# Reference games: small indie successes

Supporting document for the [shape exploration](README.md). Started 2026-10-02.

**Purpose (user):** a few indie successes shown on [map.html](map.html) under the shape detail card, next to this game,
"to build intuition on what a successful game looks like, because I have a few hunches I'd like to validate". The user
wants "indie-sized 4–8 months projects that got successful". Violent games may stay: "I think I can learn from violent
games too."

**Status: agreed 2026-10-02.** Ten games are on the map page (nine at first, Super Auto Pets added later the same day): the six with a confirmed development time, Stacklands
and SUMMERHOUSE (short by every indication, but unsourced), and Forager (the user's addition). Rusty's Retirement,
Nodebuster, Luck be a Landlord and Tiny Aquarium were dropped because their times could not be confirmed.

On the page each game is split into its loops, and each loop is placed on the two axes with a size for how much of the
play it is. The split, the sizes and the positions are Claude's judgement from what it knows of each game, not from
play sessions. A game opens directly with `map.html?game=` and one of: `hike`, `islanders`, `minami`, `kabuto`,
`stacklands`, `summerhouse`, `dawn`, `brotato`, `forager`, `pets`.

Each game also has an audience mark on the page, read from its Steam tags and pitch and not from its loops:
[audience-from-tags.md](audience-from-tags.md).

## Candidates

Steam review counts and the share positive were read from Steam's own data on 2026-10-02. "Time" is the development
time up to the first release that was sold. A list of successes shows what success looks like, not how likely it is.

**Development time confirmed by a source:**

| Game | What the player does | Team | Time | Steam reviews | Other figures |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Short Hike | wander a small island, collect feathers, climb | solo | 4 months to the first release (a Humble Original), 4 more to Steam | 22,778 (99% positive) | |
| Islanders | place buildings from a hand onto an island for points | 3 students | 7 months | 16,787 (94%) | among Steam's 20 top sellers of April 2019 |
| Minami Lane | arrange one street of shops to please its residents | 2, plus a composer | about 6 months | 6,786 (97%) | 200,000 copies by November 2024 |
| 20 Minutes Till Dawn | survive waves for 20 minutes, pick upgrades | solo | 2 months, marketing included | 29,163 (90%) | early access June 2022, 1.0 a year later |
| Brotato | survive waves, buy upgrades between them | solo | 3 months to the demo and early access | 119,375 (96%) | 9 more months in early access to 1.0 |
| Kabuto Park | catch bugs, build a team of them, win a summer tournament | the programmer of Minami Lane | 9 months (just outside the window) | 4,684 (99%) | cost about €65,000; 35,000 copies in the first month; break-even at about 30,000 |

**Development time not found in a source** (the first two are on the page, the other four were dropped; Stacklands'
time is given by the user):

| Game | What the player does | Team | What is known | Steam reviews |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stacklands | stack cards on each other to make a village run | one developer in a 4-developer co-op (Sokpop) | Development time strictly under 4 months, and one developer (the user, 2026-10-02; this replaces Claude's "2 to 3 people, time not found"). Sokpop's 90th game; each Sokpop developer makes one game every 4 months. 450,000 copies on Steam by July 2022, three months after release, at $4.99; 32% of units in China | 30,383 (96%) |
| SUMMERHOUSE | place building pieces to make a pretty scene; no goals | solo | by one of the three who made Islanders; 120,000 copies within three weeks, by a headline | 3,382 (93%) |
| Rusty's Retirement | a small farm runs at the bottom of the screen while you do other things | solo | released April 2024 | 14,877 (97%) |
| Nodebuster | click nodes, buy upgrades, numbers grow, finish in a few hours | solo | released August 2024 | 14,085 (97%) |
| Luck be a Landlord | add symbols to a slot machine so they combine | solo | early access January 2021, 1.0 two years later | 11,552 (93%) |
| Tiny Aquarium | a fish tank on the desktop that you tend now and then | small studio | released June 2025 | 3,756 (96%) |

**Added by the user, outside the window on purpose:**

| Game | What the player does | Team | Time | Steam reviews | Other figures |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forager | gather, craft and build on a small island, buy the next island, level up; idle-game growth played by hand | solo developer, with a publisher | started at a game jam, released April 2019; the length is not in the source (Claude's memory, unchecked: about two years) | 44,155 (89%) | 600,000 copies a year after release; $19.99 |

| Super Auto Pets | buy and order a team of pets in a shop, then watch it fight a team another player built earlier | Team Wood Games; size not found | not found; released September 2021 | 36,229 (90%) | free to play; all battles are asynchronous |

Super Auto Pets was added by the user on 2026-10-02 ("please add Super Auto Pets to the analysis"). It is the one game
on the list built on asynchronous play against other players, which is the kind the user named for this game.

