While not exactly about playing games (this is more for the making of games) the launch of Unity 3, the third iteration of the free-to-use game engine, has me excited. Of all the game-making tools out there, Unity is the one I’ve spent the most time with, and it was actually responsible for the RPS game, RockPaperShotgunity, which we cobbled together last year. Also, I totally made some big spheres move about making booming noises. I am The Creator. People who know stuff are more excited about the unified editor, the post-processing and shader improvements, the occlusion culling, deferred rendering, and other tech stuff. Full What’s New list here, although some of that is for the paid-for Pro version, which I think is limited to a month demo, something like that.

Never made a game before? Spong In A Posty! Although that’s probably a bit out of date for Unity 3. Maybe it’s time to do another one.

This fall, Sony Online Entertainment will release Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures, a free-to-play, browser-based virtual world based on the popular animated series. Based on SOE’s Free Realms engine, the game will allow players to create a character and then enter a world where they’ll have immediate access to a host of mini-games, with an emphasis on action, competition, and socializing.

The game, like the show, is clearly aimed at a younger audience. But after a short time with an early build of the game — from pick-up-and-play speeder bike racing to a typing mini-game, to a super-addictive tower defense game — there may be a bit of something for everyone in Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures.

Details and first impressions after the jump.

Learning lessons from Free Realms, the folks working have done everything they can to make navigation in Clone Wars Adventures as simple as possible. Instead of moving around a wide open world, players hop into smaller HUB-stages with “activity centers” attached. Each with its own theme based in the iconic Star Wars universe, here is where you’ll be able to launch into the world’s plethora of free-to-play games.

Moving around the HUB worlds was a snap, with either the click of the mouse or with classic WASD movement. As the game manages the camera for you, it’ll point out interesting things to interact with, like recognizable to chat with; I had a quick, mini-conversation with Jedi Master Kit Fisto in my demo. The developers have also thrown in a handful of random objects to interact with (for the kids!); with some experimentation you might find that you can use Jedi powers to levitate boxes, for instance.

Moving into the games, there were about 16 in the build I played; I’m told more than 20 should make the cut when the game launches. Half a dozen of those 20 titles are said to be fleshed out 3D titles, with 15 to 20 stages a piece; many games will be simpler, Flash-based games.

I played a handful of games, including a simple-but-fun 3D speeder bike racing game. No breaking, no fancying turning, just movement left and right, hitting boost pads to gain speed; hit up to four for a super boost. While I played the game against AI, the final game will feature matchmaking, allowing you to compete with friends.

I also went hands on with a 3D starfighter game, flying iconic ships from the series that even Star Wars noobies would recognize. Using the WASD keys, I barrel rolled through space, firing at enemy ships in a recognizable Star Wars space-fighter environment. While it’s possible to “die,” simply completing the levels isn’t the goal; instead, players are encouraged to earn multipliers by killing enemies in certain patterns, topping out their scores in the process. Like most of the games, it will feature a leaderboard to compare scores with friends; you’ll even be alerted when your score has been beaten.

Of the simple Flash games, there was a typing tutorial style game. On the easiest level, Padawan, I used the home keys on the keyboard to tap out single letters to destroy ships. On Jedi Master, the stakes were a bit higher, the game more difficult, using all of the keys; there’s even a “boss” ship that will have you typing out full words associated with the Star Wars universe.

But of all the games I played, it was the tower defense title that had me thinking I may be firing up my browser to get my Clone Wars Adventures on. This is a full-on 3D tower defense title, where you create turrets and other defensive weapons on top of silos to stop incoming waves of droids, tanks, and other enemy units. The game also features an active, action-oriented element in its use of special items. I received “Tank Mines” that, in order to use, you’d simply click on the screen to place them; you have five seconds to place up to five, so it’s possible to spam this item with clicks all over the board.

For a free, browser-based title, the tower defense game looked excellent. In full 3D, I was able to zoom in and out with the mouse wheel to get a closer look at the action, gritting my teeth as an army of droids broke through my defenses. If tower defense is your thing, look to get addicted; I had to be pulled away from the demo PC, otherwise I might have played for hours.

While the game will be completely free to sign up for and play, you’ll be able to purchase a number of “epic items” via microtransactions. There’s even an optional monthly membership to unlock further content, as well.

Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures will launch online along with the upcoming season of the Star Wars Clone Wars animated series on Cartoon Network, which is slated for this fall.

The fifth of our in-depth 2009 Best Of Features here on the IndieGames.com blog (after the overall Top 10 we did for Gamasutra and the 10 Indie Games for ’10 article), we’re proud to present ten of the best Flash-based arcade games released in 2009.

