I know. Just the word Monday deeply depresses most people when they see it. But that’s why I bring you guys the Monday Freeview. To give you something to look forward to on the longest possible point before the weekend begins. And this week, we’ve got a big one for you: League of Legends.

With the Mac client finally going live, I decided to give one of the most famous Free-To-Play games on the internet a try. For those who don’t know what League of Legends is, it is technically considered a MOBA (or Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) which is an offshoot of the RTS genre after the success of a Warcraft 3 mod that would go on to become DotA (Defense of the Ancients). Instead of worrying about the minutia of base building and resource management, players got to focus on what they all really carried about, playing as a hyper strong character and taking the fight to their enemy.

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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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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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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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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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Found footage films are a mixed bag. Sometimes they can be compelling, but most of the time they are one note gimmicks stretched to the length of a feature film. The recent explosion of found footage films has been for the most part rather underwhelming. Only the recent Chronicle, and maybe the first Paranormal Activity, had a compelling angle and worthwhile story.

Later this year V/H/S looks to bring a novel new twist to the sub-genre and the new trailer sells the concept well. For those of you just hearing about this indie horror film for the first time, here is the synopsis:

When a group of petty criminals is hired by a mysterious party to retrieve a rare piece of found footage from a rundown house in the middle of nowhere, they soon realize that the job isn’t going to be as easy as they thought. In the living room, a lifeless body holds court before a hub of old television sets, surrounded by stacks upon stacks of VHS tapes. As they search for the right one, they are treated to a seemingly endless number of horrifying videos, each stranger than the last.

One great way of avoiding the ‘single gimmick stretched to thin’ pitfall is to divide up your movie, and the structure of V/H/S even manages to do that in an interesting way.

The film hits VOD in August and theaters in October, and be sure to check out the trailer after the jump.

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Last year, indie developer Owlchemy Lab’s Smuggle Truck was a part of the Boston Indie Showcase, and I had a blast playing it. Which was why I was pleased to see them back on the show floor this year with a new game for mobile devices, titled Jack Lumber.

There’s a bit of a tragic story behind Jack Lumber- your character, Jack, lost his grandmother at a young age when she was viciously slaughtered by a falling tree. Now, using your supernatural powers, you’re out to avenge your granny’s death by destroying as many trees as you can, armed with your axe and your trusty sidekick Buck the Beaver always by your side.

Jack Lumber is an action arcade game with familiar mechanics, but it’s a lot of fun to play. Flying bits of lumber zip across your screen, and using your finger, your mission is to chop up as many as you can using one fluid motion. The faster you destroy as many logs of wood as you can, the more points you’ll score. Some trees need to be chopped horizontally and vertically, so you’ll soon be frantically dragging your finger across the screen in crazy patterns trying to annihilate the lumber and avenge Jack’s poor grandma. Due to the mechanics of the game, it works best on a touchscreen, but I’d love to see this game someday ported to the Kinect.

Jack Lumber will be released sometime this summer for mobile devices. In the meantime, watch the latest teaser video after the jump.

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One of my goals this year for PAX East was to play every single game featured in the Boston Indie Showcase, a hand-picked collection of excellent mobile games created by independent developers. After checking out all the other games featured in the showcase, I was excited to see what Not Without You had in store for me on the show floor.

Out of all the games in the Boston Indie Showcase, most of which were very puzzle-heavy, Not Without You was definitely the most challenging of them all.

The blue furry creatures of Not Without You need your help escaping from the lab, which would be easy peasy, if the creatures didn’t move in tandem with one another. Using the environment and obstacles placed in your way, your task is to arrange these creatures in the right formation to lead them out of the lab doors in as few moves as possible.

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In 2010, Jerry Holkins, aka Tycho, posted chapters for what he hoped would become the third installment of Penny Arcade’s steampunk RPG game series, but then much to the dismay of fans, not much else was heard of about the game.

Cut to 2012 and not only does the game have a developer, indie devs Zeboyd games, but it should be released sometime this summer. I got a chance to sit in on the panel where the game’s creators, plus Holkins himself, discussed how the game resurfaced and came to be.

What is obviously different right from the start in On The Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 is the SNES-style art and graphics. The previous two games looked a bit more like one of Mike Krahulik’s comics, but this third game is less comic, more Final Fantasy. The battle system and dialogue boxes are reminiscent of all my favorite RPGs growing up, but combined with the snarky, sometimes foul dialogue always present in the Penny Arcade games, it’s more like an R-rated version of Dragon Warrior.

