GitHub revealed that it will give free access to a suite of development tools that small-scale game makers may find useful. The only catch? You have to prove that you are a student.

The offer is part of the GitHub Education initiative, and is available to students over the age of 13 and currently enrolled in an academic program. If you can do that, you can get access to project development help and tools like the Crowdflower crowdsourcing platform, a hosting plan with the DNSimple DNS management service, and free access to Unreal Engine 4.

IndieCade, an annual international festival that celebrates independently developed games, has revealed the more than 35 games that have been named nominees for awards at IndieCade Festival 2014. This year's event will be held in Culver City, California October 9-12, 2014. This year's event will showcase almost 150 independent games and highlight the importance of "promotion, cultivation, and community of independent games development."

At least one good thing came out of the state of Rhode Island losing $75 million dollars (plus an undetermined amount in related costs including penalties, etc.) from the failed loan deal with Curt Schilling's 38 Studios: the success story of Danny Mandel and Ben Chichoski.

When 38 Studios went bankrupt and left dozens of its employees unemployed and abandoned - including many who relocated to Providence and the surrounding area to work there - employees like Danny Mandel and Ben Chichoski had to find something else to do in order to survive.

Indie developed contemporary game culture will be front and center at the EMP Museum’s upcoming exhibition, "Indie Game Revolution." The exhibit will open Nov. 8 and will feature such games as "Lovers In a Dangerous Spacetime," "Gone Home," "Quadrilateral Cowboy," "Papers, Please," "Tenya Wanya Teens," and "Never Alone," "GALAK-Z: THE DIMENSIONAL" (a sci-fi space shooter created by Seattle-based 17-BIT), and more.

A 16-year-old programmer has developed a browser add-on that makes it very easy to track how money is influencing politics. As detailed by Ars Technica, programmer Nicholas Rubin has created a web browser add-on called "Greenhouse."

FilmBuff and Participant Media announced that the new documentary, "The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz," is in select theaters throughout the U.S. and available via on-demand video rental through iTunes, Vimeo, Amazon Instant Video, Comcast, DirecTV, Xbox Video, Sony Entertainment Network, Vudu, and Google Play. You can also find out what theaters are carrying the film today via Fandango.

"The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz" will open in select theaters throughout the United States June 27, and will be released online through iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Comcast and DirecTV. The film will be offered exclusively to own through Vimeo On Demand for the first month of release.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata will not be attending the company's annual general meeting of shareholders this month because he recently had major surgery and is at home recovering from it. The 54-year-old is recuperating from an operation to remove a growth found in his bile duct. Iwata made the announcement in an open letter published on Nintendo's site this morning.

The V&A’s first ever Game Designer in Residence, Sophia George, today launches the annual game design competition for students, Dare to be Digital. George started her career on Dare to be Digital, winning in 2011 with her family-friendly puzzle game Tick Tock Toys. The Dare to be Digital competition is an annual affair hosted and run by Abertay University.

In an interesting interview with Gamestar, Todd Howard of Bethesda Game Studios admitted that if Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind had not been the commercial success that it was on both the Xbox and the PC, then Bethesda might have gone out of business.

The last time we checked games journalist Andrew Groen's Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign for his book, A History of the Great Empires of Eve Online, it had more than doubled its initial goal of $12,500. As of this writing the project sits at $34,487. With the project fully funded and earning nearly three-times its original goal, Groen (pictured, left) has been talking about some things he can do to make the project more interesting.

The annual Ludum Dare will begin in the wee hours of this evening and in multiple time zone to boot. Founded by Geoff Howland, and running since 2002, Ludum Dare challenges developers of all skill levels to make a game in 72 hours. Since its launch the community has run more than 22 regular events, and has collectively created thousands of games.

Lucas Pope's popular indie game Papers, Please won the Most Innovative and Best Gameplay categories at the 11th Annual Games for Change Awards. The annual awards honors games that show creativity and aspire ideas. In Papers, Please players take on the role of an agent at a border crossing who is charged with approving or rejecting entry into their country.

The Fullbright Company's popular hit Gone Home won the Game of the Year category.

YouTube user Buddy7heElf has broken the Spelunky world-record score, with a total of $3,140,325 last week (thanks Polygon). The latest Spelunky world-record score comes from YouTube user Buddy7heElf, who posted a complete play-through with the record-breaking high score last week.

Lyon, France-based indie developer Little Worlds Studio said that it is "playing its last card" and "places its fate in the hands of the public" with the launch of an initiative to save the company through what it is calling a "Kickfailer." Unlike a "Kickstarter," this initiative seeks support through its already established free-to-play mobile game Mana Crusher.

The Fine Young Capitalists is looking for a few good women (or anyone who self identifies as a woman) to take part in its special Women In Video Games Initiative. To take part, would-be applicants are asked to submit a pitch document about a game idea that is right around 1,500 words in length.

