Best Of Indie Games: What a Tangled Web We Weave

[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 Twitter-based strategy game, a pirate-themed RPG, a life simulation game, a new arena shooter from the developer of VVVVVV, an addictive browser-based puzzler, and a short 2D adventure game made with the AGS engine. Here's the highlights from the last seven days: Game Pick: 'DotWar' (Ono Masaki, browser) "DotWar is a Twitter-based battler which pits your avatar against your friends. Simply enter two names and watch their respectives profile pictures turn into lots of little soldiers and storm each other. There are crystals on each side of the playing field, and if your guys manage to destroy all three of your opponent's crystals, you win. It's pretty interesting to experiment with, as different avatars will produce different troops." Game Pick: 'Dubloon' (Banov, freeware) " In Dubloon, you play as a pirate who stumbles upon an incredible treasure, and puts together a crew to make the treasure his own. The game plays out in classic RPG style - there's a world to explore with items to collect. Happen upon an enemy wandering about, and you'll be transported to a turn-based attack-a-thon, with stats et al. Definitely worth checking out for the RPG lovers among you." Game Pick: 'memrrtiks, suashem' (Terry Cavanagh, browser) "memrrtiks, suashem is a score-based shooter that plays rather similarly to Terry's other game, Bullet Time. The objective here is to survive for as long as you can while shooting at ghost-like enemies for points. Enemies will spawn all across the screen, but you'll be notified of where they will appear by either hollow black squares that point at their next location or warning texts that flash when an entire wave of ghosts are about to fill the entire area." Game Pick: 'Entanglement' (Gopherwood Studios, browser) "Entanglement is a great little puzzler involving hexagons and lots of twisty paths. An orange line leads out of the centre piece, and your job is to create a path from there that goes for as long as possible without hitting a wall. There are some lovely local multiplayer options too, with games available for up to six players. A lovely, addictive time-waster, this one." Game Pick: 'Rein' (Darius Poyer, freeware) "Rein is a short 2D adventure game made by Darius Poyer using the AGS engine in under two weeks, where you play as one of the staff involved in a secret bioengineering project inside a research facility named Fraxto 21. At the start of the story the entire building is already collapsing all around you, so you must make haste and try to escape from the place in one piece." Game Pick: 'Unnatural Selection' (David Shute, browser) "Unnatural Selection is a puzzle-based life simulation game that features slimy creatures to experiment with, where your assigned objective is to figure what type of stimuli will mutate them into species that you have not discovered yet. There are sixteen evolution branches to find in total, with some requiring the player to feed or starve a creature until it achieves a new form.