Pitched by Trade Marq IV for Marquis Barnes · September 10, 2026
It's alive. Or it will be.
Three iPhone games set in a mad scientist's lab. All three are built to be chill, hard to put down, and able to make money. I researched the market and designed each one, then built a playable piece of each so you can feel it instead of reading about it.
The short version
Build Frankenmerge. You put any two things on the lab table, pull the lever, and meet a creature nobody on Earth has made before. The first person to discover it gets their name on it forever.
It takes the most viral mechanic of the last two years (combining things to discover new things) and fixes what the others miss: you can see what you made, keep it, and share it. It also sits right on your lanes. Every creature is AI-generated art, every discovery is a piece of content, and the world has room for story. The other two ideas aren't losers. They're parts of the pick: FIZZ gives it the squishy, satisfying feel, and Night Shift turns into its long-term home base.
What the market is telling us
I sent two research runs out before designing anything. One went through the mobile market, the other through every science, alchemy, and creature game worth knowing. Here's what shaped the pitch.
+20%
Hybrid-casual is the only real growth
Mobile gaming was flat in 2025: purchases up 1.3%, downloads down 7%. Hybrid-casual games (simple to play, deeper to spend in) grew purchases 20% to $4.2B.
Sensor Tower, State of Gaming 2026
+80%
Combining is what people pay for
Merge games grew 80% to $1.4B in 2025, the fastest-growing big mechanic in casual. Travel Town alone jumped 231% in a year.
AppMagic via Mobidictum · Naavik
300M
Infinite Craft recipes made per day
It was the #3 most-searched game of 2024, and it's text on a white screen. The app barely monetizes, and its creator says costs were the hardest part. Nobody has turned it into a business.
Wikipedia · Speedrun
100M+
Creatures shared by Spore players
People share creatures, not words. Spore players uploaded 25M creations in three weeks. My Singing Monsters built CAD 100M+ on collecting and breeding.
GamesBeat · Corum Group
3 min
The median mobile session
Players come back 3.8 times a day. A loop has to pay off inside three minutes, and a lever pull pays off in two seconds.
GameAnalytics 2026 benchmarks
$1.41
Average cost per install, casual iOS
Paid players aren't cheap, so the game has to recruit its own. Creator-style ads raise install conversion 152%, and ads now have to show the real game.
Liftoff 2025 · Motion
Put it together: the money is in combining things, and the sharing is in creatures. Nobody has put both in one game with a real economy behind it. That's the gap the pick is aimed at. The theme is open too. I couldn't find a single top-grossing mad scientist game, and the closest things are low-budget idle lab clones.
Idea one. The fast, proven bet.
FIZZ
Working title
A physics merge game inside a lab flask. Drop goo in, and when two of the same touch they fuse into something bigger and weirder. Keep fusing up the ladder and don't let the flask overflow.
9:415G
Score0
Next
Tap anywhere to drop
Flask overflowed
Score 0
This is playable. Tap or click to drop goo, and two of the same fuse into the next size up.
How it plays
DropAim and release a blob
FuseTwo of a kind become one bigger one
ChainOne fusion knocks off three more
AlmostSo close to the top tier. One more run.
A run lasts 3 to 6 minutes. There's no timer and no fail screen until the flask spills, so it stays calm the whole way.
Why you can't put it down
The specimen ladderEleven goo tiers, from Drip to The Big Gloop. Every new tier unlocks a specimen card with a bit of lore. Collectors will want every card.
CatalystsEvery ten fusions pays out a power: Zap fuses everything it touches, Freeze locks a blob in place, Heat shrinks the whole flask for five seconds. That's the difference from Suika.
Built for the iPhone's hapticsA soft squish on every fusion, and a rolling tap on chain reactions. The feel is the product, and most clones skip it.
The Daily FlaskOnce a day everyone plays the same seeded run, then posts their score as a shareable card.
How it makes money
Ads between runs, capped so they never feel greedy. Rewarded ads for "undo last drop" and "one more chance." A one-time Remove Ads purchase at $3.99, plus flask and goo skin packs from $1.99 to $4.99. Most of the money comes from volume, not from each player.
What it takes
Build to launch
4 to 6 weeks
Cash to launch
Under $1,500
Viral ceiling
High, but crowded
Revenue per player
Low
What could go wrong
Suika clones are everywhere. We'd be competing on feel and polish alone, with nothing only we can do. The ceiling on revenue per player is low and the category is easy to copy back. It's a good first ship, but a hard thing to own.
Idea two. The breakout swing, and my pick.
Frankenmerge
Working title. My first pick was It's Alive!, but an existing board game with an iOS version already owns it, so "It's alive!" becomes the line that pops on every reveal.
Put any two things on the lab table and pull the lever. What climbs out is a creature that gets generated the first time anyone makes it. If you're first, it carries your name forever. Every creature is also a new ingredient, so the tree never ends.
9:415G
30 volts0 / 10 found
The table is emptyPick two specimens below, then pull the lever.
+
Your lab book0 of 10
This is playable. The real game has hundreds of starting specimens, and everything you make becomes an ingredient too.
