Editors note: This article was written by Om Tandon, industry specialist, game consultant and UX Director. You can read his original version here.

What does the stellar mass market success of games like Marvel Snap, Marvel Contest of Champions and CoD Mobile share in common? No, it’s not just that they are all popular IP/Franchises. (IP driven games fail very often too, it took 3 versions to get CoD right on mobile). While it’s true there is no one factor or a “Reductionist” winning formula like gameplay, IP or UA. There is however a common pattern or framework that emerges, when you look closer at the success of developers who chose to adapt traditionally hard core PC/Console genres successfully on mobile…Is there really such a framework? and if it exists can it be repeated?…read on to find out!

Marvel Snap is getting 10X more downloads and 10X more revenue compared to CCG’s like Hearthstone and Magic the Gathering, as per Apps Radar on mobile.

This latest CCG sensation from the developer “Second Dinner” has taken the world by storm since late 2022, amassing millions of downloads, becoming game of the year and recently touched 30 million dollars in worldwide revenue as per games.biz.

This game has truly taken CCG or Card Collectible Genre games to the masses. CCG being a traditional genre (Magic the Gathering, Hearthstone) has always had a big fan following on PC, but it has been somewhat niche in appeal on mobile, as these games involve deep strategy, elaborate deck building, mental gymnastics and calculated moves, requiring massive time sinks, memorising of minions, spells, hero powers which pushes this genres appeal to a more mid core to hard core player rather then a casual player.

Marvel Snap from ex Hearthstone (Blizzard) team, does what many successful mobile adaptation of traditional mid core/hard core games genres have historically done – EASING and ERASING the cognitive loads for mass market appeal.

Load Reduction: The Framework

I have written extensively about the concept of “Easing and Erasing” of cognitive loads for players on mobile in my previous article series on “Marvel Contest of Champions” and in a 2 part series on FPS games on mobile. (CoD mobile’s success lines up with this thesis)

Just like a juggler simultaneously managing multiple weights in the air, which calls for intense concentration, dexterity and a high degree of skill. A game imposing multiple cognitive loads on a “Casual” player can frustrate them by placing immense friction in their path.

Many traditional PC/Console game genres especially mid core/ hard core games, make players simultaneously juggle multiple loads that force the player to learn, think, memorise, and keep track of multiple aspects of the game, like manage resources, multi touch inputs, strategic planning, constant peer pressure, stats. min/maxing, buffs/de-buffs soliciting, as a result all of these loads make the; learning, playability, skill and mastery curve steeper for an “Casual” player, making the game appear hard to play, now combine this with the amount of real estate you have on mobile devices, all these loads ramp up friction and act as a high barrier to entry for casual players on mobile.

The question that begs an answer is, if you are a mobile game developer seeking mass market appeal for a traditional PC/Console genre, how do you revise these loads for casual players, while still keeping the genre’s essence intact?

Load Management is the key…

From repeat successes I have seen and analysed over the years, many developers that made the successful mobile adaptation of mid/hard core genres for mass market appeal have either altogether removed certain loads (Load Erasing) or reduced the load’s magnitude ie: difficulty of those loads (Load Easing) by trading off and diluting game mechanics.

Let’s look at some case studies, here are two traditionally hardcore PC/console genres games that became breakout hits on Mobile that I have analysed in the past:

Marvel Contest of Champions

1) Brawler Genre: Top grossing hit Marvel Contest of Champions applied the load management framework to make high dexterity and multi input dependent “Brawler Genre” accessible for casual mobile players

Marvel Contest of Champions

Classic brawler games from arcade machines to pc, console, hand held devices have always been about the thrill & skill of mastering varying combos and moves with swift reaction time.

Street Fighter

Traditional street brawlers like “Street Fighter” have an assortment of moves mapped to the controller as seen below. Just like FPS, this genre also traditionally demands high motor and sensory coordination as the fights are in real time with an enemy who can execute ‘N’ number of combos and special attacks, countering them requires adapting your hero’s fighting controls on the fly.

How controls map to “Classic Brawler” games on Console & PC

We can see above, how in classical brawlers not only player has to track opponents movement but also combines them with well timed combos for punching and kicking.

Legacy arcade “Brawler” genre controls found their way into Pc/Console adaptations.

Origin of course lies in the old arcade machines, which were designed to fully engage and immerse players within the game session, without affordance for distractions. Tactile controls were designed to use and engage multiple fingers at a given time. needing players complete immersion and involvement.

In contrast to the classical definition of brawlers, Marvel contest deviates quite a bit by “Simplifying the diverse combat system” which some may consider the beating heart of this genre.

Marvel Contest: Control Scheme

Marvel Contest, in contrast, dilutes this volley of inputs to just few taps and swipes which is sensible for mobile devices as affordance for distractions is high and supporting muti-touch input of different fingers together is cumbersome if not impossible.

Marvel Contest achieved this by load management via Erasing of loads, where in, the heavy cognitive loads involved in traditional pc and console games are removed altogether, to achieve better balance and match the skills of casual mobile audiences.

Marvel Contest, mainly ERASES the loads of “Classic Brawler” genre by simlifying and automating controls and battle moves to “4 simple” inputs from the player, erasing 8 different kind of combos and inputs altogather!

(Read the full article, I published in 2016)

CoD Mobile

2) FPS Genre: From a pure User Experience & loads perspective, FPS games have traditionally required a high level of mastery and precision too. An FPS player juggles multiple cognitive loads of varying magnitudes at the same time while coordinating motor & sensory skills, overcoming the friction of controls in order to achieve their goal. This cognitive load is much greater in magnitude and complexity compared to other hardcore genres found on mobile (RTS, RPG, MOBA, TPS, etc.)

Mapping out FPS genre specefic Heurestic loads

Using our juggler analogy we can see in a pure traditional FPS their are at least 6 loads a player has to juggle!

Given the small real estate (screen size) of mobile devices, this problem is even further compounded by Fitt’s law:

Fitt’s Law: The smaller the target and the farther a player needs to move, the harder it is for them to successfully complete the action, especially with time pressure.

Fast movement and dexterity are the hallmarks of FPS games. Players are constantly moving around the 3D world attempting to identify targets and then move their cursor quickly to shoot their opponents. Moving this to mobile only makes things harder. This is one of the fundamental reasons why shooters on mobile have been hard to crack — too much cognitive load, and too frustrating to track targets.

So how does COD Mobile attempt to fix this? The game recognises and embraces two distinct player types: casual and core. They keep the funnel wide by having a primary mode which keeps the cognitive loads low, and they also have modes where pro players can have all the control they want.

ERASING: Reduced number of cognitive loads

COD Mobile very effectively erases a number of cognitive loads (mentioned above) a FPS player has to manage by enabling features like auto-firing, aim-assist and CoD’s best-in-class ease of movement, which automates these actions. This emphasis on ease is reflected in the 2 default control options that COD Mobile offers:

These default simplified control schemes give casual players an easier learning curve, along with greatly reduced cognitive load in line with what they are accustomed to on mobile.

Thus simple mode actually “Erases many Loads” for players in line with our load management framework.

EASING: Controls for Advanced Players

While default control schemes work well for casual players, the “Advanced Controls” offer a wide variety of customisation options (in line with PC & console game settings) for hardcore players who are very particular about their preferences and like to heavily experiment & customise UI inputs to their own play styles.

If players want, they can adjust the sensitivity and turn “On” and “Off” up to 25+ parameters from the “Basic” and “Sensitivity” control menus covering everything from auto firing and auto sprinting to the gyroscope and movement sensitivity.

On top of that, advanced controls give the ability to individually scale, move and configure each button/UI item on the HUD, allowing players the ability to literally build and personalize their own user interface. This is an example of “Easing Loads” via giving players ability to adjust the magnitude or difficulty of traditional FPS loads

In short:

CoD Mobile tailors to the preferences of both casual and hardcore players in control schemes via reducing the impact of traditional FPS cognitive loads, while offering a high degree of customization and make the game more accessible, enjoyable and playable on mobile, lowering the high barrier to entry normally found in the FPS genre.

Now that we have seen this Framework of Easing/Erasing loads repeat itself with two traditionally core PC/Console genres.It’s time to see how Marvel Snap does the same!

(Read the full article here)

Marvel Snap

Before we look at CCG loads, let’s talk about the IP, Marvel universe is the most sought after and recognisable cinematic brand worldwide and has a huge fan following across demographics, appealing to a broad age group from (Gen Alpha under, 12 year olds to Baby Boomers, 55 year +) , in fact it beats iconic franchises like Star Wars by a mile.

UA Edge: The IP not only adds more flair and familiarity to the genre, it also aids in competing with big franchises like Hearthstone and Magic by driving organic downloads helping a small studio effectively use it as a UA tactic.

Choice of the IP is smart, as it brings familiarity and curiosity amongst a more casual audience who might never have heard or played fantasy CCG games like “Hearthstone” and “Magic the Gathering” in the past

That said, as we know IP is a big factor in organic growth but IP alone is not enough for making a game successful, retention, ease of play and stickiness of core loop are the more important ingredients, that’s where Marvel Snap shines by successfully using Easing/Erasing of user loads.

3) CCG Game Loads:

Traditional CCG games like Hearthstone feature complex game rules and mechanics. In these kind of games, hundreds of unique cards with different special effects make the game fun to play yet difficult to master for players.

In a nutshell Hearthstone is a 2-player turn-based zero-sum strategy game with imperfect information, and complex states such as non-determinism, and partial observability. Chance events are everywhere such as summoning a random minion, or casting a random spell to random targets.

Loads a player needs to manage in a CCG game like Hearthstone

Given this wide variety of actions, management of cards, decks, memorising large no. of moves and strategising alongside resource management is something we know, easily overwhelms a causal player.

Using the Easing/Erasing load management framework we saw earlier in the article, here is how Marvel Snap leverages it.

Easing Deck building Load: Instead of elaborate card selection and deck building which games like Hearthstone require (Hundreds of cards, with players building up to 27 custom decks, each deck having 30 cards)..which you can imagine requires time and labour along with good understanding of what each card does. MS simply has 2 decks to start with for the player with each deck comprising of only 12 cards.

Deck building is pretty automated from start. Players do not have to actively think about which cards should go in which deck right off the bat. This removes the need for a steep learning curve and does not overwhelms a casual player

Erasing Card Archetypes: Marvel Snap cards are primarily Marvel Universe “Heroes” from popular crowd pleasers like, “Ironman”, “The Hulk” and “The Punisher” to lesser known heroes like “Quick Silver” and “Misty Knight”.

Archetypes like Weapons, Minions and Spells cards found commonly in other CCG’s are totally missing, which removes the load of remembering, understanding and synergising these varied archetypes, simplifying the gameplay.

Easing Memory Load: This is a by-product of simplification of “Easing” elaborate deck building and “Erasing” card archetypes, as players don’t have to memorise any opening plays, specific counter-plays and counter moves, removing the need for strategising before getting in to a game.

Erasing Attack on Opponent Cards: The load of attacking the life of individual cards played by your opponent has been completely removed. By having a location based winning approach, players just need to focus on amassing more and more points on each location, removing the need to target and attack individual cards played by the opponent.

This Easing and Erasing results in Byte sized snacking and satisfying core loop sessions – which fits just under 3-4 minutes…perfect for a casual mobile player!

Conclusion:

1. While there might be no exact reductive formula or recipe that goes into making of a mass appeal hit game, there definitely are quantifiable patterns and frameworks which can be leveraged to scale the gameplay for mass F2P audience.
2. The Load reduction framework which utilises “Easing & Erasing” of loads is based on attitudinal/behavioural traits, heuristic framework & preferences of casual to mid core F2P audience, which developers and designers have been (consciously or subconsciously) using to simplify complex game mechanics for mobile
3. CoD Mobile, Marvel Contest, Marvel Snap bring highly addictive (but complex) traditionally popular PC/Console genres like FPS, Brawler and CCG to mobile. As we analysed above, without load reduction which aids gameplay adaptation, these games could have easily overwhelmed casual mobile players, even if they had a huge IP backing them up.

With proven pedigree, traditionally popular but relatively complex PC/Console game genres will always be a source of inspiration for mobile F2P games. By using Load reduction framework consciously, developers and designers now have another powerful tool in their arsenal to get the experience right for mobile and achieve mass market appeal!

If you liked this article, please feel free to check out my other game deconstructs at https://www.uxreviewer.com/ or get in touch for consulting queries. Feel free to connect with me for future articles.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by Om Tandon, Innovation & UX Design Manager at Eaton. You can read the original version here.

Match 3 metamorphosis is real but doesn’t new territory often comes with new rules? Let’s dive deeper into where the game is afoot in these uncharted waters.

This multi-part analytical series is laser-focused on what some of these new rules might be.

The last analysis in this series looked at some historical data coupled with powerful tectonic forces of maturing player behavior and deepening game design that has changed the lay of the land dividing the Match 3 landscape between Classic and Meta, ruled by the King’s and Playrix’s of the world.

Yes, we are standing at a fork in the road folks but the real question is what does the road ahead looks like?

This evolution is far from over for both Classic & Meta Match 3!

What is happening in the Classic Match 3 ringside?

King is hard at work defending its turf and legacy, rejuvenating & re-inventing its long reining and hugely popular Classic Match 3 franchise: Candy Crush Saga.

Candy Crush Saga today is unarguably a much different beast than its original avatar 8 years ago.

King, reading the current meta trends, has successfully introduced a multitude of secondary meta goals and events which actually do more than just reinventing the wheel by refreshing game’s core and user experience. This depth is evident in their new level designs too.

Below you can see a variety of events and meta goals that players could chase while crushing candies.

1. Social proof & community engagement events around real players (Note: Normally most women cast are 35+ years, implying super engaged group are moms above 30 years of age). Which raises a question, is adoption among younger audiences declining?
2. Time-limited event levels like climbing up a bean stalk
3. Leaderboard races against a limited group of friends (A small pool to ensure players have a good chance of ranking high with less effort. Example: Rank 8 out of 20 is much more motivating then rank 8000 out of 10,000 players)
4. Scroll collection events to earn special offers

These features are soft-bodied versions of the game play seen in mid-core and hard-core games, but the question is: are these stopgap measures enough?

While the addition of these meta goals is refreshing and a welcome change, there can be some potential issue as newer mechanics & features are incrementally added over time:

1. Lack of variable & sufficiently distinct rewards:

While an army of different event types and reward feature create variation in how players experience the game creating short, mid, and long term progression arcs in CCS, the bummer is…

The rewards players get awarded for their efforts seem to be highly repetitious and can feel more or less same over time.

The images above shows different rewards a player can get for completing different events and meta goals in CCS and it’s quite obvious at a glance that majority of them are all too familiar boosters or bundles of those boosters.

