Most promising indie games of E3 2015 (pictures)

Our first glimpse of Cuphead was at last year's E3, and it was glorious. The game's developer, Studio MDHR, has spent a lot of time creating the game in the style of 1930s cartoons -- learning the techniques and animating each frame by hand. The result is a jaw-dropping side-scrolling adventure game that looks as simultaneously original as it is authentic.

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Fullbright, the studio responsible for the critically lauded Gone Home, has turned its hand to atmospherically spooky sci-fi for Tacoma. The gameplay looks to have a similar mysterious mood as you explore an abandoned lunar transfer station, trying to figure out where everyone has gone -- and why.

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Shown as part of Microsoft's indie showcase, Beyond Eyes looks beautiful and heart-warming -- the tale of a blind girl exploring a world that unfolds around her as she ventures forth, searching for her lost cat and conquering her fears.

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In Firewatch, you play a fire lookout, alone in the breathtaking Wyoming wilderness -- except for the voice of your supervisor, talking to you via walkie-talkie. The game is all about exploring, unravelling a mystery and the deepening relationship with a human who you know only as a voice.

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We got our hands on a demo of Swordy at PAX Australia last year, and it stood out as something really special (in a brutal, colourful, splattery kind of way). The top-down multiplayer brawler is based on physics, and it's a chaotic blast as you try to build up enough momentum to make a pixellated rainbow mess of your opponents.

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There has been a lot of excitement around No Man's Sky, and we're not exempt: The game is a fully sandbox space exploration simulator based on the real universe. Yes, it's huge. And it looks utterly incredible.

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Retro side-scrollers aren't exactly rare, we'll concede that, but Death's Gambit warms the cockles of our little hearts. The pixellated art has a modern aesthetic as you take on the monsters of an alien medieval planet -- Death's warrior chosen to slay the immortals.

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Sometimes a world is so beautiful that all you want to do is explore it, gently and peacefully. That's Shape of the World, an exploration game where the world grows procedurally around you as you explore, based on your actions.

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From the team that made Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is a similar style of game. The gameplay has, however, evolved -- it's less linear and allows more player choice as you follow six tales of people left behind after the Rapture occurs, leaving the world almost empty.

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The main character of Unravel is Yarny, a little bipedal kitten-looking creature made out of yarn. And he's set to take the throne as "most crafted video-game character." You have to use Yarny's unravelling body to explore a lovingly created world, collecting new balls of yarn to make sure Yarny is not lost entirely.

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Frictional, the team behind Amnesia, unveiled Soma after a 10-day teaser campaign, and boy was it worth the wait for sci-fi horror fans. The new E3 trailer, dark and chthonic and weird, is starting to make the game look positively spine-crawling.

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Ninja Theory, the indie studio behind Heavenly Sword and DmC: Devil May Cry, has been working on Hellblade, an adventure based in Celtic myth. But there's a difference: Protagonist Senua has been left in a state of psychosis after a Viking attack, and the demons she must kill are her own.

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