What the deuce has happened in the past month? There’s been a sudden explosion of indie-related bundles from places on the internet that you never thought existed! Anyone would think it was nearly Christmas or something.

A little while ago it was the Indie Music Bundle to titillate your ears with fantastic vibes, but right now you have a choice of not one, or even two… but four different game bundles to check out – and they’re all asking you to pay as little or as much as you like! One is even completely free to download!

Since a couple of them are also supporting charity, now is a great time if you’re just starting to dip in to the world of indie games and are looking to snag some great deals at the same time as helping a good cause. While it’s possible to take the dimmer view that it’s an easy way for an organiser to make a quick buck, that would be pretty unfair – if you believe in the charitable roots behind a couple of these bundles then they’re doing a lot of good at a time of year when it matters the most. Even if a bundle doesn’t donate part of its proceeds to charity, it’s still a good way to get some games you might otherwise have overlooked for an excellent price. Stocking fillers ahoy!

Read on to see all of the currently running bundles that are clamouring for your attention…

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Cave Story+, the PC port of a Mac port of a WiiWare port of a PC freeware game, has apparently come full circle and is now available on Steam. I am a huge fan of Cave Story and, I like to hope, a reasonable person. Like many others I admire “Pixel“ - Daisuke Amaya - for creating the original version and releasing it back in 2004. Aeon Genesis deserve some credit as well for the English translation patch. It is a charming game that has done a great service in boosting the indie gaming scene. That said, I will most certainly not be buying into this thinly disguised cash-in – and I’m actually shocked and quite disappointed that Nicalis had the cheek to go so far down this road.

So here’s the story: After a chain of poorly-communicated delays spanning through 2009, the $12 / £10 WiiWare release of the game in North America last year was deservedly well-received but expensive and somewhat glitchy. It included one particularly annoying bug with music playback when the original music tracks were selected instead of the default remixed tracks (which some people – including myself – didn’t like). Not only did it take eight months to get these problems patched out but it took ten months after the NA release for the game to get to Europe. Meh. So far, so mediocre.

Then there was the DSiWare release for portable gamers to enjoy Quote’s adventures. Cool. But a year on from the Japanese and North American releases last November, it still isn’t available in Europe, despite a suggestion from Joystiq it would be out around Q2 of this year. It seems likely that Euro gamers will now never see that version due to the incoming Cave Story 3D for the 3DS (which – who’d have guessed? – has also been delayed). Based on their track record, who knows when the 3DS incarnation will arrive in Euroland…

Surely things can’t get any more ridiculous. But wait! Yes they do!

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Some people say that random levels suck. I say: You’re wrong. Be a good chap / chapess and toddle off back to playing <insert console FPS here>, would you? And don’t bother arguing about it because Forget-Me-Not will kick some proper indie-fuelled sense into you every time.

Once again it was The Gnome’s Lair that enlightened me with the knowledge of this particularly sparkly treasure, and I can safely say the game’s creator nyarlu labs (also known as brandon and, on Twitter, @cucumberoneye) has played an absolute blinder with this one.

This game is nuttier than an almond nutcake with cashew and pecan topping. For an unrelated sidenote, forget about the whole game aspect, it’s great fun to just leave running in the background for amusement purposes since it provides an excellent audio accompaniment to whatever you may be typing: As I write this, I am being serenaded by a beautifully bonkers selection of 8-bit noises upon each cursor key tap and each press of the WASD keys…

But, erm, yes. Read on after the break for some words that actually pertain to the gameplay!

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‘Tis something of a story to explain the route I travelled to discover this and one which I will no doubt mention in a future post, but for now I simply have to share my delight at finding such a promising remake.

The Gnome’s Lair led me to Reprisal, an in-development Flash game that oozes style and promise. If, like me, you spent many a happy hour conjuring swamps, earthquakes and pillars of fire whilst directing your lemming-like followers towards crushing those of the opposing god in Populous, you’ll seriously want to check it out - hopefully a certain big company’s lawyers won’t leap at it and drag it off into some dimension of copyright hell.

Even at this early stage the gameplay is compulsive and there’s plenty of time for it to improve further. Follow its evolution through the dev blog and be sure to give the developer, Electrolyte, some support!

