So...at GDC I was roommates with a rather awesome Australian game designer. Just...really clever stuff like combining Snakes and Ladders with Uno (play movement cards from hand; reverse card reverses the snakes and ladders). Also, I'm totally jealous: she got to go to a "meeting of the design minds" at GDC where they mixed high profile western and Japanese developers with translators. In actual videogames...she just finished up work on LA Noir, and is looking to get hired at Telltale (but I'm also selfishly trying to recruit her to CCP >_>). As it happens, though, she has a lot of indie projects too:
http://www.jennsand.com/(I've only seen Vet Lucie, where she did the ZUN-style of doing all the programming/art/music herself, although got a writer to make the dialog snappier. Note that much of the stuff on that page was made in the past year...some of it like Vet Lucie presumably completed during 100 hour/week crunch on LA Noir).
Maybe not a big name yet (she's only been in the industry one year) but I totally think she's someone to watch.
