5 viral hooks for game designers

1. Animal fantasy: play as an animal
Goat Simulator: you play as a goat ($9,280,000)
Stray: you play as a cat ($57,200,000)
2. Mashup: combine two genres
Spelunky: Super Mario Bros + Rogue ($3,350,000)
The Binding of Isaac: The Legend of Zelda + Rogue ($59,200,00)
3. Specificity: focus on something very specific
PowerWash Simulator: play as a professional power washing cleaner ($15,000,000)
Graveyard Keeper: build and manage a medieval graveyard ($10,700,00)
4. Automation: give players increasingly more powerful build tools
Factorio: build automated factories ($89,400,00)
Satisfactory: open-world factory building ($65,400,000)
5. Genre twist: take a known genre & turn it on its head
Slay the Princess: instead of saving the princess, you're here to kill her ($2,070,000)
Carrion: a reverse horror game where you play as the monster ($6,360,000)
📙 Buy my #solodev book: www.amazon.com...
Estimated Steam Revenue via Steam Revenue Calculator (Chrome Extension).
#gamedev #indiedev #creativity #steam #marketing

[@Sen_1491]

Basically look at what COD is doing and do the opposite

[@The_Faceless_No_Name_Stranger]

I saw a game on steam called conscript and the last hook applies to it. Resident Evil but the horror is that you’re in WW1.

[@devinlupei5071]

I'm all over the animal fantasy one!

[@peakpineapplestudio]

#1 is so true ❗️ that’s why I chose Chameleons for my indie game project😊

[@sadtheworld2916]

Spelunky only made 3 mill? Damn it deserves better

[@clocwerkcooper]

First one made me think maneater, second one Indivisible, and the rest didn't make me think of anything

[@The360MlgNoscoper]

Automation is obviously Factorio

[@MMedic23]

These are bad "categories" so to say, they don't describe a general concept that exists in the industry, rather they are bad generalisations of some random properties of the examples you gave.
Goat Simulator and Stray were not viral simply because "you played as an animal"