Content policy
Version 1, updated October 28, 2026.
indiedev.games is a family-friendly home for indie games. This policy says what we allow, what we do not, and how we decide. It is written to be applied the same way every time, so you can check your own work against it before you publish.
Where it applies
Everything people publish here: studio pages, games and their pages, comments on them, and shared press pages. It applies to text, images, links, and anything a page loads from elsewhere.
Never allowed
These are removed, whatever the rest of the page looks like.
- Sexual depictions of minors, in any form. This covers characters who are, or look like, children or teenagers, whatever age the story gives them. An invented age, such as "she is really centuries old", does not change this.
- Sexual content or nudity. This includes partial nudity, sexual situations, and art that focuses on a character's body in a sexual way.
- Graphic gore and realistic, extreme violence, including torture and dismemberment shown in detail.
- Hate content. Material that promotes prejudice or hatred against people for who they are, or that uses slurs and hateful symbols as entertainment.
- Real-money gambling, or games where players can win or lose real money.
- Intense or extreme horror, with sustained dread or disturbing, gruesome imagery.
- Strong profanity in text or voice.
- Drug, alcohol, or tobacco use shown on screen, and anything that glamorizes illegal drug use.
- Manipulative monetization aimed at children, such as pressure tactics around purchases or paid random items.
- Scams, spam, and malware, including links that lead to them.
- Impersonation and false claims. Pretending to be another person or studio, or claiming someone else's work or name as yours.
How content is sorted
For everything else we use four levels. The age rating helper uses the same levels, so you can see where your game lands before you submit it.
| Topic | Fine as it is | Needs an age label | Needs a human review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Violence | None, or cartoon slapstick with no blood | Fantasy violence against monsters or fantasy characters, with little or no blood | Combat with some blood, or with human-like characters |
| Romance and sexual themes | Romance, such as a kiss or a crush | - | Mild suggestive themes or fanservice, with no nudity |
| Language | None | Mild language, such as "damn" | - |
| Fear and horror | None | Spooky but cute, or suspense with some jump scares | - |
| Alcohol and tobacco | None | Mentioned, or in the background | - |
| Gambling | None | Simulated gambling with fake chips | - |
| Hate and discrimination | None | - | A hateful villain or historical setting, clearly shown as wrong |
| Paid random items | None | - | Always reviewed |
Anything past the right-hand column falls under "Never allowed". An age label tells players what to expect, such as mild fantasy violence or scary themes. A human review means a person looks at the page before it is listed, and may ask for changes, add a label, or decline it.
Anime and isekai art styles
These genres often lean on fanservice, so here is the line. Characters in ordinary or fantasy outfits, cute or stylized designs, and romance are fine. Poses, camera angles, or outfits that exist to draw attention to a character's body are suggestive and go to a human review. Nudity, partial nudity, and sexual situations are not allowed. If a character looks like a minor, nothing sexual is allowed at all, as above.
Your own work and other people's
You must have the right to everything you publish: art, music, fonts, text, and code. Do not post another studio's game, art, or page as your own. If you find a copy of your work here, tell us. We remove copies of someone else's work, and a page that keeps doing it loses its account.
Say honestly if your game contains content made by generative AI tools, and which kinds (graphics, sounds, text and dialog). Players see your answer on the game page, and you must answer before a build can be sent. The AI disclosure guide explains how to decide. Leaving AI use out on purpose is a false claim, and the page may be hidden.
Children and privacy
If your game is aimed at children, you carry extra duties on privacy and money. Our COPPA and GDPR guide and the checklist are a starting point. Games and pages must not collect children's personal information in ways the law does not allow.
Publishing a game
Games on indiedev.games run in the browser. For now, a build goes live as soon as its team sends it and confirms this policy. We check games after they are live, act on reports, and can hide a game at any time. This is what we look at:
- The age label. You choose one, and the reviewer checks it against what is in the game. Games that would need a label for older players than "Teen (13 and up)" do not fit this site.
- It is the game you described. It starts, plays, and matches the page.
- Nothing harmful. No malware, crypto mining, pop-ups, forced downloads, or links that take players away from the game without a clear reason. No asking for passwords or payment details.
- Privacy. You tell us if the game collects data or is made for children. Games for children must follow children's privacy law, and a reviewer may ask to see your privacy policy.
- Your rights. You made it, or you have the right to use everything in it, and you confirm that when you send it for review.
A game or an update that breaks this policy can be hidden or removed, whatever its age label says, and repeat or serious breaks cost the account its games. The person who sends a build is responsible for what is in it.
When a build is sent, an automatic check reads the game's page text, its file names, the start of its main page and its pictures. If something looks wrong, a person reviews the build before it goes live. The check never rejects or removes a game on its own, and it can be wrong, which is why a person decides.
Reports and reviews
- Anyone can report a studio page, a press page, a game, or a comment, signed in or not, using the "Report" link on it. Choose the reason that fits best and add details.
- A person reads every report. We do not remove things automatically.
- If a page breaks this policy, we may hide it, ask you to change it, or remove it. A hidden page stays visible to its team and to our moderators, with a note saying why, so you can see what happened and fix it.
- Repeat violations, or serious ones such as sexual content involving minors, lead to removing the account. Before that, a moderator may suspend an account, which stops it from signing in. We email the person the reason and how to appeal.
- If you think we got it wrong, send us an appeal and ask for another look. Say which page it is and why you think the decision was wrong.
- We keep a log of our decisions, so edge cases are handled the same way next time.
Changes to this policy
We update this policy as the site grows, and we change the version number and date at the top when we do. If a change affects something you have published, we will give you a chance to adjust it first, unless it falls under "Never allowed".