Another new product has entered the best-selling list of iOS games in the United States: In addition to mixing gameplay, how can match 3 win players?

There is more than one path to success, but there can only be the only one that suits each team.

Editor’s note: This article from the micro-channel public number “Beluga sea” (ID: baijingapp), of: emiiily.

Grasp the pain points of the players to make micro-innovations in the game, instead of blindly adding, it may be more suitable for small and medium teams who are interested in the match-3 track.

White Whale’s overseas report reported in early March that Dream Games, a Turkish casual game company, announced that it had completed US$50 million in financing. Two days ago, the company’s first mobile game “Royal Match” was launched. The author noticed that by the end of March, this match-3 product launched by this company broke into the top 100 iOS game bestseller list in the United States in less than a month after it went online. In the crowded and fiercely competitive match-3 track, especially in the US market, to make such a result, which elements of “Royal Match” attract players?

“Royal Match” historical results | Data source: App Annie

Actually, after seeing this news, the author experienced this game in depth, and probably played more than 150 levels. After a trial, the author found that “Royal Match” is actually very similar to a number of match-3 products under Playrix. Players obtain action points (stars) through match three, which are used to decorate the castle. When the task of one castle is completed, they can start decorating the next castle. There are only two lines of match three and decoration. So how does such a match-3 game conquer the players? I tried to combine my own in-depth experience with a blog of Deconstructor Of Fun to disassemble the “Royal Match” game from the dimensions of user pain points and product design.

A mediocre match-3 mobile game?

If this is a mediocre match-3 mobile game, the team may not be able to agree.

The team behind “Royal Match” is considered a star team. In fact, there are only a few giants in the world, and the giant company in Turkey is Peak Games. The founding members of “Royal Match” come from Peak Games and have participated in the development of “Toon Blast”.

In addition to the financing information mentioned above, Dream Games also received $7.5 million in financing in November 2019 to expand its staff, but it has only grown from a 5-person founding team to a small team of 20 . (As of March 3, the team has grown to 30 people, still a small team model). When financing was obtained, Dream Games founder Soner Aydemir once said: “Supercell can build great products with a small team. We believe that there is no methodology for game development. For us, we emphasize the evolution of innovation and the execution of ideas. We plan to solve the pain points of users in the existing game categories.”

The size of the team and the founder’s ideas have a great influence on product design. On closer inspection, this game is full of micro innovations. These micro-innovations are basically aimed at the player’s 2 points-“pain points” and “hey points”.

What are the other pain points for match-3 mobile game players?

The first pain point that the team saw was that the players’ eyes would feel tired after playing the match-3 mobile game for a long time. Therefore, “Royal Match” selected bright colors and adjusted the shape and size, which is better for players to distinguish, and will not cause visual fatigue to users. In addition, it is also important to eliminate the background color of the board and eliminate the contrast of the elements. A small change can bring a very different experience to the player. DoF lists the elimination panels of 9 different best-selling match-3 games. It can be seen that the “Royal Match” panel is more user-friendly in terms of clarity.

9 different visual experience of eliminating the screen | Image source: DoF

The second problem the team saw was that the jumps between levels of the current match-3 game are not “smooth” enough. For example, between levels, users will wait a long time. “Royal Match” shortens the animation time for the player to enter the next level and wait for the reward item to drop. This is a good experience for the player; when the player fails and needs to restart the next level, “Royal Match” allows the player to Key to open the next level without any jump action. “Royal Match” starts from the details and adjusts the player’s time cost to the minimum.

In addition, in the game experience, “Royal Match” has made a “dead game” automatic restart, providing players with a smoother experience. In the process of playing a match-3 game, players often encounter a situation where a “dead game” occurs and the elimination action cannot be performed. “Royal Match” will be automatically recognized by the system when there is a “dead game” and reshuffle the cards for free for the player to ensure that there are elements on the board that can be eliminated, so that the player can continue the game without any effort. And there is a shuffle item at the bottom right of the elimination panel. Players can also use the shuffle item to change the “dead game”. This will not waste the player’s steps and will not conflict with other elimination items.

To eliminate the game, to a large extent, it is necessary to give players a “cool” feeling.

The elimination effect itself is actually irritating. Following this line of thinking, “Royal Match” strengthens this feeling, such as more powerful props, special gold coin reward levels, and a sense of surprise.

“Royal Match”An obvious feature is the high frequency of distributing game props to players, and the power of these props is relatively large, which greatly reduces the difficulty for players to break through. In the picture below, you can see that the “Royal Match” gives players a larger range of props than other match-3 games.

The Dao issued by “Royal Match” has greater power, and its range of action is larger than other match-3 games | Image source: DoF

In addition, in order to further give players a feeling of “hi”, “Royal Match” has designed a lot of all-gold levels that are not available in match-3 mobile games. Players can generally win about 300-700 gold coins in the full gold coin level.

