About
I'm Nico, a software engineer with over ten years on the job. IndieDex started as me poking at Steam's API for fun. One thing led to another, and I ended up with a free search engine for finding games the front page tends to bury.
Where it came from
It began as a personal experiment with the Steam catalog: recommendations, similarity shelves, and search that could answer “games like this” or “cozy deckbuilder nobody talks about” without needing the exact title.
The more I used it on my own library, the clearer the point became. This was not just a data toy. It was a place where small games could surface because of what they are, not because a marketing budget bought the first push.
What I believe about discovery
These beliefs shape how IndieDex ranks, what we refuse to sell, and which features ship first. They are the same ideas behind the Supporter page's fairness note, written out in full.
On most storefronts, popularity feeds itself. A game that sells well gets shown more, gets shown more, and sells well again. A studio with a marketing budget can buy that first push. A solo developer often gets one noisy week and no second chance.
Storefronts also have to protect sales and filter risk, so they cannot endlessly spotlight unknown titles. Players feel that as AI filler, spam, and the same famous names crowding every shelf. IndieDex does not pretend storefronts are evil. It builds a parallel lane with different defaults.
Search should care what a game is and who it is for, not who could afford the launch campaign. When relevance is close, the smaller studio should not lose by default. That is the fairness bar for every ranked surface here.
Indie-first is not a toggle players have to remember. Mid-size and AAA titles are soft-penalized on ranked shelves so earnest small games can still take the top spots when they fit the query. Famous titles can still appear when they are the right answer. They just do not get to monopolize discovery by brand gravity alone.
Players search by feel. IndieDex routes those questions through fingerprints and similarity built from many signals, not keyword stuffing or chart position. Games like pages, vibe search, and list recommendations all lean on that same idea: match the game, not the marketing copy.
Default search and browse do not silently boost whatever already has the most reviews or saves. Popularity only enters when someone asks for it, and even then we prefer in-platform activity over borrowed storefront fame. External volume can help demote spam or thin junk. It never buys a higher slot.
Growth should come from things people want to show each other: a search link, a Challenge, a Games like shelf. If a feature would not travel in a real Discord or group chat, it is not the priority. Organic search is nice insurance. Social discovery is the engine.
Programmatic pages and search quality live or die on structured, computed truth: prices, tags, similarity, fingerprint synthesis from multiple inputs. We do not paraphrase a storefront blurb into fake unique copy. Thin wrappers do not survive. Grounded data does.
If discovery only rewards games that already broke through, the catalog you search turns into a greatest-hits reel. IndieDex exists so a well-made unfound game can still surface for the player who would love it, even when that player never saw a trailer on a storefront home page.
When someone finds a game through feel, copies a Challenge, or shares a Games like shelf, that find travels inside a real conversation instead of as another cold store link. No pay-to-rank. No marketing budget deciding what you see first.
IndieDex is built for players. Studio tools and B2B accounts are not the product we are selling. Fair ranking for small games is a player feature, not a pitch deck for developers.
Built for a wider map
Discovery should not only work well if you live in the US and read English. I spent a long time on translations for the app chrome, and on regional catalog prices, so players can search and browse in a language and store context that already feels like home.
That same idea carries into how support for the free side is priced. A single US-priced membership would quietly shut people out in places where everyday costs and wages look very different.
So Supporter uses regional pricing: the thank-you tier stays reachable in more countries, without pretending every market can absorb the same sticker price. The goal is a bigger, fairer player pool, not a US-only club.
What that looks like in the app
The front door is free catalog search. Accounts exist so you can keep what you find, share it, and come back with better taste signals over time.
Start from a title you already love, a vibe, or I'm Feeling Weird. Recommendations can follow a themed list rather than one global profile mix, so you control the shelf that feeds the next find.
I built lists and backlog for the same reason I needed them: a huge library, bad category maintenance, and a need for bulk cleanup plus a dedicated to-play order. Profiles can be public for friends and reviews, or private if you only want a solid tracker.
Challenge links and Games like pages are already there for social discovery. Taste twins are early: today they lean on lists, and the long-term bet is completed games, reviews, and how you write about them. That will take time and more players to calibrate.
How it stays alive
I'm building IndieDex alone and funding the cheap path with my paycheck for now. Search, game pages, profiles, lists, backlog, and indie-first ranking stay free. No ads. No sponsored rankings. No selling your library, wishlist, or taste.
That is not a forever scaling plan. It is a deliberate choice: keep discovery fair, keep the core free, and only ask players who want extras to help keep the lights on.
If that is you, the Supporter membership is the thank-you tier. Spreading a Challenge, a Games like shelf, or a good find helps just as much.
Still early
This is a first release. Bugs will slip through. Signed-in players get a support page for issues, feedback, and ideas, and I read those when I can.
I take accessibility seriously. Keyboard use, screen readers, contrast, and phone-sized layouts are part of how I ship features, not a polish pass I leave for later.
I ship often and I'm still having fun building it. Steam sign-in is the nicer path today if you create an account, and more of the roadmap will keep leaning on that connection.
If the free side somehow gets too big for my wallet, I will have done it for the love of the game either way.
Next up
A mobile app is on the list, along with notifications when new releases fit what you already like. Same rule as everything else: relevance earned by fit, not by spend.
Thanks for reading
If IndieDex helps you find one game you would have missed, or helps one small team reach a player who actually wants their work, that is the whole point.
And if you happen to run a certain storefront with a generous API and a discovery problem that needs a lane that does not cannibalize on-platform sales: higher rate limits would also be lovely. Price ingest for every region still takes about a month.
Search the catalog the way discovery is meant to work here. No account required.