The Steam Winter sale is going on right now and you might have some Christmas money to spend so I built a huge list for you of the types of games that do well on Steam. 

I want  to inspire you or maybe even just introduce you to the types of game that does exceedingly well on Steam and can be made by smaller development teams. Please, play these games, take notes, look at how the games are designed. 

I think the biggest reason indies struggle to find success on Steam is they are making the wrong type of game. They spend years developing games that succeed at AAA scale but are nearly impossible to find an audience when the game’s assets are scaled down to a dev team that is just a few people.

So what succeeds on Steam?

The specific genre isn’t as important as the TYPE of game or META GENRE that sells well on Steam. And under that type of game there are dozens of sub-genres. 

There are basically 3 big META GENRES that I see on Steam. Here is my definition of them.

  1. Going around games – These are games where just about every experience in the game is a bespoke piece of art that has been crafted by an artist / game designer. I find most new-to-Steam indie devs make games in this META GENRE. Games here have a much harder time doing well unless you are a AAA company with the best artists in the industry and have about 300 of them so that you can make 40 hours of content.
  1. Pure multiplayer and most sports games – These are games where the “content” you play is other players you are competing against. These are games like CS:GO, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Dota 2. They are the best selling games on Steam because there is infinite content! However, success requires massive development teams with constant updates via live services, and it requires a huge up-front-investment to achieve that network-effect minimum player base. It is very very very very hard as an indie to survive making these types of games. Luckily most indies know better than to try to make one of these. I won’t be covering these games in this blog post.
  1. Crafty Buildy Simulationy Strategy games – The games in this META GENRE are where most indies can actually find an audience and have the capability and budget to make a game here. You can actually succeed here making a game as a solo indie or as a small team and the purpose of this blog is to beg indie devs to consider making games in this META GENRE. This is where you actually have a chance at surviving to make the next game.

What’s so bad about “Going Around” games?

It’s very hard to succeed with a “going around” game. Please proceed with caution. 

The term “going around” came from video game critic Ann Scantlebury when she hosted the One Life Left podcast. Whenever the hosts asked her what you do in the latest AAA game she was reviewing she would say “Well, you go around and <verb>”

Diablo 3 was described as: “the dead start rising, and then you have to GO AROUND and kill them” 

Or Gone Home where you “come home and find out the house is empty and you GO AROUND just exploring.” and then the next week the cohost also tried “GOING AROUND the house”

Or Home where you are just “go around”

It is a BIT reductionist, but there is truth there – basically the games are a constant stream of content that you experience by facing little challenges that were individually placed by a designer.

If I were to diagram “Going Around” games they are kind of like this:

Most AAA games with heroes are going around games. Link, Mario, Master Chief, Ellie, the Dark Souls Guy, they are all games where you basically “Go Around.”

Even when the game is open world with complete freedom it is basically a hub of “going around” content that you can experience in the order you want.

There is nothing wrong with “GOING AROUND” games! I like them! Some of my favorite games are “going around” games. 

But the problem is that small, indie game developers cannot make enough content to satisfy the fans of “Going Around” games. Fans of these types of games expect AAA quality graphics with AAA gameplay length of 20 to 40 hours. They will not settle for less. 

Typical genres that I consider “going around games” are

  • Puzzle Games
  • Platformers (2D and 3D)
  • SHMUPS
  • Walking Simulators
  • Non-multiplayer FPSs
  • RPGs
  • Action RPGs (Aka Legend of Zelda-likes)
  • Souls-likes
  • Point and Click adventure games
  • Visual Novels
  • Metroidvanias
  • Horror 

One of the main problems that indies face is that they fell in love and were inspired to make games after playing AAA games, specifically Nintendo games. Unfortunately most of those AAA games have a “Going Around” meta game structure. When a small indie team tries to replicate this type of game, their odds of success are very slim.

