The last day of the Eurogamer Expo was rounded off with a live version of the Eurogamer’s podcast, featuring a number of indie game developers as well as some Eurogamer staff.

The main topic was, as to be expected with the guests, indie gaming. Smaller sub-topics were discussed such as what indie meant to the developers sitting up on stage, that the only real difference between AAA studios and indie developers was the need for indies to be ‘out there’ more, how new media and social networks could be a double-edged sword at times, allowing for that important word-of-mouth marketing while leaving themselves open to anonymous backlash and how indie gaming has risen from being practically nothing to carving out a sizeable niche in the gaming community.

Though really, it’s impossible for me to write an article that does this podcast justice. Just watch the video below.

Guests were:

(@vics_viper) Martin Robinson – Features Editor for Eurogamer
(@edstern) Ed Stern – Splash Damage
(@vlambeer)Ramil Ismail – Vlambeer
(@mikebithell)Mike Bithell – Thomas Was Alone
(@roll_7)John Ribbens – Roll7
(@wyp100)Wesley Yin-Pool – Eurogamer News Editor

Another indie game that’s coming out for one of Sony’s consoles was shown on stage today at Eurogamer Expo: a top-down roguelike advertised as Wasteland Kings but now renamed to Nuclear Throne.

In a talk that also covered how the developing studio Vlambeer had come to be and gotten to where they currently were, Rami Ismail revealed that Nuclear Throne was a rebuild of a game the studio had previously been working on and that the new concept had been developed during the Mojam charity event earlier in the year. Various different builds of the game at different stages of completion were showed off, some made purely to test out later-game concepts such as higher-level monsters. The game itself is set in a post-apocalypic world populated by mutants of many various appearances and abilities. The aim of the game is to fight your way through levels, using many different weapons (from guns to grenade launchers) to defeat the bosses and eventually find a fabled throne that would make you the ‘ruler’ of the wasteland you live in.

There are a number of playable mutant characters to be chosen from (including one who is a throwback to a boss from this game’s previous form as Gun Godz) and all of them have a different useful ability such as being able to make special high-powered shots with weapons that consume 2x the ammo to turning into a crystal that reflects enemy shots. There are also tiny green ‘nuclear’ pick-ups that allow you to upgrade your character through ‘mutations’ once you’ve gathered enough of them, after which you’ll be given a choice of 4 random upgrades to choose from. Vlambeer said that they didn’t want to have the traditional ‘cool-down’ on abilities either, instead choosing to make each ability have a positive and negative to them. No two games will be the same thanks to the random mutations offered each time and the randomly generated levels of the game.

Nuclear Throne already has had a release in its Wasteland Kings Mojam version through Humble and versions are coming soon for the PC, Mac Playstation 4 and Playstation Vita.

Julie Uhrman, CEO of Ouya, took the Eurogamer stage at 3pm today in the fourth day of the Expo, to talk about how the Ouya console has a future and plans for it going forward. If you’re one of those people who believes the success of a console depends on how well it sells, or how many games it has, then like much of the internet, by now you might be calling the Ouya a colossal failure and wondering how long it will take before it disappears from the market. You’d also be missing the point. Sure, Ouya may not have the same catalogue of games as major consoles like those from Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo; nor is it as widespread. But Ouya was never intended to compete with those.

The REAL focus of Ouya, Julie explained, is to open up the television and free up developers to build their indie games on the TV, rather than on devices that don’t have the presence of a traditional games console, in order to bring those games to wider attention. What’s more, Ouya is designed to allow anyone to become a game developer, regardless of the size of their team or whether they’re a big studio or just one person in their bedroom. “Ouya is the only console that’s open to everyone. It’s great that the price point is coming down and the barriers to entry are simplifying; but the important thing is with Ouya, anyone can develop and get involved.”

The future of Ouya truly lies in the 24,000-plus developers developing for the console, all of which are supported through advice and tools by Ouya. With the Free The games campaign, Ouya is taking steps to support these developers even more. Any game project for Ouya that uses Kickstarter to raise funds, can get extra financial support from Ouya if there’s clear support for the game. With a fund of $1 million to give away in a year, Kickstarted Ouya games that raise over $10,000 can apply to have their funds matched by Ouya themselves, thus doubling the cash available for them to take the game further and get it out on the Ouya – with the caveat that there has to be 100 or more backers providing the funds. This caveat is to prevent cheating, which occurred in the early part of the campaign’s life; and because Ouya want to see the community truly get behind the games they care about. What’s more, Ouya have no intention to act as gatekeepers for their own console. “We believe in being open. We don’t want to lock you into developing for just our console … nor do we want to say, ‘only these games are getting on the Ouya’.”

With every Ouya console being its own development kit; and tools being available for free online to further help develop Ouya games, developers can get their games to the public easier and quicker as well. “We want your game live just as soon as you get it live. So we have a fast review process – most games take just 24 to 48 hours to be accepted or rejected.” Julie was joined by a group of developers from Fayju games – one of the Ouya’s “Elite” backers – who themselves added: “Holding your newly-developed game in your hand and realising the means are right there to release it is empowering.”

