Should I Build It Should I Build It
07 May 2025
Android Games

Category game on mobile, turn based to name items in a category.

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.

Your are here

Your idea for a turn-based category game on mobile enters a market that has seen its share of attempts, and falls into what we call the 'Swamp' category. This means that while the concept is understandable, there may be fundamental challenges in making it stand out or generate revenue. Our analysis of similar products indicates a medium confidence level (n_matches=3), suggesting there are comparable games, but the engagement is low (avg n_comments=2). This implies that these types of games haven't quite captured the market's sustained attention. Without any significant use or buy signals, it's crucial to really analyze if you can create something truly differentiated, or if the idea should be shelved.

Recommendations

  1. Begin by thoroughly researching why existing category games haven't achieved widespread success. Analyze their gameplay mechanics, target audiences, and monetization strategies to identify potential pitfalls and areas for improvement. Look at the criticism found in similar products: in one instance, users found LLM-generated cards too specific. Think about the kind of balance to strike in generating content for your game.
  2. If you decide to move forward, identify a specific niche audience that is currently underserved by existing category games. Tailor your game's theme, categories, and difficulty to appeal to this particular group, increasing the likelihood of building a dedicated player base. Can you tap into a specific fandom or community?
  3. Instead of directly competing with existing game developers, consider creating tools or resources that they can use to enhance their own category games. This could involve developing a category database, AI-powered content generation tools (but be careful!), or a platform for hosting and managing custom game content. In one of the similar product launches, people were seeking advice on LLM prompts.
  4. Before investing significant time and resources into your category game, explore adjacent problem spaces that might offer more promising opportunities. This could involve developing educational games, trivia apps, or interactive learning experiences that leverage the principles of category-based gameplay. By broadening your focus, you may discover more viable market opportunities.
  5. Given the challenges associated with the 'Swamp' category, consider re-evaluating the viability of your current idea. It's possible that your time and energy could be better spent pursuing a different project with a higher potential for success. Don't be afraid to pivot to a more promising opportunity.
  6. Analyze the existing game mechanics of similar turn-based category games. What works well? What are the common pain points? Identify areas where you can innovate and offer a unique gameplay experience. Think about the 'Anomia' card game that was ported to mobile: the ability to easily add custom decks was a key feature.
  7. Focus on designing a compelling and visually appealing user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) for your mobile game. Prioritize ease of use, intuitive navigation, and engaging gameplay mechanics to capture and retain players' attention. Make the game very fun to look at and easy to play.

Questions

  1. What specific unmet need or desire does your category game address that existing solutions fail to satisfy, and how will you validate this need before investing in development?
  2. How will you differentiate your game's content generation and moderation strategies to prevent issues with inappropriate or irrelevant categories, ensuring a safe and enjoyable user experience?
  3. Considering the low engagement levels observed in similar products, what innovative marketing and community-building strategies will you employ to cultivate a loyal player base and drive sustainable growth for your game?

Your are here

Your idea for a turn-based category game on mobile enters a market that has seen its share of attempts, and falls into what we call the 'Swamp' category. This means that while the concept is understandable, there may be fundamental challenges in making it stand out or generate revenue. Our analysis of similar products indicates a medium confidence level (n_matches=3), suggesting there are comparable games, but the engagement is low (avg n_comments=2). This implies that these types of games haven't quite captured the market's sustained attention. Without any significant use or buy signals, it's crucial to really analyze if you can create something truly differentiated, or if the idea should be shelved.

Recommendations

  1. Begin by thoroughly researching why existing category games haven't achieved widespread success. Analyze their gameplay mechanics, target audiences, and monetization strategies to identify potential pitfalls and areas for improvement. Look at the criticism found in similar products: in one instance, users found LLM-generated cards too specific. Think about the kind of balance to strike in generating content for your game.
  2. If you decide to move forward, identify a specific niche audience that is currently underserved by existing category games. Tailor your game's theme, categories, and difficulty to appeal to this particular group, increasing the likelihood of building a dedicated player base. Can you tap into a specific fandom or community?
  3. Instead of directly competing with existing game developers, consider creating tools or resources that they can use to enhance their own category games. This could involve developing a category database, AI-powered content generation tools (but be careful!), or a platform for hosting and managing custom game content. In one of the similar product launches, people were seeking advice on LLM prompts.
  4. Before investing significant time and resources into your category game, explore adjacent problem spaces that might offer more promising opportunities. This could involve developing educational games, trivia apps, or interactive learning experiences that leverage the principles of category-based gameplay. By broadening your focus, you may discover more viable market opportunities.
  5. Given the challenges associated with the 'Swamp' category, consider re-evaluating the viability of your current idea. It's possible that your time and energy could be better spent pursuing a different project with a higher potential for success. Don't be afraid to pivot to a more promising opportunity.
  6. Analyze the existing game mechanics of similar turn-based category games. What works well? What are the common pain points? Identify areas where you can innovate and offer a unique gameplay experience. Think about the 'Anomia' card game that was ported to mobile: the ability to easily add custom decks was a key feature.
  7. Focus on designing a compelling and visually appealing user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) for your mobile game. Prioritize ease of use, intuitive navigation, and engaging gameplay mechanics to capture and retain players' attention. Make the game very fun to look at and easy to play.

