It can’t be big movies and epic geekness all the time around here. Sometimes, we need to take a step back and appreciate the smaller, more intimate stories. In that spirit we present a new trailer for the indie film Short Term 12.

It features Brie Larson, John Gallagher Jr., Kaitlyn Dever, Rami Malek, and Keith Stanfield and is directed by Daniel Cretton. It “tells the story through the eyes of Grace (Larson), a twenty- something supervisor at a foster-care facility for at-risk teenagers. Passionate and tough, Grace is a formidable caretaker of the kids in her charge – and in love with her long-term boyfriend and co-worker, Mason (Gallagher Jr.)

But Grace’s own difficult past – and the surprising future that suddenly presents itself – throw her into unforeseen confusion, made all the sharper with the arrival of a new intake at the facility – Jayden (Dever), a gifted but troubled teenage girl with whom Grace has a charged connection. Grace comes to find – in both her work and the new teenager in her care – surprising sources of redemption.”

Check out the trailer after the break. Look for Short Term 12 to arrive in theaters for a limited release on August 23.

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The little tower defense game that could keeps on trucking with the official announcement of the sequel to Defense Grid set for 2014. Way back in 2009 during Comic-Con, I got the chance to get hands on with the original Defense Grid before it went to XBox Live Arcade.

Though not being a tower defense guy, I couldn’t stop playing (until the game beat me into submission). Then with the “You Monster” DLC pack that put even more levels, but this time with a Portal theme, at my disposal, I was hooked again.

During our Kickstarter Watch, we put a spotlight on Defense Grid in hopes of helping Hidden Path reach their goal that would eventually lead to the release of Defense Grid 2. Though the million dollar goal wasn’t hit, this bit of news was released yesterday:

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Welcome back to the Monday Freeview where we bring you the best in free entertainment this week. In our first installment last week we hooked you up with Bombermine for the PC and Mac. This week, we’re headed to iOS for 4 Pics 1 Word.

Currently one of the top free apps in the iPhone App store, 4 Pics 1 Word is a puzzle game where the player is presented with four pictures and needs to come up with the one word that describes what they all have in common. Seems like a pretty self explanatory game, right? Well at the start, it is. When you see a picture of Juice, an Apple, a Pineapple and a Banana, the obvious answer that comes to mind is “Fruit”. But the further the player gets, the more difficult the brain teaser gets. Work Boots, two burgers, socks and two ladybugs humping each other takes a little more thought to figure out the hidden word.

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Welcome to the Monday Freeview, the newest weekly feature here at The Flickcast that gives you the heads up on entertainment that comes at everyone’s favorite price: $Free.99. Every Monday we’re going to take a look at the latest and greatest in free entertainment whether it is free games, trial periods, apps or just about anything else geek that isn’t going to cost you an arm and a leg… Well actually it won’t cost you anything because, as we said, it’s free.

This week we’re going to take a peek at Bombermine. No, don’t worry, it isn’t a Minecraft ripoff unlike 95% of XBox Indie Marketplace. It is actually a reimagining of the Bomberman series but in glorious MMO fashion. When you hop into Bombermine, you find yourself in a seemingly unending map with just a single bomb as you try to take out as many competitors as you can in each game’s 20 minute time period. Like classic Bomberman, players collect increased bomb capacity, bomb intensity and speed along with various other power-ups and power-downs.

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The open world style of Minecraft took both PC and XBox Live Arcade by storm. Now, the 16-bit side scrolling counterpart to Minecraft is making its way to consoles. Coming to both XBox Live Arcade and the PlayStation network, Terraria had sold over 1.5 million downloads via PC by November of 2012. Terreria for consoles will be featuring new content as well as new controls specifically for the new platforms.

Still only listed as “Coming Soon”, Terraria is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2013 for consoles. Whether it is going to be available simultaneously on PlayStation Network and XBox Live Arcade or one of the two will get a timed exclusivity remains to be seen.

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They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that’s true, George Romero must feel pretty damn flattered most of the time — especially if he ever sees the upcoming zombie horror flick Mimesis.

Yeah, we were curious too. Here’s some scoop on Mimesis, directly from the official press release.

“A group of horror fans find themselves unwilling participants in a living nightmare that pays homage to a classic horror film. Seven complete strangers whose only common link is a love for classic era horror films are invited to attend an exclusive “horror fan” party at a remote farm. But as the sun sets, these strangers soon find themselves within a real life version of the 1968 George Romero cult horror classic Night of the Living Dead.”

