In addition to the new David Kanaga drops, we also get this: Blue Skies, Green Hills, a free Sonic the Hedgehog tribute album put together by Paul Veer (he of Sega Zine & Gun Godz & general art renown).

The album features a who’s-who of indie game musicians, including Luftrausers & Gun Godz composer Kozilek, Souleye — the musician behind Terry Cavanagh’s VVVVVV, Reckahdam — composer, programmer, and the drummer you’ve seen supporting any given live Disasterpeace performance, and, notably, Anticon’s Doseone, who you’ll no doubt recognize as the artist behind Gun Godz‘ title theme.

As usual, you can stream the entire album above, or download the whole thing gratis at Bandcamp.

A fantastically and appropriately chaotic version of the transformations at the heart of under-dog (wolf?) arcade classic Altered Beast by Rory ‘Puppytube‘ Morris, a special color version of her submission for the previously-mentioned Sega-tribute art-zine coming from Ted Martens, Paul Veer, Corey Lewis & Ashley Davis.

While further submissions have now been closed, I mention it here because it’s sneak peeks like these that’ve got me super-hyped for the final product — keep your eyes on the SegaZine tumblr for more information on its eventual release.

We may actually honestly be nearing end-times when an Old Spice adver-game is suddenly a very serious contender for November and December’s web-gaming-best, but here we are, and Dikembe Mutombo’s 4 1/2 Weeks to Save the World very easily could be.

The idea might come as less of a shock when you consider the all-star team at the heart of it: Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman along with his Capsule cohort Robin Arnott, artist Paul Veer & musician Jukio ‘Kozilek‘ Kallio — both behind the other Venus Patrol-exclusive game, Gun Godz — and artist Sven ‘ptoing‘ Ruthner, best known (or maybe should-be-best-known) for his work on 2008 action-tunneler Thrustburst.

Working with ad agency Wieden & Kennedy, the team were tasked with coming up with a new, full mini-game every week straight through to the Mayan apocalypse, the second (and stronger of both so far) of which has launched today. Shown at top, it’s a multi-tiered mine-cart action game that doesn’t fall that far from the tree Saltsman & Veer planted for their Hunger Games movie tie-in Girl on Fire, and continues the overall initiative’s reliance on a steady-stream of non-sequitur jokes.

It’s those “no idea turned down” jokes that seem to be giving the project its vitality — between handing retired basketball champ and game-star Mutombo an insane script for him to deadpan his way through (with shades of the way TV cult-classic Fishing With John played with its own narrator) and the punch-drunk exhaustion that must come from providing a new, polished design every five days, the games have the same raw enthusiasm as any from a typical game jam.

Three more ‘current event’-ish games will be released up to the December 17th deadline, a countdown to which you can watch via the vaguely terrifying computer-aided Mayan calendar carving live-cam happening behind the scenes: play the first two now to make sure you’re caught up on the non-storyline as it develops.

Speaking of Ted Martens, the Hexels creator has just announced that he’s partnering with Gun Godz & Super Crate Box artist Paul Veer, and illustrators Corey Lewis & Ashley Davis (see especially her ongoing No Marios site) to create the SEGAZINE, an art zine dedicated to the “games, characters and consoles” of the company.

The group have opened submissions to any interested artists, and are accepting “drawings, 3D renders, photos, written stories, comics & poetry” through November 1st, at which point they’ll curate the best for inclusion in the printed zine and feature the rest on the zine’s tumblr, where you can find more information about the submission process.