Been trying to think a little bit about what GameSetWatch means to me, my employer, and the game biz, and so we're trying something new for a little bit.

Namely - the same unheralded/alternative links we have always run will be around, but concatenated into a single daily post, linklog-stylee, and then we'll save our longer posts for more interesting and longer-form columns and opinion pieces. Or that's the concept. So here we go:

- HDRLying has a piece up discussing 'The Top Eight Labors of Love in Gaming History', explaining: "Sometimes, a team puts so much of their heart, soul, time (and sometimes even their lives) into a game, that it becomes much more than just a product; it becomes a labor of love." Examples include Panzer Dragoon and Cave Story.

- There really do seem to be more forgotten, interesting titles on the Game Boy than a lot of other consoles - and Disgruntled Designer rounds them up in a new post - for example the marvellously obscure Trip World: "This game suffered the fate of many of Sunsoft's fantastic games in the 1990s like Hebereke and Gimmick!, namely being withheld from release in North America, and being released in low numbers in Japan." [Via NamakoTeam.]

- How many page views might you get if those dapper dons of gaming cartoons, Penny Arcade, linked to you? Thomas & The Magical Words creator Chanon at Viquasoft has found out: "In the month of December 2005 we got 42,904 visitors and 26,081 downloads (hits to the download link) for our game Thomas and the Magical Words from Penny-Arcade from this post. Conversion rates were actually above normal, which I believe was probably because Tycho himself was actually recommending the game." Not bad.

- Here's an interesting one - someone at NBC Universal sent over a physics toy that I guess they've commissioned (is this to promote something, or just a new interactive site they're trying?): "I wanted to point you in the direction of a game/community called Calamity Game. Its a Flash based physics web toy where users start with a blank canvas and a rag doll. They can then create their own scenes using different tools." It's... neat.