upwards, and collect the shiny yellow objects to unlock the portal to the next area." Game Pick: 'Factory Balls 3' (Bart Bonte, browser) "A third in Bonte's series of puzzle ballers, the idea of Factory Balls 3 is to decorate each ball exactly how it looks like on the box using the tools provided. For what sounds so simple, it's pretty difficult stuff. Tools like paint, hats, sunglasses, belts and gardening tools need to be used in a specific order to achieve the right effect." Game Pick: 'Prose and Motion' (DeeperBeige, browser) "Prose and Motion is a physics-based word game. Given a bunch of letters, the task is to rearrange them in order to make a word - you do this by grabbing them and putting them in place. The first few levels ask you to stick the letters next to each other to progress, but very soon you're being asked to build bridges and sit your word across them, or shuffle pieces around to make space available."