The Indie Royale returns with The Stuffing Bundle, which makes me think of stockings brimming with gifts rather than breadcrumbs and sage shoved inside a carcass cavity. My headline-dominating opinion is that the three released chapters of The Dream Machine are the stand-out content and on this very site you can read what John and I said about the game in the dwindling days of 2011. The remainder of the stocking is filled with Children of the Nile, Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Puzzle Agent 2 and Adventure Apes and the Mayan Mystery. As I write this, minimum price is £2.99.

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It’s been over a year since I last unleashed my law-commanding fist of righteousness. This is intolerable. So thankfully the list of rules that games developers and publishers are FORCED BY INTERNATIONAL LAW to follow have been further extended. Six new rules are added to the lexicon. Failure to obey them results in instant withering looks and sighing disappointment from their mums.>

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Space-bot shooter Strike Suit Zero will be ready for release on January 24th after a stirring Kickstarter campaign ended with $174,804 in the kitty. I’ve never understood why people keep their money in cats, although I’d gladly secure my lifesavings in the tiny keg around a St Bernard’s neck. They’d fit too, seeing as I currently keep the entire sum in my trouser pocket, and a dog wouldn’t scarper with the stash as soon as my back was turned. The funding has also ensured the completion of the XedMod, “a lightweight and unified version of Xed, the development toolset used to create the game”, which will be shared with the community. An old but spacey trailer follows.

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Ether is an independently developed first-person puzzler with a psychological mystery at its core. We saw the first video footage of its Cornish delights back in July and should be able to uncover more details soon. The plot involves mental illness and ‘ethereal projection’, an ability whereby men and women known as restorers can enter their clients’ minds and attempt to repair them. The game will be in two parts, with the first due early next year. There’s no combat, but expect both environmental and cryptic puzzles. A new video provides snippets of story and a brief tour of the game’s take on what appears to be an English coastal village.

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Macabre survival nightmare, Don’t Starve, is available to play in beta form via Steam, in addition to the Chrome variant. Updates appear to be scheduled regularly, with the next due in a week, and I’ve been dabbling in preparation for a closer look at some point in the near future. There are no instructions provided, which is fitting because when lost in a weird world, a gentleman scientist does not receive an instruction manual. Instead, he must craft tools to exploit his environment and build fires to ward off the inky sea of night, and the horrors that scratch and squeal within the darkness.

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This is the very first time that you have been here before. The whales are watching you. They know what you did. What did you do? Ask the whales but they won’t tell you because they are silent. Mysteriously> silent. You probably killed someone and it might have been an accident but there’s almost definitely blood on your hands or lipstick on your collar, or a ghost in your shoe. The hills have the answers but they’re as quiet as the whales. Only the wind has a voice and it whispers so quietly that all you can make out is a name. Esteban. Download Dear Esteban to learn the truth about your past and that girl with the eighties hair. It’s free.

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Update: Huzzah! The issue is all fixed, and the beta now loads.

It’s been a mere nine months since The Banner Saga was a twinkle in the internet’s eye. But now the teeny team of former BioWare artists have put their tactical RPG into open beta. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, providing a big funding boost, those who backed have been in the beta for a while. But as of today, the rest of the world is invited to form an orderly queue. And pay. There’s a new trailer to celebrate, below, but there are also some technical issues getting the beta working at the moment.

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Aztec invasions of late 13th century Europe have no place in otherwise believable historical strategy games, particularly not when they threaten to shatter the united realms of slothful hunchback Cormac Whittlestump, ruler of the mighty Empire of Britannia. Crusader Kings II’s Sunset Invasion DLC insists> on the madness of an Aztec invasion – bringing armies, disease and human sacrifice – and it’s the first significant slab of content that I haven’t immediately installed. I’m not opposed to its existence but I doubt I’d spend much time with it. Any takers?

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I intended to keep at least one of my spider’s worth of eyes firmly affixed to Towns, the indie construction and management sim that makes you the mayor of an olde time Sunnydale. Turns out it was one of my many bad eyes and I haven’t played the game since Britain sipped a Pimms No.1 Cup with a dash of lemonade and wore a straw boater for a couple of weeks. I speak of the summer. Since then, thanks to its community and the magic of Greenlight, Towns has appeared on Steam and, as of last week, so has its demo. Jolly good.

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>Bones of a birthday cake. My dream job. Unwin the game. Pure anime evil.>

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