All rewards are boosters & all boosters feel “kind of” same in Candy Crush Saga

Don’t get me wrong, boosters on their own are great, I especially love all the cool fireworks and animation effects they trigger (which are hallmark of King games and nobody does them better than King!)…but players get all too familiar with these boosters as they get them regularly for free as samplers in daily rewards (spinning wheel), many like chocolate bomb or jellyfish commonly appear on the game board as part of the cascades. In fact, when players get used to and can easily anticipate what they are going to get at the end of their tasks, it leads to lower dopamine surge and dilution of reward feeling.

In CCS players get more or less the same rewards wether they grind for short, mid and long term goals like events or collection features. This can massively dilute the value of rewards over time.

Impact of predictable and common rewards over time dopamine surge.

2. Lack of rarity systems in consumables or boosters:

Rewards in CCS at the moment lack a rarity system:

While consumables can be a good reward system, at present in CCS many don’t have a distinct identity or rare availability like the “Mighty Eagle” in the original Angry Birds.

Do you remember the hard to unlock “Mighty Eagle” in original Angry Birds? It was a booster that had real identity because of its rarity and all encompassing power. None of the boosters in CCS command that kind of identity. Combining this with frequency with which they are commonly dropped makes them far more commonplace as far as perceived value is concerned in the players mind, especially for veteran players.

3. Archaic single currency economy limits rewards to strictly “boosters”

CCS being one of the oldest Match 3 games out there is based on a single premium currency economy (gold bars). This is part of the reason why reward for almost every single action in the game boils down to boosters. On comparison, every new meta entrant has at least 2 currencies in addition to boosters that help add more depth and variety to reward distribution and grinding aspects of the game.

Consumable vs Currencies

Let’s look at some pros and cons of using currencies and consumable as rewards systems:

Courtesy: Evtim Treknov

While both consumables and currencies have their pros and cons like subjective value, inflation etc, if you are going to have a wide variety of features along short term, midterm, and long term progression arcs, then you have to give players more choice and variety. A reward system needs to be able to scale well either through rarity (common, rare to legendary) or variety in currency. Both have good potential for improvement in CCS.

King will most likely keep scaling meta goals along progression arcs but not scaling the reward system due to lack of rarity or being stuck with a single currency economy has the potential to dilute player motivation.

While time will tell, how players appreciate these efforts in the long run, given King is leaving no stone unturned in its quest to redefine & preserve classic Match 3, new entrants in Classic Match 3 are still going to have a tough time in the race to the top as the barrier to entry is still quiet high.

Now, let’s see what’s happening in the Meta Ringside

Reaching the top of this peak is also a steep climb if not impossible, given the aggressive dominance of early adopters and the genre becoming a hotbed of M&A activity.

Meta Match 3: Barriers to entry

1. Hyper competitive nature of early adopters like Playrix with their aggressive marketing & UA war chest. Example: A recent spike in UA spend by Playrix’s competitors brought out a more than proportional response.

Don’t poke the Russian Bear, as noted by Deconstructor of Fun

Source: Deconstructor of fun

Chances are if you frequently play mobile games or browse facebook, you would have seen the ad below:

From Playrix’s aggressive & out-of-proportion rapid responses, it is clear any future attempts might be met with similar counter measures.

2. AppLovin‘s opting for vertical integration between a data analytics platform and game studios (Belka, Firecraft) created a strong alliance that marries the industry’s 360 degree wide panoramic data with ability to execute learnings in its own games. This is a powerful strategy which might pay huge dividends.

3. Latest acquisition of Peak games (Toon Blast, Toy Blast) by Zynga adds more muscle and scaling ability for Peak via Zynga’s extensive network, especially in the areas of data science as mentioned by Frank Gibeau.

If the picture above looks bleak, fear not. There is always a way around as developers wet their feet into uncharted territories – mixing, mashing & experimenting to crack the Match 3 code…

In the analysis below, we will look at how the pie is getting divided even further. How far the meta in Match 3 can be pushed when combined with IP and audiences that fall outside the Classic Match 3 realm. One such example is the:

Property Brothers: Genre blending for a more matured audience

Making its way slowly but noticeably on the top-grossing puzzle games chart is Storm 8’s Property Brothers Home Design

Source: Sensor Tower

Storm 8 History

Property Brothers from Storm 8’s stable is another take on “Match 3 with meta” which has been silently climbing the charts. While it has all the ingredients of now trending decorative meta, narrative-driven gameplay, collapse core, it is really going after a different audience than Homescapes, Gardenscapes and Lily’s Garden. While all these games have casual fiction based cartoon narrative style, emphasis in Property Brothers is more on realistic decoration and fact-driven narrative in a real-world setting.

Property brothers goes after a more realistic decoration meta combining it with a popular real world IP

The IP Factor

Property Brothers home design is based on a very popular reality television Canadian TV show where twin brothers Jonathan and Drew Scott use their technical expertise to help potential home buyers renovate houses to their liking within a specific budget. On that note:

Despite attempts in the past, Match 3 and IP games have not seen stellar chart busting success at a massive scale. IP based puzzle games like Frozen Adventures and Temple Run have seen limited success in match 3 genre.

While IP and franchise tie-ups have a chance of higher organic download from fan base, do not mistake it for a formula for success. After having worked for the last 15+ years on numerous chart busting IP led games (Star Trek, Ice Age, My Little Pony, Hardy Boys, Wizard of OZ, Alice in Wonderland etc), I can tell you with absolute certainty that IP alone will not carry your game to top of the charts.

Core gameplay needs to shine and cohesively blend with the IP universe, engaging franchise & non-franchise players alike to be able to reap rich rewards.

Property Brother TA: The Fusion Fiesta

With Property Brothers, Storm 8 is going after the hugely popular Glu Mobile’s Home Design audience who like realistic home decoration. Perhaps even eating Glu mobile’s lunch?

Source: Sensor Tower

Data above shows how Property Brother has been slowly closing the gap on Design Home since its launch in 2019 onto top grossing chart.

Storm 8 did it’s homework well when they shortlisted this IP. It’s a franchise hugely popular with women & baby boomers.

Property Brother’s (The TV show) market research demographics data above clearly indicates popularity with women (47%), millennials (age: 26-40 years) & baby boomers (age: 45+ years).

Now if we compare that data above with “Thinker” player archetypes from GameRefinery in meta Match 3 games below:

Source: GameRefinery

Property Brother’s IP audience overlaps very nicely with the demographics of Classic and Meta Match 3 games, which makes it a good fit for the genre.

The Core Loop

Property brothers takes all the successful ingredients of Meta Match 3 like well-grounded characters, strong narrative, decoration challenges and tailors them for a more realistic art style and decoration-driven audience.

Property Brothers use the well established mental model of a TV show setting for fans while keeping the on-boarding simple & engaging for non franchise players

Core loop revolves around Property Brothers putting players in their own shoes and introducing the player to different clients. Player’s job is to decorate these properties using an aspirational blueprint vision that offers players some guidance but does not hinder their creative choices.

So far it sounds same as other decoration metagames, but there is a difference.

Property Brother offer way more choice in decoration meta and refreshed UX as players are not linearly restricted to just upgrading one home or one garden. The game offers a plethora of different homes to decorate for different clients. From living rooms to bed rooms to baby nurseries, a mind boggling variety to boot.

The Narration

Narration is a big part of Property Brother’s with the only caveat being compared to strictly indulging in a fictional story. Property Brothers introduce players to various characters in form of clients. The second big differentiation is:

Narration is not purely fiction as there are nuggets of interior design knowledge interspersed in the dialogues which is quite educational.

This mashing of interior design facts with narrative fiction naturally appeal to players who love interior design and this genre.

Match 3 Core Mechanics: Collapse Gameplay

In Part one of the series, we touched on the prevailing trend among new Match 3 games with meta launching and finding more success with collapse over swipe in the last 2 years. Property Brothers is another example following this trend.

The game not only has a collapse core but surprisingly no player progression or trophy level either which is common in other Match 3 games! Player’s progress is measured by puzzle level they are on and more importantly number of client jobs they have completed which further reinforces the fact that

Meta Match 3 games use Match 3 just as means to an end to make the player go after more satisfying goals of decoration challenges.

The Achilles heel of “Collapse” Games?

When designed well, Collapse mechanics helps reduce player effort (mental & tactical) resulting in session time regulation, but they can have an inherent game design issue – “Board Stalemate“.

If player ends up with a multitude of wrong moves, it can result in a board stalemate situation where an area of the board may turn stale due to lack of color matches and could prevent players from clearing the board.

So, how to tackle this Achilles heel?

Successful collapse games try to minimize this stalemate situation by creating a lot of random “super gems” that give players the ability to potentially open up the board if moves are not possible, which may come down to level design and fine-tuning as well.

See, how some of the most successful Collapse games deal with this issue.

Blockbuster collapse games like Lily’s Garden uses a bigger board size. Toon Blast doesn’t typically introduce hard levels till players have surpassed 100+ levels, grounding players well into the mechanics before they hit a barrier.

Property Brother’s, to a great extent, use a combination of these “stalemate” breakers to alleviate player friction:

1. Bigger board sizes
2. Generous with dropping random “Super Gems” like bombs, dynamites and barrels that can be used by players to blast big chunk of blocks. Players can also strategise, blasting many of these super gems next to each other creating more powerful blast combinations.
3. Hard levels typically appear only after crossing 60+ threshold

But…Did Storm 8 Ditch SWIPE for COLLAPSE with Property Brothers?

What makes SWIPE vs COLLAPSE debate even more interesting is that before launching Property Brothers, Storm 8 already had an identical game with the same decoration meta as Property Brothers home design – but with the SWIPE Match 3 mechanics.

Property Brothers was launched with the exact same decoration meta & similar narrative style but the developers swapped SWIPE mechanics for COLLAPSE.

Source: Sensor Tower

Looking at the charts, it is clearly evident that the COLLAPSE avatar is finding way more success than its identical SWIPE cousin on the top-grossing charts.

While the jury might not be out on COLLAPSE vs SWIPE debate, this is still a noteworthy observation from a developers point of view.

The META Loop & Events System

The meta is around interior & exterior decoration but there are some clever additions with a multi-currency approach.

Time-limited event designs are super interesting because they extend interior decoration core gameplay to exterior events like pool parties, summer BBQ’s, wedding decorations, thereby adding more depth to (now commonplace) home decoration themes.

These events makes players feel smarter as they can relate to being a professional decorator compared to just being an amateur home decorator in core gameplay.

Time limited currencies (coins and time limited tokens) are 2 soft currencies, real clever additions, to how playing the events is a no brainer.

Regular coins can only be spent for interior decoration in regular gameplay (they cannot be used in events), while Time Limited tokens can be used exclusively only in an ongoing particular event. This means that events have dual value. Player is farming coins for regular gameplay while making progress on the active event front. This naturally incentivises players towards playing events as they can make good progress in regular decoration gameplay despite the outcome of the events themselves.

Conclusion & trends for Match 3 with Meta games 2020

1. Barrier to entry is high in classic Match 3 as King has started pivoting its flagship Candy Crush Saga towards a more meta goals driven franchise attempting to evolve the genre.
2. On the Meta Match 3 side too barrier is going to be high due to early adopters like Playrix having adopted an assertive UA stand. Vertical integration strategy by AppLovin & recent M&A activity by Zynga (Peak Games) shows clear signs of cash infusion for these small studios, thereby making them well-positioned to defend their turf.
3. The key to gaining a foothold in this genre can be in found in new audiences from other casual games and marrying the gameplay to Meta Match 3 like fashion, dress up, makeup, cooking, farming, narrative fiction etc.
4. Moving away from archaic single currency economies and reliance on consumables alone, to be better positioned to scale rewards as meta-features pile up.

Experimentation, finding new audiences and genre blending is going to be the key to evolving the genre & reaping rich rewards, despite high barriers to entry.

Update, December 01, 2020 – Prediction validation!

After publishing my two articles in April & July 2020, we are seeing a new Meta Match 3 “Project Makeover” launched in November climbing the top-grossing charts (#12), combining the meta elements of Fashion, Make up, Dress up, and Interior Decoration and finding great success so far appealing to audiences from other casual genre as predicted in this article series. (Looking forward to how it fares, post-launch steam!)

More deep dives will be done in subsequent part of this series, stay tuned! If you want to tell us what you would like to see in future posts, please take this 45 seconds survey HERE!

If you liked this post, please feel free to check out my other game deconstructs at https://www.uxreviewer.com/ or get in touch for consulting queries. Feel free to connect with me for future articles.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Om Tandon, Founder/Games Consultant at UX Reviewer.com. You can find the original version of this post here.

Since the early days of app store gaming, Match 3 games have been consistently one of the most popular top-grossing casual games category (Candy Crush Saga launched in 2012 being a classic example genre’s long reign). Reasons for this genre’s mass popularity with players have traditionally included:

1. Simplified core loop with low barrier to entry for new players and first-time gamers
2. Game mechanics leveraging mobile-first, intuitive touch gestures on smart devices like tap, swipe which even children can figure out (literally)
3. Relatively less player effort & user friction via low strategy puzzle core loop.
4. Short gameplay sessions with low time commitment making these games effortlessly easy to pick and drop on the go. You can successfully play a session in a 5-minute tea break or while in the bus, even in the washroom.

But what was true for the old guard of games launched over 8 years ago is changing fast & how!

In January 2017, I analysed & predicted in a 2 part series (Are Casual games maturing?) that casual player behaviour is maturing & so are their needs & preferences.

This change was attributed to following factors:

1) Players mastery of same old game mechanics (6+ years of playing)

2) Longevity and familiarity of playing the same genre and mechanics repetitiously

3) Wearing off of the novelty value due to a flood of clones

4) Piecemeal introduction of deeper designs by game developers

Diagram above shows this pool of rising players between casual and mid-core games.

My 2 part series (links below) on the subject predicted that early shift in player behaviour will create an appetite for deeper and more complex experiences which has in-fact ultimately led to genre-blending and addition of META goals. This was analysed way early in evolution of games like Angry Birds 2 here.

Angry Birds 2 Meta elements like quests, collections, mini-games, PvP features showed how far the franchise has come from its original in 2009 and simple slingshot core.

And in the second part of the same series for Playrix’s Homescapes here:

Playrix, on the other hand, was mashing traditional Match 3 Core elements with light base building and powerful character-driven narrative.

Both games were analysed back in 2017 and were early pre cursors of the shift in META evolution of casual games signalling deepening player needs & preferences.

In the last 2 years, this shift has been confirmed by various industry analysts & pundits. In fact many of the early META adopters like Playrix, Peak & others have cemented their position in the top-grossing charts.

