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[Once again, IGF download partner Direct2Drive is awarding $10,000 to a neat indie title at the Independent Games Festival awards in a couple of weeks time, and here's the rundown on the titles competing for the D2D Vision Award - including a couple of games that weren't Main Competition finalists but are still awesome titles.]

Independent Games Festival organizers and sponsor Direct2Drive have announced the finalists for the D2D Vision Award, with games including HurricaneX2 and Nyxquest competing for a $10,000 cash prize at the IGF Awards on March 11.

Digital game distribution site Direct2Drive, the event's official download partner, set up the Vision Award in 2009 to "honor independent developers whose games present the new ideas and concepts that will help spark innovation in gaming."

The winner, picked from the five finalists -- all indie games from the more than 300 IGF main competition entries -- will be presented live on stage by IGN on-air personality Jessica Chobot at the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival Awards.

The awards themselves take place on Thursday, March 11 during the 2010 Game Developers Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA. The winning team will receive a $10,000 prize from Direct2Drive.

The five finalists for the Direct2Drive Vision Award for this year are:

- HurricaneX2, a 3D martial arts brawler from You Yun Tech.
- Joe Danger, a build-it-yourself stuntman simulator from Hello Games.
- Nyxquest: Kindred Spirits, from Over The Top Games, which challenges players to fly, aim and shoot through a world inspired by Greek myths.
- Super Meat Boy, a platform game from Team Meat starring a lovable cube of meat who must race through dangerous obstacles to save his girlfriend.
- Max and the Magic Marker, a puzzle platform game from Press Play with a unique “magic marker” drawing mechanic.

More information about the finalists can be found on Direct2Drive’s D2D Vision Award website, and the digital distribution site has concurrently released a "Best of Indie" PC game bundle of IGF nominees and winners from previous years.

That bundle, released today and only available until March 12, includes ten games, including Osmos, Machinarium, Cogs, Braid, and many more, and is priced at $29.95 -- a savings of more than 75 percent relative to buying the games individually.

"The future of gaming hinges on the ability for developers to constantly innovate and entertain players of all types," said Direct2Drive digital content VP Sutton Trout in a statement. "Indie developers are continuously generating the new ideas and concepts that will help drive gaming forward. The Vision Award is one of the ways for us to recognize the community and these five incredible games."

There's a rather tasty indie games bundle over on Direct2Drive at the moment, featuring 10 past IGF finalists for a mere $29.95. My incredible understanding of mathematics tells me that's less than $3 a game!

The games in question are:
World of Goo
Puzzlegeddon
Gish
The Maw
Braid
Cogs
Aaaaa!
Osmos
Machinarium
Crayon Physics Deluxe

Here's the UK store link for you lovely British born and bred. Is this the greatest indie-orientated bundle yet? Short answer: Yes. Slightly longer answer: HELLS yes. Continue reading

Announced just over a month ago, Desura is ModDB's take on the digital games distribution service. Yet whereas the likes of Impulse and Direct2Drive have kept their shops mainly browser-based, Desura follows in the mighty footsteps of Steam and takes the form of a downloadable client, nesting itself in your system tray.

Desura is currently in private beta with regular ModDBers and developers getting the run-around with it. The big question is, given that Desura will launch with the ModDB's community backing of hordes of users, and its intent of bringing a big community focus to the system, will it have a chance of living along side the almighty Valve juggernaut?

I've been playing around with the client for a few days now, and although this is just a beta build at the moment, it's already looking like interesting stuff. My concern is that it maybe takes just a little took much inspiration from Steam (although, let's be fair, it's not surprising given Steam's success and appeal). After the cut I'll go into some detail, and you can decide for yourselves. Continue reading

Full versions of The Graveyard (both Windows and Mac OS X builds) are available as free downloads for today only, so if you've played the demo earlier and liked it, then you might want to get a copy before the offer expires.

In other news, Wolfire is discounting Lugaru down to $4.95 on Direct2Drive and Mac Game Store (normally $19.95) until the 4th of November. The D2D version also comes with a HD texture pack that makes the game look slightly better on PCs with high resolution settings.

Related:
Are indie games too cheap? (Tale of Tales) Continue reading

Direct2Drive have been running a bunch of offers recently to celebrate their 5th birthday, with a specific genre of games being sold off at $5 each week. This week is the Indie sale! Hurrah!

The following games are all $5.00/£5.00 (boo at 1-to-1 conversion rate!) for one week only and can be purchased through this link:

Mount and Blade
World of Goo
Defense Grid: The Awakening
Sword of the Stars
Cogs
Light of Altair
The Path
Bridge Construction Set
Gish
Zatikon

We've got reviews of Cogs and The Path if you're wondering whether to grab either of them. Continue reading

Hope you guys have your wallets at the ready, because there's a deluge of great indie games to purchase in the next couple of weeks. Machinarium (new cutscene featured above) should be out sometime in mid-October, which is about the same time that Dyson gets released. You can pre-order Machinarium now from the official site to receive a $3 discount off the full price of $20, or wait until it comes out on Impulse, Steam, Direct2Drive and GamersGate before snagging a copy for yourself.

The Direct2Drive 5th Anniversary Sale for indie games starts in less than ten hours as well, and that is one event you definitely don't want to miss out on.

Related:
5 Questions: Jakub Dvorský (indie.retro.cool.games)
Machinarium Artwork and Sketches (Pixels at an Exhibition)
PAX '09: Machinarium Is Really Good (insert credit)
20% Off Select Indie Games at Impulse (LewieP, SavyGamer) Continue reading

We've been recommending these five games for quite some time, and now there's a chance to purchase them all from Direct2Drive at a very special price of $17.75. It would normally cost you close to $80 for Defense Grid, Democracy 2, The Path, Zeno Clash and Cogs, but with the collection you are getting five fantastic indie game releases for the price of one (or two, in some cases). Don't miss out on this time-limited offer, as the discount is only valid until August 9th.

Direct2Drive: Buy Best of Indie Bundle Download