Yes, some of the genres in my list do alright sometimes (FPS, Metroidvanias, Souls-likes). Horror is great for indies, I wrote a whole blog post about how indies should make horror.

But for most part, if you are making a “going around” game, you are competing with the types of games that AAA developers can make. 

But there is a hack. If you make a type of game I call “crafty-buildy-simulationy-strategy” you can provide enough content to satisfy fans without having to spend years of making bespoke content. You don’t have to make AAA level graphics either. 

What is a “Crafty Buildy Simulation Strategy Game” and why are they good for indies?

The reason “Crafty Buildy Simulation Strategy Games” games are a hack is because the developer doesn’t have to create bespoke content for every single interaction the player has with the game. With Crafty Buildy games, you can get hours and hours and hours of gameplay with much smaller development costs. 

“Crafty Buildy Simulation Strategy Games” is my general term for the types of games that Steam players like & ones that small indie teams can make.

NOTE: Sometimes in talks, or in this post, I shorten the term to “Crafty Buildy” games. Sometimes that is because I forget what the other genres and the order after “crafty buildy.” . That doesn’t mean I am subdividing or excluding “Strategy or Simulation” games because they fell out of favor. It just rolls off the tongue better to say the shorter “Crafty buildy” 

In general “Crafty Buildy” are systems based games instead of content based. That means that gameplay emerges from the interactions among various gameplay elements. There aren’t really crafted “levels” that a player must “go around” in. Instead, there are “scenarios” where the game is “won” when a certain goal is reached. There is no predetermined way of solving the problem. You can win with any combination of elements. Sometimes the solution to the scenario was not even conceived by the designer of the game. 

Here is a simplified diagram of what I mean by that. This is an example of a theoretical City Builder Game.

The designer gives the player a collection of buildings (I stole the images from SimCity 2000) where each one has their own properties and benefits and drawbacks and each one can interact with the other buildings. Maybe one building is a police station that reduces crime by 25% in the 10 surrounding tiles. Maybe another building is a casino that increases happiness by 100% but increases crime by 10%. Another building is an apartment complex which serves as a crime multiplier of the existing surrounding tiles because there are more people that are influenced by their environment.

The designer lets the player pick any combination of those buildings as long as they satisfy the goal to get the population of the city to 1 million people and keep crime under 5%. 

There are multiple strategies to get to 1 million. You could try different types of buildings to attract different types of citizens. You could install more police stations. There is no “right” way to do it. You BUILD your way to a solution.

And that is why “crafty buildy” is so powerful. Players can spend 5 hours building one possible solution but are still excited to try to solve the goal many other ways. Crafty buildy games are highly replayable.

This is also why deck builder games are so successful. Each card is a gameplay “element.” There are thousands of ways to build a deck. The only goal is “beat this boss” and the player builds a different deck either because they want to try a new strategy or luck threw them a different set of cards. Each build is slightly different making replay more fun.

Here is an abstracted explanation of how gameplay emerges dramatically with the number of elements you add.

  • If you only had 2 elements in a game, lets call them A and B you can have 2 different situation: AB, BA 
  • If you add element C you get ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB, CBA = 6 unique situations
  • If you add D you get ABCD, ABDC, ADBC, ADCB… = 24 unique situations
  • If you add E you get ABCDE = 120 unique situations

You can see how designing a systems-based game where content emerges from the combination of elements scales very quickly and long playtimes come from that. 

I think I was first introduced to this concept back at GDC 2019 with this talk by Jason Rohrer. His term is “Infinite unique situation generators” instead of my “Crafty Buildy …”

Expanding content is much more economical

With “going around” games typically adding content takes longer than it does to play the content. 

Once I made a puzzle platformer and I worked for a week on one puzzle that could be solved in 5 minutes. 

What makes Crafty Buildy games so economical at indie scale is that adding content scales much better. For instance you can add a new deck and a couple new bosses and you have added 15 hours worth of content. 

It isn’t trivial to add and balance a new deck of cards but it scales a lot better than if you were to make a “going around” game. 