Image Source: Deconstructor of Fun

Infact, one of Deconstructor of Fun’s 2020 predictions is that Playrix is poised to overtake King on back of its Meta and marketing innovations this year.

If seeing the early signs and adopting them for casual gaming audiences enabled small developers to scale up and reap big rewards by going head to head against industry titans, it only stands to reason:

The game is no longer about where the ball is right now, but rather where it’s going.

Let’s now take a look at some intriguing Match 3 industry data and draw some inferences about the future.

Match 3: Size of the Prize 2019

By the end of 2019, Match 3 games generated a massive $3.5 Billion in revenue, single-handedly dominating the $8.1 billion casual gaming pie, as noted by Deconstructor of Fun.

Source: Deconstructor of Fun

Despite being in an over 8 years old category, this genre is an engagement and revenue-generating cash cow.

But as lucrative as it may sound, the barrier to entry is EXTREMELY high given the dominance of veterans like King & early META adopters like Playrix, Peak & Rovio.

If you are a mid or small-sized developer, competing head to head with these established players who have proven chops of game design innovation, marketing muscle, loyal fan base, and deep pockets:

It might sound suicidal but greater the risk, greater the reward. Therefore given the size of the prize, there will always be developers trying to crack the Match 3 code!

Numbers that do the talking

1) Looking at latest Match 3 genre trends from an analysis by GameRefinery, it is apparent that between 2018 and 2020, the number of new games with “Swapping” match 3 tiles mechanics (example Candy Crush Saga) has declined while the number of games with “Collapse/Blast” mechanics (examples Toy Blast, Lilies Garden, Hay Day Pop) has actually doubled in top-grossing charts.

Source: GameRefinery

2) The data also shows other match 3 mechanics like linking and bubble shooting have almost died down as far as new launches are concerned, last year.

Source: GameRefinery

Implying Match 3 developers are finding way more success with “collapse” mechanics over “swipe” in newly launched Match 3 games that have Meta. Does this mean players are preferring “collapse” mechanics over “swipe”?

3) GameRefinery report also states “almost all Newly successful Match 3 games” have some kind of META elements like decoration or light base building in line with our 2017 predictions.

But what are the implications of these trends? Let’s try to read between the lines and understand from a UX & Game Design perspective.

Why is there a shift in preference from “Swipe” to “Collapse” in match 3 games with META?

Here are some interlinked UX and game design factors that could be fueling this shift:

1) Reduction in Player Effort (Player Effort Score/PEF)

a) Tactile Effort: Reason for players preferring “Collapse” mechanics over “Swipe” might be relatively greater ease of input on players part:

On a relative physical effort scale it’s far more easier to tap and blast a group of tiles than to swipe/drag them.

Image source: Kerrin McLaughlin for ExpandTheRoom

b) Mental Effort: From a mental pattern recognition perspective, it is much easier for our brain to recognize patterns with big blobs of colour that are in close vicinity compared to finding patterns that require matching tiles along a row or column.

Our brains are sub-consciously wired to find patterns. Example: Even in the blurred image above, it’s relatively faster for our brain to find big blobs of similar color palettes (Left Image) compared to alignment pattern of those colors (Right Image).

Preference for Collapse over Swipe might be due to reduction in player effort through tactile & mentally exercised efforts.

Now don’t get me wrong, many players really like the additional challenge of swipe over collapse as I have seen that first hand in my usability tests. It can also be more fun as swipe mechanics create more randomness due to cascading features which creates boosts aka super exploding gems. I am not saying “Collapse” mechanics is far more fun or superior to “Swipe” mechanics, after all classic swipe match 3 games still dominate the industry!

However why this reduction in player effort is important will become relevant when you read the next point!

2) Regulating “Snacking” session lengths via game design

One of the greatest hallmarks of Match 3 games has always been short “snacking” session times that allows players to pick and drop the games at ease, steal a session between tea breaks or that quick trip to the washroom. Typical session time in Match 3 is usually between 2 – 4 minutes, this has been true for all classic non-meta Match 3 games.

When you add META gameplay, a satisfying game session still needs to account for the Time spent in Match 3 level + Time spent in the base building/decoration phase.

Figure above shows a players session time break down between classic and meta Match 3.

In order to regulate “snacking” session time window, meta games will need adjustment for time spent either in Match 3 or Meta phases.

From a game design perspective too, there are considerable differences between the Swipe & Collapse mechanics when it comes to reduction in player effort and regulating session times owing to the following factors:

(Game Design inputs, courtesy Florian Steinhoff )

It should be noted the time spent per level is also a big function of level design, not just the mechanics. Due to all the other factors mentioned above, it would stand to reason from a game design perspective, to regulate shorter session times for games with META that still adhere to “Snacking” window of 3-4 minutes. Collapse is a better choice over swipe as it aids faster decision making and lower effort on players part.

3) Which objectives are player learning to values more – is META dominating Core?

Players might themselves be willing to spend less time in Match 3 Phase

As noted in the trend report section earlier, the use of meta gameplay/ objectives in “newly successful” games is hooking players, this meta mashup is very likely also attracting players from other (non-Match 3) casual games genre like dress up or home design etc. This is partially evident in player reviews of these meta Match 3 games, where many players often complain both about belied expectations and the frequency with which they have to play mini-games to grind.

So, firstly, players do not expect to be playing extensive Match 3 as core gameplay and they also despise spending too much time repetitiously farming meagre amount soft currencies needed for their meta objectives.

This signals that Match 3 cores will become secondary and Meta goals become primary motivation for players. They are bound to psychologically treat matching/smashing tiles as means to an end and not the end in itself for core loop completion.

This player mentality is already seen in mid-core and hard-core games where a vast majority of engaged players care about overall progression of their ranks, empires or castles etc. and indulge in all the other mini-games or activities mainly for farming currencies/resources which will eventually help them achieve their primary objective.

From player motivation perspective, Meta Match 3’s are a series of linked cascading goals, as seen above.

Maturing player behaviour shows that Match 3, in it’s new avatar, is not about the core but all about the META

Tip: Current Match 3 metagames only use the “Match 3 board” (ie: mini-games) for allowing players to farm currencies/resources, but “wait timers/idle” activities are also another means of allowing players to farm resources as seen in mid-core/hard-core games. Using “wait timer/idle” features could be another future avenue to reduce player frustration.

Question: Are traditional “Match 3” games pivoting too?

You might ask: If this was such a big deal, then why aren’t traditional Match 3 games reacting?

Well, some attempts have been made. Even long-reigning traditional Match 3 games realise the importance of this shift. In genre titans like Candy Crush Saga, we can see examples of how META goals have been incrementally added over the last 2 years.

1) “You passed on your first try” victory introduced by King in CCS is an attempt to add a meta goal in addition to clearing levels. It acts as a vanity/prestige goal for the player while subconsciously priming them to pass on first try. Once the player becomes used to this message, it further aids currency and booster sinks too.

2) Now famous “Piggy Bank Model” which I analysed & recommended adoption! Initially, in my post, 4 years back in 2016 is now seen commonly in the majority of top-grossing Match 3 games. Other than being just a conversion/monetisation model, aka IKEA effect, it also acts as a cascading meta goal for players to farm hard currency and gives them an additional incentive to play the game to fill up the piggy bank/vaults.

However, note classic match 3 games can not dramatically pivot, since it will change the core gameplay and UX for existing players who are used to playing them a certain way.

Conclusion & Trends for Match 3 with Meta games 2020

1. Analysing and acting on upcoming trends/shifts in player behaviour can reap great rewards as demonstrated by companies like Playrix & Peak, who have joined the ranks of companies like King.com in a relatively short amount of time.
2. From both UX and game design perspectives, “Collapse” based Match 3 games relatively reduce player effort both physically and mentally compared to “Swipe” based mechanics.
3. There is a high probability that newly launched Match 3 metagames will continue to prefer “Collapse” over “Swipe” mechanics to help regulate “snacking” session times via reduced, tactile & mental effort for players.
4. Over time, as players’ expectations and needs deepen, they will begin to get conditioned to using Match 3/puzzle phase as a means to an end for a satisfying core loop experience and not an end in itself. Thereby Meta goals will start dominating core loop goals.
5. Currency/resource farming activity currently only utilises completing mini-games but in the future, there is potential to use “wait timer/idle” activities as well. We can see that HayDay Pop has already made a move in that direction!
6. Narration and storytelling are another trending strong pillar, not only because casual players like being handheld, but it helps run high engagement marketing campaigns for UA.

More deep dives will be done in subsequent part of this series, stay tuned! If you want to tell us what you would like to see in future posts, please fill this 45 seconds survey! https://forms.gle/37zu1jegzesjxX8X8

If you liked this post, please feel free to check out my other game deconstructs at https://www.uxreviewer.com/ or get in touch for consulting queries. Feel free to connect with me for future articles.

And just in case you missed our last article, check out part two here.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Om Tandon, Founder/Games Consultant at UX Reviewer.com. You can find the original version of this post here.

Launched way back in 2010 on mobile, 8 Ball pool has been a consistent performer on top-grossing charts in US and UK app stores. Whilst it did show signs of ageing and slowing down, losing ground to newly sprung sporting rivals like Golf Clash a year back, the relatively recent addition of new features has uplifted the core and meta loops of this iron horse. 8 Ball pool has made up for the age gap and continues to be a dominant force in the sports arcade category.

Game design and UX wise, 8 Ball Pool is a game of excesses – a melting pot of skill and chance based gratification that is apparent in every aspect of the game.. a layered buffet treat approach that monetises well.

But before diving deep, let’s first look at the state of the sports games genre on the top-grossing charts.

State of play: Sports arcade & simulation games

In order to correctly categorize sports games, they can be divided into two categories,

Sports arcade: These include games like Golf Clash, 8 Ball Pool, MLB Tap Sports, all of which have core loop based on real-world sports game combined with other state of the art F2P social and meta loops resulting in a casual gameplay experience.

Sports simulation: These include games like Top Eleven football manager, FIFA Manager which focus more on the team management aspect rather than tactical gameplay and leans more towards strategy-based gameplay.

As far as F2P sports games on mobile go, there are plenty of games on app stores but only a handful of these have found notable success and popularity on top-grossing charts

This popularity club includes the likes of Golf Clash (read deconstruct here), Mini Clip’s 8 Ball Pool, Madden Football, MLB Tap sports and Top Eleven Football Manager.

Even though the sports category has a lot of potentials and has had a fair amount of success in their yesteryears, it seems to be on a decline in the last 2 years. A handful of titles that have managed to hang on to top 30 – 50 grossing charts have done it on the back of factors ranging from streamlined UX to casualising the core experience (reducing the barrier to entry for casual or non-sports playing audiences) and the addition of meta and social loops with a strong emphasis on gacha based systems.

Another notable mention is that the UK market (compared to the US) is a good testbed for finding success and fine-tuning the game early in the sports game category. Both Golf Clash and 8 Ball Pool rose up the top-grossing charts in the UK first in their early days.

It may not be wrong to say: if you’re launching a sports arcade/simulation game, breaking into UK top-grossing in soft launch might hold the key to gauge the game’s long term success and worldwide potential.

Miniclip: The developer

Before we dive in, let’s take a brief look at 8 Ball Pool’s developer Miniclip:

Miniclip was founded in 2001 by Rob Small, a young games enthusiast fresh from university with a dream to build the next generation game entertainment company, and Tihan Presbie, an entrepreneur in computerized financial trading.

It started out as a free online games website launched way back in 2001 and is known for having a large and varied collection of flash-based games.

The Tencent Connection

As per information on Miniclip’s website, in February 2015 Miniclip received a majority investment from Tencent, the world’s largest games company and 5th biggest global internet business and both the companies are now working together to blend their Western and Eastern expertise.

Infographics above charts Miniclip’s impressive journey, from web to mobile!

Having a solid grip on web-based games and with other previously online-only casual game developers like King.com finding immense success on mobile, it made sense for Miniclip to follow suit and launch 8 Ball Pool along with a host of other popular games (Agar.io fame) on mobile.

Since Miniclips games were already popular online, it made sense that they would also gain traction on mobile as a similar pool of casual players were now also playing games there.

Deep dive – 8 Ball Pool

Core Gameplay Pillars: The Recipe for Success

The success of sports arcade and simulation games relies heavily on the following three important pillars:

1) First pillar: Mimic real-world mental models. Gameplay simulations and rules need to feel as satisfying as the real world counterpart and more importantly feel skill-based reminding the players of the mental model, nostalgia and rules involved in the real sport. Subconsciously players will always be comparing the experience to challenge, fun and rules of the real world precedent, more so in case of users who at some point indulged or are familiar with the real-world sport.

Gameplay and rules can surely benefit from creative changes on digital mediums but should not diverge too far from the original real-world sport.

Other facets of these game-like meta and social loops are just a wrappers around the core game, not to say that they are not important or don’t enrich the player experience, but if you miss the bar on satisfying core loop simulation, everything else is bound to fall apart.

2) Second pillar: A robust physics engine. Even if you manage to tailor and craft the rules, look and feel of the game as per the real world sport, it can still all fall apart or feel fake if the engine physics does not convincingly simulate the physical and tactile attributes of the game elements involved. For example, the friction of pool balls moving on a surface, the force needed to move the ball over varying distances, angular velocity, spin velocity, ambient sounds all contribute to creating various nuances & subtleties of the gameplay that stem from skill and luck in the real world.

8 Ball Pool has one of the best pool physics engine that satisfactorily recreates the tactile experience of playing pool in real life brilliantly.

3) Third pillar: Social competitiveness and PvP interactions. Competition equals challenge and helps players assess their level of mastery. While AI-driven competition in digital games can recreate the feeling of challenge, real satisfaction for many players arises from knowing they are playing against real people. MMA (Match Making Algorithms) can play a vital role in balancing the element of fun avoiding griefing along with a strong PvP loop.

8 Ball has managed to nail the above 3 pillars perfectly creating a satisfying mental model & enjoyable social experience.

Core loop in a nutshell:

1. Players go head to head against a PvE or PvP opponents in real-time turn-based synchronous gameplay
2. A fixed betting fee per level (segmented geographically like London, Sydney, Hong Kong etc.) is levied on each player with the winner taking it all. There are exceptions to this rule in other modes, like players can choose their own betting fee
3. Gameplay, depending on the mode selected, follows traditional 8 Ball Pool rules wherein the first player to successfully pot all his/her designated pool balls (solids or stripes) and in the end the black ball wins, subject to not performing a foul
4. Players who win a match earn variable rewards – XP, coins, mystery boxes
5. All players participating in a match earn XP needed for leveling up
6. Leveling up unlocks new levels with higher entry betting fee and PvP against more experienced opponents
7. Winning leagues and leveling up rewards a secondary currency called cash which is used for buying “Mystery Boxes” that imparts coins and parts of cues (pool playing sticks) that can be used to assemble specific cues.