“Surprise” can be regarded as a kind of excitement. “Royal Match” uses micro-innovative elimination modes and props to bring players a new experience. “Royal Match” has a micro-innovation in the gameplay. Unlike other games, “Royal Match” allows players to form 4 different elimination elements into a square and generate propeller props. The propeller will randomly eliminate any element on the panel, and at the same time can randomly change the order of the game’s established arrangement, which will make the next game full of uncertainty and surprise players. And the propeller is very smart, it will fly to a certain target point that is beneficial to the player and eliminate it.

In addition, “Royal Match” has also updated the elimination elements, adding elements such as birds, potion bottles, mailboxes, cabinets, etc., and each elimination element corresponds to a different elimination rule, such as the green Eliminate elements of the same color around the potion bottle, and the green water bottle will be eliminated. The dishes in the cupboard require players to eliminate multiple times around before they can be eliminated.

The letter box element also has its own rules. For example, players need to collect envelopes in the letter box by eliminating them around the letter box. In addition, there are unexpected surprises waiting for players. If enough envelopes are collected, the mailbox opening will be closed to remind the player that the task of collecting envelopes has been completedYes, there is no need to eliminate around the mailbox to complete the task. This design is very concealed, and players who notice this can easily get aha moments.

Small ingenuity in commercialization

Finally, in order to ensure the sustainability of the business, the “Royal Match” team has also made improvements in commercialization. Interactions were made within the level and the overall mechanism, and soon the game was sent to the iOS game bestseller list.

Most casual games are unwilling to pay. In order to guide players to voluntarily consume in-game currency, it is necessary to give players a feeling that you are about to win. When the player is faced with a situation where he fails to pass a certain round, “Royal Match” gives the player a choice. The player can get 5 extra steps by spending 900 gold coins, which brings the player “With these 5 steps, I may be able to The feeling of winning. If you purchase these extra steps, the player’s previous elimination efforts will not be wasted, and the probability of clearance will also be improved. This design and the following mechanism work together.

From an overall point of view, “Royal Match” provides a reward mechanism, that is, players will be rewarded with props after continuously passing levels. And with the accumulation of consecutive levels, the richness of the item rewards will also accumulate. If the player fails in a certain round and chooses to start again, then they will lose the item rewards for successive levels. If the player fails in a certain round, instead of buying gold coins to get the number of steps, he directly chooses to restart the round. Not only will the previous elimination efforts be wasted, but the item rewards will also disappear, which makes it more difficult to pass the level later. When faced with such a choice, players can easily choose to spend gold coins to get extra steps.

Reverse the heavy match-3 + trend and lock the target audience to traditional match-3 players

At this point in the article, we will find that, unlike some previous successful match-3 mobile games, the main attraction of “Royal Match” lies in the micro-innovation of the match-3 itself, not the meta-game. I believe that this is a decision made by the team based on in-depth thinking about the market and its own characteristics.

For example, when the author interviewed Magic Tavern CEO Zhao Kai, the other party said that after eliminating the match-3 part of “Project Makeover”, the game is still full and will be on the bestseller list.There is a fundamental difference between the two paths to success.

The core loop of “Royal Match” | Source: DoF

Actually, after seeing the popularity of Match 3, many overseas manufacturers have entered the game. Everyone tried to do addition, such as Puzzle+RPG, Puzzle+ Development, Puzzle+SLG. As a whole, match-3 mobile games have a tendency to evolve towards heavy match-3. Compared with the core gameplay of match-3, the game prefers to use rich meta-games to attract players. Although it creates a sense of freshness, there are also many uncertain factors, including unclear player groups and higher purchase costs after the game type is added.

“Royal Match” adopts a different strategy in terms of player acquisition. “Royal Match” is still the same as the so-called second-generation match-3 mobile game, with only two lines of elimination and decoration. Moreover, the decorative elements of “Royal Match” are set by the system, and there is no option for players to DIY. Players earn enough action points (stars) to arrange chairs, musical instruments and other decorative items in the room. In terms of user acquisition, “Royal Match” is also aimed at users of classic match-3 games, not match-3+market.

As mentioned earlier, the “Royal Match” development team advocates a small team model. If you want to develop with a smaller team, you should prioritize investing in core content to reduce the cost of maintaining meta-games.

After the match-3 games showed huge revenue-generating capabilities, many teams of different sizes are trying to join the game. Everyone wants to be a successful casual game manufacturer like Magic Tavern, but “Project Makeover” requires 300 people. Team to support content output. Pursuing trends blindly is obviously not suitable for small and medium-sized teams. But leaving aside the novel gameplay that dazzles the players, the remaining match-3 core, and at the same time puts forward higher requirements for the team’s skills, including the understanding of the players.

For example, “Royale Match” has made meaningful improvements on the basis of existing successful products in terms of UI, animation, obstacles, level design and commercialization.