Indie and other games of interest: Gray Matter, Great Battles, free stuff

This week in indie and other games of interest, we have an update on Gray Matter, some free-to-play titles, and a couple demos for you to try out.

Also of note: Iceberg Interactive's announced the release of the bundle British Horror Pack consisting of Dark Fall: The Journal Classic Edition, Dark Fall: Lights Out The Director’s Cut Edition, and Barrow Hill; Slitherine has digitally released History: Great Battles - Medieval earlier than the physical disc; and there's a zombie game titled Zombie Driver which has you pulling a Rebecca Gayheart on the undead with your vehicle.

Loads more is through the jump. Be prepared. It' a massive wall of text and bullets.

• Paradox Interactive has revealed that the Mount & Blade: Warband multiplayer expansion will be made available on March 19. Tale Worlds was still looking for Beta participants last we heard, so if you have not applied, you can do so here.

• Legie is a 3D adventure dungeon crawler features a dark story about an innkeeper, beer, and the devil in the medieval Czech town of Jilemnice. Sounds like our local pub, to be honest. Anyway, there's a demo of the game over on FileFront, which gives you a taste of it. You should try it out.

• Gray Matter, the adventure game being designed by Gabriel Knight creator Jane Jensen, has been delayed, yet again. dtp Entertainment has announced that the game is unfortunately going to miss its release this year, and is now slated for March 2010. Damn it. We've been looking forward to this episodic PC game for three years now, but what's a few months more, we reckon.

• Iceberg Interactive and Darkling Room have announced the release of the bundle “British Horror Pack” throughout UK, Scandinavia and Benelux, starting next month with the UK. The British Horror Pack will consist of UK-developed horror adventure games Dark Fall: The Journal Classic Edition and Dark Fall: Lights Out The Director’s Cut Edition and Barrow Hill. The Dark Fall special editions contain new features such as new graphics and effects, new puzzles and an enhanced story, with more ghostly encounters, as well as new music and sound. All games will work on modern Windows versions. The Pack will also contain the games’ combined soundtrack CD. The British Horror Pack is a new addition to the Adventure Classics range that Iceberg Interactive will start releasing, with re-mastered versions of games such as the Syberia Collection and the Dracula Trilogy launching on October 30. The British Horror Pack itself is set for a UK release on November 20.

• Polish developer Exor Studios has announced its PC game Zombie Driver, which is due in November which has you drive through loads of zombies in modified cars to rescue survivors of a chemical apocalypse. According to CVG, "Flame-throwers, machine guns and more can be strapped to cars, using cash earned from side-quests or found in unlikely places in the unrestricted, open world." Sounds lovely.

• SimBin has a Race On demo available over on GamersHell. It includes a Racing Event and Time Attack and there is a video of it over on Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

• Slitherine has decided to release its RPG/strategy title History: Great Battles - Medieval. The game will be made available in digital form exclusively from the official site until its full retail release in February, which will see releases for Xbox 360 and PS3 as well as PC. It's set during the Hundred Years War between France and England, and players will be able to create their armies, customize them and lead them to victory through over 130 years and includes a ranking system.

• A playable demo for the mystery adventure game, Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy has been posted over on http://news.bigdownload.com/2009/10/08/download-nancy-drew-warnings-at-waverly-academy-demo/BigDownload. The game is already on store shelves and the digital version is expected on October 13.

• Conquest Medieval Realms has a playable demo over on FileFront. This new demo includes all of the improvements that come with the latest update and adds two additional scenarios over and above what is already available from the older demo version. There is also a new patch available for the game, posted in the same link, that fixes a rare crash bug and addresses an issue with selecting territories and brings a number of other minor fixes.

• Topware Interactive has announced that it will be the US publisher for Scivelation, the upcoming Unreal Engine III-based third person shooter. Set for PC and other platforms in 2010, the game's currently in development at Ukraine-based Black Wing Foundation. Set in the future with an oppressive government known as the Regime in charge, your character is head of the resistance against the no-gooders. Sounds interesting. More over on BigDownload.

• RunMan: Race Around The World is a free-ware game created by Tom Sennett and Matt Thorson about a very fast fella depressed no one is as fast as he, so the speedster plans to race himself around the world.It's rather cute, and has some wonderful Deliverance/feud-type fiddle music in it that would make Charlie Daniels proud. You should really try it out. We liked it rather well, to be honest.

• MTV has showcased XBL indie title Bullet Trap over on the site. Looks like the brick shooter's bullets you pound at enemies with will hurt you just as much. So be careful. It sounds like an interesting take in the genre. You should go have a read.

• Cave Chaos is a browser-based title that has you in a cave that's falling down on you and to escape you have to run on a 2D plane with falling barrels and ghosts of dead creatures tying to get to you. It even has a two-player mode so you and a friend can play together. Nitrome game is free, and highly addictive. Trust us on that one, we've been playing the darn thing all morning.

• Designer Marc Ecko has told Destructiod that he would like to make another game based on his critically panned Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure title. Calling the people who game his game a bad review "people who got wedgies in high school", Ecko sad that the blame lies solely on Atari. "Getting up was a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Atari s**t the bed, you know? And I'm gonna f**king make that game again if it kills me. I'm gonna do it. I want to see the brand out there again." Rage on dude. Rage on.

• Currently looking for playtesters, Alientrap Software has announced Capized set for release on Steam and XBLA in 2010. RPS says it reminds them a lot of Exile. That's a good thing, right?