Crafty buildy games are where Early Access makes sense. As you add more content, players can replay and replay throughout development. “Going around” games die in Early Access.

You can also add DLC campaigns much more cheaply and give them away for free. Free DLC allows you to work with Valve to get visibility in the form of Daily Deals and reach out to Streamers who played your game before will replay it with the DLC. That visibility further boosts the visibility of your game in the algorithm.

My list of Crafty-Buildy games

In a New York Times op-ed David Hajdu argued that your art is forever influenced by what you experienced at age 14 Here is the killer quote

“Fourteen is a formative age, especially for people growing up in social contexts framed by pop culture. You’re in the ninth grade, confronting the tyrannies of sex and adulthood, struggling to figure out what kind of adult you’d like to be, and you turn to the cultural products most important in your day as sources of cool — the capital of young life.”

David Hajdu

When I was 14, Nintendo released Super Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, and Super Mario All-Stars. Notice they are all platformers. That same year on the PC I played MYST and Doom. They are all going around games. My first instinct is to make a platformer. I think many other game developers have spent their formative years playing AAA “going around” games and so approach development with that mindset. 

But our art must expand past our experiences as 14 year olds. And if you are older like me, the people playing games on Steam are currently 25 – 35 which means their “age 14” games are different than yours. With this list, I want to expand your creative space and the way you think about games. 

I know it is hard for this meager blog post to affect your taste in games when I am competing against the cultural groves etched by the hormones at age 14, but please, try some of these to expand your palette. You might find a new favorite genre. 

Side note: Anytime I mention a genre that is very popular like 4X someone always says “BUUUUT Those are popular because only big studios can produce those therefore limiting supply.” But that shouldn’t stop you! Remember, the whole reason people say indies are great is because they are innovative and nimble unlike lumbering giants of AAA. Smart indies determine what is the exact molecule in the game design that makes it fun and they remove all the extra crud that has built up around the genre and they deliver a compact experience that still satisfies the fans but at a fraction of the development cost. Take inspiration from these small games because they often have the best designs.  

Open world survival craft (OWSC)

Open world games like Grand Theft Auto are huge and VERY time consuming to develop because HUGE studios must generate missions delivered by NPCs. What makes this genre “crafty buildy” is a deep emergent ecosystem and lots of resources to collect and craft mean you don’t need to create as many NPCs.

Sometimes these games are simply called “Survivals”

(Small Indie Alternative: Card stacker crafters) – Don’t think you can match the quality of OWSCs? Just a small team? Try making one of these instead. 

(Small Indie Alternative: Island world survival craft) – Another way to limit scope of OWSCs by creating islands or “gates” that you must expand out of. It is a really addicting gameplay loop. Consider these games:

City builder

People ask if Crafty-buildy games will go out of style. City builders have been one of the most popular genres since SimCity arrived in 1989. Yes, they are still popular. Genres don’t change that much. Here are just a few good ones:

(Small indie alternative: City Builder)

Basebuilder Tower Defense 

These are kind of like City Builders, but also mix in tower defense elements because you are trying to battle against an invading hoard.

(Small Indie Alternative: Basebuilder Tower Defense)

Spaceship builders

Kind of like a city builder but you have to manage more limiting resources like power and heat. You also have to manage a crew and manage a destination and ensuring you get there. Side note: Steam players LOVE building spaceships.

Crafty Buildy Platformers

Most 2D platformers are “going around” games. It isn’t the 2D perspective that limits their appeal. You can still do well with a side scrolling game if you make it crafty-buildy.

Scene builders

These are the truest form of “builders.” The goals are almost non-existent. You are just going for vibes. Make something that looks cool. Almost no resources to limit you. Just your creativity. This genre is great for dev teams that have more artists than coders. Just make a bunch of cool art and let people build with it.

Room builders

Instead of making a whole scene, just do one room. Players get to pick furniture, arrange it, set wallpaper. Again, very few goals. Just vibes.

