The Creativity Of Indie Video Games

A video from PBS:

Minecraft Mod

From BoingBoing:

The Biomes O'Plenty Minecraft mod adds wild varieties of landscape to the blocky exploration and building game: wastelands, craggy outcroppings, hazy savannah, ominous woodlands, orchards, and much else besides.

Becoming a Professional Game Designer

Here's a free eBook from iD Tech Camps called 10 Steps to Becoming a Professional Game Designer

The visuals of this puzzle-game-in-development caught my eye & the concept of being inside a synthesizer sounds pretty cool. There's a downloadable prototype at the game website.

FRACT, an in-development independent game from Montreal-based Phosfiend systems is, essentially, a music/puzzle game that combines elements of Tron andRez...before putting players inside a giant synthesizer. In the development walkthrough above, Richard Flanagan and Henk Boom walk players through a big chunk of the game where, by solving puzzles, they activate different parts of what amounts to a gigantic synthesizer, then connect the parts they've activated through a giant, walk-up pattern sequencer to create original music. 

Article at Kotaku

Game Website

Sugar Cube

Sugar Cube was named Best Game at the 2010 IGF China awards.  

At various points on the level are hidden items -- often platforms -- that are revealed, and switch "on," only when you pass through or near them. As you move about, the four squares immediately around you are tinted, and show the hidden items. Frequently, there are small "lights" on the screen that show the hidden items, in ghosted form, until turned on; but often, items are revealed only when you activate them. Finally, by holding "shift" while jumping, you can prevent items from "flipping" from active to inactive state.
The result is that each level holds surprises, and you have to learn how to time and use activations to get to the level end (represented by a door); sometimes you want an item to flip to inactive state to get through its location, while often you want to turn it on, to provide a location or item you can use.

Review via BoingBoing

Disney World in Minecraft

Some people are working on a complete, functional replica of Walt Disney World in Minecraft. The rides all ridable. The files are available as free downloads.
Link

Article on Games is Also a Game

Here's an article in the New York Times about video games that is also a game you can play where you destroy the article itself. Cool.