There’s a new redband trailer for Mimesis and we’ve got it for you right now. After the break, of course. We think it looks pretty interesting, especially for an indie effort. What say you?

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You have to love Instant Netflix. On those late nights where you can’t fall asleep, it just seems to know exactly what to recommend to you to help you pass the time. But this isn’t about Instant Netflix, though I do thank it for the recommendation. This is about Indie Game: The Movie.

Indie Game: The Movie takes place with three indie developers who are in three very different situations with their games. The men behind Braid, Super Meat Boy and Fez are all profiled in this documentary exploring the world of indie development and the trials associated with it.

Jonathan Blow talks about life after having a successful indie release with Braid and the effect it has had on him. Team Meat, a duo comprised of Edmund McMillen and Michael Refenes, are shown from midway through their development process until the release of Super Meat Boy on XBox Live. Finally, Phil Fish chronicles the trials and tribulations he went through in the extended development process of Fez.

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Alien Homonid was one of the most punishing games to come out for the Gamecube with an old school challenge behind it and it quickly put Behemoth on the map. They followed up with Castle Crashers which would go on to become the highest selling independent game up until Minecraft was released. With over $25 million in revenue from Castle Crashers, Behemoth would go on to reveal Battleblock Theater as their next project.

The first playable demo of Battleblock Theater was revealed in 2009 and has been updated for both Comic Con and PAX since but the game’s release date was kept close to the vest. Things look like they may be changing for a 2013 release though

Behemoth has opened registration for a closed beta for Battleblock Theater. The beta will feature 10,000 slots and is expected to take place between February or March. These 10,000 playtesters will be responsible for reporting any bugs or problems with the game that the developers can fix in time for commercial release.

While some betas for games like Resident Evil, Halo and Gears of War are more for commercial attention, a smaller studio like Behemoth can depend on this group to help their QA since their budgets can’t come close to matching Capcom, Microsoft and Epic respectively.

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Welcome to The Flickcast Presents the Best of Gaming 2012. This is going to be a five part series throughout this first week of 2013 concluding with the Game of the Year being awarded on Friday.

Best Use of the PlayStation Network’s Voice Chat – Journey

So any gamer who has a PS3 already knows that people with microphones don’t really exist, especially compared to the plethora of expletive spitting, homophobic prepubescents who have claimed to have slept with our mothers that troll XBox Live. What they may not know is that some of the best communication that has happened in 2012 on the PSN comes from a game that actually doesn’t even allow for voice chat.

In Journey, players are placed in the role of a robed figure who has no voice at all but can make a singing tone. Those connected to the PSN will occasionally be placed in random worlds with other players but have no method of communication other than the singing tone. This means that players are actually tasked with creating their own non-verbal communication.

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Back at San Diego Comic Con 2011, we gave a preview on Friend of the Flickcast Kirk Manley’s debut issue of Z-Girl and the 4 Tigers. Since, Kirk and Z-Girl writer Jeff Marsick have been to dozens of conventions around the country promoting their series. Tomorrow, the team will be debuting the third issue of Z-Girl and the 4 Tigers.

For anyone who has read the previous issues of Z-Girl and the 4 Tigers, this may be the biggest story issue yet. A flashback that reveals the past of one of the tiger spirits. Z-Girl’s most trying moment so far. And a red headed woman waking up and talking to a voice in her head.

For those who haven’t read Z-Girl and the 4 Tigers yet, it is an independent title from Studio Z focusing on a military group composed of a high level functioning zombie and four teammates each inhabited by mythical spirits known as the 4 Tigers. The story is a blend of sci-fi, horror and military drama with some fantastic art by Manly.

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With all the big budget Hollywood movies coming out each week it’s also nice to pay a bit of attention to the little guy (or girl). Indie filmmakers of today often do it with talent, style and innovation. Plus, they are potentially tomorrow’s big budget directors.

Just look at someone like Gareth Edwards. He made a little indie movie called Monsters and now he’s directing the big budget studio reboot of Godzilla. See, it can happen.

This time around we turn the Indie Spotlight on Brian T. Jaynes Patient Zero. The zombie apocalypse horror movie has it’s world premiere next week at Splatterfest. Until then, here’s a bit of synopsis to help pique your interest.

The highly anticipated prequel to director Brian T. Jaynes hit feature, “Humans Vs. Zombies” shows the genesis of “the beginning of the end,” and how genetic experimentation lead to the creation of Patient Zero, the first infectious zombie.

