This past week, the winners of Microsoft's Dream.Build.Play competition were announced, with the $40,000 grand prize going to a puzzle-platformer called Blocks That Matter by Guillaume Martin. Inspired by Tetris and Minecraft, Blocks That Matter is about a robot called Tetrobot, created by "fictional" inventors "Alexey and Markus"--get it? After the developers are kidnapped, it's up to the intrepid robot to save its masters. Navigating the game's puzzling levels requires the use of Tetrobot's special ability to absorb blocks made of different materials and use them to produce tetragrams.

I'm about a quarter of the way through the game myself--a little late to the party--but I already feel like it's a good one to recommend for those in the market for a good puzzle-platformer. The different types of blocks make for some interesting puzzles, and the artwork and story are on the cuter side of charming.

Blocks That Matter has been available for a while via Xbox Live Indie Games for 240 Microsoft Points ($3), but the PC version just became available on Steam ($4.99) on August 19.

I also want to remind everyone that we'll be discussing the free Half-Life 2 mod The Stanley Parable and Krystian Majewski's game TRAUMA on Weekend Confirmed next week. The discussions might be a little spoilery, so you may want to check the games out beforehand.

On the indie interview front this week, ACE Team discusses the development (and delays) of Rock of Ages and Honeyslug talks about Hohokum and the upcoming Frobisher Says for PlayStation Vita:

• ACE Team talks about making of Rock of Ages

• Honeyslug chats about their upcoming games Hohokum and Frobisher Says

My favorite bit of indie media from the past week is the new trailer for Vessel by Strange Loop Games that was released at PAX 2011. It's got some great atmosphere and some impressive liquid-based physics, which you can see for yourself, below.