Any time a genre becomes hot, like right now with Friendslop or Incrementals or Simulators, someone always asks: "Has the genre peaked? Is it no longer worth it?"

The answer from my experience is "No." It seems similar to people in real life calling for an Economic Recession, sure they're right once every 10 years but they're wrong the 20 other times they thought that. Every genre eventually peaks but it's probably going to last more than you think.

But it's great to see some numbers to prove that point, so How To Market A Game did a great analysis on the Friendslop genre to find that no it has not peaked. In fact the genre roughly started with Crab Game in 2021 (50k players in the genre), then in 2023 Lethal Company came along and hit a new peak with 200k players in total playing this genre. After that was R.E.P.O. in 2025 followed by PEAK, and now in 2026 we have Meccha Chameleon.

The important part is how each of those peaks on this genre just continued getting higher and higher, it hasn't started declining.

Again, in 2024 there were tons of people saying the Friendslop genre was on its way out, and clearly here in 2026 that has not yet happened.

Chris also asks the same question with regards to Incremental games. Even though 1,000 incrementals came out in 2026, Scritchy Scratchy still made $4million. Clearly even though there are tons of incrementals, people still want more of them.

So the better question is not "how many games exist in this genre?" The better question is "is the audience still hungry?" If the answer is yes, then there can still be room for more successful games, even if the genre looks crowded from the outside.

Of course, that does not mean you have a guaranteed win in any of these hot genres. The genres might not have peaked but saturation does mean more competition. So nowadays to find success in the Friendslop or Incremental genres you still need a strong unique hook and great execution. Just making a game in a hot genre is not enough. But I think devs are often too quick to dismiss an opportunity because they see a few similar games and immediately say "too saturated."

If that's you, if you're right now thinking "oh I have a fun incremental game idea but the genre will probably cool off in the next 6 months," historically speaking that statement will likely be proven wrong. So if you have a fun unique incremental game idea that you want to publish in 6 months I'd say go for it!

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I think AI is a great learning tool, it can act like your own personal 1on1 tutor without costing an arm and a leg, it is genuinely useful for learning.

However only when used properly! So here is a great tip for using AI the proper way without completely turning off your brain.

It's quite simple, just write out the code the AI gives you instead of blindly copy pasting! It sounds simple but that simple act means you are actively writing code which means you are engaging your brain which means you are genuinely either learning or understanding how the codebase works.

Cognitive technical debt is a nightmare problem, especially if you overuse AI. It is very easy to get to a point where you have no idea what the code is doing, which means you will have no idea how to fix it when it breaks (which it will) By simply re-writing it yourself manually you are engaging your brain and preventing that debt from accumulating.

It might sound inefficient if you're used to just copy pasting, but it will help you out immensely as the project grows. By typing the code, you are forced to slow down, read it, question it, adapt it, and understand how it fits into your existing project. You can still use AI as a personal 1on1 tutor, but this way you actually learn.

So my takeaway is: AI can absolutely help you learn faster, but only if you stay actively involved. Ask questions. Rewrite things. Type the code. Understand the code. Because the goal is not just to get more code into your project, it is to actually know what your project is doing and for you to actually gain new skills.

Here is a really fun inventive game! Country Draw!

It's exactly what the name implies, can you draw a country from memory?

You might think you can but it's actually really difficult. At least I'm really bad at it, I think my average score is something like 20.

Thankfully Portugal is basically just a Rectangle so that one was not too difficult, but most are quite tricky!