What Is a Genre, and How Do You Choose One?

Picking the right genre for your game project is something you hear almost all marketing professionals talking about. For example, Chris Zukowski talks a lot about the right genres to tackle if you are a solo dev or indie dev publishing on Steam. Chris talks a lot about buildy, crafty simulation games that have dominated Steam and the PC market for a really long time.

In this blog post, I won't directly tell you what the "right" genre is for solo devs or small indie devs to tackle, but perhaps I can shed some light on the topic a little bit. Let's get stuck in!

Let's define genre first. In modern times, games have evolved to a state where you very rarely see completely new genres. Almost everything fits into these ready-made descriptions (genres). Genres can mean mechanics, visuals, challenges, gameplay loops, the way the game world works, mood, or different types of expectations about the game. Why do we need them? Players know what to expect when they look at your game project. 

Specific genres can be things like horror, RPG, adventure game, FPS, survival horror, visual novel, cozy, HOG, and the list goes on.

Example: HOG Game

My second published minigame was a HOG or something like that. Let's check it out.

Here we have my one scene. The art is done in pixel art, and the UI is this basic point-and-click-style one. I made this HOG so that you search for objects all around the scene, and the characters moved using sprite fade techniques.

Let's check out pictures from some good HOG games.

                          9 clues serpent creek

                            9 clues the ward

                           left in the dark no one in board

One genre trope is very clear when you look at these, and players will be expecting this: 2D, high-resolution, stylized art.

Point-and-click games have a strong history with pixel art, and visual novels can be both (point-and-click can have high-res art too, yes). HOG games have a really strong visual identity, and they execute the hidden-object phase by having you search for particular hotspots. The reward you get is an object that will help you proceed.

HOG games, like visual novels, have strong stories, puzzles, and dialogue, but they don't often have different dialogue options like their cousins, point-and-click and visual novel games.

I play HOG games because they are quite fun and simple. If a dev started changing this formula by adding really complex dialogue options, I would be pissed.

Genre problems

When developing my first games, I didn't understand genres at all. My games borrowed many things from different genres and didn't directly fit into any specific genre. My biggest mistake was my canceled Steam project, Letter.

When you look at it, it's an RPG, right?

Yep, no.

It's not an RPG, but it desperately wanted to be an RPG. It has all the light properties of an RPG, but not the battle systems or depth in its gameplay systems to really be an RPG. (I recommend watching Tim Cain's video on the RPG genre.)

So, a light RPG. Why not? But if I market it as an RPG anyway, players will look at it and see "RPG," and I'll say it's an RPG, but when they start playing it, they discover that it's actually an adventure game.

Those reviews will be really spicy, and everybody will refund the game.

The project got almost to the Steam demo stage. It was perhaps one month away from having a Steam demo, but I finally grasped the genre idea a little bit and canceled the project. It was a game without a specific genre. You just can't market or sell that.

Small Genre tropes

Let's take the RTS genre as an example. What are the must-have things? Base building, commandable units, resource management, for starters. But many RTS games have goofy storylines and FMV cutscenes. Are these genre tropes too? Are they must-have things that players expect from an RTS?

Can high-definition 2D art be used, or is pixel art a must?

I don't know.

My new project, Night Radio, is mainly a visual novel, simulation, horror, mystery, and point-and-click game. One piece of feedback from my testers was that in point-and-click games, when you speak and text appears on the screen, the mouse needs to be free. It's always free in point-and-click games, was the feedback.

Did I just miss a small genre trope? Do I need to free the mouse during conversations? Jeez, I never thought about that kind of thing. Just think about what else can be lurking in the shadows.

I think the small things can come out during the testing phase, and that's okay. But your project is fucked if you miss the fundamental genre expectations when building your game.

How to Do Your Research

I like to start with the classics of the genre. If I were making a survival horror game, I would take the first three Resident Evil games and start from there. Inventory system that pauses the game, chests that can teleport stuff between scenes, ink ribbons to save your games, tank controls.

Perhaps study how the development went, too. Developers could often say they wanted to add a couple more systems, but it wasn't possible at the time.

Don't just rely on the classics, though. Genres have evolved. For example, if you only have ink-ribbon-based saving nowadays, players might find it frustrating (or not).

Make a deep dive into newer games in the genre and pinpoint all the specific things you see. Go read reviews. Read reviews of failed game projects, especially ones that had problems with their genre. Read what players say. Something was frustrating. The controls weren't what they usually are. The inventory paused the game, but normally it doesn't do that.

Testing Your Genre

So, to understand your target genre, you have to do lots of research and really deep-dive into these things. Testing is crucial, and don't trust friends and family members. You need testers who specifically know the target genre.

You have to take a curious attitude toward genres. That will help even during testing, when people cut your project open. It also helps you ignore some spicy feedback. If your genre has a specific trope and testers complain about it, you can ignore that because it belongs to the genre, as long as it isn't broken.

(Use testers who specialize in your genre!)

Genre blending

I talk a lot about staying within your genre and understanding it, but after you understand your genre, you can start doing some blending.

It's often not recommended and is usually left to really experienced devs to try out, but if you have a deep understanding of your genre, perhaps you can try to whack this one.

There are examples like this game, Vultures – Scavengers of Death: it's Resident Evil-like but with turn-based combat.

At first, it sounds like a horrible combination, but it worked, and the game's estimated Steam revenue is $159K (VG Insights).

I don't know the dev time, but this sounds like a successful game.

Small Bonus Section

I come from a strong console background, but I have also (thank God) dabbled with PC gaming for a long time. Different genres fit better on consoles than on PC. Try making a platformer on PC and you will understand the difference compared to a console platformer.

Some genres are really hard for small teams or solo devs to make and usually end in cancellations. Pick the right ones and do your due diligence. Read Chris Zukowski's blog!

Of course, you can make the next Hollow Knight, Darkwood, or Stray, make $100 million, and call it a day. It's just not what usually happens. For every successful game, there are 1,000 failed ones.