The indie games scene is, in many ways, like the indie music scene. We're big fans of other indie developers, like Gaijin Games, 2D Boy, The Behemoth and Polytron Corporation, and one of the aspirations of RocketHands is to be mentioned in the same sentence as all of them. Oh look, we have been!

Anyway, we buy and play their games, and draw inspiration by following what they do. We want to grow up to be just like them. But we have a problem... we aren't planning to go into personal debt, and we only have a few hours a week to do RocketHands work, given we're all working day jobs. We need investment, but investors want to see success, so it's all a big chicken-and-egg.

We're gearing up to release small games, like RocketFuse, to prove we can do it, while yearning to work on larger games, like the concept we pitched to our most esteemed advisor. In the meantime, we're continuing to gamejam, and work on small experiments, such as 99Sheep and the intriguing "Project.Ice", which you'll be hearing about soon.

Another way of boosting our credibility in the eyes of potential investors who don't know us well enough for it not to be an issue is to be recognised by the community for creating fun and innovative games. With that in mind, we plan to enter a competition or three. We've been digging around, and come up with this shortlist of game competitions:

• IGF China: Beta-level games with one level complete and playable. Must submit before September 7.
• Main IGF: Submission by November 1.
• Indie Game Challenge: Submission by September 1.
• 2BeeGames Comp: Submission by September 15.
• Mario AI Comp: Submission by September 3.

Anyone know of more that should be added to the list?