How it plays
Pick twoAnything in your lab
PullLightning, a beat of suspense
Meet itName, rarity, personality, art
Combine itYour creation is a new ingredient
The lever pull is a surprise every time and it costs nothing but a volt. It's the same pull as opening a card pack, without the pay-to-play.
Why you can't put it down
First DiscoveryIf nobody on Earth has made it yet, it's yours. Your handle sits on the card for good, and a global counter shows how many creatures exist. That's the Infinite Craft rush, with a trophy attached.
The Daily FormulaEveryone sees the same mystery silhouette each day. Find the recipe in the fewest steps and share your lab notes grid. It's Wordle's habit loop in a lab coat.
Every creature is a postOne tap exports a 9:16 creature card for Stories and TikTok. Players do the marketing because the thing they made is theirs, it's weird, and nobody else has it.
Volts keep it chill, never a wallNew experiments cost a volt, and volts recharge fast. Running out never locks you out: your lab book, your creatures, and every recipe you already know stay free to play. Dr. Mario World put its game behind an energy wall and was shut down within two years. We don't build that wall.
The MenagerieIn version 1.5, your creatures move into your lab, wander around, and slowly make volts while you're away. That's Night Shift living inside this game.
How the AI part stays cheap and safe
Players never type prompts. They can only combine things that already exist, so the whole creature tree stays closed and moderated. Each combination is generated exactly once, the first time anyone makes it. It goes through a safety check, gets saved, and every player after that gets it instantly for free. Before launch, we pre-generate the first several thousand creatures on your 5090 at zero cost. After launch, a brand-new discovery costs about half a cent.
The chunky toy look isn't just taste. A soft, handmade style hides the small flaws AI art makes, which keeps thousands of creatures looking like they came from one world. Studio Atelico's Bobium Brawlers already generates creatures on iPhones, so the tech works. It's a card battler, so the cozy discovery lane is still open.
How it makes money
Free to play. Rewarded ads refill volts. A Lab Pass at $4.99 a month gets you unlimited volts, exclusive lab themes, and early access to seasonal ingredients. Seasonal ingredient packs (Halloween, Deep Sea, Outer Space) run $1.99 to $2.99, and there's cosmetic lab decor too. Past the app, the best community creatures become vinyl drops, animated shorts, and a content engine for @trademarq_.
What it takes
Web lab playable
2 to 3 weeks
iPhone soft launch
8 to 10 weeks
Cash to soft launch
About $2,000 to $3,500
Viral ceiling
Very high
What could go wrong
Art drifting off-style: we fix that with a locked style bible and one fixed model setup. AI costs spiking: caching plus the volt cap puts a hard ceiling on spend. App Store review of AI content: the closed ingredient system, the safety filter, and a report button cover it. The honest risk is that discovery games can burn bright and fade. That's why the Daily Formula, seasons, and the Menagerie exist. They're the retention layer that Infinite Craft never had.
Idea three. The long game.
Night Shift
Working title
You inherit your great-aunt's hidden lab under the family house. Start an experiment before bed, then wake up and see what came alive overnight. It's a cozy lab to tend, a small crew of creatures to care for, and a family mystery told one journal entry at a time.
9:415G
Night ShiftJar 3 is breathing. Come see.
Tonight's experiments
Jar 3 · Something's moving
Coil room · Storm culture
Greenhouse · Moss graft
A live mockup. The timers are running, and the notification is the whole game: a reason to open the app tomorrow.
How it plays
Set upPick a jar, a recipe, a timer
Walk awayFrom 5 minutes to 8 hours
Come backSomething new is waiting
GrowOpen rooms, read the next journal page
Sessions run 2 to 5 minutes, several times a day. It's built around your routine, not your free time.
Why you can't put it down
Progress while you sleepThe best part of idle games: you always come back to something. No streak shaming and no dying pets. Just a reward for showing up.
Notifications written like cliffhangers"Jar 3 is breathing." "Something ate the moss." The push notification is the hook, and you'd write it the way you write a cold open.
A story that drops like a seriesYour great-aunt's journals unlock weekly. Who was she? What's behind the locked door? Of the three ideas, this is the one closest to your filmmaking, and the one that could become a show.
Creatures to care forFeed them, name them, put them in rooms, dress them up. Low stakes, high attachment.
The cast
YouA grad student who just found out her great-aunt was a genius. Or a monster. Maybe both.BOLTThe great-aunt's lab assistant. He's been waiting forty years for someone to come back, and he narrates everything.
How it makes money
Speed-ups, room and decor bundles, creature cosmetics, and rewarded ads for double output. A $4.99 season pass unlocks each story season. This one makes the most per player of the three, because people who care about their lab pay to make it theirs.
What it takes
Build to launch
4 to 6 months
Cash to launch
$4,000 to $8,000
Viral ceiling
Medium
Revenue per player
Highest
What could go wrong
It's the slowest to build and needs the most content, and every week of story is a week of writing. Big studios with big ad budgets own the idle and tycoon category, and quiet games don't spread on their own. Great as a second act. Risky as a first one.