Check out the trailer for Patient Zero after the break. If you can’t make the screening in Huston, don’t worry. The movie hits DVD, etc. on September 25th.

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As you may have noticed over the past few days we have posted some wrestling interviews from San Diego Comic-Con. This is our final “lost interview” from SDCC. Hope you enjoy!

Most people would know Shad best from his time at WWE as one half of the tag team Cryme Tyme. But this year, Shad wasn’t at Comic Con to promote wrestling. He was there to promote a graphic novel he has been working on called Assassin and Son. He also talks about how it has been a challenge for him breaking into the world of comics coming from a wrestling background. More can be found about Shad’s work on Assassin and Son at his website.

Check out the full interview with Shad from SDCC after the jump.

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One of the great things about Kickstarter is that varied levels game design that come forth from its plethora of projects. While some games are simple iOS titles that can be funded for less than a year’s tuition at a prestigious university, others are incredibly ambitious projects that a publisher might not yet have the faith in backing yet. A perfect example of that is Planetary Annihilation.

When you look at the Kickstarter trailer below for Planetary Annihilation, you’ll see this isn’t like just any other RTS. From the team that brought Total Annihilation and Monday Night Combat, Uber Entertainment Inc realized that the RTS genre isn’t one that publishers were flocking towards but knew that there are still hardcore fans who want more than just the few big budget titles that are currently on shelves.

One thing that stood out to them was that even though a lot of futuristic RTS games took place in space, they were scaled down battles with a focus on a few small units of characters. Planetary Annihilation will have players traveling through planets, on to moons, into asteroid belts and even destroying planets

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We don’t just look at big budget Hollywood movies. We also love a good indie thriller too, and when we find one, we like to bring it to your attention. No need to thanks us, it’s kinda our thing.

Anyway, there’s an upcoming indie thriller called Citadel you might want to keep in mind. It’s directed by Ciarán Foy and won the Midnighter Audience Award at the 2012 SXSW Film Festival. We’ve got the first teaser and a poster for the film after the break. Before that, here’s some info on the story:

Tommy Cowley (Aneurin Barnard) lives a quiet life in a decaying apartment complex with his highly pregnant wife. The couple is attacked one day by a group of hooded young thugs, and after a shocking act of violence, Tommy is left to raise his newborn daughter alone.

With the help of a vigilante priest who has uncovered the genesis of this ruthless, potentially supernatural gang, Tommy must overcome his fears and venture into the heart of the abandoned tower block known as the CITADEL to save his family.

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Last week, we brought you the Ouya on the Kickstarter Watch, a new piece of open source streaming console hardware. This week, we are bringing two PC gaming projects that are high on the Flickcast’s radar.

Back at Comic Con International a few years ago, we got our first look at Defense Grid for XBox Live Arcade. Already a successful PC game, Defense Grid was easily the best tower defense game on XBox as well. They even released a Portal themed DLC pack. Now, the team at Hidden Path looks to help fund their sequel using Kickstarter. From the looks of things, Defense Grid 2 will cost the team at Hidden Path about $1,000,000 to make.

Instead of asking for just that cool million, the team has set up a tiered system. When reaching the $250,000 goal, they will be able to fund the Defense Grid: Containment expansion. At the halfway mark of $500,000, they will be able to be able to develop a multiplayer system, something not often discussed in tower defense titles as well as a new game engine. At $750,000, level editing software and expansion to both Linux and Mac platforms becomes available. Finally, at the million dollar mark, Defense Grid 2 can be made.

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When most gamers here the phrase “Free-to-play,” heads are usually shaken and faces are definitely palmed. Once in a great while, however, there comes a free-to-play game that is that actually is free to play. Blacklight: Retribution is one of the few games that not only costs you nothing to enjoy, but is also damn fun to play in the process – and now, it’s as easy as downloading it from the Steam store (for FREE).

From Andy Kipling, Executive Producer at Zombie Studios:

“We couldn’t be more excited with the upcoming release of Blacklight: Retribution on Steam. With millions of active users daily, Steam has become the premiere digital distribution service around the world. As the Free-to-Play market grows, we continue to explore new methods for our fans to play our games, and bringing Blacklight: Retribution to Steam was a no brainer. Working with Valve to bring Blacklight: Retribution to Steam was extremely easy. We added support for Steam Achievement and Stats to Blacklight: Retribution, and a number of in-game items especially for Steam users.”

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