Best Of Indie Games: The Hello Panda Edition

[Every week, IndieGames.com: The Weblog editor Tim W. will be summing up some of the top free-to-download and commercial indie games from the last seven days, as well as any notable features on his sister 'state of indie' weblog.] This week on 'Best Of Indie Games', we take a look at some of the top titles released earlier this week - two picks from a game development competition, a shmup playable in your browser window and a 2D freeware platformer. Also, a friendly reminder of our Games of the Month feature. Game Pick: 'Attack of the Meeplings' (Joshua Smyth, browser) "A vertical-scrolling 2D shooter which will run on any internet browser with Java runtime applet installed. Check out keim's Arcanacra Black Label, Adam Atomic's Nano and Easy Only! Games' The Last Canopy for more Flash-based shmup action as well." Game Pick: 'The Sewer Goblet' (Tales of Game's Studios, freeware) "A simple roguelike consisting of twenty levels to explore, created by the same team which produced the b-ball RPG hit, Barkley: Shut Up and Jam Gaiden." Game Pick: 'Hello Panda' (GPTouch, Inc., freeware) "A stylish vertical shooter created with Game Maker, featuring three playable characters and five levels interspersed with the occasional boss encounters. We've got pandas!" Game Pick: 'The Power' (Alexitron, freeware) "A noteworthy freeware 2D platformer in the style of Lyle in Cube Sector, Alex Adventure and Plasma Warrior. Has been called a bad game, but also comes with cactus' seal of approval." IndieGames.com Game of the Month: Cortex Command (Data Realms, commercial indie - demo available) This is the final week for our first IndieGames.com's Game of the Month feature - originally conceived to provide a platform for indie game developers to get their creations seen - and has turned out to be a notable success so far. Still, there are a lot of people who have not experienced Data Realms' pixel-based PC team-based combat game Cortex Command - and buying it via the 'Game Of The Month' page supports both indie developer Data Realms and IndieGames.com, allowing us to keep reporting on great independent titles.