We are happy to share that as of today, Epic Games has awarded more than $13 million dollars of financial support to more than 200 recipients as part of the company's $100 million Epic MegaGrants program. The initial series of funds disbursed marks a record for Epic's grant commitments, officially surpassing the four-year distributed total of the initiative's predecessor--Unreal Dev Grants--in eight months. "Through Epic MegaGrants we're supporting developers and tool creators at an unprecedented level, empowering talented teams and individuals to more easily realize their artistic and technical ambitions," said Marc Petit, General Manager, Unreal Engine, Epic Games. Epic MegaGrants typically range from $5,000 to $500,000 and cover a variety of endeavors to further ignite creativity and technological advancement within the 3D graphics community. Earlier this year Epic announced $1.2 million dollars in financial support over a three-year period to the free and open source 3D creation suite Blender, marking the largest singular grant in the initiative's history.

The Indie Megabooth, a bastion of independent games at conventions around the world, is growing. But this time around, things are different: The Megabooth is expanding beyond games. The Megashow is the first standalone festival to be spun off from the Megabooth proper: It's a roaming, daylong fair designed to highlight local creatives and bring communities together around video games, art and music. The Megashow will make its debut at the Tabernacle in Atlanta on July 15th. "Our initial goal was to expose new audiences to indie games and show them that there was this whole other side to game creation," says Megabooth leader Kelly Wallick.

Greg Wohlwend is an accomplished independent game designer and artist whose résumé includes critically acclaimed mobile titles Threes, Ridiculous Fishing and Puzzlejuice. His games tend to be whimsical and playful, and his latest project, TumbleSeed, is no different in this regard. TumbleSeed is a "rolly roguelike" -- players guide an adorable rolling seed up a treacherous, procedurally generated mountainside pockmarked with deadly holes and dangerous creatures. Fall into a hole or run into a nasty beast, and players are sent back to the base of the mountain to begin the climb all over again. The concept is easy to grasp, but the game itself is difficult to master, Wohlwend says.