As a kid, Alx Preston spent a significant amount of time as a member of the audience, watching his brother sing in choir and opera groups. One night, he found himself sitting in a pew at the heart of a large, elegant church, letting the sounds of yet another performance wash over him. He also happened to be playing a lot of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time at home. "I kind of fell into a dream state," Preston said. "I was playing a lot of Ocarina of Time at the time, and so the vocals of that mixed with this kind of fantastical vision of going through a forest. I think for me that Ocarina of Time was one of those formative games that really allowed me to see what was possible within the medium."

Teddy Dief is good at keeping secrets. They helped ignite the indie game scene in 2016 as a co-designer on Hyper Light Drifter, and ever since, their follow-up project has been highly anticipated by fans of that game's neon-infused vibe. Meanwhile, Dief has been cobbling together a global team of artists, musicians and programmers, quietly building something known as the Palmtree Project, or simply . For years, they've kept quiet. Dief and their collaborators at Palmtree Team unveiled We Are OFK, a musical, interactive series set to launch in the spring of 2021.

Apple released its picks for the best apps and games of 2019 at an event in New York City on Monday. It also identified what it deemed were the most important trends that drove app development in the past year -- namely reimagined franchises (like Pokémon Masters and Minecraft Earth) and apps that allow for easy content creation (like Anchor and Wattpad). "We are excited to announce such a diverse group of 2019 App Store winners, showing that great design and creativity comes from developers large and small, and from every corner of the world," said Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. Here are Apple's picks for best apps and games of 2019 -- at least on Apple devices. Making books, magazines or other layout-heavy projects requires serious publishing software, but often comes at a high cost.

Nintendo wasn't done with the indie game announcements after its #Nindies live stream earlier today. At an event and on social media it revealed three more ports coming to the Switch soon: Hyper Light Drifter, Nidhogg 2 and Crashlands. All three are GameMaker Studio titles, so it's not surprising they're coming to Nintendo's convertible console now that the development tool has Switch support built-in. Hyper Light Drifter is confirmed due this summer in the eShop -- after missing out on a hoped-for Wii U release -- while the other two are scheduled to arrive later this year. Abylight Studios is in charge of the port, and said it's working with GameMaker creator Yoyo Games since this title "pushed the technical envelope."

Welcome to your Friday morning. As we prepare to phone in the rest of the day, read about how a lensless camera is possible with math, how car buyers aren't quite sold on autonomous vehicles, and how one company's working on a Photoshop for your voice. While phones get thinner, there's one spot that keeps sticking out: the camera lens. Taking good pictures and being able to focus at multiple distances requires a layer of glass that's a certain size, but there's really no getting around it -- or is there? Researchers at Caltech have devised an "optical phased array" chip that uses math as a substitute for a lens.

Now that media outlets have handed out awards to blockbuster games, it's time for the indies to shine. The Independent Games Festival has posted the finalists for its main competition's 2017 awards, and there are a few competitors who clearly stand out from the pack. Both the retro hack-and-slasher Hyper Light Drifter and bleak side-scroller Inside are nominated not only for the Seumas McNally grand prize, but also the audio and visual design awards. Other titles receiving multiple nods will definitely sound familiar if you've been following the scene, including the hacking-themed puzzler Quadrilateral Cowboy and the chaotic food hit Overcooked. The list shares a lot in common with what we've seen from indie categories in other awards programs, although it's definitely not a carbon copy.

Steam's Winter sale has officially started and runs until 1 p.m. EST on Jan. 2. This means you have a few more days to buy Doom, Farming Simulator 17, Firewatch and any other games you may have missed this year. Steam's store is running a bit slowly right now, like most sales when they start. Steam's Winter sale has a lot of great discounts, including Doom for $20, Stardew Valley for $10, Planet Coaster for $38, Tyranny for $40, XCOM 2 for $30 and Hyper Light Drifter for $12. Other games on sale are Dirt Rally for $24, Total War: Warhammer for $45, Civilization VI for $54 and Rise of the Tomb Raider for $30.

Listen closely and the ambient soundtrack sounds like a heartbeat rising from within the earth. In Hyper Light Drifter, available now for PC and later this year for consoles, the post-apocalypse is alive--and it's fighting. The story it tells is minimal and wordless. A short opening cutscene reveals everything the game thinks you need to know: a vision of an arcane futuristic utopia, destroyed in a burst of impossibly bright light. In the aftermath, you play as a cloak- and goggle-wearing drifter.