How 8 Ball Pool Evolved over time

Built and upgraded over time like a layered cake or house of cards, every year new trending features have been added piecemeal to uplift the core, meta and social loops, while some of them work well, others add a lot of noise and can create decision paralysis.

8 Ball Pool Reboot: A melting pot of skill-based & chance-based gratification?

In this section, we will look deep into the prevailing trend of 2 gratification systems that are commonplace in F2P games today. While examples that are shown here apply to 8 Ball Pool, this section would also apply more generically to a wider pool of F2P games.

Most games today use 2 gratification systems for reward generation:

1. SKILL based
2. CHANCE based

On the surface, these two gratification systems are used namely for balancing the game economy via avoiding SC scarcity, deepening monetisation and unblocking players to play 2-3 game sessions if they are NPU’s. It also herds them on a path of steady progression.

Most F2P games today use a combination of skills and chance based gratification and yes, you and I both know this combination work! But the question we may ask is WHY?

In order to understand the WHY, we will use microeconomic lens along with a cognitive decision-making framework. From a Keynesian microeconomic and behavioural economics perspective, we can treat the currencies players earn in the game, depending on their source (how they are earned) as:

Income: Soft and hard currencies earned as rewards by winning game sessions level up’s or anything that is earned via players skills in the game.

Windfall Gains: Soft and hard currencies earned as rewards gained via luck and chance-based features – daily spins, daily rewards, scratch cards, daily free loot boxes etc.

Both gratification loops (skill & chance based) follow a tight cue-action-reward loop and appeal to players satisfaction in different ways. However empirical studies show earnings from the two systems may affect players spending behaviour in very different ways.

2 Effects that alter peoples spending habits when influenced by “Windfall Gains”:

1. Diminishing loss aversion effect:

Real-life examples: Bonuses given by companies, end of the year or receiving a 5% tax refund (compared to a 5% tax reduction) are more readily consumed or spent by an individual as they are mentally labelled differently than regular income.

2. Uplifting of marginal propensity to consume (MPC)

*Note: In games, MPC effect is slightly offset, by an increment in currency sinks, like the cost of upgrades etc. which may rise in proportion to increment in regular income

Examples of the two systems at play in 8 Ball Pool: Regular income is earned via winning pool games, windfalls are accumulated via a daily dose of chance-based, spins, scratch cards, gifts from friends etc. (Same distribution is true of many other games)

Due to the above 2 effects, proven research points psychologically unanticipated nature of windfall gains may be responsible for their heightened proclivity to spend.

Which implies that…

Player are way more likely to spend (or consume) what they earn from luck or chance-based gratification than skill-based gratification. Luck based gratification can boost consumption and play session time.

But don’t overdo a good thing. The microeconomic theory also predicts for someone who already has a surplus of income or is ‘cash-rich’ (like Whales or High spenders) change in the level of happiness may be marginal even with “Windfall Gains”. However, for people who like to hoard their skill-based earnings or are reluctant to spend, windfall earnings may actually help change that behaviour.

You may ask, can you have the best of both the worlds – a hybrid offering of luck & skill?

Exceptions: Hybrid combos: High octane mini cocktails of luck and skill

There are always exceptions to the rule and below are such examples:

1. Golden Shot in Golf Clash

Golden shot, a late addition mini game in Golf Clash, is a great example of offering players a high-octane cocktail of both skill and luck.

1. Skill factor is tested by players ability to mentally navigate the course and obstacles using sound judgement. The player has to land the ball as close to the hole as possible using a single shot.
2. Luck factor is brought in by the highly aspirational offering of rare reward chest with variable rewards, they are distributed near the hole using ‘Bulls Eye’ pattern.

Despite their skills, players can only speculate how close the ball will land to the hole and they are rewarded solely on the probability of how close the ball lands to the hole.

This is a strict departure from how players are rewarded in regular gameplay session wherein landing the ball first in the hole only results in rewards.

2. Lucky Shot in 8 Ball Pool

‘Lucky Shot’ seemingly inspired from the success of Golf Clash, is 8 Ball’s version of ‘Golden Shot’

1. Skill factor is tested by your ability to mentally line up balls precisely using sound judgment. There are also other variables like the friction of table surface which is notches higher than regular gameplay.
2. Luck factor is brought in by the highly aspirational distributed offering of variable rewards that use ‘Bulls’ Eye’ mechanics and players are rewarded based on how close the ball lands to the ‘Bulls Eye’.

Again this is a departure from how players are rewarded in regular gameplay session where potting all the balls on the table first only results in rewards.

Given the level of polish and regular live ops support these two formats have in both games, it’s very apparent that the combination of skill and chance works beautifully together and aids monetisation, engagement & session times. Need more evidence….?

For those who believe chance-based games are just small distractions and may not monetise as much, a close look at the top-selling pack in 8 Ball proves just how high up in the purchasing ladder, chance-based mini-games sit!

In part 2 of this post, Om will look at the CORE, META and SOCIAL loops of 8 Ball Pool, how they have evolved and uplifted the game over time, pain points in player experience and potential areas of improvement..stay tuned!

*Special thanks to Chong Ahn for providing insights on 8 Ball Pools app store ranking data and contributions to this article.

And if you liked this post, you can check out Om’s other game deconstructs here.

Editor’s note: This post was orginally written by Om Tandon (Founder/Games Consultant at UX Reviewer.com) and Abhimanyu Kumar (Mobile Games Consultant) on Deconstructor of Fun.

The State of Social Casino

When breaking up the mobile gaming market according to Game Refinery’s taxonomy, the “Casino” (aka Social Casino) category is the third largest by revenue – and it has steadily been growing over 2018. Category revenue grew by +24% YoY, and the “Slots” sub-genre contributed to ~70% of this growth. “Slots” generate anything between an average of 70-80% of real world casino revenues, and the same engagement behaviour is mirrored in the Social Casino space.

“Slots” are the largest revenue generating sub-genre of the Casino category, occupying a 78% share. Read more about our thoughts around this category and its future in our 2019 Casino category prediction post.

* Ad revenues not included

At the same time, the Social Casino space (and Slots games specifically) has not seen too much of product innovation over the past few years. Product offerings are quite constant amongst the top performers – enter the lobby → choose from a multitude of slot machines → bet → win → repeat. Product differentiation is driven by UX, art styles, production quality and minor meta systems such as quests and saga maps.

Further, slots game economies are still stuck largely in the digital dark ages of the single currency economy. Many games feature secondary and even tertiary currencies, but slots players still largely only care about coins. Given this product design stagnancy, one could say that the sub-genre is primed for innovation.

The dormant downloads growth trend of Slots games over the past 2 years further fuels the idea of innovation unlocking more growth in the sub-genre.

Almost all Social Casino titles have fought for market share by staying safe and delivering authentic casino experiences on mobile.

Coin Master – A Massive Disruptor?

It could be argued whether “Coin Master” (CM) falls into the Casino category or not, but either way it is turning out to be the spark that will drive future innovation in the Casino category.

With progressively deep content wrapped into a single slot machine, casual art style, a more substantial meta, strong social features, hyperactive live operations and great UX/production value, Israeli developer Moon Active has pretty much flipped the traditional Slots games design model on its head. The resulting numbers don’t lie, as this bold move by CM is proving to be very successful.

Coin Master’s store screenshots | Source: Apple App Store

Coin Master has made over January revenues have skyrocketed +250% YoY!

CM hovers in the top 50 grossing games.

While it is true that CM does not position itself as a Slots game, it has a slots core that is obviously hard to miss.

With classic blue ocean finding finesse, CM is not only burning global grossing charts, but is also unlocking growth in non-traditional social casino markets like India and Israel – a nut that traditional social casino games have not been able to crack in the past. Clearly, CM has and will continue to expand the definition of “social casino”, while also growing the pie!

CM has unlocked downloads growth in countries like India and Israel – both non-traditional slots markets.

So, what is it about CM that makes it resonate so well? We will answer this question in two parts – first by looking at what CM is all about, and second by comparing to the competition to see how CM does it better.

Editor’s Note: this post was originally published by Om Tandon, Director of User Experience at Digit. With over 14 years experience, Om specializes in UX design, UI design and User Interaction, has previously worked at Gameloft and June Software, and is also a guest writer at Deconstructor of Fun. 

No code. No game engine. No scripting.

Next Generation Game UX Prototypes and prototyping skills are here! If you have been reading or following this article series since last year, you are in for a treat! (Previous articles in this series can be found here and here.)

To recap: Necessity indeed is the mother of invention, and methodology behind this series was born with:

1. LACK of dev. capacity & time for UX prototyping.
2. The NEED & DESIRE for pushing the boundaries of existing UX tools.

Prototypes are the bedrock of usability testing way early in pre-production to gather valuable make-or-break user feedback.

*As described in previous articles, through many iterations we realised a holistic design sprint approach which is called Cross Discipline Teamwork (CDT Sprints) which aims at pulling in different creative disciplines like Game Design, Art, UX, UI at the right times during pre-production using an agile model. This creates opportune overlaps during a features’ pre-production cycle thereby building to an opportunity to rapid prototype near product like experience.

CDT Waterfall Sprint:

*These sprints result in an unbelievably robust near-finish feature experience in high fidelity that can rival (and even in some cases exceed) real products aspirations. It can be placed in the hands of your play testers and stakeholders, used for A/B testing or just used in hackathons for pitching game ideas. And best part?

Hi-fidelity, near finish, robust prototypes can be created without writing a single line of code or using a game engine, with unbeatably fast turnaround times!

But, that’s not all…

Enter Generation 2 Prototyping: Switching prototyping mindset from “T-Type” to “Type-8” format.

While the previous articles in the series did push the limits of existing UX prototyping tools, they can be safely catalogued as Generation 1 prototypes.

With multiple iteration cycles, learnings from user tested prototypes & advancements in state of the art prototyping tool, we have moved towards more refined & immersiveGeneration 2 prototypes.

The focus of this article is not simply how to create prototypes that feel more robust, polished, animated and deliver a real world product experience, but it runs way deeper. With continued experiments overtime with our usability tests, we realised that while standalone prototypes that follow traditional “T-Type” format do generate valuable information about usability of our product, they do not necessarily give players the whole context or the bigger picture. Let me elaborate:

T-Type Prototyping

• Most softwares and apps, if not all of them, have linear decision making tasks for users which result in the creation of “T-Type” prototyping. That is ones that go deep but don’t (or have no need to) go wide.
• Most “T-Type” prototypes (and hence final products) dichotomise information, that is there are no clear overlaps between tasks and outcomes as one task may be completely independent of others. Such tasks do not necessarily interlink or require users to go through a closed loop or though multiple features to reach the goal.
• In a banking app example below (figure (1)) that shows a simple app that may have different features like accounts summary, transfers, e-statements etc. Figure (2) though shows the possibility for the user to carry out each of these tasks independently.

Example for making “Fund Transfers” a user does not needs to look at e-statements and vice versa.

A single session in a utility app can revolve around doing just one specific task, while a single session in games usually revolves around completing a series of interlinkedtasks by design. _Om

TYPE-8 Prototyping

• An ideal session in most games requires players to interact with different features and interlinked tasks in order to complete one cycle of the core loop. As an example, if you open a game you get a loot chest which gives you credits that you could use to upgrade your base or troops pushing you from reward collection loop to base building.

Ever seen a banking app that grant you 200 dollars to go and upgrade your couch or living room?

• Players can of course interact with one part of the (example) loop combat and exit game but in order to have a really meaningful session, players are nudged via prompts, notifications, unlocked items, quests etc. to interact with other interlinked features to have a satisfactory & progressive game session.
• In games, unlike apps, core loops play an incredibly important role in a single session to determine where and why players are at a given point of time and provide them with relevant context of the situation. More importantly, a player can access the loop through any sub-loop. For example along a loop of base building, combat or upgrading there are nudges and cues designed to send players to other parts of the game – progression.

Type-8 prototypes are versatile. They allow intermittent connectivity between simulated micro game loop sessions. While a session in utility apps revolve around accomplishing a specific task, a single session in games is rounded to establish multiple tasks routine.

• This led me to switch from “T-Type” to “Type-8” prototypes that mimic the mechanics of the core loop of a game simulating a micro session, there by giving players more context and freedom in terms of “Why” and the “Need” to interact with a feature or set of features. Images above show the architecture of an “Type-8” prototype. These are designed for players to go though interlinked loops and tasks in a single session (even if they are not in a software build yet) thereby giving them more context whilst allowing for seamless access between different features via multiple access points.

Question: You may ask, that’s all well and good but how do we go about testing such prototypes when no software build exists??

That’s up next!

UX Prototyping the Core loop of a mid-core game

The last article looked at simulating a micro session of core loop of a casual Match 3 game which could then be placed in the hands of actual play testers to A/B test different input mechanism and booster deploying mechanics. This time we have upped the ante and will look at simulating a micro session of core loop experience of a mid-core game.

Think: Boom Beach, Clash of Clans, Rival Kingdoms, Summoners War as archetypes.

Mid-core games have way more complexity compared to casual games in terms of player inputs needed, decision making and loop management. In the demo prototype, we will focus on not only rapid prototyping the core mechanics & gameplay loop as shown below, but also how they interact with each other allowing a “Type-8” interaction as described above.

Above is an hypothetical core loop of a strategy mid-core game similar to Boom Beach and Rival Kingdoms As per the core loop diagram, we will simulate micro sessions of following aspects of a mid-core game:

• Base Building Loop
• Battle Loop
• Unlocking Boosts
• Upgrade Loop
• Non-Linear: if/else logic

UX Process: Creating a User Story Spec.

Before deciding what we want to build, we need to document a user story spec. Usually it can be based on a PRD from product and feature description from game design (this phase has been covered in more detail in previous articles). Below are few example pages of how this spec may look for our prototype.

NOTE: More comprehensive UX spec. writing will be covered in a future article.

First Demo Video: Walk Through

Important: Please put your headphones on for full context.

Screen Capture Version:

Second Demo Video: Walk Through with If/else Logic.

Important: Please put your headphones on for full context.

Screen Capture Version:

CDT Sprint and Type-8 Prototyping:

With CDT Sprints and Type-8 Prototyping, we can create & test more immersive experiences to reflect real world mental models

A holistic design sprint that allows collaboration, creation and validation of ideas with other creative teams such as Product, Gamer Design, Art, UI make UX more inclusive of other disciplines rather than exclusive.

Get player feedback not just on UX… but Game mechanics, UI, Art, VFX, SFX and holistic product vision.

• Are you a Game designer wanting to test out a new mechanics? 
• Are you a UI designer wanting to bring your UI and animations to life?
• Are you a VFX designer wanting to test and try out VFX effects?
• Are you a Sound designer wanting to test and try out your SFX?
• Are you an Art director wanting to gauge peoples reaction to your art style?
• Are you a UX designer wanting to test and try out your interaction design?