Side by side
FIZZ
Frankenmerge
Night Shift
Time to launch
4 to 6 weeks
8 to 10 weeks
4 to 6 months
Cash to launch
Under $1,500
$2,000 to $3,500
$4,000 to $8,000
Viral ceiling
Proven, crowded
Every creature is a post
Quiet by nature
Retention
Strong first week, fades
Daily Formula + seasons
Built for months
Money per player
Ads, low
Pass + packs + ads
Highest
Only we can do it
No, it's a clone genre
AI art pipeline + your eye
Your storytelling
Life beyond the app
Skins
Toys, shorts, a creature IP
A series
Build Frankenmerge
This is the one where every player makes something, and everything they make is content.
It has an open lane. Infinite Craft proved people will combine things for hours just to see what comes out, but it's text on a white screen. Nobody has put art, ownership, and a collection on top of that feeling.
It markets itself. A creature nobody else has, with your name on it, gets posted. The game ships with its own TikTok format built in.
It's the one only you can build. A locked AI art pipeline on your own GPU, a filmmaker's eye for style, and a content engine that already exists. Most studios would need a team for that.
It absorbs the other two. FIZZ's squish goes into the reveal. Night Shift's lab becomes the Menagerie in version 1.5. Nothing we designed today gets thrown away.
The calendar lines up. The web lab can be live for October, and Halloween is the perfect first ingredient pack. That gives us a real moment to launch into, not a random Tuesday.
How we build it
Web first, then iPhone. We prove the fun where it's free to test, then pay Apple's toll once the numbers say it's worth it. Every phase ends at a gate: hit the number or fix it before moving on.
Week 1
Lock the lab
Pick the name and run App Store and trademark checks on the shortlist.
Write the art bible: one model, one locked style prompt, one palette, and a reference sheet of 20 creatures.
Pick 60 starting specimens and write the rules for how combinations get named.
Build the generation pipeline on the 5090: combination in, then name, lore, art, safety check, and saved.
Gate: you look at 20 creatures and they all feel like the same world.
Weeks 2 to 3
Open the web lab
Playable at lab.trademarqit.com: combine, the lever, the reveal, First Discovery, and the lab book.
Pre-generate the first 3,000 creatures overnight on the 5090, at zero cost.
Put it in front of 100 real people from your network and the Discord. I watch the numbers daily.
Gate: people average 25+ experiments in their first session, and 35%+ come back the next day. Top-quartile iOS games hit 31 to 33%.
Weeks 4 to 7
Make it an iPhone game
Wrap it as a native app. Add haptics, sound design, share cards, volts, and the Daily Formula.
TestFlight to 200 testers, fixing things every day.
Start the content engine: Creature of the Day reels built from real player discoveries, queued for you to post.
Gate: 15%+ of TestFlight players are still playing on day 7. The median mobile game keeps under 4%.
Weeks 8 to 10
Soft launch
Live on the App Store in a small set of test countries. Turn on the Lab Pass and rewarded ads.
Tune prices, volts, and rarity based on what players actually do.
Ship the Halloween ingredient pack as the first seasonal moment.
Gate: 8%+ still playing on day 30, and each new player earns back what they cost to acquire (about $1.41 on iOS) within a month.
Week 12
Launch
Global release. Submit a featuring nomination to Apple through App Store Connect.
Seed 20 creators with a custom ingredient named after them, so their followers can hunt their creature.
Launch trailer. You direct it, and it's the only paid creative we need.
Month 4 on
Grow the world
The Menagerie: creatures live in your lab and make volts while you're away (Night Shift's DNA).
A new ingredient season every six weeks.
The top community creatures become vinyl toys and animated shorts. The game becomes an IP.
The money
Cash to soft launch
Apple Developer Program
$99 / yr
Sound design and music
$800 to $1,500
First 3,000+ creatures, generated on your 5090
$0
Live AI generation, new discoveries only
About $150
Database for three months (hosting already paid)
$75
Trademark filing, one class
$350
Test ads to measure install cost (optional)
$1,000
Total
About $2,500 to $3,200
I build it. You direct it: the look, the name, the trailer, and the voice. No studio and no payroll.
What it could make each month
Cult hit
$15K5,000 daily players at $0.10 each per day
Real business
$135K30,000 daily players at $0.15 each per day
Breakout
$900K150,000 daily players at $0.20 each per day
These are gross numbers. Hybrid-casual games average $0.15 to $0.50 per daily player per day, and I used the low end on purpose. Apple keeps 15% of purchases under its Small Business Program. AI costs stay at a few percent of revenue because each creature is only ever generated once. For scale: Pixel Flow went from launch to $105M in about ten months, and Scopely bought a majority of the studio behind it at a valuation above $1B.
What I need from you
Four decisions and I start building. The web lab can be up in two to three weeks from your yes.
The callFrankenmerge as the pick, or tell me which other one pulls at you.
The nameFrankenmerge came back clean in my first search, and having "merge" in the name helps people find it on the App Store. It's Alive! and Mad Lab are both taken. I'll run the USPTO search before we lock it, unless you've already got a name in your head.
The lookThese frames are chunky vinyl toys. Want that, claymation, or something darker? Your eye decides the art bible.
The budget ceilingAbout $3,500 gets us to soft launch. Confirm it or set the cap.