The submissions will be judged by the community, with the top five best pitches getting some very professional treatment.

Here's more from the website:

Here's something you don't see happen every day: a major video game, a prominent YouTube personality and a mega pop star all coming together to create something special. The ultra popular sand box world building game Minecraft got some mad props recently in the music video for Lady Gaga's hit song, "G.U.Y."

Lucas Pope's popular game Papers, Please took home the top prize at last night's Independent Games Festival Awards. In addition to winning the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Pope's game was honored with awards for Excellence in Narrative, and Excellence in Design.

It is with deep regret that we report that Joel Green, the young child who is the inspiration for That Dragon, Cancer, has passed away. This heartbreaking news comes from the That Dragon, Cancer website and an update to Joel's personal website.

On March 12th, 1989, Tim Berners-Lee put forth a proposal to make information sharing possible over computers, using nodes and links to create a "web." While the CERN physics lab where he worked could not justify the project, his bosses allowed him to do the work there in his spare time. That little side project by Tim Berners-Lee became what we know now as the Internet.

A GoFundMe crowd-funding campaign has launched to raise money for games journalist Brandon Boyer, who was left with over $100,000 in medical bills after his insurance company Humana refused to pay them, using a "pre-existing condition" clause in his insurance policy. Keep in mind that Boyer's surgery, which saw part of his small intestine and liver removed, happened before the Affordable Care Act went into effect.

The winners of the National Coalition Against Censorship's ninth annual Youth Free Expression Project Film Contest have been chosen Winners will be flown into New York City for a screening event and an awards ceremony at the New York Film Academy on March 29. This year's theme, "Video Games in the Crosshairs," is of particular interest to those who love games because it asked contestants to make a video dealing with such issues as gaming, violence, virtual reality, and censorship.

Last weekend at Seattle Startup Weekend a team of developers and enthusiasts decided to create another Twitch-based experience similar to PokemonPlaysTwitch - only with a Pacman game re-geared as a massive 2-player game. One Twitch channel plays Pacman, while the other plays Blinky. Both channels allow viewers to input movement commands to keep Pacman away from Binky, while the other one inputs commands in the chat window to chase Pacman down and gobble him up...

The channel describes the game as follows:

Freddie Wong’s company RocketJump has successfully completed a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo with more than $900,907 raised during a month-long campaign to finish "Video game High School," a popular sci-fi series about competitive gamers who attend a high school all about video games. Wong was seeking $750,000, but the project proved to be so popular that it set a record for a crowd funded web series on Indiegogo.

Indie studio Fire Hose Games is offering developers displaced - or soon to be displaced - by layoffs from Irrational Games in the Boston area a place to hang out and get some work done free of charge. The Go Home Dinosaurs! developer said in a recent blog post that those developers who want to try and strike out on their own as indie developers can have a safe and free place to go while they get back on their feet.

Dong Nguyen, the 29-year-old Veitnamese indie creator of the popular mobile game Flappy Bird, said that he removed the game from both Google Play for Android and iTunes for iOS devices because he was deeply concerned that the game was too addictive. There has been plenty of speculation that Nguyen pulled the game because of legal threats from Nintendo (for using art similar to art found in the Super Mario Bros. series of games) or because he couldn't handle the pressure, but it turns out that - he claims at least - he had a lot of concerns about people playing his game too much.

A new Kickstarter campaign for Space Pioneer seeks funding to bring to life a game that promises to let players travel to the farthest reaches of the universe, explore new worlds, and colonize them. But the most interesting thing about this particular game is who is making it and why it will likely feature a high level of realism and real science.

The PC version of Minecraft has passed the 14 million copies sold mark, according to Mojang co-founder and game creator Markus 'Notch' Persson. Over the weekend Persson tweeted the latest milestone for his hit building game. That's up from the number of 13 million in sales by the end of December 2013.

Mojang also recently announced sales of 10 million copies of the Xbox 360 version and one million copies of the PlayStation 3 version. The PS3 version hit that impressive milestone after only five weeks of availability on the platform.

The "Father of the PlayStation" will finally be honored by the Game Developers Choice Awards for his accomplishments while serving as the CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment - bringing the masses Sony's very first home console and its subsequent iterations. Former Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Ken Kutaragi will receive a well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award at the 14th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards.

A crowd-funding campaign has launched today on Kickstarter to fund Area 5's latest project - a documentary series called Outland on the people and culture of videogames. The details on just what aspects of gaming culture the series will cover is fairly vague, but the group hints at covering some interesting topics like game preservation efforts and movements, and eSports. Area 51 is made up of former 1UP personalities Ryan O'Donnell, Matt Chandronait, Jason Bertrand, Cesar Quintero, and Rick Curnutte.