Fidelity & User Immersion

In my experience, having tested both high and low fidelity prototypes with users and stakeholders alike, a lot of us may have also observed the engagement and immersion level of users going higher as the fidelity of prototypes go up – which is not at all a surprising insight.

On day-to-day basis, people are used to interacting with products that are finished and final. The brain is used to real world mental models and an acceptable level of fidelity standards for total immersion.

This difference can often be gauged by studying the contrast in level of interest, the questions users ask and their curiosity levels when testing prototypes of varied fidelities. If you have not paid attention to it, this might be a good exercise for next time when you conduct user tests.

As an example for most people/testers, the image (below) on the right may create more immersion in terms of peaking players curiosity and intrigue which can then affect the quality of feedback and opinions people may have or want to share.

*Image source: DeviantArt & Marvel Spider Man PS4NOTE: This is not to say low fidelity prototypes are not useful! It is quite powerful (a full UX cycle (in my process) calls for both low and hi-fidelity prototypes testing (refer here). The difference between choosing when to test low-fidelity or high-fidelity prototypes comes down to variables like scope of what you are testing, complexity of design and the stage at which your pre-production process is.

Every feature design might not require a hi-fidelity prototype, but may need a low-fidelity prototype.

FAQs

You might have some questions on the nature of these prototypes and their scope:

Can we scale these prototypes for every genre of Mobile games?

Over 80% of mobile game micro sessions, can be successfully simulated with some ingenuity and problem solving.

Core loops of majority of mobile games today follow an approach where automation plays a big role. That is the burden on the player – in terms of micro-managing every interaction – is not a necessity. Many games also shift the tactical decision making – in terms of troop training and/or boost equipping – to base building rather than combat loop thereby keeping player interactions minimal resulting in sessions ranging from 2-5 minutes, with the least effort from the player for a full loop to be executed. There are always exceptions to the rule like FPS and Hack & Slash RPG’s for which dev prototypes will definitely do more justice.

Are there bugs?

• Yes. Even though prototypes may try to simulate the end goal results as closely as possible, they’ll have limits. There will be times when an interaction might be too tricky to simulate or might not be worth your time and effort perfecting it.
• We ought to remember though that the primary purpose of these prototypes is to conduct user testing or demonstrations in a moderated environment, hence the moderator or specific instructions (if testing remote) can easily help users avert known problem areas which may be not be present in the end product.

Should we not test dev prototypes at all?

You should test and measure your dev prototypes as much as possible, yes! But if you have them ready in time for testing. If you are building a new feature or game mechanics from scratch that will not hit production for a couple of weeks or months, that’s when Advanced UX prototyping of this fidelity can be immensely valuable.

Pre-development Advanced UX prototypes help play test and sell the vision to stakeholders by simulating micro sessions of features’ look and feel, before thousands of dollars are spent in it’s production. _Om

Does it support 3D prototyping?

Not yet, but it’s quite obvious to see all UX prototyping tools like Invision, Flinto, Principle, Adobe XD etc. evolving every year and becoming more and more powerful. So it’s only a matter of time till we get there. However a lot of 3D experiences and transitions can be simulated using 2D sprites or elements as we demonstrated.

Conclusion: Benefits of CDT and high-fid prototyping

• Achieve hi-fidelity near game finish results without any code or game engine usage.
• Incredibly fast turnaround time using existing or kit bashing UI kits and animations.
• Create near game feel prototypes that can be used for pitching a new game idea or micro session simulation of core loop concept to your stakeholder group.
• Create near game feel prototypes that can be used for play testing features for an existing or new game with real players to gather qualitative data.
• Increase collaboration and coordination between teams and run CDT design sprintsthat result in ready to test ideas.
• Create an additive prototyping library which can be expanded or added on top of existing prototype for testing new features paired with a core loop element.
• Added ability to add conceptual art style, VFX, sound design, animations way early in pre-production with player feedback and A/B test.

Credits: ASpecial thanks to Kamal Nayan Ganguly, Diogo Alves and Pavitra S. Tandon for their contribution and collaboration in helping out with putting together of this project on art, content and editing front.

Sound from https://www.zapsplat.com If you liked this post, you can check out my other articles deconstructs here. Feel free to hit the Follow Button or connect with me for my future articles.

Fancy some more reading? Make sure to check out these articles: 

• How to crack the Match-3 code: part one and part two
• The Metrics That Make for a Great Match 3 Game – And How to Reach Them
• Storytelling in Blockbuster Casual Games: The Effect of Data and UX-Driven Trends

Editor’s Note: this post was originally published by Om Tandon, Director of User Experience at Digit. With over 14 years experience, Om specializes in UX design, UI design and User Interaction, and has previously worked at Gameloft and June Software. 

Is it just me or are UX playbooks, UX pattern libraries, UX style guides not talked about enough? Or incorporated as often as UI style guides or brand style guides? Are these just buzzwords or do they really not matter? Or is there some kernel of truth and real benefit of creating them, be it in games or enterprise softwares and apps?

Before we start talking about the HOW, it is inherently important to ask WHY. Why do you even need a UX playbook, pattern library or style guide in first place?

The origins

Style guides have been around for a long long while. Origin of style guides date back to advertising and branding times, when it became essential to come up with a set of rules around consistent brand representation as well as to distinguish products between the competition.

“A style guide is a document that provides guidelines for the way your brand should be presented from both a graphic and language perspective. The purpose of a style guide is to make sure that multiple contributors create in a clear and cohesive way that reflects the corporate style and ensures brand consistency with everything from design to writing.” – Online Definition

Skype brand style guide

Example: Skype’s brand style guide calls out the correct & incorrect ways of using the logo.

Going back to the definition, here are a couple of things which immediately jump out and the why style guides are so important:

1. Consistency across documents, screens and digital media in terms of brand and visual representation.
2. Cohesiveness: All designers speaking the same language even if a change of guard happens, new designers can onboard quickly.
3. Guidelines act as a rulebook to bring people back to original vision and make a case with multiple stakeholders.

These reasons are quite compelling as great brands tend to be around for a really long time. There could be multiple people handling how the brand is used across print advertising, video ads, day to day stationery items and so on, so every brand normally has a unique image that all their staff should follow.

A unique voice, and to a great degree an underlying tone or attitude, should resonate with the end users of the product. There has to be certain rules to make sure whenever the brand appears in front of the public, those guidelines are followed so that the brand does not loose its voice and identity.

UI style guide

With UI design becoming mainstay of digital products, many products and UI designers maintain the best practices of having a UI style guide. This normally dictates and harmonizes the UI of the entire game or app; right from colors, buttons, UI elements, font styles through to iconography and more.

Example: A UI style guide, detailing colors, buttons and font usage rules

Is the same true for UX? I can say with conviction that:

90% of the studios worldwide do not invest in a dedicated UX style guide

[bctt tweet=”90% of the studios worldwide do not invest in a dedicated UX style guide – Find out more on why your project need a UX style guide by @omatterix” username=”GameAnalytics”]

UX style guide: the missing link?

With UX gaining immense traction as a design discipline and getting embedded in the design and pre-production process, do you ever wonder if there should be a style guide exclusive to UX? To ensure consistency of UX principles, should rules be put in place that a project follows so multiple designers over time share and speak the same UX vision & language?

In context of games, UX style guides need to become even more apparent compared to when we see game design disciplines having dedicated guideline documents.

Game feature pre-production depends heavily on the following design disciplines:

• Game Designers
• UX Designers
• UI Designers
• Art

From the image above, it is quite obvious how each traditional design discipline creates and maintains its own dedicated manual. This is basically a set of guidelines that act as a map to keep coming back to as the project becomes more extensive, but still keeps the original vision in place.

With games now moving towards more of “Games as a Service” (GaaS) model, many games will have shelf lives of over 6+ years; enough time for influx and outflux of core design team members.

As new people join a company, style guides help with onboarding and explain why certain design choices were made. Did they have a reason behind them? Were they just adhoc? Or was it because XYZ game (top grossing) do it so we should follow it too?

If reasons mentioned above resonate with you and you understand why a UX style guide might be needed, then the next question is HOW do you build one? There are plenty of templates around if you are looking for a UI or brand style guide, as these have been around for a while.

As an example, a UI style guide or pattern library may have the following components: color, font, iconography, buttons, UI elements etc. Basically, all of the elements that form the basis of strong visual design.

As far as UX style guide goes, there aren’t many templates around, as different companies may choose to include different topics based on how they approach UX.

How do you build a UX style guide?

One way to approach a UX Style guide is to include what I call “UX Foundation Blocks” for your project, especially if you are starting to work on a new game from scratch. Based on best prevailing UX practices, this should be a living and breathing document requiring updates when and as needed.

[bctt tweet=”One way to approach a UX style guide is to include “UX Foundation Blocks” for your project, especially if you are starting to work on a new game from scratch. Read more on UX style guides by @omatterix ” username=”GameAnalytics”]

1. Introduction & usage:

While this may sound obvious, it’s good to define the following with some example definitions:

1) What is the purpose of this document?

To have a set of UX guidelines that are specific to a project, as well as establish the UX vision. This is so the UX design works across the length and breadth of the project consistently and cohesively, and among different team members.

2) How to use it and who should use it?

It should be used as a reference manual by all designers on the team to ensure features and UX design work adheres to defined principles. It should be circulated among the stakeholder group and creative teams for broader understanding of the product.

3) When and how should it be used?

New team members should use the UX style guide to understand the underlying UX vision, as well as best practices used for making your case against product, GD or other stakeholders if there is a conflict of interest with the UX design.

2. Product fit:

UX style guides should include an indication of what is the market fit for your game, as well as which genre it clearly belongs to or overlaps with. This is a high level exercise of roughly defining the target audience and competitive games your product is going against.

Since there are tons of demographics based on quantitative and qualitative data that exist for casual, mid-core and hard-core games, knowing the product fit early acts as a pointer for your design team to draw comparisons and aid research of similar games and player segments that your game is targeting.

Your game may not fit neatly into just any one genre as there is a greater emphasis nowadays on widening the funnels, with a mix and mash of game mechanics as well as maturing pool of players. As one of my articles on maturing players covered it here, your game’s product fit might overlap.

Product fit should clearly reflect which genres it is trying to bridge so UX and UI norms can account for learning, interaction and behavioral patterns of those genre of players. Example: when conducting a play test for a game that is cross genre, you don’t just want casual players, but mid-core players as well.

It could have additional details, like if it’s IP based or if it has cross genre funnel. This exercise, done with key stakeholders (Product, GD, UX, Art), is very effective in setting high level vision and gives clues for the next section of the UX style guide.

3. Target demographics:

Since any form of UX inception begins with knowing where your target audience fits (see product fit chart above), it now makes more sense to add a few personas of your designated target audience and the method by which you collect that data.

This is handy as 2-3 years down the line when you are looking at the above information, you would know if you need to update the personas based on changing player habits.

4. Heuristics and core principles:

This is one of the most important sections of the style guide. While the elements above are mainly dictated by the market and player base, here you have an opportunity to pick and choose the best practices and cardinal rules of your UX. You can look at existing trends to define which core principles you or your team would like to include, as well as define the core heuristics of your game.

In the “Phone First & Tactile” example for a mobile game, the UX principle calls for keeping the interaction and form factor pertinent and responsive to mobile and tablet devices, while also laying emphasis on keeping the perceived affordance of CTA’s visually tactile rather than flat. This could be from an insight based on demographics, or simply to distinguish CTAs clearly from other content on your content heavy screens.

“Don’t make me think” is a renowned UX principle where we do not want players to be overwhelmed either by the information or choices in front of them. We want to make sure the next primary action is clear to them, whereby showing good and bad examples of principles in practice will aid thought process.

Bullet points in the slide above call for logical grouping of UI in a functional manner. For example, aggregating social actions in one part of the screen or combat related in another will thereby divide CTAs and information into primary, secondary & tertiary buckets. By doing this, the complexity can be hidden behind tooltips, info buttons and is also available on request; not upfront.

“Leverage Muscle Memory” calls for creating and using extensively familiar form factors and interaction patterns so players don’t have to keep relearning an interface every time a new feature comes up. This also helps keep the development costs low. UX designers usually have a widget pattern library they can keep reusing for developing new features, so that this familiarity and limited use of widgets is embedded into the design process before it reaches UI or dev teams.

Based on the complexity of a project, it is a good idea to restrict this number to 5-6 flexible widgets. Of course there will be always room for bespoke widgets if they’re needed by the game mechanics, but holistically the entire game will be built on top of limited number of widgets that avoid form factor fluctuations and extensive learning on users part.

5. Information architecture (IA):

Information Architecture and screen flows can definitely find a place in your UX style guide as it can give you an holistic birds eye view of your project at a glance. Above is an example of IA of a relatively simple casual game. But as mid-core and hard-core games can be way more complex with more and more features getting added over time, you might want to consider adding it as a link to the document.

6. Red routes:

Red routes traditionally refer to fast travel routes. This works by not allowing vehicles to stop when driving on this particular route, so to avoid traffic jams but also allow fast commuting. Applied to UX, red routes are simply data driven or design driven maps that account for actions users most frequently or are likely to take when using your product. The table above shows a breakdown of actions players are likely to take based on their frequency in an hypothetical game.

Red routes are handy to reduce load times between frequent actions and features, and can be an easy access to enter & exit these loops. So the dev focus can be on reducing load times and making transition faster among red route loops. This is done by shifting load times to more less frequently used areas of the game, which will result in a more seamless experience for the player.

Rarely used features or actions might also need refreshing information on how to use the feature. Based on data, it can also help design solutions direct players to go to some features, like store or social help (include more prominent callouts or daily free items etc.), to optimize metrics.

7. UX writing:

UX writing is the new cool kid on the block, trickling its way into game UX. Hype apart, UX writing is very effective and important to UX as language and content can be riddled with all sort of friction and subjective opinions. It’s also worth investing into presenting your information in an effective manner, so this can be comprehended by a majority of your player base as well as working well in translations. In addition, it also can include rules regarding rounding of digits, truncating string lengths, terminology exercises which facilitate players assimilation of info thereby avoiding too much work on their part.

Determine the tone of your narrative. Handling error states effectively with players facing quality are other benefits.

Conclusion

Different companies with different gaming projects and different UX teams might have their own take on the UX style guide. This could be based on the complexity of the game they are building, or the UX principles and foundation blocks they believe work well with their intended target audience based on data they have. Point being, there are many ways to skin a cat, above is one template example.