Extraction shooters / Inventory survival

These games are basically about hauling around loot and trying to survive as long as you can against extremely aggressive enemies. They typically also have a roguelike meta layer on top.

Roguelikes

Most devs are now familiar with Roguelikes. They have evolved to the point that they just aren’t about digging into dungeons. Now they are a meta structure. So when people ask are “roguelikes still popular?” it is like asking “are levels still popular?” or “are experience points still popular?” 

When assessing rogeulike’s viability it is important to look at more specific sub genres.

Adding the “Rogeulike” meta structure means you add probability, high-stakes rules where you can lose progress in an instant, randomized levels or procedural generation, run based structures where you replay the same area over after your last death. This meta-structure means you can add depth to a game that is a short dopamine hit. 

Adding “Roguelike elements” is like matching a complex Cabernet Sauvignon with a sugary sweet donut. You are adding depth to something that is a short simple saccharine pleasure. 

Roguelike Sub-genre: Casino Roguelikes

To be truly reductionist, you take a casino game, add a roguelike progression structure and go with it. When playing, sometimes you get all the good gear and good buffs and your run goes very well. Sometimes you don’t get anything and you have to fold and do another run. This pairing works because roguelike runs are inherently risk which mirrors gambling runs wonderfully. 

Roguelike Sub-genre: Arcade Roguelikes

These follow the basic roguelike meta structure (pick from 3 random upgrades, runs where you start over, a branching map with a boss at the end) but it is grafted onto the super sugar-rush quick-to-learn arcade style games from the golden age of arcades. Basically Quick Action + Deep meta structure. 

Roguelike Sub-genre: Buildy Roguelikes

Basically city builders + roguelikes. It doesn’t always go over well because part of the reason people like city builders is they like to admire the hours of work they put into their city and tinker with it. Roguelikes come in like an eraser on a dry erase board destroying all that hard work. Of all the roguelike pairings, I think this is the hardest. 

Loop Hero (kind of a city builder, rogue)
Against the Storm

Management 

Management games are kind of like simulators but they are more concerned with simulating a business than a single job like a pilot. Typically management games are more real-time and about optimizing and keeping plates spinning. 

Small Indie Alternative for Management

Tycoon

Tycoon games are Management + City Builder. Your concerns are more economic aspects of the business, and purchasing more enhancements like new roller coasters or animal exhibits. 

Autobattlers

These are like RTS games that are stripped down to that one moment where you build a bunch of soldiers and send them into battle. That’s it. You usually don’t even touch the soldiers. You just decide which ones to send into battle. 

Automation

This is like an RTS but just the part where you install buildings. You also must management the supply chain of resources to produce other buildings. 

Farming & Relationship Sim

Basically Harvest Moon games. VERY VERY popular but you must understand the audience and the genre. Just growing seeds is not enough. Very picky fans. 

Colony Sim

A base builder focused on the well-being of colonists. You must build a sprawling base with facilities to keep them alive. 

Small Indie Alternatives: Colony Sim

Job Sims

You just do a job. Mostly blue collar. Looks aren’t so important here, the art direction usually looks like store-bought assets. Making a visually stunning Job Sim might be a place for innovation in this genre. Don’t be afraid of tackling this genre, fellow artists. Consider this an opportunity!

Creature collector

Pokemon with X. Basically make the animals cute and make people go find them. 

Strategy 

(Strategy for Small indes)

Also look at autobattlers for a way to make smaller scale strategy games.

Deckbuilders

Yes I still think this is a viable genre and they aren’t “overcrowded.” I am working on a whole blog post about this for later. Deckbuilders are quite viable if you think beyond the basic “Slay The Spire” format. So here are non-StS deckbuilders

Mining games

Everyone yearns for the mines. The gameplay loop is basically: go underground to get resources, then take a chance to get them to the surface without dying, then upgrade your base or your equipment with those resources which will allow you to dig deeper and get more resources. Great genre if you like to make 2D platformers but have learned that “going around” games don’t sell. Very addicting loop.

