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--- 2026-09-12 [2026/09/12 06:07] – sibachian
+++ 2026-09-12 [2026/09/13 09:31] (current) – sibachian
@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 Nothing wrong with that, but after you've sold like 3000 copies of Sequence, Mexican Train, Yahtzee and Dot Card, you start to wonder, maybe there is a real game out there you could sell them...
-Granted, that game is usually Skyjo (and to some extent, Flip 7). But I wanted to put together a list of mechanically distinct games that could all fit these buyers
+Granted, that game is usually Skyjo (and to some extent, Flip 7). But I wanted to put together a list of mechanically distinct games that could all fit these buyers,
+Here is the current list (WIP):
+Tier 1: Super simple mechanically but still a decent chunk of fun.
+  - Skyjo (tableu management)
+  - Kluster (Dexterity)
+  - Ohanami (Drafting)
+  - Just One (Party/Social)
+  - No Thanks! (Bidding)
+  - Coloretto (set collection)
+  - Qwixx (Roll & Write)
+  - 6 Nimmt! (card prediction)
+  - Once Upon A Time (story making)
+  - Flip 7 (push your luck)
+  - Skull (bluffing)
+Tier 2: still easy, but with extra salt
+  - Love Letter (Card Battle)
+  - Scout (Shedding)
+  - Startups (Markets)
+  - Cabo / Rat-a-Tat Cat (Memory)
+  - Hanabi (cooperative info puzzle)
+  - Bohnanza! (negotiation)
+  - For Sale! (Auction)
+  - Sea of Strife (Trick Taking)
+  - That's Pretty Clever (dice combos)
+As I was writing this list, I realized, there are some distinctive mechanics missing. Particularly mechanics that I enjoy in heavier games, which would be deck building, hand building, flick dexterity, tile placement, line battler, engine building, and worker placement. At least, designed to fit inside a pocket sized box, and be simple enough to have no more than a minute of rules overhead.
+I think, if someone could figure out a Skyjo equivalent for these mechanics, distilled down to barebones yet with the meat needed to be fun, then that's potentially a million-copies-sold A-lister.
+I do have a **hand building** project that's been in-the-making since February, but I haven't really managed to not make it tenuous to play yet. I still have some more ideas, but other projects have been more fun to work on so it's taken the back seat for a while.
+As for tile placement, I think "Take It Easy!" is essentially the "it", except the box is huge and messy, and the scoring is awful. I would basically like this game to be remade into a small box variant with a lot less headache for score counting and the style less of a graphical mess; the only problem is (and why it probably hasn't been done) is the messy bit is part of why it actually works.
+Deck building is probably also possible to do in a more lightweight way. I mean, Dominion is very light mechanically already and it's such a good game, but it's so frustrating to setup and tear down, something that feels "unmodern" and which is why it's not as popular nowadays as it used to be, even if the game is brilliant. Star Realms set out to fix just that, but i wasn't all too impressed with how the game plays, and it definitely has some mechanical overhead that makes it not a functional candidate for this genre, plus it's primarily designed for one-on-one - and i don't include those kind of games (i mean, if i did, the list would be way longer due to the sheer number of great 1on1 abstracts out there).
+Anyway, buttom line is. I think I will have to focus on these kind of games in a multiplayer setting. To see if I can come up with something that will be "just enough game" to work. My shedding dice game, and my shedding mahjong tiles game are two candidate I am currently looking to finalize as well so there is a lot up in the air for now.
+On other topics of things to design. There has been an open space for story-driven games for a while now. Games like Once Upon a Time. That game keeps going out of production as they only do one run per edition. So there has to be a more fixed fixture in this genre as it's a question that does happen at the store quite frequently. As such, it's something that I am keeping in mind as a game I should probably try and develop. I have never played Aye, Dark Overlord! nor Baron Munchausen but I have heard of them as narrative games. Granted, it's been over 10 years since I played Once Upon A Time, but if they work anything as them then maybe it's something i could work with. I will create a [[arr_core_idea|new wiki]] for this project.