1. UX style guides help create a shared UX vision across the entire product pipeline and stakeholder group.
2. UX style guides help keep the UX vision and its practice in design consistent and cohesive among design team members, and also helps onboard new UX designers over the products shelf life.
3. It helps in solving design conflicts between game designers, PM’s and UX when features or complexity contrary to the guide arise, reminding stakeholders about core UX pillars they have signed off on when the style guide was created. A feature or product task is detrimental to existing products user experience or against the core UX vision.

[bctt tweet=”By adopting a UX style guide for your project, you will able to keep the UX vision and its practice consistent among design team members – Read more on why you may need a UX style guide by @omatterix ” username=”GameAnalytics”]

If you liked this post, you can check out my other articles and Game UX deconstructs here. Feel free to follow or connect with me for my future articles.

Update (September,7)

Talk about validation! :D, Just days after this article was released, an NN Group podcast advocating for need of UX style guides! And pattern libraries for a holistic design system.

Sport simulation games have been a massively popular genre in video games industry since the early 70’s. Many of you must have grown up playing franchises like NBA, FIFA, Ashes, Madden NFL, NFS, Football Manager, Tiger Woods – PGA and many more sports titles across PC and consoles.

“Real world sports games imbibe natural qualities like competitive rulesets, challenging opponents, strategy, skills & mastery that video games & gamers already subscribe to. This makes them a natural fit for a digital makeover.”

It’s no surprise that the top 10 – 50 grossing charts on mobile games also boast their share of sports simulation games.

Source : ThinkGaming 2/03/2018

Mobile space is dominated by many sport titans which are either tactical or strategy based. There is a plethora of choices from basketball, cricket, football manager, golf and tennis to car racing. Heavyweights that dominate the top grossing charts are Madden NFL, Golfclash, 8 Ball pool and CSR 2 (a spin off of the genre).

But it’s the most recent addition of “Golfclash” that has shaken up the scene and made this category more mobile friendly, enjoyable and popular than ever before.

Golfclash

Golfclash by Playdemic became an overnight success since its launch. It has rapidly climbed the UK app store top grossing charts and is now a permanent fixture in US top 50 grossing, surpassing even all time favorite 8 Ball Pool.

Core Gameplay Experience

Core loop involves player placing wagers in PvP turn based golf matches, earning trophies and timed chests, setting them to unlock for rewards – coins, gems and club shards. Clubs can be upgraded with coins. Earning trophies and leveling up opens subsequent tours with increasing wagers, more difficult golf courses and experienced opponents.

Sounds familiar? At first glance you will see a lot of similarities between Clash Royale and Golfclash as the latter borrows heavily from formers’ free flowing menu design, chest unlocking mechanism, progression path and earning trophies to unlock the next Tour (Equivalent of Arena’s in Clash Royale). Apart from the core gameplay, Golfclash has simulated almost all mechanics from Clash Royale which is a big contrast to the many games that have tried to mimic clash Royale’s MOBA type gameplay and failed (like Star Wars : Force Arena).

Golfclash took a different path: It mimics every other feature except the core gameplay & this seems to be working out great for them.

The mimicking choices are quite interesting; as though there are many ways Golfclash could have designed it’s progression, reward and menu features. But as I have written in an article earlier on Gamasutra, Clash Royale’s menu and flow design are a great example of a game that falls within casual mid-core space with its seamless transition from one tab to the other minimizing drill downs and wait times which is a refreshing experience compared to more prevalent lobby screens with multiple drill downs and load times flow in other games.

Golfclash, with its easy to follow navigation, on boarding, inventory management and progression system, is a breeze for casual players to pick up. However with the depth offered within the progressive difficulty level arena, mastery of factors that influence core gameplay like course obstacles, gear acquisition and upgrades has high appeal to mid-core player who are looking for more depth and challenge.

“Extremely easy to pick up but difficult to master.”

Given the success of Clash Royale and its ease of use and UX merits, it makes sense to follow an existing popular mental model (in terms of experience, mechanics and progression flows) which has been such a hit with both casual and matured gamers.

However the comparisons end right here!

To its full credit, Golfclash’s core gameplay design stands out on its own brilliantly in terms of accessibility, learnability and the right balance of handholding and mastery – which has a very broad appeal to engage and peak interest of both casual and more hard core gamers.

At first glance, if you think that Golfclash is an attempt on Clash Royale with a turn based gameplay variation, stick around & you will be proved wrong.

One of the cardinal rules contributing to success of any game is having a strong and engaging core and/or meta loop making the game sticky and engaging. Golfclash does it brilliantly as you can enjoy the game even if you don’t care about Golf at all!

Even if you are not an avid fan of golf or don’t know your tee from a fore, it’s still a breeze to pick up the gameplay.

Here is why:

Key Experience Highlights:

Excellent guidance and hand-holding system

Golfclash’s guidance system in part follows closely the perfect timing shift mechanics you find in games like CSR2.

Similar to CSR 2 where players need to time the alignment of the arrow with color coded accuracy zones, players can achieve different degree of accuracy in their gear shift like Perfect, Good, Late etc. Golfclash uses a similar sling system, holding and releasing the ball (as shown below). Aligning the ball correctly with the movement of the arrow at the perfect time increase your chances of releasing different degrees of precision shots like Great, Perfect, Sliced etc.

But unlike CSR2 applying the precision sling system blatantly does not means you will get the best or optimal outcome. For example you may pull off a great shot but it may end up “in the rough” or in a sand pit. So even though by following the precision system one can get optimal shots, players learn over time that they can increase their odds of getting better results by adjusting other parameters like landing a ball closer to the hole or reticle, gauging golf course design to avoid obstacles, wind speed, and to a lesser extent ball type and putt’s characteristics can have an impact on your performance and every single shot you take.

Above: A multitude of factors other than just following the timed precision system can affect the outcome of your shots.

The factors combining together to give Golfclash players a heady mix of tactical and strategic gameplay options are:

1. Sling Release Precision: Timing and releasing your shot as per guidance system to have a certain degree of precision shots.
2. Players Gear: Club and ball characteristics + any bonuses
3. Environmental Factors: Wind, golf course level design, length, varied obstacles, water hazard, surface friction dependent on the surface type the ball lands on: fairway, rough, sand pit etc.

These factors not only add a lot more decision choices for the player but also help make the gameplay more fun and diversified for a casual gamer.

Best part is the game does not expects you to learn all this upfront, you learn either by trial and error or through a peer tutorial as we will learn ahead.

PvP Experience

Good matchmaking algorithms (MMA) lies at the heart of any strong PvP based games. Golfclash does a good job of ensuring players are relatively evenly matched based on their skill and experience in the game. From my experience there is a 50-50% chance of getting a player against whom you may win or lose at least in early gameplay, which avoids griefing for players who are way down the ladder. But these odds may changes as you become an advanced player.

There are different progressive tours that can be unlocked via the trophy system. All of them have a progressive entry fee or wager that you have to pay in coins – which is one of the two in-game currencies. In return, winning a game doubles the coins you disbursed for entry and will also increase your trophy count.

If players lose too many games in a row, they lose coins and potential chests that replenish the coin supply. Leaving them cash strapped, this acts as an invisible energy mechanism restricting players from playing the game indefinitely.

As with so many other games, trophy count is like your overall ranking and winning increases this rank to unlock new tournaments where stakes are higher. One can’t farm beginner tournaments forever as they tend to yield a maximum of 20 trophies.

Psychology of Wagers:

Wager mechanics can also be found in other sport simulation games like 8 Ball Pool but its real origin lies with casino games where each table or slot machine has a different amount of wager needed as an entry fee but progressively higher tables with higher entry free offer higher rewards or returns.

Progressively higher wagers promote ‘high risk, high reward’ decision making which have been cornerstones of casino games & stock trading. But wager mechanics can also frustrate a majority of casual player and act as deterrent to their progress.

As postulated in classical economics theory, when we talk about wagers we are also talking about people’s natural preferences toward risk, which greatly differ individual to individual.

• Risk Averse/Averters: Individuals who seek to minimise risk. Majority of individuals generally prefer the less risky situation (that is, the situation with less variability in outcomes or rewards).
• Risk Seekers/Lovers: Individuals who prefer taking risks
• Risk Neutral: Individuals who are indifferent toward risk

How this may apply to Golfclash or any other wager mechanics based system?

Risk preference is measured by the utility players get by promised increment in their income as shown in the curves above (Y axis represents utility, X axis income from progressive wagers) . Comparing the curves above for risk preferring individuals, the marginal utility (difference between U(a) and U(b)) is much higher compared to risk averse person for the same amount of income gained (a to b) via progressive wagers. This may leads them to indulge in high wager levels but the risk averse person may prefer to stick to playing low wager levels as the utility gain is lesser.

Risk averse players will likely stick to lower tours and play it safe, as losing one or two games in a high entry wager tour can significantly affect your fortunes (coins) preventing them from playing anymore. For risk averse players, utility received from a chance of earning high reward/payoff in high stakes tour is less compared to utility received from playing multiple low stakes tours in one session. So in their case, strategy will be to minimise losses in order to take part in more tours per session or per day. In short, chances of replay ability of lower levels per session or per day, trumps lucratively high payoffs offered by high stake tours.

Risk lovers are high rollers and will be incentivised by high entry barrier to try out new levels and make each level count. Given the high level of skill needed with high wager rewards, this also helps drive people through the monetisation funnel. For players, the utility received from a high wager tour’s high payoff reward will be greater than utility of loss of coins or replay ability per session or per day.

Risk neutral players will not bother about either the risk of high reward or the chance of replay ability. Their utility is neutral as far as wagers are concerned.

Hence even though wager mechanics can act as a high deterrent for majority of players – from trying out high entry levels/tours economic distribution based on established risk preference norms – will ensure there are enough players or high rollers who will keep progressing despite the high stakes. High rollers may naturally, if not exclusively, be more inclined to spending on IAP’s as seen in player behaviour in casinos and stock markets around the world.

Countering Risk Aversion Behaviour :

Given that risk averters form a large part of general population which also applies to games player base, there are still ways to counter the adverse effects and making the experience better. For example:

1. Increasing the amount of daily coins you receive from the game: Through daily free chests, other chest drops as players open new tours and levels up. This helps remedy, to an extent, the coin scarcity scenario that players might be wary of avoiding at least for the next subsequent tour. As an example: an average risk averse player with coin balance of 4000 may not want to take part in a 3000 wager tour butmight want to take his chances in a 1000 coins wager tour if he knows his supply of coins from daily chest and rewards can ensure it is sustainable and will also afford replay ability of 3-5 games per session even if they loose 2-3 games in a row.
2. Making wager currency exclusive: Risk aversion is also compounded by the fact that players need wager coins to upgrade their clubs as well, therefore hoard currency for upgrades. Having a separate currency for upgrades or direct gem conversion, instead of a 2 step process, might help mitigate this pain point.

Learning from Competition: Uniquely putting you in your opponents shoes!

When it comes to on-boarding and discovering new features of the game, Golfclash seems to have an unsaid advantage because of how its synchronous turn based gameplay is set up.

From a UX perspective, Golfclash’s on-boarding & feature discoverability is a subtle nudge & players may not even notice it until…

Since the camera angle, gameplay choices and view of the game for both you and your opponent is almost identical! while awaiting your turn you get to be exactly in your opponents shoes and get to see first hand what decisions, tactics and strategy your opponent is applying to optimise their shots and win the game.

Putting you in your opponents shoes while awaiting your turn acts not only as a great on-boarding & progression tutorial but let’s you optimise your gameplay learning from your opponents good and bad choices.

How it helps players in 2 ways:

1) It helps you learn the nitty gritties of the game which you might not have discovered or bothered to experiment with (true for a lot of casual players). A peer-led (opponent) preview helps discover and understand the impact of a decision which acts not only as a non-intrusive organic tutorial loop for casual players but also encourages you to try out features of the game which may not be very apparent upfront, example below:

Observing your opponents moves while awaiting your turn

• Seeing your opponent choose and select a different ball and adjusting its spin, makes you wonder if you should do the same.
• Seeing which club your opponent is using makes you think again about your own choices – is the club giving him/her any extra advantage?
• Opponents gear may have bonuses applied that make you think – why you don’t have them? How to get them?

2) Due to the nature of gameplay, both competing players have to follow more or less the exact same steps and path through the course to pot the ball and succeed. This leaves enough room to learn from each other with the ability to get a peek into your opponents mind.Example below:

Observing your opponents decision making while awaiting your turn

• Where is your opponent placing his landing reticle? How is he trying to overcome the obstacles in the course?
• How much power is he applying? What kind of shot is he thinking of undertaking?
• Seeing the outcome of his shots (especially if you go second in your turn), can help you optimise your own strategy in terms of avoiding wrong decisions. If his/her shot ends up badly (ball lands in a rough patch, or a sandy pit) or maybe optimising your shot parameters to do better than him/her if it goes too well.

NOTE: You may argue that this kind of learning also happens in other games. Yes, but not to the extent it happens in Golfclash. In PvP games like Clash Royale or Hearthstone, you do not get to see your opponents deck or rate at which his elixir is charging. Most opponents decision choices are not exposed. While there will still be some partial learning, due to the fact that player is busy managing both his own game and watching his opponent response, it lacks complete immersion as it happens in case of Golfclash.

Clean, bold, readable UI

Even though it does borders on almost being in your face, big chunky fonts and clean bold graphics make the readability and ease of use on mobile quiet clear and straightforward. This also helps older players of this genre or Golf in particular as older demographics are more likely to have eyesight issues. Even with too many drill downs, the big fonts and clear CTA’s help make the menu accessible and UI readable.

But over time UI can get crowded and in your face!

Downside:

As the game evolves and more features are added, UI space can become crowded and claustrophobic which I can already see happening as player makes progress. As a player progresses, new features like leagues, guild etc. may be added. This creates choice biases and paralysis for the players as they may not know what to do first or prioritise. Reducing the size of elements (relatively) may not be a bad idea for future proofing as it will also help reducing the in-your-face feel of the UI.

Monetisation loops & timed chests

1. Wager System, as discussed above, fuels competition as each player needs to wager a pool of their coins to take part in progressive divisions/tours and winner takes all. This allows players to balance risk and reward. Tours with higher wager have more experienced players and difficult courses and games to face, but the rewards are higher too. Unlocking a higher tour creates an appetite and need for more coin sinks.
2. Timed Chests are a relatively new concept as popularised by Clash Royale in the western mobile market. Instead of instant gratification by allowing players to open the chest immediately, players have limited slots that require an unlocking action, then wait for 2-8 hours for a chest unlock to happen. Player can also speed up the unlocking by paying gems. Golfclash has the exact same system for rewards.

