I remember the indie game renaissance, maybe a decade ago or so. For what ever reason indie games really hit their stride and we saw a surge of small game development teams making it big. World of Goo, Braid, etc. I think it was caused by digital distribution finally coming into its own.
Back then I would frequent a video game development forum. Mostly just hobbyists. But even some of them started making commercial games and trying to take their swing at big, indie success.
It was an incredible time. A time that seemed to fizzle out. We saw less and less big indie hits, and more and more coverage of AAA titles. It's hard to say why. My guess is video games, around that time, started to become more mainstream. The Wii was making big head way in bringing the casual family to games, and XBox was bringing your average high school and college aged kids to the gaming scene. That tidal wave of gamers, hungry for high production, popular games, I think eventually crashed into and drowned out the indie industry. Not that indie games died; we are still getting great titles. But it lost its spot in the lime light.
But now we're starting to see what I think is another resurgence in a different form. The rise of crowd funding, early access, Patreon, and live streaming have all provided new avenues for independent artists to gain visibility and funding for the development of really interesting, original games. Games like OP's. They might not all make it; most won't. But the possibility of fame and fortune always spurs the indie crowd to create incredible things, and I'm excited to see what the next wave will give us. If seeing itch.io games linked on Hacker News isn't a possible sign of a new era, I don't know what is.