Best Of Indie Games: Toying with a Tiny Barbarian

[Every week, IndieGames.com: The Weblog co-editor Tim W. will be summing up some of the top free-to-download and commercial indie games from the last seven days 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 pair of Experimental Gameplay Project submissions, an arena shooter with puzzle elements, a 2D platformer inspired by a short story, and a football game that features a career mode, a tournament system, a player editor and more. Here's the highlights from the last seven days: Game Pick: 'Toys' (Christoffer Hedborg, browser) "Toys is a zero-button game originally created by Christoffer Hedborg for submission to the Experimental Gameplay Project challenge, featuring twelve short puzzles to play through and using only your mouse for input. Each stage provides you with a set of cubes randomly placed in a 3D space, and your task is to move them around until every piece fits into their designated area marked by a non-moving square with a lighter colour scheme." Game Pick: 'Trino' (Trinoteam, commercial indie) "Trino, a game which combines shooter gameplay with puzzle elements, tasks players with escaping voracious swarms of nano-robots by building powerful triangle traps across 48 challenging levels. The title was featured as part of the 2009 PAX 10 showcase of independent games, appearing on the Xbox Live Indie Games service." Game Pick: 'Nega Kon' (Mahdi Bahrami, freeware) "Nega Kon is an Experimental Gameplay Project submission with a rather clever idea - somewhere in each level is an object that you need to fix, so that you can collect a star before proceeding to the next stage. This object appears flat at first, but pressing a button while viewing it from a specific angle will turn the object into a solid shape." Game Pick: 'Tiny Barbarian' (Michael Stearns, freeware) "A particularly tiny barbarian is on a casual stroll through the ice lands when a mysterious, floating woman appears, bringing hordes of zombies, archers and wolves to life. Our hero doesn't care about any of that, however, as he's feeling rather love-struck. Inspired by the R.E.Howard Conan story 'The Frost Giant's Daughter', the barbarian attempts to catch up to her and win her over." Game Pick: 'Football Live' (Neogen2 Creations, commercial indie) "Inspired by classic foot-to-ball games such as Sensible Soccer and Kick Off, Football Live throws all those real names and realistic graphics in the bin, opting for simple yet deep gameplay that ultimately translates to fun. There's an aftertouch system, career mode, tournaments and a team/player editor to correct all those funny name alterations."