Ah, to be an indie developer. It is the fast track to fame and fortune. Just slap some assets together, launch a bunch of games, and you're set for life. Right"

Well, apparently not. Otherwise, we'd have more millionaires and less talk of the dreaded indiepocalypse. Lost Decade Games' Indie Game Sim tackles the difficulties of game development and the underlying strain on your mental wellbeing.

The game has you starting out as a lowly developer, building your first game from a toolbox of assets and uploading it to a Steam-like distribution system. Publish game, get reviews, sell some copies, repeat. You can buy new assets and other interesting stuff from the money you made, so your games will become more sophisticated with time. Indie Game Sim is obviously not as polished as a Super Mario Maker, but it's certainly charming enough to play around with. It also actually gets you thinking about level and game design, forcing you to employ the minimal tools at hand and create platformers worth playing. Adding fancy assets and effects increases the production costs, so your early creations will be limited in scope. It's quite the challenge to create something interesting under these conditions, and while initial progress feels rather slow, it's fun and rewarding.
However, you not only try to leave your mark on the gaming world, but also fight crippling self-doubt and depression, with the dreaded impostor syndrome rearing its ugly head and trying to lead you ast...