Fishing sub variant -These have the basic gameplay loop as mining games but for fish. In the end fishing is just mining but for water instead of rock

Sandbox Mayhem

Now that I think about it, these are very similar to Scene Builders but more reliant on real time mayhem. They are scene builders in the 4th dimension of time.

Idle

Princess maker

You build up a single person. These also work great if you want to add more narrative to your game.

Narrative crafty buildy

Some developers love narrative games and they want to use the medium of games to tell stories. That’s great! You can actually do that with Crafty Buildy games and I think that adding more narrative to them is one source of innovation that can make you stand out.

Crafty buildy that are riskier

For the most part games that were popular in the past are still quite popular but there are a few

Tower Defense

This genre was one of the first mainstream “crafty buildy” games. However there have been so many created that to compete, I have found the more popular ones have adopted more base building elements. Basically they are now city builders + tower defense.

Slay the spire-like deckbuilders

Slay the spire is a popular “crafty buildy” game. I still think the deckbuilder genre is a good one for indies to tackle. But I think directly copying the structure of Slay the Spire is risky. It is hard to stand out if you have a line of heroes on the left, villains on the right, deck in the middle with a big curved arrow pointing to where you want to apply the card effects. Those are over-saturated. But refer to my “Deckbuilder” section for more alternatives.

Real time strategy (RTS)

These are definitely crafty-buildy and they have been popular forever, however I think a couple factors have made them less popular lately. Those are 

  • A big component of RTS is the competitive PvP aspect of it. That makes it hard for indies to build a big enough playerbase to support random battles (see why indies shouldn’t make multiplayer games)
  • Mega popular RTS-likes such as Dota and League of Legends have completely monopolized any second-comers.
  • True RTS take a lot of dexterity and concentration. Most streamers prefer more laid back turn-based strategy and games where they can stop to chat with their viewers. So it is harder to get streamers to play true RTS
  • I think the genre has shattered and become more specialized. Fans of the base building aspect of RTS have moved on to Automation games like factorio. Fans of building armies and micro have moved on to auto-battlers. 

So my recommendation is if you really love Real Time Strategy games, pick the aspect you like the most and make a game in the corresponding subgenre: Base building, resource collection, automation, autobattler

Vampire Survivors

This was a bit of a flash in the pan I theorized would fade fast in my original blog post. Some games do well still like Deep Rock Galactic Survivors, but it is no longer a genre where a first time dev can win with a fast-follow.  You really need to have better graphics to stand out now. 

Beware false “buildy” games that are actually puzzle games 

I have seen a few games recently that look like a crafty buildy game: the action you take is placing buildings and the world reacts to it but the game is very locked down. There are levels. There are definite solutions, and the designer had a solution in mind for how to “solve that level”

False buildy games are analogous to those Chess Puzzles published in the newspaper. Yes both of them use the same pieces and rules, but Chess Puzzles have only one intended solution and often only one possible way to solve it. 

I call them Puzzly-Crafty-Buildy

Puzzly-Crafty-Buildy games are too confining for the typical Steam shopper as they expect to solve the challenge however they want or not to solve it and just build a really cool town and watch it grow.

I pulled a few reviews from a recently published Puzzly-Crafty-Buildy game. If you read the reviews you can see shoppers went in expecting an open ended building game but bristled at the confining nature of puzzles. Notice how much they dislike the “predefined” nature of the game. Steam players desire to do whatever they want. Don’t fence them in! 

There is opportunity here

Please, Crafty Buildy games are huge! 

They are the opportunity space here. 

They are a very diverse set of genres. I know you can find one of these crafty buildy genres that will interest you even if you grew up playing “Going Around” games and that is where your heart is.

I want you to survive to make more games. 

Please consider the crafty buildy meta genre