What is popular games in market that indies (1~2 developers, mostly 1 man developer) actually can make within short months? (2~4 months)
What is next big thing that can possibly hit?
These are two very different questions. Something that can be done in a very short period of time by 1-2 people is not likely to be the ânext big thing.â Even if it were, if someone here had a clue as to what that was, I imagine theyâd just be cranking that game out and not telling everyone else how to beat them to the punch. 
Really, does anyone know what the next popular thing will be until it becomes popular?
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How skilled are these developer(s)? What resources do they have access to?
If we knew that donât you think we would be trying to make it ourselves?
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Yes I know, but also I know you will eventually leave some clue if you really know.
Recent tendency is same as always. To do as little as possible staying as close as possible to the same basic game styles while maximizing or minimizing the audio visual experience.
Recent examples of small scope projects are Downwell, I Am Barbarian and Grumz.
Any solid game can be the next hit depending on timing, connections basically overall market reach. If you had a billion dollars to spend you could easily make Space Invaders (original no changes at all) a massive hit.
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The more I think about this, the more it bothers me, too. 
The title and question posed are conflicting,in that if something is a recent trend, it also canât really be the next big thing, can it?
Nonetheless, Iâll try to answer the questions in a cheeky, yet nonetheless true manner:
The Three Laws of A âSuccessfulâ Game
- A game must be entertaining and provide the player with an enjoyable experience.
- A game must be of good quality and demonstrate its value to the player, unless doing otherwise falls within the limits of the First Law.
- A game must innovate and provide new experiences, except in such cases where doing so would violate the First and Second Laws.
Edited for accuracy ( @hippocoder )
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- a game must cruelly kill you again and again, with no tutorials and no remorse.
(my point being that success isnât what you wrote, for a large amount of games, not least dark souls / grinding mmos)
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Donât forget Kaizo Mario!
If you have the right audience this one is very effective.
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Donât forget Rule #0 - A game must be beatable! If what youâre playing canât be won or lost, is what youâre playing really a game at all?
notch disagrees. 
It doesnât need to be won or lost, it just needs to be incrementally increased by practice &/or luck so everyone else thinks that they could add one to the best score. If the best score is massively above everyone else people stop trying, if itâs only just out of reach people donât stop trying.
What if youâre free to set your own goals?
Minecraft has an ending in the same sense that Fallout 4 has one.
If I was dreaming Iâd say the next big thing is the game Iâm working on now
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Then youâre still winning and losing, but on your terms.
Going further, what if you set your own goals, but lack enough tools to even start accomplishing those?
Youâre not very good at setting realistic goals?
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So when is a game âbeatenâ? When you you finish the main story arc (such as it is in Minecraft), or when youâve achieved all there is to achieve? Freemium games like Clash of Clans are built to be unbeatable, while online FPS games have been doing the same thing for a decade now. The carrot constantly moves further away as you progress.
Seriously, though. I provoked you into the âMineCraft Defenseâ on purpose. MineCraft is a game that gives you a bunch of mechanics/tools, but no explicit goals - MineCraft is based on implicit goals. If a bunch of Creepers come and explode bits of your castle, thatâs a failure - you have to rebuild bits of your awesome castle. If you donât build shelter before the first night is overâŚyou die, which actually fits a failure condition pretty well!
You can still failâŚor succeed. MineCraft shifts the goalposts to your perception, and away from game code.
What about works like Dear Esther, though? Youâve got one real mechanic - motion. You can look around a pretty world, but what can you do with it? How does one âwinâ Dear Esther? How does one âloseâ Dear Esther?
Some people use âItâs not a game.â as an insult, but there are works out there that some people call games that might be something else entirely. I personally find the entire âWalking Simulatorâ genre suspect due to the lack of ways to interact with the world. Iâm not sure theyâre games, though they might well be something else. Iâm not disowning these works, Iâm saying there might be something else to them worth considering.
Instead of MineCraft being the defense for âforgettingâ to program a victory/loss conditionâŚmaybe itâs just a grey area between things most people clearly agree are games, and works that are something else altogether.
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Extrinsic & intrinsic goals?
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Why does every discussion on game design end up sounding like a bootleg version of Game Design Zen?
My friend recently purchased and played That Dragon, Cancer. I knew I couldnât, as even the trailer made me bawl my eyes out. There are interactions, some of them very much gamey, and thereâs an end. But itâs definitely not what youâd describe as fun, and itâs not something you win at.
Again, games == art. The programmer part of our brains wants to quantify and break things down into elements we can evaluate objectively. This is good. This is bad. It gets more complicated when you try attaching abstract ideas to these concepts like âfunâ and âenjoymentâ.
Games (and art) are more than the sum of their parts, though. Which is why technically bad games can be enjoyable, and other games that check off all the right boxes may be no fun at all. Thereâs recipes you can follow to guide you towards a good product, but I think enough of it is subjective that youâll never be able to craft a game that everyone universally agrees is flawless, and likewise, you wonât be able to make a game that everyone agrees is fun.
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