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Thanks for your kind words (as always)...they mean a lot! 

Happy to hear, and I'm glad that you have a big library of good music available for free, it can really make a great difference when making games and other projects. 

I know it's past deadline, but I hope I can still post my entry;
a boar-shaped Carnyx.
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/oKaU0mQ.png[/imgzoom]

Concept: Aaru by Dboywheeler - I liked the idea of a different afterlife than the usual heaven/hell
playability: EGA afterlife by Hobo - I can imagine being forced to choose which gate to enter
Artistic execution: EGA afterlife by Hobo - Just lovely color palette and symmetry, as well as some nice pixel-art

Awesome animation!  That must've took some time to put together!

Yes, it took me around two hours to draw and animate the commissar and his toppling card castle.

I do feel that I'm making progress however, most puzzle pieces are in place, the only things I haven't begun
working on yet are the ending scene and one other character of which I've been unable to decide between two
different concepts for said character. But otherwise, things are beginning to take shape!

Added the game to Gamejolt!

This game has also been nominated for best writing in 2016, so please remember to give it a try before you vote! 

Just listened through this you tube video where many of the questions regarding Steam direct were discussed,
just thought I might share it here in case anyone is interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPm4HsM-IUQ

To a heavy metal enthusiast this place must be pure heaven...

Glad to see that you liked the goat!
Believe it or not, but the goat was animated with only 7 frames of animation:


I've also taken the time to animate a most exciting scene where Olga and Ivan makes a bridge explode...
...as seen from the perspective of a man being nowhere near it.

This theme is similar to last competition, who knows, maybe I'll write a continuation for "A broken man".

Note that the background color isn't from the default palette. (But I think thats okay, right?)

I guess since the background technically isn't part of the sprite, I'll give it a pass this time.

I recently spent some time writing scripts and drawing new sprites,
and here I present the latest character to show up in the game:

Whether this creature or the commissar will provide the most
help for Olga and Ivan to solve their task is still a matter of debate.

Cool, it will be fun to see how the bike works in-game! Any racing minigames?

Congratulations Mandle and Baron! Both of your entries were great, and very touching, reads!

Myself I'm happy with third place. When I first posted my entry I was really unsure of it,
so I'm very happy to see tat some of you liked it.

What an awesome GIF, the fire and rain effects ar just amazing!

Before Greenlight people didn't even use Steam to find good indie games... if indies are put off trying for Steam in the future then other digital stores will start to thrive again.  It's actually been pretty bad for the indie scene in that it's taken so much trade from the traditional indie havens.  I can see Itch finally becoming a big player if indie gamers don't have a big selection of new games on Steam, which in many ways would be better for the indie market overall (although that would depend on Itch continuing to be well run and highly focused on helping indie devs).

While Steam have taken away trade from other sites, at the same time it may have led more people not usually specifically looking for indie games to try something new since they found it on Steam.
I also remembered an interesting article about the indie label, arguing on weather to stop using the term indie all together: https://killscreen.com/articles/its-time-us-stop-calling-games-indie/
Now this article is pretty old, before most of the bad games and shovelware on Steam came out, but I came to think about this passage from it:

If we continue to conflate all games made under the dubious conditions that define indie and place them in a single category, then we deny them the ability to be distinct works. Labeling cheapens the discipline by suggesting that somehow the motivations that separate Super Smash Brothers from BariBariBall, Metal Gear Solid from Superhot, Candy Crush Saga and Twodots, are somehow insurmountable. It gives those who group indie games as melodramatic platforms a convenient and approximate filtering system for ignoring anything in this massive expanse of games.

Personally, I liked that Steam had both small-scale indie games and AAA titles, and I would probably have missed out on some great games if I hadn't found them on Steam. When I look for games to play, I usually don't look for indie games specifically, but I look for themes and genres I like, therefore I wouldn't want to see indie games confined to platforms for indie games only.

It grinds my gears that I only seem to remember important things or get good ideas when I'm using the bathroom/in bed and about to go to sleep/ in a hurry to catch the next train or otherwise busy and occupied.
Meanwhile, when I actually have time, my brain is completely empty.

Can you show some examples of games on Steam that have a missing executable, game-breaking bug, or stolen assets? I've seen a lot of garbage on Steam but none of it appears to be obviously unplayable or obvious copyright infringement.

I must admit that I've never bought or played games with missing executables off Steam myself, but I have seen posts and videos of people complaining about it. I have however seen games on steam which were so buggy that they prevented me from playing the game.
Anyway, the point I wanted to make was that I think Steam should have more and better quality control and that hiring people to do so might be a better idea than higher entry fees.

Some of my favorite games I've bought on Steam have been indie-games with a small budget, and I'm worried the new system might make it harder for good indie developers to get their games released on Steam while failing to stop the ones deliberately churning out bad and broken games to make a quick buck.

I think the biggest problem with Greenlight has been that they are hard-bent on trying to make a self-regulating system that doesn't require any
moderation on their part, but no entry fees or computer algorithms or paper work in the world can replace actual quality control of the content.
Seriously, just hiring a couple of interns to test-play the games an hour and bar those with missing executable, stolen assets, game-breaking bugs
and obviously copy-right infringing material would stop at least two thirds of all the garbage asset flips flooding Steam.

It's also depressing to see just how many people in the comment section of Jim Sterlings video on the matter seem to genuinely think that 5000 US dollar
would be a reasonable entry fee, that's more more than most people in my country make in a month for crying out loud!

Seeing as it's Valentine's day, I thought it would be a good time to announce that in Sniper and spotter serving the motherland,
romantic sub-plots, flirtatious dialogue options and romantic side-quests...

...will not show up in the game.
Something I have spent time on implementing into the game however, is the ability for the player to seek clues from the commissar regarding the use of different inventory items,
my vision being that if the player needs a clue on how to use a certain item in the inventory, they can give it to the commissar and each item will lead to an unique answer.
At one point Ivan will even be able to ask the commissar to give him an item he needs to complete a puzzle, as seen in this screenshot below:

Happy Valentines day everyone!