Slamdance, best known for the Slamdance Film Festival, has established a Guerilla Gamemaker Competition. The goal of this competition is to encourage and showcase independent games. Art rather than business will be the primary focus. There are a lot of concepts among the finalists that I find very fresh and interesting. For example, there is Cultivation, a game about gardening. This may seem like it could be boring, and no doubt it would bore some gamers, but I find the description intriguing:

Cultivation is quite different from most other games. It is a social simulation, and the primary form of conflict is over land and plant resources—there is no shooting, but there are plenty of angry looks. It is also an evolution simulation. Within the world of Cultivation, you can explore a virtually infinite spectrum of different plant and gardener varieties.

All of the graphics, sounds, melodies,and other content in Cultivation are 100% procedurally generated at playtime. In other words, there are no hand-painted texture maps—instead, each object has a uniquely “grown” appearance. Every time you play, Cultivation generates fresh visuals, music, and behaviors.

Braid also seems fascinating to me in concept. It is described like this:

Braid is an action-puzzle game about manipulating the flow of time. The player journeys through a series of worlds; in each world, time behaves differently. The game provides a mind-expanding experience that is filler-free, treating the player’s time as precious.

Flow is similar to Cultivation in its simulation of simplified and abstracted characteristics of evolution. It can already be played online. The summary of it is not exactly crystal clear, but maybe you’re meant to learn what it’s about by playing it – “play me, don’t tell me”. Why not? In film and fiction, “show me, don’t tell me” is the motto.

Originated as a practice and testbed for Embedded Difficulty Adjustment theory formulated in Jenova Chen’s game design thesis, flOw is a web based game designed to attract a wider audience, allowing players with different tastes to enjoy the experience in their own way. The game features an abstract aquatic world inviting player to dive in, to learn, to explore, to survive…

There are other finalists listed on the Slamdance webpage. Some of them may be more appealing to some readers than those few I have singled out to mention.