Questions

  1. What specific unmet need or desire does your category game address that existing solutions fail to satisfy, and how will you validate this need before investing in development?
  2. How will you differentiate your game's content generation and moderation strategies to prevent issues with inappropriate or irrelevant categories, ensuring a safe and enjoyable user experience?
  3. Considering the low engagement levels observed in similar products, what innovative marketing and community-building strategies will you employ to cultivate a loyal player base and drive sustainable growth for your game?

  • Confidence: Medium
    • Number of similar products: 3
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 2
  • Net use signal: 20.0%
    • Positive use signal: 20.0%
    • Negative use signal: 0.0%
  • Net buy signal: 0.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 0.0%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

Similar products

Relevance

I ported the tabletop card game Anomia to mobile

23 May 2024 Games

Anomia is a trivia card game where players take turns drawing cards: when two symbols match those two players race to name an example of a thing in the other person's category. It's a very chaotic party game with lots of shouting.We built this because me and my friends wanted to play the card game but we didn't always have the deck. But hey, everyone always has their phone and a phone is roughly card-shaped.The backend is all Rust + Axum and the app is React Native. We use websockets to sync the phones in real-time.It's a party game so you'll need ideally 3-8 people to play.Would love feedback so please give it a try and let me know how it goes!

Users find it easy to add custom decks and are seeking advice on LLM prompts. The launch has been congratulated.

The LLM-generated cards are too specific.

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Relevance

I made an explanation party game in Electric Clojure

30 Jul 2024 Games

ExplainGame (explaingame.com) is a mobile-friendly party game that runs in the browser. The goal of the game is to get your teammates to say the words on your card before the timer runs out, using only word association clues.For example, if you get a term like “Michael Schumacher,” you can say “F1 driver, Ferrari, ski accident” but not “Michael” or “Schumacher.”You can think of it as charades or Pictionary, but instead of acting or drawing, you have to use your words.ExplainGame is a clone of a popular board game in South Africa called 30 Seconds, or Articulate in the UK. It is meant to be played in-person. This mobile-friendly version solves the two main problems with 30 Seconds:- the cards get old over time. - you don't always have it on you.In ExplainGame, each card is uniquely drawn from 700 answers to general knowledge questions in the free deck. In future, you will be able to purchase expansion card decks @ $1.50 that will be category-specific, e.g. 80s Music, Rugby, Football, Formula 1, etc.Join a nearby game using geolocation or scan the host's QR code. You can share phones between teams by tapping "Add Player" to add local players.The game was built over 3 weekends in ~1,600 lines of Electric Clojure, backed by Datalevin (embedded Datomic). There exists no other tech stack today in which I could have built a real-time, multiplayer board game with this level of polish on such a short time frame. I can highly recommend Dustin Getz's Hytradboi talk on Electric Clojure (formerly Photon): https://www.hytradboi.com/2022/uis-are-streaming-dagsOne current drawback is that sometimes a card may contain many terms from the same category like country names or famous people. In future, each card will draw terms from different categories.It is currently hosted on Fly.io across 3 regions (LAX, LHR & JNB). I am monitoring load to scale, but apologies if it falls over – I'm not sure how much load a Show HN will cause.The game is dedicated to my late sister, Gesie Theron, who loved this game.Feel free to play a few rounds and send constructive feedback to explaingame@petrus.co.za, or follow @ExplainGameApp on Twitter for updates. Enjoy!

Users are enthusiastic about the game, with plans to playtest it with friends and expressing excitement to play it.

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