Start here game templates
If you do not know the genre, do not pick one by its name. Pick the thing the player does in the first minute, then take the smallest template that does that thing.
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Name the verb
People stall by naming a whole game and then discovering the name contained five games. "Something like Zelda" can mean a lock and a tool, a fight, a field, or a sentence. Those are different templates, and the first minute of each is a different test. Say the verb. Jump. Build. Talk. Place a tower. Catch. Hide. The genre word can wait until that verb is fun to repeat.
Three small tests already exist. A 2D platformer is three platforms and a gap, so you learn in a minute whether you care about a jump. A tower defense is one path, one tower and one wave, so you learn whether you care about a position. A visual novel is three scenes and two endings, so you learn whether you care about a choice. They are not a starter kit for every game. They are the three verbs that are easiest to judge.
Leave the impressive neighbour alone
Ignore the camera, the setting and the cast until the verb survives ten repetitions. A soulslike whose dodge is free is not a hard game. It is a spectacle fighter that has not admitted it. A farming day that never ends is a list. A horror monster that ignores the rule you thought it had is a video. You find that out by playing the small version.
Also ignore the neighbouring template that sounds larger. Open worlds, MMOs, tactical squads and simulations with a dozen needs are real pages here, and they are bad first games because you cannot tell which system failed. Finish a loop you can see. Add one rule. Each genre page says which rule it considers the first, and names the games that spent years on it.
If you want this framed as a first game rather than a genre, read make a game with no experience, the AI game maker for beginners and the easiest game maker. Then open the template whose first minute matches the verb you actually have.
Every template in this genre
Start from this template in the Flockbay app
Describe your version in one sentence. The AI writes a brief from the template, and nothing is built until you approve it. Free for Windows and Mac.