Pikmin

Miyamoto made Pikmin after getting interested in gardening. Shigeru Miyamoto drew the idea from an outside hobby, not from other games. It is cited as an example of mining real-world interests for new mechanics.

The same point cites Lucas Pope's passport checks becoming Papers, Please, and Will Wright building SimCity and The Sims from what he reads. Quote: "it's important to have experiences and interests outside of games."

Pikmin keeps actions few by building on one strong mechanic. The basic action is throwing Pikmin at tasks and calling them back. The different Pikmin abilities still open up broad strategies, so players learn little but can apply it to a lot.

Pikmin 3 reused the idea in a new context by adding stress, making you juggle three heroes. Quote: "the basic action that you conduct is very simple. It's a matter of simply throwing the Pikmin at tasks and calling them back"

Pikmin works as a strategy game on a pad because you move a character. Real-time strategy usually needs lightning fast access to any part of the screen, which is awkward with an analogue stick. Pikmin avoids this by having you move a character about a space.

Overlord is named as another RTS-like game that suits a pad for the same reason.