Fayju also explained how they found the console’s Tegra 3 processor surprisingly powerful; and how the compact size and better cooling of the console – with fans right over the processor – allowed them to utilise more of the processor’s power without worrying about the overheating problems that plague other devices. The company presented two of their own games – “The Awesome Frog?” and “Cascade” – as examples of what they could do with the console, even going as far to add that Ouya was the catalyst that finally allowed Cascade – a game based on the Analogue Cascade Hypothesis and research into Alzheimer’s effects on the brain; and designed to raise awareness of brain diseases – to happen.

Julie also revealed that the Ouya itself will not be standing still. First of all, the console is about to hit new markets, with an expanded distribution network in Europe. As part of this, Ouya consoles will soon be updated “with localisations to support French, Spanish and German languages … and Pound and Euro currencies.” Additionally, next year, new builds of the Ouya console are planned to be developed and sold, with “faster, better, more up-to-date chip sets” for even more powerful gaming.

So what are the final words on Ouya’s future? “For us to be successful, we need you guys. Your time is now.”

“Ouya is still the only fully open console on the market. That’s why we win.”

Another indie game coming to the Playstation 4 was shown off today in a developer’s session at Eurogamer Expo. Resogun, an exclusive to Sony’s new-gen console, is the latest game from studio Housemarque, previously known for titles such as Super Stardust HD and Super Stardust Delta. Indeed some have called this Resogun the spiritual successor to those earlier games.

Set in a futuristic space setting, Resogun sets the gameplay in cylindrical levels where you as a small spaceship blast away from the left and right directions at oncoming enemy vehicles and eventually at the end of the stage, boss characters. Wonderfully colourful and very light-filled, it looks to be a game that will be very fast paced and shall require great reflexes on the part of the player. Power-ups are available in the game (for things such as upgrading weapons and a shield) and there are special weapons too besides the generic laser weapon that just shoots. Boost can be used to flee tighter situations or to ram through lines of enemies, Bomb can be used to clear the entire stage and Overdrive triggers a massive laser light show that seems to incinerate anything unlucky enough to get caught in its path. The weapon upgrade can also be applied to that third one by the way. There will be a choice of ships available for playing the game with and different levels of difficulties so those experienced with shooters can be happy as well as those who are less experienced. Each ship will have different strengths and weaknesses that will suit different playstyles.

There was also a little discussion about future plans for the game after the release and we were told there was a list of things Housemarque wanted to do with the game, with 3D and potential DLC being mentioned.

Resogun is released for Playstation 4 on November 29th as a launch title and is also being included free in the Instant Game Collection for Playstation Plus.

Some of the biggest news this week in the gaming world has come from Valve, well known for their digital gaming client Steam as well as games such as Team Fortress 2. Over the course of five days they made three big announcements related to their long teasing of opening up gaming and revolutionising the console market. One of the central parts of this is their entry into the console market: the Steam Box. Or rather as they are now, Steam Machines.

Valve had previously released some details on their console offering, but Wednesday saw a lot more detail being revealed to the public. Valve plan to make the console very flexible, you can hack it, run operating systems other than Valve’s own Steam OS upon it, there are many different manufacturers creating their own version of the console, there’s even been talk of using it to build little robots (seriously, it’s in the Steam Machine Q and A). However the big surprise was Valve’s announcement that they plan to make available 300 prototypes for testing, which will be sent out… to the public. It’s a bold move given that most companies don’t make their new hardware available to the wider-audiences until it’s time to start selling it to them, but one that could work out and certainly fits into Valve’s ‘open gaming’ strategy.

The lucky participants will be (mostly) chosen at random, although Valve say a few spaces (about 30) have been reserved for community members who have contributed the most to Steam in some way. There is a beta ‘quest’ available to enter Steam accounts into the draw for the prototypes which mostly requires completing a set of tasks that make use of Steam’s many functions (for example, one condition is you need at least 10 people on your friend list). The ‘beta quest’ will be open until October 25th.

Friday saw the final of the promised three announcements of the week with the link between Monday’s Steam OS software and Wednesday’s Steam Machine hardware: a hackable, programmable controller. Beta versions were shown off and a few working prototypes made so invited game developers could get hands-on with the new hardware and test its functionality with their own games in mind. The controller’s main selling point is its lack of the traditional double joystick, replacing these with two trackpads as well as a touchscreen in the centre (although the latter was missing from the tester prototypes). There are buttons too but not where you’d expect to find them. Numbering sixteen at all, two flank the inner side of each trackpad and another two are on the back of the controller.

Customers can set up the buttons to work any way they want however and the controller is also supposed to feature a mode that allows it to function as a mouse and keyboard for those games in the Steam library that require it. The general view from those who have tested it seems to be it works well, even if it take a little getting used to at first.

Both pieces of hardware are said to be planned for retail next year, but depending on how much the selected beta testers share online (which Valve encourages them to do by the way) we could know a bit more about both before the release.