My favorites so far:

Guru Guru
Masters of Belial
Dust - An Elysian Tail
Band of Bears
Creed Arena
Kuchibi
Rotorscope
RC Racing 360
Wacky Karts
Magnetic Mind
Hollandia

RC Racing 360  is quite good

Motoball ... ha okay it's my submission^^
But I'm really impressed of Magnetic Mind, RC Racing 360 and Masters of Belial, too. But at least last one seems to be made by a professional team (arrrr - mean ones :D )

There are really four games I'm looking forward too (mind you, I haven't seen everyone's games, so there are probably more out there)...

Grapple Buggy - Dig the graphics, dig Blaster Master, enjoyed Weapon of Choice, can't wait to see how this turns out.
Duality ZF - Really cool... release it already :)
Dust - An Elysian Tail - The game looks sick (in a good way)
Wacky Karts - Haven't tried it yet (I think it's in playtest now), but I love Mario Kart... if it's even close to that, I'm going to have a blast.

I was just browsing the DBP gallery and there are several others out there that I never heard of that look great too. Hopefully we'll see some of those on XBLIG too. I think finally we're going to see a number of really good, solid, polished efforts coming to this service.

Thank you, Kris!  Duality ZF will be released soon, honestly!  I'm going to check out all the games in this thread, to make sure I haven't missed any gems.

Dust - An Elysian Tail and Hollandia's graphics/artwork/animation... wow.  EDIT: and Magnetic Mind, too.

I'm really disappointed Owlboy wasn't submitted.

The games I'd think may win this year are:

Ones
Masters of Belial (I've been a beta tester and the game is really awesome, hopefully they fixed a few bugs I submitted XP too bad for the loading times though, they are a pain)
Magnetic Mind
Dust (This one is... wow... I've watched the trailer at least 10 times and I'm always speechless. I just don't like the running animation of the main character)
Duality ZF
and Aesop's Garden (I'm a fan of old-school puzzle games NES style like Kickle Cubicle and The Adventures of Lolo)

This year is really wicked. Hopefully I'll have finished Harmonia Warders for next year, if there will be one, I want to participate too!

Forgot about Owlboy.  Also have to check out Grapple Buggy.  We have to see what Nathan came up with this year!

So Owlboy didn't make it to submission? That's a crying shame, it looked great.

For me personally, i'd say Guru Guru, Band of Bears and Dust get my votes. Even if they don't make it, i'll be picking them all up on release.

Band of Bears looks niiiiiiice. Like Zelda 4 Swords/Castle Crashers with a great sense of humour too.

Just saw a trailer for Armor Valley, hadn't heard of it before, but it is looking really good. Could finally be a standout tps in XNA.

J Force Games:

I'm really disappointed Owlboy wasn't submitted.

Yeah, me too - that one was looking great.

Really cool to see all the high-quality submissions, even if that means that a lot of good games will miss out on finalist/prize-winner status. Such is the price of a successful contest! :)

I'd love it if a site like xboxindies.com did a "peoples choice" award.  A place that collected all the submission videos and let people judge.  I'd love to find out how my game ranked.

Matthew Doucette:

Duality ZF will be released soon, honestly!

You shouldn't have done the promotions on XNA Roundup - I've been waiting ever since :)

Thanks everyone for the support on Wacky Karts.
It is entered in DBP 2009, but I'm feeling kind of odd about it.  It is intentionally made to look and play old-school.
So I'm not sure how the judges will take to that.  Hopefully well ;)

Regardless, there is a LOT of impressive work out this year, and if these games get released on Indie Games, it will certainly help get a fresh new beginning for Indie Games.
Hopefully it means more sales and exposure for everyone!

Transus:

I'd love it if a site like xboxindies.com did a "peoples choice" award.

That would be great!  Considering we have all these categories for games anyways, maybe have a best of each category and then an overall winner?

Hello, in my very first message I will give you my favourite games for DBP 2009.

Dust - An Elysian Tail
Guru Guru
Masters of Belial
RC Racing 360
Creed Arena
Kuchibi
Laserbreaker
Wacky Karts
Magnetic Mind
Hollandia
Band of Bears

Best regards,

so white marking means good? or are the white ones crossed out?
and did you notice that there are other games in the contest than the ones provided by the original poster? ;)

I player a playtest version of Dust an it is an amazing game. My vote goes to it. However, I think that it is not original enough.

Victor Ortega:

However, I think that it is not original enough.

I guess you are the first one in this thread who even cares about original gameplay :)

All the people vote for games that have great graphics (and yes, they really have!). But the past showed us that not the games with best graphics win this contest, its the innovation that is rewarded. Look at Blow or Showtime, both do not glance with brillant graphics, but both introduce some new gameplay elements.

Maybe just my particular tastes, but I found this video to be impressive..  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl7JD0Kcdio
As with Pandapadawan, it would be at the top of my list, next to Rail gun Charlie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfEN1pQt3Hs
Best,
Byron

Dust - An Elysian Tail is definetly my favorite

I like the game Nasty. Of all the vids I saw in the DBP-youtube group this was the one I was most eager to play (although the graphics are rather simple).
It reminds me of Bubble Bobble which I used to play a lot with my best friend.
(There's also a very similar game - Revived - which was (funny coincidence) added to the youtube group only hours later.)

Gooni:

I like the game Nasty. Of all the vids I saw in the DBP-youtube group this was the one I was most eager to play (although the graphics are rather simple).
It reminds me of Bubble Bobble which I used to play a lot with my best friend.

That's really cool to hear... as a Bubble Bobble fan, I think you'll rather enjoy Nasty, expecially the co-op play. Hoping to have it up for sale on XBLIGs in the next week or two.

I'd also like to add these two games to games I'm looking forward too:
Aesop's Garden
Band of Bears

I'm really impressed with how many good games seem to have suddenly appeared for DBP that I never heard of before. If even half of these end up on XBLIGs, it should give the service a huge boost.

There are some really amazing games in DBP this year. We placed Top20 with zeit² last year. I wish good luck to everyone. Of course I cross my fingers for Dualty:ZF and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

One tip to everyone: Once your game is polished get it out there, don't try too hard to get on XBLA b/c thats a pretty tough route to follow and the spots are very limited... The Indie Games Channel needs some strong titles like Dust or Band of Bears (well didnt play either one yet). I can see titles with avatars like Kickers to be very attactive for some players, if it becomes a little more polished like Mario Strikers.

Keep the good stuff coming!

Thomas
brightside-games.com