Veteran indie dev says success on Steam these days is impossible to predict: 'Why did Balatro take off? You could write a million f***ing essays and none of them will be definitely right'

Size Five Games' Dan Marshall has been making games for around 20 years, and was one of the early indie adopters of Steam when he released the excellent Time Gentlemen, Please! on the platform back in 2009. He's been around the block, then, and he's seen it change dramatically.

Trying to figure out the secret to blowing up on Steam as an indie is an impossible task. There are so many variables you could obsess over, but at the same time it almost seems random. Yes, the game actually needs to be good...