Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We believe they deserve a wider audience with the Joystiq Indie Pitch: This week, Strange Loop Games explain how Fluros flourish in Vessel, a liquid-physics puzzler for PC. What's your game called and what's it about?

Our game is called Vessel. It's about a man with the power to create life, and all the consequences that ensue. As far as gameplay, it's a liquid-physics puzzle platformer.

How would you describe the style of Vessel - steampunk? - and why did you decide to use that template?

It's a mechanical world. Steampunk is the closest pop culture reference, but we don't really call it that because steampunk brings to mind so many other connotations that aren't accurate for our game. We wanted to create a world where the machinery of the world was very exposed, meaning you could see the inner workings of all the machines, how things tick, grind and whir. The goal was to put the Fluros in this nice little mid-point, a contrast between Arkwright, the main character, and the machines of the world. Fluros are the bridge between them.