26 proven mini-game mechanics with the remix you could build on each one.
A companion to The Diff's idea post: Remix a game to win B2B customers. The original list of 26 comes from Tom Orbach's Mini-Game Marketing Playbook and the remix ideas are prompts to steal. Don’t read them as prescriptions. Swap in your own data jargon and in-jokes. Get funky with it!
Want ideas matched to your business? [Ask Claude](https://claude.ai/new?q=I just read The Diff's playbook on turning your company's knowledge advantage into a simple marketing mini-game%3A https%3A%2F%2Fwww.the-diff.com%2Fp%2Fremix-a-game-to-win-b2b-customers. It covers proven mechanics you can remix%2C like Wordle%2C Connections%2C A-or-B guessing%2C grid trivia%2C and dodge-and-collect. Factor in everything you already know about me and my business. Then interview me%3A ask probing questions on 1) who exactly my audience is%2C 2) the data%2C research%2C or expertise only my company has%2C and 3) what I want the game to do (leads%2C brand%2C education). Then propose 3 mini-game concepts that remix a proven mechanic with my knowledge advantage. For each%3A the mechanic it steals%2C the core loop%2C why my audience would share it%2C and the simplest version I could build with Claude in a weekend.) to design one with you, or use [the same prompt in ChatGPT](https://chatgpt.com/?q=I just read The Diff's playbook on turning your company's knowledge advantage into a simple marketing mini-game%3A https%3A%2F%2Fwww.the-diff.com%2Fp%2Fremix-a-game-to-win-b2b-customers. It covers proven mechanics you can remix%2C like Wordle%2C Connections%2C A-or-B guessing%2C grid trivia%2C and dodge-and-collect. Factor in everything you already know about me and my business. Then interview me%3A ask probing questions on 1) who exactly my audience is%2C 2) the data%2C research%2C or expertise only my company has%2C and 3) what I want the game to do (leads%2C brand%2C education). Then propose 3 mini-game concepts that remix a proven mechanic with my knowledge advantage. For each%3A the mechanic it steals%2C the core loop%2C why my audience would share it%2C and the simplest version I could vibe-code in a weekend.).
| Game | Mechanic | Remix it for your business |
|---|---|---|
| Wordle | Guess the 5-letter word in 6 tries | A daily word from your industry's jargon — CHURN for SaaS, CLAIM for insurtech, AUDIT for fintech. |
| Housle | Guess the house price from photos | Guess the startup's ARR from its landing page, or the true cost of a project from the client brief. |
| Framed | Identify the movie from 6 screenshots | Guess the SaaS product from progressively zoomed-out screenshots of its UI. |
| Worldle | Guess the country from its silhouette | Guess the company from its architecture diagram, org chart, or blurred logo. |
| Waffle | Shuffle letters into valid words in a grid | Rearrange scrambled terms until your category's acronyms line up — compliance terms, cloud services, growth metrics. |
| Chrome's Dino Game | Endless runner, jump the obstacles | Your mascot dodges your customer's daily hazards — down-rounds, scope creep, CVEs. (This was Wiz's inspo for Wizlympics.) |
| Knotwords | Sudoku-crossword hybrid | A constraint puzzle where the answers are all your niche's terminology. |
| Connections | Group 16 words into 4 hidden categories | 16 tools, metrics or buzzwords from your space; the hidden categories are the inside joke — "things that claim to be CRMs." |
| Universal Paperclips | Idle sim that spirals into absurdity | An idle sim of your customer's job — run the support queue, the cloud bill, the ad budget until it beautifully spirals. |
| Coffee Golf | A new short course, daily | A new bite-size challenge in your product's sandbox every morning. |
| Bandle | Guess the song, one instrument track at a time | Guess the company one revealed clue at a time — funding round, first product, famous pivot. |
| Travle | Connect two countries via bordering ones | Get from seed to IPO in the fewest strategic moves, or connect two tools through their shared integrations. |
| Episode | Identify the TV series from still frames | Guess the product from Wayback Machine screenshots of its old homepages. |
| Queens / Pinpoint / Crossclimb | LinkedIn's daily logic and word puzzles | Pinpoint, your version: guess the category from 5 artifacts of your niche, one revealed at a time. |
| Immaculate Grid | Fill a grid where row and column criteria intersect | Name a company that is B2B ✕ YC-backed ✕ famous pivot — your industry's trivia grid. |
| Summle | Combine numbers and operators to hit a target | Hit the target LTV from real pricing inputs — unit economics as arithmetic. |
| CineQuote | Guess the film from iconic dialogue | Guess the founder or company from real quotes — earnings calls, postmortems, famous memos. |
| Murdle | Logic-deduction murder mystery | Whodunit for outages: deduce which service took prod down from the clues in the logs. |
| Strands | Find themed hidden words in a letter grid | Hidden industry terms in a grid, themed to whatever your niche is arguing about this week. |
| GeoGrid | Guess countries matching grid criteria | Guess the market or vendor from its stats — team size, pricing model, founding year. |
| Cinematrix | Movie trivia grid (actors ✕ criteria) | Vendors ✕ capabilities, investors ✕ portfolios, frameworks ✕ use cases. |
| Pedantle | Un-redact a Wikipedia page word by word | Un-redact a famous postmortem, strategy memo, or your own research piece, one guessed word at a time. |
| Contexto | Guess the word by semantic closeness | Guess the buzzword by how close your guesses land — brutal and perfect for positioning nerds. |
| Football Bingo | Daily themed bingo | Buzzword bingo for your industry's earnings calls, keynotes, or LinkedIn feed. |
| Box Office Game | Predict the top-grossing films | Predict which A/B variant won (the Lazyweb play), or which launch topped Product Hunt that week. |
| Untitled Game | A mysterious blank page you figure out | An easter-egg 404 page that teaches your product as players poke at it. |