Pick your first game

The people who have shipped the most agree on this. Derek Yu (Spelunky, UFO 50) says to finish a small game “by any means possible”, then make a slightly bigger one.5 The 20 Games Challenge, a free list of games to remake in order, starts beginners on Pong and doesn’t reach Super Mario Bros. until game six.6 Chris Zukowski found that a working game-over screen means you’re only about 10% done, and his own “simple” first game took over a year and a half.7

Many famous games started tiny. Celeste began as a game made in a few days for a tiny retro console. Baba Is You was a game jam entry. Downwell was the 13th of its creator’s quick weekly experiments.8

Five questions. We’ll match you to one of the six starter games below, and the smallest version of it to make first. Your answers stay in this browser.

Each one is a kind of game beginners can finish, with two versions to choose from. The market line uses live Steam data from October 2026: the top eight smaller games of each kind and how many new ones arrive each month.

The little chart on each card shows where the work is, from 1 (light) to 3 (heavy). Feel: making moving and hitting feel good. Content: levels, words or enemies to make. Art: how much art you need. Code: how much programming.

These sink more first projects than anything else. Each one is a great game idea. None of them is a great first game.

1. Start from a game you love

Make the kind of game you’d play. You’ll judge it better, and you’ll want to keep going on the hard days.

2. Match it to your strengths

One game jam team ran every idea through three questions: can we build enough to playtest it (watch someone else play it), is there time to make all its art, and is it fun to play?11 A Short Hike used a chunky low-detail look partly because its creator wasn’t a strong 3D artist.3 Pick a game whose hardest part is the part you’re best at.

3. Write a hook and an anchor

The hook is what makes your game different. The anchor is what feels familiar. The hook gets people curious; the anchor tells them what they’re getting.12

In [game name], you play as [who] in [where],
trying to [goal] by [the one thing you do].
It’s like [a game people know], but [your twist].

4. Find the fun in a toy first

Build your main action and play with it, with no goals, no score and no levels. That’s your toy. If it isn’t fun as a toy, it won’t be fun as a game.4 Downwell started as an ordinary platformer and was rebuilt around one idea: shooting downward with gun boots.8 Keep a version that runs every day, and cut polish before you cut the finish.11

Real captures from DeepSol, our own game in progress. It started as plain shapes and grew from there.