A quick coffee break game to while away your lunch hour? Something addictive and fun to play for that slow Sunday afternoon? Play as a man who can’t stop running, a pig that can fly, or a maniac on a mountain.. here’s our pick for the top browser arcade games released in the last twelve months.

(You can also access the full 2009 Top Browser Arcade Games chart — with extra screenshots and information — as part of the IndieGames.com Features section, which includes indie game charts from 2006 to 2008.)

Here are the top freeware browser arcade games of the year:

10. Effing Hail (Greg Wohlwend and Jacob Grahn) [Flash, freeware]

Effing Hail is a score-based action game where players attempt to damage as many buildings and airborne objects as they can under the strict time limit, using a hail storm and gusts of wind to create large hails of destruction. Hails which are too large will not be moved by the wind, but there is always an unending supply of hails to direct at anything that stands in your way of acquiring a top score.

9. Twin Shot (Nitrome) [Flash, freeware]

Twin Shot is a single or 2-player platformer by Nitrome in which strange cat-like angels jump and fly around simple arenas destroying all the enemies with use of a bow and arrow.

There are coins and powerups to grab and players can move off any side of the screen to reappear back on the other side. It’s very reminiscent of the classic Bubble Bobble… with arrow-firing angel blobs, obviously. A nice touch is that arrows can be fired into walls to create temporary platforms.

8. Time4Cat (Megadev) [Flash, freeware]

Time4Cat is the story of a stray feline who accidentally discovers a time-controlling collar. With its power, he sets out to do what he does best – eat leftovers off the street.

Utilizing a unique gaming mechanic to make time seem all bendery, the best use of which has been in last year’s classic Braid, the player must collect food whilst dodging the people walking around. However, no-one will move a muscle unless the cat does. It works really smoothly and controlling with the mouse is spot-on.

7. When the Bomb Goes Off (Tom Sennett) [Flash, freeware]

When The Bomb Goes Off is a look into the lives of lots of different people 5 seconds before a huge bomb turns them into ash. This is all achieved through Wario-Ware style minigames – some of them with obvious solutions, others not so.

It’s all pretty odd and sometimes quite humourous. At the end a score is given to show how many of the situations you correctly acted out. If this doesn’t sound like your type of thing, at least try it just for the music.

6. Vox Populi, Vox Dei (Weremsoft) [Flash, freeware]

Vox Populi, Vox Dei sees a troubled hero on his quest to save the girl who had previously hurt him. The werewolves have taken her prisoners, so now it’s time to rip them apart limb from limb and get her back.

The sheer brutality behind your attacks that are the real eye-opener. While the werewolves are the evil-looking characters, the damage they deal out is nothing compared to what your little guy can muster up.

5. Paper Moon (Flashbang Studios and Infinite Ammo) [Unity, freeware]

Paper Moon is a short platformer originally created for the Gamma3D competition, then remade with new art and music for Flashbang Studios’ Blurst web site. The aim of the game is basically to grab apples, bananas and cherries for points before time runs out. You start with five minutes on the clock, but the time limit can be increased by collecting time bonus items for extra seconds.

4. Mountain Maniac (Pixeljam Games) [Flash, freeware]

In Mountain Maniac you control a man with a hammer whose single aim is to destroy the town at the foot of a mountain for points. He does this by smashing boulders with his instrument of doom, sending them down the mountain Pachinko-style while crushing everything that stands in its way. Occasionally the police force or a yeti might try and stop him, but you can use the mallet to protect yourself by swinging it at them as well.

3. When Pigs Fly (dessgeega) [Flash, freeware]

When Pigs Fly tells the story of a pig who conveniently grows wings after falling down a hole and finding itself trapped inside a dark cave. Unfortunately the pair of wings are preventing a quick escape from the same entry point, so the only thing left to do is to explore the caverns and seek another way out.

2. Icycle (Damp Gnat) [Flash, freeware]

The story of Icycle is set in a time when the entire world has been frozen solid, save for a man who was cryogenically preserved together with a bicycle and an unknown companion that flees the scene just before the game starts. The protagonist can only cycle forward and never move back, but he is still able to control his travel speed and time his jumps to avoid some of the dangers he will face during his adventure.

1. Canabalt (Adam Saltsman) [Flash, freeware]

Canabalt is a simple one-button platformer where you are in control of a man who can’t stop running, leaping from the top of one building to another as the city is being attacked by giant robots and futuristic-looking ships. The game was originally created by Adam Saltsman for Experimental Gameplay Project’s August theme, ‘Bare Minimum’.

[Got feedback? Reasons to disagree? Post a response and we'll do a special 'best of reader comments' round-up at the end of our chart countdowns.]