Reasons why timed chest reward mechanics is catching on

And why it might be compelling to different player types from an economic perspective:

Price Elasticity of Demand Curve (PED) : Is a measure used in economics to show the responsiveness or elasticity, of the quantity demanded of a good or service to a change in its price when nothing but the price changes. More precisely, it gives the percentage change in quantity demanded in response to a one percent change in price.

Price elasticity of demand curve : Effect on NPU’s

Non-paying users are price sensitive, not content sensitive.

Price elasticity of demand (PED) figure 1 above shows the relationship between price and quantity demanded or purchase decision. NPU’s are extremely price sensitive & responsive to price elasticity. We can see above (right image) P0 (17 gems) is the initial chest opening price at 2hours 43minutes, but as time passes a discounted price P1 (10 gems) is offered at 1hour 36minutes and so on – P2 (1 gem) at 3minutes 36seconds. This increases NPU affordance to spend gems and open the chest as time passes leading to higher conversion. So non-paying users who are averse to spending money on unlock have a higher propensity to wait and spend a smaller fee on unlocking chests as time passes instead of paying a big fee upfront. This creates conversion opportunities for NPU’s and hence help create premium currency sinks.

Price (in)elasticity of demand curve : Effect on high spenders & whales

Purchase behavior from data based on games similar to Game of War, Clash of Clans etc. and behavior of non-paying users and high spenders suggests that:

High spenders or whales are content sensitive, not price sensitive.

High spenders like to acquire new content fast and quick, irrespective of the price. This makes the price elasticity curve quiet inelastic for high spenders as they will make purchases even at higher price tiers to progress faster compared to NPU’s who are quiet price elastic. We can see from above that the curve has become quiet steep & inelastic implying high prices are not a deterrent to purchases relative to NPU’s. This combined with FOMO to manage chest slot inventory creates higher premium currency monetisation sinks.

Timed chests also act act as reactivation and re-engagement mechanics. They avoid stacking or overt hoarding of chests thereby preventing players from becoming immune or dis-enchanted with chests due to sheer volume and frequency at which they drop forcing players to unlock timely and keep their chest slots empty, else they miss out on any chests they will win from subsequent games.

Conclusion

Golfclash has really taken sports simulation games category by storm. It is perfectly poised to be a game that has broad appeal to both casual and mid-core players. At first glance it seems like a Clash Royale wannabe, but at its core lies very accessible and an addictive gameplay.

• Gameplay trumps Golf as a sport!: Given the heady but subtle mix of diverse gameplay factors from sling precision system to environmental factors to investment in gear upgrade, I am convinced that even if we strip out golf and use this combination with any other sport or genre, players will still find it delightful. The gameplay design elevates itself above the sport – and there are some really good gameplay elements here – from which other casual and mid-core games can benefit.
• Highly effective peer on-boarding: As covered in detail above, I am sure this did not happen deliberately but given the gameplay design which maintains the same camera angle and homogenous decision choices in order to succeed in a PvP match. Total immersion devoid of any distractions which a player awaiting his turn has to pay to his opponents moves and tactics, with all of the opponents decision choices exposed, is a great learning resource both for discovering more features of the game as well as spot optimising ones gameplay against the opponent.
• Wager system can feel detrimental to progress for many players: As explained in terms of risk preference propensity of individuals, many casual players may find themselves deliberately sticking to lower low-wager tours and playing it safe in order to maximise their utility of replaying the game as opposed to the risk involved in losing and becoming cash strapped by taking part in high wager tours. However with risk aversion counter-measures like ensuring players have increased flow of coins from free chests and regular chest drops as they progress can remedy the issue to an extent.

As Golfclash continues to tread along the road of enticing both casual and mid-core players, it will be interesting to see which new games are inspired by it and begin a genre war to rise to the top in 2018!

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of articles looking at casual and mid-core games. The first, which looks at Angry Birds 2 and features a Q&A from developers Rovio can be found here. 

The first part of this analytical series focused on Rovio Entertainment and how they successfully evolved and matured their multi-million dollar Angry Birds franchise. In the second part of this article series, we put a spotlight on top 10 grossing casual games developer Playrix, who are trying hard to innovate and experiment with casual games, challenging the established norms of this genre, and finding profound success!

Playrix is known for a string of successful top 10 grossing hits like Homescapes, Gardenscape and Fishdom in the highly competitive Match 3 genre, which is often dominated by the likes of King, Jam City & Peak Games.

Source: Think Gaming (20/01/2018)

“But unlike its peers, Playrix is not relying solely on eye candy graphics, super polished VFX , and slick & dynamic gameplay which have become the pinnacle of this genre.”

Instead Playrix is walking a different path.

Playrix: Recipe of success

Combining the simple core loop of match 3 titles with unlockable decorative elements in a niche environmental setting, powerful daily quest system, and a well-crafted story loop is strongly reminiscent of features used in mid-core and hard-core games. Let’s see how.

Similarities with Mid-Core Loops:

Getting rid of the saga map in this genre and unlocking and populating the map with a decoration is very similar to a light version of base building tactics used by mid-core and hard core games. Here is how:

1) Light Base Building:

No Saga maps! Which have remained unchanged and are hallmarks of player progression in King and Jam City games. As seen below, Players start on Node 1 and progress linearly to the next node within each world as they clear subsequent levels, offering no other significant interaction

Q & A with Playrix team:

Om: Why did you choose to move away from a Saga Map? What led the team to break away from this established cardinal rule of the Match 3 genre?

Igor Elovikov (Creative Director, Playrix): The roots of that decision date back to the times of casual downloadable games. Back then no one was even thinking about free-to-play mechanics and the market was saturated with lots of similar products. Companies wanted to stand out which led them to try blending genres.

One of the pioneers in that were Tropix: http://www.tropixgame.com/ and Cradle of Rome: https://www.bigfishgames.com/games/1445/cradleofrome/?pc. Both games were released in 2007 (over 10 years ago!) and had a lot in common — players had to beat match-3 levels to earn currency and resources, which were needed in order to construct something. In Tropix it was an island, while in Cradle of Rome it was a whole village.

“Actually, those two games inspired us when we created Fishdom, and then Gardenscapes, so what you see in our mobile games now is something that was actually tried and tested a long time ago.”_ Igor Elovikov

The exact mechanics seen in Playrix titles (first set of images) can be seen very commonly in mid-core and hard-core games with base builder loops as seen in mobile hard-core game (second two sets of images below.)

Q & A with Playrix team:

Om: Was the decision to add a light base building loop made consciously or found to work through trial and error?

Igor Elovikov (Creative Director, Playrix): We just relied on our previous experience with casual downloadable games.

Om: What precautions or change in design if any, did you have to make to ensure these base building mechanics were not too overwhelming for casual players?

Igor Elovikov (Creative Director, Playrix): I guess the key things here are simplicity, and emotional appeal.

“What I mean is that we tried to make the user experience as simple as possible (when it comes to building and constructing) and concentrate more on emotions”_ Igor Elovikov

In simpler words, we put more effort in the dialogue and animation of the fish in Fishdom and in storyline development in Gardenscapes, rather than in designing complex mechanics.

Om: What is the feedback you get from your players? Do they find the decorative/light base building engaging compared to just match 3 mechanics?

Igor Elovikov (Creative Director, Playrix): Well, I can’t say for sure. We definitely haven’t had any negative feedback, players haven’t told us that it bothers them, or that it gets in the way. Usually they say the game does differ, but in a positive way.

“What they like is that the progress in the game is different from in the dozens of other match-3 titles.”_ Igor Elovikov

Om: Do you believe it generates more value and engagement for your players, do you see this appealing to existing match 3 game players used to a saga map?

Igor Elovikov (Creative Director, Playrix): Yes, I believe so. My common sense tells me, when you put in a lot of effort developing a story full of characters, each with their own personality — it will definitely beat a regular saga map. At least in the emotional sense, it’s a great way to engage players.

2) Resource Generation & XP gain:

Structures in base building games are not just decorations, they also generate resources for the player hence a strong need to maintain and upgrade them, as seen in Boom Beach example bottom left.

As seen above, Playrix’s Fishdom game (Image to right) has these characteristics, wherein some decorations like fish generate valuable soft currency and adding each decoration also leads to the player gaining experience for progression. Coins aid in core match 3 gameplay, via buying +5 moves, boosters, etc. Decorative structures can also be sold back in case the player is in dire need of coins, so they are liquid assets

Q & A with Playrix team:

Om: It’s interesting to see the differences in player progression in Fishdom and Homescapes, the way player deals with decorations and base building? Are there any specific reasons for these design changes?

Igor Elovikov (Creative Director, Playrix): First of all, it’s all about what’s best for the setting. I think it’s the setting that determines what direction the progress takes.

Om: Which of the two models, Homescape/Gardenscapes with fixed choices and options in terms of placement of decorations versus Fishdom with more choice in terms of placement and editing of decorations, work better from your experience?

Igor Elovikov (Creative Director, Playrix): I can definitely say that the limited freedom like in Gardenscapes is much simpler in terms of UI and user experience — which is critical for devices with smaller screens. It’s just easier to play on smartphones.

But the Fishdom scheme with a store and a wide range of content gives more opportunities for live ops. This type of model makes it a bit easier for us to design in-game events and come up with reward concepts.

“While limited freedom in Gardenscapes, helps keep the UX simple on small devices, at the same time more varied store approach in Fishdom makes implementing live-ops event rewards easier for Devs.”_ Igor Elovikov

3) Gating player progression:

The primary means it through gradual unlocking of buildings based on player progression.

Boom Beach and Fishdom examples above clearly show strikingly similar characteristics in their shop and their unlocking of advanced decorations and buildings via player progression.

Base building is an important aspect of the game, players need resources to build the base, which they earn in the main gameplay arc of battle or Match 3 in case of Playrix.

4) Daily Missions & Quest System:

Quests or daily activities systems bring the two loops together. They compel players through constant notifications to build and maintain the base (Home, Garden, Aquarium, etc.) and, as players need stars to do the chores, it directs them to earn the necessary stars via playing the match 3 core.

Quest systems are very commonly used in mid-core and hard-core games to hand hold and guide the player to narrow down choices in terms of what to build or to do next in the game.

Examples from Clash of Kings, Lords Mobile, King of Avalon and Star Wars : GOH above.

Q & A with Playrix team:

Om: Why the need for a daily quest system? Most other casual games in this genre totally lack this feature? I believe it seems essential for marrying the two loops, is that a true statement?

Igor Elovikov (Creative Director, Playrix): I think daily quests are more of a universal tool. Its absence in other games doesn’t give them any kind of advantage. Any game as a service which is created for daily use will definitely benefit from having such a system.

Om: Can the players who don’t care about base building and narrative skip the quest and base building totally and just focus on playing the match 3 core? Why or why not?

Igor Elovikov (Creative Director, Playrix): Yes, it is possible. We thought about making the two progresses sync with each other, i.e., making the meta-game progress mandatory, but we gave up on that idea. Our data show that all players do something with design, construction, and quests to a certain degree. Very few users completely skip that part.

Easing the Experience:

1) Playrix has been careful in moderating and toning down the base building aspect so it does not become too overwhelming for the players while still providing more variety in gameplay and introducing dual arcs of progression for the player. Progression comes via completing levels and building of the map.

2) The Quests system is kept to a minimum. No more than two quests are available at a time so as not to create a choice bias for the casual player. Heavy hand-holding and predetermined choices in base building reduce the cognitive load for the player while introducing the player to these newer mechanics.

“In essence Playrix has successfully inherited & adapted the base building and quest drivenaspects typical of mid core and hard core games and married them intelligently and effectively with their own spin on casual games!”_Om

This approach seems to be proving a hit with the maturing pool of veteran casual game players, and adding more long term revenue generation.

“This also proves casual players can be intentionally matured to move towards more mid-core mechanics by light introduction of such features” _Om

Q & A with Playrix team:

Om: Do you think the bulk of the casual gaming audience is looking for more than what other casual games are offering today?

Igor Elovikov (Creative Director, Playrix): I think so. First, because they are satiated with lots of identical games.

“All players, including casual ones, are looking for new experiences.”_ Igor Elovikov

Om: Do you see yourself experimenting more with the genre? If yes, anything you may want to share based on your learnings with other Devs, and future trends you foresee?

Igor Elovikov (Creative Director, Playrix): We’re continuing to experiment, trying out different methods to progress and with game session management, but it’s too early to say something for sure now. In the future, I think we’ll see a lot of interesting approaches to the genre, not only from Playrix and not only from games like Fishdom and Gardenscapes. It may be a new approach to casual games, but it is definitely not new for the industry in general. That is why developers are drawing from the MMO experience, session-based games, & etc… adapting their mechanics. Mechanics such as daily quests, regular events, clans, and others are universal. They have long ago proved that they work for player retention, which is crucial for any free-to-play game.

Om: Apart from creating novelty value, do you think your strategy of engaging and maturing casual players to more mid-core mechanics also helps improve monetisation and long term sustenance?

Igor Elovikov (Creative Director, Playrix): Definitely. The latest changes that King has made to Candy Crush and our experience are proof of that. Speaking of King, in the recent year, they have put a greater focus onto live ops. Apart from releasing new levels, they have added a lot of regular activities to the game. Now every time you log into Candy Crush there’s something going on. The game pushes you to beat levels with the help of plentiful time-limited rewards.

“Some of the major additions they’ve (King) included are the redesigned Daily Quests, win streak rewards, and competitions between random players against the number of levels they beat in a certain time period.”_Igor Elovikov

From the first and second part of this series player maturity and genre maturity appears to be a rising trend, in the 3rd part of this series we will analyse and talk to yet another casual game developer, who has taken this path and found profound success!

If you liked this post, you can check out my other Game UX Deconstructs. Feel free to hit the Follow Button or connect with me for my future article

Special thanks to contributors & co-ordinators:

• Igor Elovikov (Creative Director, Playrix) LinkedIn
• Ivan Titov (Brand Manager at Playrix) LinkedIn

This article was co-Authored with Michael Katkoff and originally published by Om Tandon here.

Casual Games

Casual games is a relatively new genre that was arguably kicked off by PopCap when Bejeweled launched on browsers in 2001. The true growth of the genre was enabled by Facebook and driven by Zynga’s FarmVille and other Ville-style games. The third and largely ongoing growth started in 2012, when King took its popular Facebook game Candy Crush Saga to mobile. Today, when we talk about casual games, we tend to mean games with relatively simple gameplay, substantial active user base and somewhat limited monetization potential compared to more advanced games.

In short, casual games are generally targeted at people who may not traditionally consider themselves as gamers.

Casual games like Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga, and Temple Run are typically distinguished by simple rules, reduced demand on time and limited need of skills demanded from the players. These characteristics sets casual games apart from competitive resource management oriented games like Clash of Clans, Clash Royale and Game of War. From a game design and cognitive load perspective, casual games have a straightforward core gameplay loop and simple currency sinks. In general, the session lengths in casual games are around three minutes. In contrast to more ‘core’ games, casual games also require players to do very less cognitive load management.

