Quietly and unassumingly – as seems to be his style – prolific and experimental indie developer Jason Rohrer has snuck his bizarre recursive tactical shmup ‘Inside a Star-filled Sky’ onto Valve’s massive digital distribution platform. The price of the game has now shot up far beyond the original $1.75 (the heavily discounted ‘early adopters’ price) to $12/€8.

You can read a bit more about the game in an earlier article here, or check out the official site here. The game is simple and intuitive, but pointedly weird – a basic arcade shooter taking place inside a recursive, fractal chain of levels within levels. You can dive deeper in via ‘entering’ powerups, enemies, or even yourself, generating new combinations of levels and new sets of enemies along the way. Dying in a level merely rewinds you back through the chain, letting you try diving into the same location again, or trying a different route.

As an aside, while Steam is convenient, it should be noted that the version offered direct from Rohrer’s own site is completely DRM-free, and more money goes direct to the developer as well.