Friend slop is in this trend of playing with friends and doing hilarious things. The game was made by two developers in two months and became a hit.

It’s similar to lethal company where you play with friends and find hilarious moments. These get clipped onto YouTube and TikTok creating viral marketing loops for the game. Which gets more groups of players into it.

I do think that the game has virality already built in and not much marketing was needed since many big Streamers play it.

what is interesting and lets people get into the game core design is you have to paint showing off your art skills and where you can hide some players have very good art skills where they can blend into paintings.

The trend for younger gamers are low graphics similar to Roblox Meccha Chameleon

I do feel now the trend would be for micro experiences rather than the large triple A experience and it has to be “social” angle. Meaning it has to be TikTok / Shorts reel friendly.

but this is an outlier but a trend to watch about making games quick as an indie.

Meccha Chameleon was built entirely by Lemorion_1224 and Haganeiro in Unreal Engine 5. 

They made the game in two months. Lemorion_1224 was the lead developer, director and publisher, in charge of all of the maps and models and visuals. Haganeiro handled systems and engineering, built the core systems, gameplay logic, and networking integration.

The idea came to them after they played hide‑and‑seek modes in Fortnite, inspiring a paint‑your‑body camouflage twist.

https://gamesbeat.com/indie-hit-meccha-chameleon-hits-10m-copies-sold-in-16-days/