The user: "I know, it stands out, but pls put Forager on the list. It is a unique blend of casual, and I'd like to see
where it stands."

## How far the picture can be trusted

- **The user's check (2026-10-02).** The user has played several of these games: "I can not find anything I would not
  agree with… after evaluating them, I trust your judgements on the games I do not know."
- **What the user saw in the maps:** games are more spread out than expected, even small ones; and the typical shape
  is one core loop, two supporting, one side loop.
- **Claude's caution on both.** Splitting a game into loops and placing each near the motivation it resembles spreads
  any game by construction, and how finely a game is cut was a free choice, so the count of loops says more about the
  cut than about the games. What holds regardless of the cut: each game has one dominant activity, and a small game
  often pairs a fast loop with a slow one on purpose (Brotato's dodging and its shop).
- **Time per loop is left coarse on purpose.** The user: it "depends on playstyle too much, and less so on the game
  itself". So mark size stays at three levels (core, supporting, side) and is not turned into a share of play time.
- **Selection.** All games here are successes picked by Claude and the user. The picture shows what success can look
  like, not what causes it.

## Stacklands in more detail

Looked up 2026-10-02 at the user's request (money, marketing, where it was released).

| Question | What was found |
|---|---|
| Copies | 450,000 on Steam by July 2022, plus about 50,000 in a bundle with Simmiland and 1,200 of a full Sokpop bundle at about $200 (GameDiscoverCo, 2022-07-11). A third-party estimate for July 2026: about 670,000 copies on Steam |
| Money | No figure from Sokpop. GameDiscoverCo: "grossing millions of dollars". The third-party estimate: about $4.5 million gross on Steam by July 2026. Launch price $4.99, now $7.99 |
| Where the buyers were | China 32%, USA 24%, France and Germany 5% each, UK 4% |
| Marketing | No campaign is described in the source. What it does name: Sokpop's standing audience (a Patreon at $3 a month, about 90 earlier games on Steam) and localisation, "especially Chinese was really important". A video by the designer on why it worked exists and was not read |
| Released on | Windows and macOS: Sokpop's own channels (Patreon, itch.io) and Steam. Wikipedia gives both 31 March and 8 April 2022; Claude's reading, unconfirmed, is subscribers first and Steam a week later. Two paid expansions: Cursed Worlds (July 2023) and Stacklands 2000 (October 2024). Mobile or console releases were not confirmed |
| After the hit | Sokpop's Patreon rose from $5,000–6,000 to $8,500 a month |

## Notes

- **Short to first sale, long afterwards.** Brotato, 20 Minutes Till Dawn and Luck be a Landlord were sold after a few
  months and then developed for one to two more years in early access. Their "development time" is the time to the
  first paid version, not to the finished game.
- **Repeat developers.** Minami Lane and Kabuto Park share a programmer; Islanders and SUMMERHOUSE share a designer.
  Each pair is a second small game from someone whose first small game sold.

## Sources

- A Short Hike: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Short_Hike);
  [PlayStation Blog](https://blog.playstation.com/2021/08/05/crafting-a-tiny-open-world-a-look-behind-the-scenes-at-the-creation-of-a-short-hike/)
- Islanders: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islanders_(video_game));
  [Game World Observer](https://gameworldobserver.com/2019/06/14/islanders)
- Minami Lane: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minami_Lane);
  [Automaton, 200,000 copies](https://automaton-media.com/articles/newsjp/minamilane-20241118-318397/)
- Kabuto Park: [Automaton](https://automaton-media.com/articles/newsjp/20250709-348565/)
- 20 Minutes Till Dawn: [How To Market A Game](https://howtomarketagame.com/2022/06/14/20-minutes-till-dawn/);
  [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Minutes_Till_Dawn)
- Brotato: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brotato); [press kit](https://thomasgervraud.com/press/brotato/)
- Forager: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forager_(video_game))
- Super Auto Pets: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Auto_Pets)
- Stacklands: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacklands);
  [GameDiscoverCo, 2022-07-11](https://newsletter.gamediscover.co/p/how-one-of-sokpops-almost-100-steam);
  [raijin.gg estimate](https://raijin.gg/app/1948280/Stacklands) (seen only as a search summary)
- SUMMERHOUSE: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerhouse_(video_game));
  [Game World Observer](https://gameworldobserver.com/2024/03/29/summerhouse-sales-120k-copies-solo-dev-friedemann)
  (headline only, article not read)
- Luck be a Landlord: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luck_Be_a_Landlord)
- Review counts: Steam's store data for each game, 2026-10-02.