One of the most important choices you have to make as an indie dev is the genre you’re going to try to make your game in! The ideal indie niche has high demand, low competition, is easy to make games in, and is just as fun to play as it is to watch someone else play! Here are 4 genres that I believe are the best indie genres to make games in for 2024!
Please note that this is based on research but also my personal opinions. I’m not at all saying other niches can’t succeed, These are just the genres that I find attractive as an indie dev for my future projects.
1. Horror Games: A Timeless Thrill
The first entry isn’t some big revelation, horror games! They are easy to make, they are fun to watch, and a thrill to play yourself. But there are also thousands of horror games out there so the competition seems really high, and yet, for the most part, they still sell like hot cookies. The reason for this is two folds:
- Firstly, horror games are probably one of the founders of YouTube gaming, almost every gaming channel at some point played horror games. This is mainly because the raw emotions of fright and distress displayed by content creators playing those games have always been highly entertaining. This means that if your game is somewhat good it will probably be played by some content creators and get free publicity through it!
- The Second reason that horror games are easy to sell is that there is little to no replay value. This sounds like a bad thing but if you think about it, if no horror game has any replay value then the gamers wanting to play horror games are always looking for a new game to play. There aren’t any games monopolizing the market like Fortnite, league of Legends, or Minecraft.
These reasons mixed with the fact that programming-wise horror games are quite simplistic to make means that even with very high competition it is still fairly easy to get a piece of the pie.
The real challenge of Making horror games comes from making them properly immersive, to make a successful horror game you need to be skilled in Sound and environmental design but other than that, it’s quite easy.
2. Reflex & Reaction Games: The Beat of Addiction
The next genre we’ll look at are speed-based Reflex & reaction Games!
We are talking about games like Thumper, Geometry Dash, and beat-saber.
This genre has been one of the few dominating the indie market for the longest time and there is a good reason for it.
- First off they are bloody addicting, the use of fast-paced gameplay with some sort of rhythmic aspect mixed with a quite high difficulty makes it so that your brain just needs to finish each level. Like if you ever played Geometry Dash, the fact that the music stops and restarts every time you lose made me lose my mind and forced me to retry over and over.
- The second reason for this genre’s success is that programming-wise it is again quite easy, there are no complex systems like inventories or quest systems, most of the features and systems are very straightforward, and this leaves a lot of time to double down, and polish out the features that the game does have!
- The second reason for this genre’s success is that programming-wise it is again quite easy, there are no complex systems like inventories or quest systems, most of the features and systems are very straightforward, and this leaves a lot of time to double down, and polish out the features that the game does have!
The one thing that proves a bit more difficult with this genre is that most of them rely heavily on rhythm and music, and even if I don’t believe it is a necessity I would still recommend adding it because it enhances these games significantly, just imagine beat-saber without music, it would probably still be fun but it would lose a huge part of what actually makes it so great! And this is where this genre becomes less attractive, getting the rights to so many different songs is a nightmare unless you make them yourself… but that is quite an undertaking, especially if you don’t already possess those skills!
3. Looter Crafter Games: A New Frontier
The Third genre is quite an interesting one, and just as a heads up, I kind of made this one up and I called it Looter Crafter games.
Looter crafter games are comprised of two main gameplay loops:
- One where the player has to collect resources.
- And in the second use these resources to craft or sell.
This gameplay feature isn’t unique, it can be found in many games (Any survival game, any RPG game…etc), but I’ve found some absolute Indie gems that just doubled down on this specific feature.
Games like:
- Dave the Diver, where you catch fish to turn them into sushi.
- Or Moonlighter where you’re an adventurer going through dungeons to bring back items and equipment to sell in your shop.
The big reason why I believe that these games are absolute genius is because you can easily pick and choose elements to remove from the game without damaging the core aspect of said game. Think about it, moonlighter for example is technically an RPG, but it doesn’t really have a “story”… How can an RPG not have a proper story and still be so enjoyable?
Well because it doesn’t need it. You are a shopkeeper. That is all that is needed to give the players a reason to explore the dungeons, there is no need for some fancy story of a kidnapped princess. Looter Crafter games allow you to pick and choose the features you wish to add or remove without the game losing its purpose.
For example, if you want to make a simple stealth game, just make a looter crafter where you sneak through areas, steal stuff, and then sell it. Simple and fun.
When it comes to the overall competition of the genre, it’s quite low, most games have some aspect of the looter crafter genre but they don’t focus on it, it’s usually just a secondary feature… but games that make this their core are quite rare. Another great and recent example of a looter crafter is Lethal Company, it’s the exact same concept but with more of an exploration horror twist.
4. Foddian games: The Viral Phenomenon
Finally, Last but not least we have a game genre that I myself picked to make a game in.
Foddian games are usually extremely hard platformers where the only goal is to get to the top of the level, these are games like Getting Over It or Only Up. (This genre name was specifically inspired by Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy)
You see, Foddian games don’t have any game-over conditions, meaning the player never officially loses but he does get very harshly punished for his mistakes, sometimes losing hours of progress in one wrong move.
Foddian games use a very dirty but efficient psychological trick on their players, since the player never faces a Game over condition it is harder to quit the game since you didn’t technically lose, so if you did quit it would feel a lot more like giving up instead of simply loosing.
This creates a perfect cocktail of not only wanting to beat this hard game but also never getting a chance to quit since you are never faced with a “restart or quit screen”.
Another big advantage of this genre is that it is incredibly entertaining to watch, seeing a streamer make that one small mistake that makes him fall all the way back down is just way too much fun, it’s similar to watching a streamer crap his pants when playing a horror game.
All these things combined create the perfect storm for a viral game! The best part of this is that these games are fairly easy to make!
So it’s the perfect genre right?… well not exactly, there is a big downside, even if there aren’t many games within that exact genre, you are still technically competing with all the other platforming games which makes it a lot harder to stand out, none the less, with a good game and a bit of luck these games have a crazy viral potential and that’s why I believe that this is one of the best genres to make your debut as an indie dev!
Concluding
Whether you’re drawn to the atmospheric immersion of horror games, the addictive gameplay of reflex and reaction games, the creative flexibility of looter crafter games, or the viral potential of Foddian games, Each of these genres offers unique opportunities and challenges for indie developers.
If you have another genre that you believe should be in here please leave it in the comments, I love reading other people’s thoughts and opinions!