It was an extremely long time ago (coming up on three years, in fact) when, like a lot of other people, I first learned of Owlboy through a preview on the Indiegames blog. Although it stuck in my mind with its tremendously catchy music and pleasant, island-in-the-sky airscapes, to my shame I must admit that it only got filed into my “Follow With Vague Interest” folder instead of where it obviously should have been, the “Mash F5 On Homepage Until It Comes Out” folder.

Then, swooping through the internet with such speed and stealth that I only heard about it on a chance browse through Twitter, D-Pad Studios released a teasingly short but sweet demo a few weekends ago! Wonderful but frustrating, since I didn’t get chance to play it straight away – you can, though, by grabbing it right here. Lots of folks have since given it a shot and their views and critique have lead to the possibility that there may be a new, refined demo some time soon.

But rather than wait, I decided to go ahead and write this up anyway – how else can I preserve this blog’s true spirit of being weeks behind everyone else? Without any more blather, read on after the break to see how favourably the gameplay compares to the trailers.

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Stumbling upon PC Gamer‘s Big 10 of 2011 list of the games they’re anticipating for this year, I was rather surprised. PCG is one of, if not the most respected gaming magazine in the industry, and I’m sure there’s more than a little bit of insider knowledge going into this particular article of theirs.

That said, the reason for my surprise was twofold. They think that both Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2 are going to be out this year! Whoooooaaa there, Nelly. As much as I’d be in RPG heaven were this to happen, I just really can’t see it… though of course there’s that leaked release schedule document which was all over the interwebz last month suggesting 2011 might be the year after all. Perhaps a combination of waiting this long and being generally cynical about everything has made me over-patient.

Anyhow, as I switched my brain into “lurk” mode in work today, I got to thinking about what games I’d like to play – if elephants could fly – this year. Daydreaming is fun! Keep reading after the jump to find out what I came up with.

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Happy Easter, folks! April the first has been and gone and I had an idea for a great joke to transform the site with… but it’ll keep ’til next year, I guess What definitely won’t keep that long are the last of the Assemblee reviews, so here’s another batch of four to liven up your weekend…

The King, the Queen and the Jester by Jeferson R. Silva
A very stylish RPG that is best summarised as a combination of the author’s inspiration, Eye of the Beholder, with a hint of Tower of the Sorcerer. As a prisoner in the dank, dirty and generally not very pleasant underground dungeons you must escape and find out what the devil is going on. Fantastic in more ways than one, this Assemblee version is “only” a 2-level demo with a good couple of hours of playability. 90%

The Little King That Could by Linus
Your King needs YOU! Build an empire that can withstand the attacks of the evil Drows, Greenskins and other assorted nasties that want to wipe you off the face of the procedurally-generated earth. It’s not finished to the point of having an objective but is still a nice sandboxy Civilization / Roguelike combo. A rough idea of the mechanics and controls can be found here. Worthy of being developed further. 78%

The Lonely Tower by Tempel
Plot: a boy invites a friend over to his place to play a holy awesome new game. What will transpire? In a world where most games are driven by their story, this is a story that’s driven by a game. Intelligent design and dialogue make it a short but uniquely entertaining diversion. The only real complaint is that it’s too short and sweet for its own good. 75%

The Sunset Strider by Crimsontide
This one appears to be a Fez-like 2.5D platformer. A quite nice one, at that. Only complication is that it requires a decent joypad to play, and unfortunately my crappy gamepad couldn’t control the camera (which left me with no way to explore the world properly). Good 3D-ified use of graphics, though it could use some sound and music. Possibly brilliant and clearly well done but needs keyboard controls badly. 71%

There are only 17 Assemblee games to go! No more half measures – let’s make a push for the finish with these six new contenders! Coming up in today’s exciting episode…

• Space Smuggler
• SpriteGears
• Super Treasure Ball Gasm
• The Birth of Selthar
• The Girl and the Shadow
• The Journey

For such a massive batch as this I’ll see you after the jump! Oh, and another new icon at this late stage in proceedings (which I should’ve possibly added earlier) – this one indicates a Java file which you may or may not be able to play on all of Windows, Linux and Mac. Have fun!

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