During the Q&A portion of the panel, fans asked a lot about the other apparent difference in On The Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness 3, which is the absence of a customizable protagonist. In this third installment, players take on a party of Gabriel, Tycho, and Ann. The developers mentioned that they may wrap up the story of the previous protagonist, but you won’t be able to play as him. However, there will be enemies in tiny hats, and tiny hats make everything funnier, so it all balances out.

On The Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 will be available this summer on PC, Mac, Xbox, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android.

The floor this year at PAX East included a section indie developers dubbed the Indie Megabooth- 16 independent developers showing off twenty of the latest and greatest indie games on all sorts of platforms. One of those titles was Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack, the follow up to PSN title Tales from Space: About a Blob, now available for the Playstation Vita. I decided to pick up the title to play during my free time at PAX East, and I’m really glad I did.

Much like the Katamari games, Mutant Blobs Attack  requires you to eat everything in sight to proceed through the level, as long as it’s not bigger than you. But, while Katamari is a 3rd person perspective three dimensional game, Mutant Blobs Attack is a 2D sidescrolling platformer, more like Loco Roco.  As a blob, you’ll also gain powerups to allow you to fly, float, and magnetize yourself to walls.

The game utilizes the Vita’s controls without overdoing it and becoming cumbersome to play. You control the blob throughout the levels using the analog stick, but there are also a few random levels that require you to tilt the Vita around like a ball maze to try to move the blob to the goal. The back touchscreen don’t come into play at all, but the front is used to manipulate the environment to proceed.

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Lawnmower Challenge, another selection for this year’s Boston Indie Showcase at PAX East, has done something interesting: it’s taken a chore that most consider a sweaty nuisance, and turned it into a mind-bending puzzle game.

In Lawnmower Challenge, your quest is simple: mow all the grass. However, these aren’t your average suburban lawns. There are locked gates that can only be unlocked with a key, unmowable sections that need planting, and gates that can only be opened from a certain direction. These all would be simple obstacles to overcome if you weren’t going for a perfect score, as your steps are counted and the fewer you take, the more stars you’ll earn.

Don’t let the simple controls and cute graphics fool you; it’ll take considerable planning to complete each level at three stars.

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Imagine being turned into a jumping bean by an evil wizard, and on top of all that having your girlfriend kidnapped. Worst day ever, right? That’s what our hero, Emilio, is faced with in Bean’s Quest, a bouncing 16-bit platformer included in the Boston Indie Showcase, which will be shown off this weekend at PAX East.

Using the touchscreen controls of your favorite iOS device, you control Emilio as he bounds, bounces, and boings his way through each level, collecting diamonds as well as his missing pet axolotls along the way. Emilio never stops jumping, so all you have to do is move him left or right, but simple controls don’t make this game a breeze.

The difficulty in Bean’s Quest lies not in completing each level, but completing each level under the required number of bounces to obtain a perfect rating. If you’re going for all the diamonds and axolotls as well, it gets even more difficult. I found myself repeating levels over and over to try to get a better score and collect all the goodies, and with 150 levels to traverse, replay level for Bean’s Quest is pretty high.

Bean’s Quest also features an original soundtrack, as well as Game Center integration.

The game is available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. It’s on sale right now, so jump on over to the iTunes Store and pick it up for $1.99, or check it out on the show floor this weekend at PAX.

The full version of little logic puzzler Girls Like Robots is not released quite yet, but I got a chance to check it out before it hits the show floor at PAX East this weekend.

The gameplay of Girls Like Robots is simple: make all the square people happy. Each level is a grid, with different amounts of spaces to place your square shaped friends in the right arrangement so that everyone plays nice. There’s the girls, who love being surrounded by robots. The nerds love being surrounded by girls, not other nerds. Girls won’t mind being around nerds if there’s some pie present, but the robots HATE pies.

It all sounds really cute and whimsical, but quickly you’ll realize that this little puzzle game is, well, a puzzler. It’s hard! Just like in real life, you can’t make everyone happy, and you won’t be able to in Girls Like Robots either. Depending on which squares you’re working with, you’ll have to decide which arrangement will maximize points and keep anyone from getting too angry with one another.

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