As Jim recently took a lengthy look into in his Ragdoll Metaphysics column, the “games on demand” concept of cloud gaming gained a serious foothold during this year’s GDC with demonstrations by startups OnLive and Gaikai, and, he says, “suggests that the days of us buying powerful home processing hardware – be it consoles or PCs – could be numbered.”

Today, former Shiny head David Perry uploads this first video demo of Gaikai and plays — in-browser, with no plugins — Spore, Mario Kart 64 and more via “a remote server with a 800 mile round trip to my PC.”

Perry explains most of the details in the video itself, but also posts some more technical information:

* Data travel distance is around 800 miles (round trip) on this demo as that’s where the server is. I get a 21 millisecond ping on that route. My final delay will be 10 milliseconds as I just added a server in Irvine California yesterday, but it’s not added to our grid yet. (So this demo is twice the delay I personally would get, the good news is I don’t notice it anyway.)

* This server is not hosted by a Tier 1 provider, just a regular Data Center in Freemont California. Also, I’m not cheating and using fiber connections for our demos. This is a home cable connection in a home.

* We designed this for the real internet. The video compression codecs change in realtime based on the need of the application (or game), and based on the hardware & bandwidth you have. (For Photoshop we make sure it’s pixel perfect.)

* Our bandwidth is mostly sub 1 megabit across all games. (Works with Wifi, works on netbooks with no 3D card etc.)

Read more about the demo at Perry’s blog post, where he notes that the company “will start buying bulk servers soon and after that, we will begin closed beta in California, so make sure to sign up at: gaikai.com if you want to help us out.”

Little Wheel is a point-and-click adventure game which tells the story of a community of robots who had their power shut down due to a minor mishap. By chance a guard robot was brought back to life after getting struck by lightning, and it is up to the player to assist our mechanical friend as it tries to restore power back to the city.

Cutscenes are well-animated, puzzles are easy enough to solve without referring to a walkthrough, and all hot spots are marked clearly with either a gray or white circle. The only real fault to be found here is the length of the game, but even that is possibly down to how entertaining it is to play from start to end. (source: JayisGames)

Just released by Adam ‘Atomic‘ Saltsman for the benefit of indie devs everywhere: the Flixel engine, an open-source, fully featured, newly updated version of the Flash AS3 library Saltsman used for both his original web hit Gravity Hook, and the most recent Offworld-featured Fathom.

Flixel, which is meant to forgo the Flash IDE entirely, contains a number of improvements to how Flash handles 2D games, with support for spritesheets, baked in basic physics and particle effects, and the procedural map-generation code he used for the deep fathoms of Fathom.

You can dig through Flixel’s documentation via the official home site, and try Mode (above), the included de-Mo (see what he did there?) game that demonstrates the engine’s built-in features.

Flixel [AdamAtomic]

Breakout Panic is an arcade game that plays like all other Breakout clones, but in GameDesign’s version you are pressured to destroy all blocks as quickly as you can. Blocks are pushed downwards continuously, and the game ends immediately if you run out of balls to use or allow any block to cross the dashed line.

Left clicking releases all balls in your possession, and any balls still in play after you’ve completed a level will be carried forward to the next round. Bonus rounds appear every fifth stage as well, with the first type conferring bonus balls while the second reduces your spare ball count.

Power-ups include those that increases or reduces the size of the circle you are in control of, barriers, extra balls, and stars that boosts the travel speed of all balls.

In Shift 4 you’re in control of an astronaut whose ship was just attacked by a giant squid, forcing you to make an emergency landing at the closest planet. Waking up to find your family members missing, you decide to explore a deserted facility nearby and search for clues about their current whereabouts.

This particular episode is a little more challenging than previous releases, since players are required to switch between two or more characters often to solve some of the harder puzzles. New gameplay elements such as gravity and contact-sensitive switches are introduced at a steady pace, which is a boon considering that the map is a lot less linear and there is a bit of backtracking to do as well.

Yes, it’s been an awfully long time, but it appears that The Secret Of Monkey Island is coming back, and to the Xbox 360.

The German USK rating board has revealed that The Secret Of Monkey Island – Special Edition is on its way. This was the very original Monkey Island game, from all the way back in 1990. As for what makes it a Special Edition is currently unknown — could they be re-doing the graphics? Could the game possibly have a voice cast?

The rating suggests that Activision might have some involvement in the project, but most likely this is simply Activision Europe rating the title for LucasArts, as they are the European publishing arm that LucasArts use. We can only assume this is an Xbox Live Arcade title, but there is a slim chance that this is a retail retelling of the original too.

Source: German USK Rating Board. From: [GamerBytes]

Look: In-game beta footage of Hitlers Must Die!, the first track off Cryptic Sea’s upcoming game album, No Quarter. Seems to be coming together rather well! (Those shadows… *swoons*)