Why casual games and gamers might be maturing?

In an article published in early 2016 I speculated how masses of casual game players have come a long way since the early days of mobile games. As time has passed, casual games have been improved with new content and features. While we still play the same ‘old’ match-three, infinite runners and hidden object games, these games offer more deeper experience than their earlier version did 6 years ago.

I believe that casual gamers may be maturing due to:

1. Mastery of same old game mechanics.
2. Longevity and familiarity of playing the same genre and mechanics repetitiously.
3. Wearing off of the novelty value due to a flood of clones.
4. Introduction of ever deeper designs by game developers.

How to design for maturing casual players

This mass of matured veteran casual players may want to make a transition to more intricate gameplay but may be wary of high entry barriers, grinding, wait timers, base building, troop training, managing economies, social pressure of clans, cognitive load of making strategies that conventional mid-core games need (See mid-core loops above). All of which casual players hate. This can lead to a vacuum creation.

In short these veteran casual players may find the climb of casual games too SHALLOW, but mid-core too STEEP!

But this gap between casual and mid core genres can also be a window of opportunity!

Let’s look at how some top Devs. have successfully identified this gap and are experimenting to engage this audience.

Rovio Entertainment

Rovio Entertainment has seen unprecedented growth this year by experimenting and evolving it’s holster of casual games.

*Source: Seekingalpha

Rovio rose to fame with launch of its iconic smash hit Angry Birds title in December 2009, the game with its simple mechanics and ease of use on mobile enchanted masses of casual players and opened the world of games to many first time gamers, across the globe! The game was also boosted by the rise of iPhone and App Store. The game was simply perfect for the iPhone screen.

Let’s see how Angry Birds has evolved casual games and gamers towards mid-core features – with Angry Birds 2, having multiple progression paths, daily quests, Arena and Gacha.

Unlike its predecessor, Angry Bird 2 pushed the boundaries of what Rovio had to offer to casual players both in terms of content and mechanics, thereby introducing masses of casual players to more intricate and engaging mechanics commonly found in mid-core games. An excellent in depth breakdown of AB 2 has been done by Michail Katkoff .

Angry Birds 2 : Recipe of success

Note: How the feature list above resonates strongly with many contemporary mid-coregame mechanics!

Q & A with Rovio team:

Om: The number of additional features that AB2 offers compared to AB, what was the design thinking behind making such a dramatic change?

Henrik Lundin (Angry Birds 2 Lead game designer): With the initial design of Angry Birds 2, we knew that the core of Angry Birds works very well and tampering too much with it wouldn’t make much sense. Therefore we chose to keep the fun core intact and instead focus on the metagame around it.

“Knowing that we were making a sequel to a game downloaded billions of times, we needed to build something that we could expand upon for years to come. “_ Henrik Lundin

A system for leveling and improving the main characters of the game, the birds, hence felt very suitable for the game. Having a leveling system like that requires meaningful features that support that progression and just having a saga map with constant rewards felt very linear and uninteresting. That’s why the Daily Challenge and Arena features got added, where the players are put to the test to further increase their rewards and progression.

Om: When making such drastic changes, were you ever worried that it might add layers of complexity to the essence of what made the original title such a hit? Were you worried that it may perplex your existing casual player base? If yes, what precautions you took to mitigate it?

Henrik Lundin (Angry Birds 2 Lead game designer): When a new player started the game, our goal was that it should feel very familiar to classic Angry Birds. They had their saga map, they had the birds and pigs and they progressed through different chapters. As the player gets more used to the game we start unlocking features that are slightly more complex.

[bctt tweet=”If players feel like they rather play a certain feature over the other we are not stopping them from doing so, every player is different in how they consume their entertainment.” username=””]

Something that might make Angry Birds 2 stand out from other games with higher complexity is our specific design aim for very spacious user interface.

“Features are not hidden behind menus or in long lists, they are all exposed and playful in their words which contributes to a more approachable user experience” _ Henrik Lundin

If players feel like they rather play a certain feature over the other we are not stopping them from doing so, every player is different in how they consume their entertainment.

AB 2 Similarities with Mid-Core Loops:

Multiple paths of progression: Unlike its predecessor, where players had a single track linear progression path of beating a set number of levels to move to next world, AB 2 offers a variety of parallel and intertwined progression arcs.

a) Player account Level Up

Player levels up by collecting stars. This account level is used to gate features such as the Daily Quests, Daily Challenge, and the Arena mode. Account level incentivized the player to replay levels till they are three-starred.

b) Birds Level Up : Crafting, Fusion & Components

Players can level up birds increasing the destruction points they generate upon collision. Points not only allow to get that coveted three-star-rating but they also contribute to getting the additional bird to sling.

As soon as players have enough feathers to upgrade a bird, they are prompted to do so, similar to character levelling up in mid-core games like Marvel Contest and Star Wars : Galaxy of Heroes.

Players can also buy functional goods like hats, which are much like fitting components in many mid-core games which multiply birds destruction power also creating more currency sinks. Levelling up requires feathers which are earned through gacha and daily rewards.

Q & A with Rovio team:

Om: Was the switch to evolving birds and introduction of light crafting and fusion mechanics purely driven by F2P nature of the game? Or were there any other reasons to introduce this mechanics?

Henrik Lundin (Angry Birds 2 Lead game designer): With Angry Birds 2 we wanted to give the players more than just a saga map. We wanted to:

1. Focus more on the characters of the game
2. Offer different flavors of progression without removing any of the previous features.

If the player cares more about the characters they are more likely to engage with the game and try out different features. In the game there are several vectors of progression, but in the end they all feed back into improving your birds. This helps with keeping the complexity low while still offering a variety of features to play.

If we wouldn’t have added these new features to the game, it would be very hard to scale and expand upon. Today the game is doing very well and is in a healthy state, that might not have been possible unless we branched out early on._ Henrik Lundin

Om: How did the players respond to all these change, as birds also have functional aspects of component fitting (Hats) more typical of Mid-Core games?

Henrik Lundin (Angry Birds 2 Lead game designer): The reaction from our fans have been very positive whenever a new engaging feature is released. When we released the hats into the game there was suddenly new goals for the players and they got to choose how their birds should look like.

We think it as a very positive change to have a sense of choice when playing, no matter if it’s how their birds look or if they rather play a certain feature over the other.

c) Slingshot Level Up

To level up the slingshot player first needs to unlock all the birds, which requires beating first 44 levels, this creates more rewards and goals for mid level players removing linearity of just beating levels with added incentive.

Q & A with Rovio team:

Om: It seemed like the design team added multiple level up’s and progression path which are intertwined? What was the motive and incentive behind them, how did you ensure players understood all these different paths without getting overwhelmed?

Måns Wide (Angry Birds 2 Executive Producer): The saga map progression is easy to understand and quite effective in casual games, but it has a lot of limitations. It’s hard to push seasonal content when all the players are sitting at totally different places in a huge map. Also, focusing on progressing the characters seemed like a logical move since people really relate to the birds. Leveling your beloved bird-makes is more rewarding than just moving from level to level.

As what comes from protecting players from becoming overwhelmed, we unlock the features one at a time. We also try to balance the game so that the players will never get too much new information at the same time.

2) Introduction to Gacha

Gacha systems are a huge hit with mid-core and hard-core players as it adds an element of luck and anticipation which a lot of players find thrilling, immense success of social casino games with a casual player base is also a strong testament of how thrilling luck based features are for the players.

AB 2 makes use of this in 2 ways.

1. Daily chest and reward mechanics which offers players a free chest with rewards every half an hour and conditioning and habituating them to free rewards and paid premium chests if player wants more items.

2. Tower of Fortune: This is an interesting and engaging daily rewards mechanics which makes great use of behavioral economics principle of “Loss Aversion”

In economics and decision theory, loss aversion refers to people’s tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains

“Tower of Fortune” is a daily reward mechanics with player having 75% chance of winning and 25% chance of losing, each floor of the tower gives player 3 rewards and one chance of losing all previous and current rewards if he chose a card with a pig on it, but as you can see in example above, once player has racked up multiple rewards from subsequent rounds and he encounters a pig, the cost of losing the rewards he has accumulated, is much greater than what he needs to pay to continue playing, this leads to a situation of “loss aversion” where players are less likely to let go of what they have already earned by paying a small fee/fine rather then let go of all that they know they have won for sure.

Q & A with Rovio team:

Om: What was the inspiration behind introducing gacha system to your casual player base audience? Why did you think such a mechanic will be a hit with your player base?

Henrik Lundin (Angry Birds 2 Lead game designer): Random based rewards have since long proven to work on games, as it’s both fun and exciting for players. Having several ways of progressing in our game, using different resources, it made a lot of sense to introduce gachas to the game.We have definitely taken considerable measures to be very clear about gatchas.

We take care to visualise clearly the opening of a chest so players understand what is going on. An important part of our interface when opening these chests is that all rewards are automatically added to where they belong with a clear visual animation.

This helps players understand why they got the resource and what it is good for. If that would not have existed we could have ended up in a situation where players received rewards that were both unclear in function while also just taking up space in some inventory.

Om: What was the player response to chests and Tower of fortune in terms of engagement?

Måns Wide (Angry Birds 2 Executive Producer):

“The Tower of Fortune had a huge impact on the game, mostly in terms of gem spent. As it is now, 30% of all hard currency is spent in there”_ Måns Wide

In terms of engagement it’s harder to say since we pushed the new start screen – a huge change in the game – about a month after introducing the Tower. So it is not trivial to see what’s the root of the positive trends in terms of engagement and retention.

Om: What do you think of our hypothesis? Was AB 2 targeted at engaging and maturing the existing casual player base? Or did you plan to make it more appealing to mid-core users as well?

Henrik Lundin (Angry Birds 2 Lead game designer): Angry Birds in general is a brand with a broad appeal, that is something we wanted to keep intact by making the game approachable for everyone.

“As we are introducing more mid-core features to the game, it is our responsibility to make it understandable even for casual players” _Henrik Lundin

We believe that creating more depth in the game is good for both our players and ourselves in terms of scalability, but we’re definitely taking baby steps into the mid-core features. For example, there is little inventory management in the game, meaning most of the flows in the game are streamlined towards the player progressing. If our players take part of an event, they’ll gather resources and improve their birds – it’s not more complex than that.

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There is always a fine balance between keeping the game approachable but deep enough to satisfy most of our players. The best part about the game is that it’s all optional, our players can choose to spend their time in the game wherever they want without being blocked from other content. It might take months for a casual player to change their playing behaviour to a more mid-core style, but as they do I think Angry Birds 2 is a good gateway into the mid-core market.

3) Arena and social features

Every 3 hours, the player receives a Ticket, which allows them to enter the Arena. In the Arena, a player goes head to head against other players in an asynchronous battle of Angry Birds

Q & A with Rovio team:

Om: Arena battles were clearly a big move towards adding more social attributes to the game, do you think that objective was achieved with this mode?

Henrik Lundin (Angry Birds 2 Lead game designer): The Arena in Angry Birds 2 played two big roles in the game. The first was definitely to make it more social, seeing other players and having fun playing against another player. The second, but maybe the most successful, reason is to give players who like to compete a place to do so. I believe that even a player who is more casual can get a thrill out of knowing they play against someone else, and feeling great when they manage to win!

Competitiveness exists in everything we do in our ordinary lives, so it’s all about how you present the challenge to the player. In our game you play a level just like any part of the game, the only difference is that you play against your opponent’s final score. This means that there’s no great barrier to overcome making it more accessible. As the player wins they can climb in leagues and earn good rewards for it, further encouraging players to engage with the game.

Om: What are the future trends that you see for your casual and mid-core players, what new features can we expect from AB 2 evolution in future?

Måns Wide (Angry Birds 2 Executive Producer): Dynamic live-ops content engages players in mid-core games nowadays. We’ll add a lot of urgency to the game; stuff that happen HERE and NOW! With the clans and global leaderboards it makes sense to put more focus on social features and collaboration.

Om: Any advice to other Developers who are building casual games, to leverage engagement, social and monetization aspects of their game in this crowded space?

Henrik Lundin (Angry Birds 2 Lead game designer): I would start by pointing out that just because a game is casual doesn’t necessarily mean it’s shallow. Everything comes down to how you present information to the player in an approachable way so they don’t feel lost and confused along the way.

“When you’re creating your game you should design for it to live for years, that means you have to have smart systems in place that can scale and engage players for a long time. In support of that I would not look too much in the past way of making casual games where the core game was 90% of the experience” _Henrik Lundin

I believe that future games will have a much stronger meta game that can stand on its own feet, only to be enhanced by a fun core game. When players start engaging in an interesting meta game, by playing a fun core game, you will have a very good game on your hands!

Om: What would you call the secret sauce for success of Angry Birds 2?

Mia Lähteenmäki (Rovio User Research Lab): To me it seems that Angry Birds 2 team does have a secret sauce indeed, and I see there three major ingredients. At the general level they are domain expertise, systematic learning and understanding users. It is however possible to identify these ingredients more closely:

1) The game designers’ skills: Game genre skills and ability to adapt from existing knowledge of games. They have been able to distill all this into something totally new for this specific game and game genre.

2) Developing design principles: When they are developing new things and making iterations to make game work better, they have made efforts to develop them as learnings. As a consequence, they have been able to develop a set of general design principles that work for the game, some of which has been discussed above. This also helps keeping the game design consistent now and in the future, when new features are introduced.

3) Understanding and listening to players: This happens not only through analytics insights, but also by seeking understanding through other channels. For example, game development team, including product leads, have been active on our fan sites and social media like FB. So if you go and ask them what they players think about this or that, they are able to answer.

Conclusion:

From the analysis above we can safely conclude:

1) Players maturing is a rising trends, it is possible for devs. to mature and transition casual gamers into more mid-core & competitive gameplay, via introduction of mid-core features in a mild and phased manner for ultra casual games.

2) Casual game developers can extend the shelf life of their games and add more scalability and depth to create more immersive experiences by pivoting to mid-core features in an accessible and acceptable way.

In part 2 of this series we will talk to another blockbuster casual mobile game developer Playrix of Gardenscapes, Homescapes and Fishdom fame, and their take on maturing casual games and gamers. Stay tuned!!

Special thanks to contributors and editors:

Henrik Lundin (Angry Birds 2, Lead game designer) LinkedIn

Måns Wide (Angry Birds 2, Executive Producer) LinkedIn

Mia Lähteenmäki (Rovio User Research Lab) LinkedIn Twitter: @mia_lahtee

Adam Telfer (Deconstructor Of Fun) Twitter: @adamwtelfer

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