With IDFA regulation changes and an influx of new games entering the market, publishers and mobile game studios are facing an ever-uphill battle to acquire new players (UA) and retain them. To stay ahead of the competition, studios are exploring innovative strategies, like enhancing ad creatives to attract new players and introducing fresh gameplay features to keep existing players engaged and invested in their titles.
However, as we wrote last year, many top-grossing mobile games have found that minigames are the best way to boost UA and player retention. Minigames can provide players with new, exciting ways of enjoying an existing game, incorporating elements from broader genres to widen a game’s motivational appeal. Introducing minigames into a game also provides an opportunity to add new monetization elements, like purchasable boosters or a new premium currency as a reward.
We previously stated that minigames have continued to grow in popularity since the IDFA changes, especially amongst casual and midcore games. That’s even more true now than it was back in April 2023. In this blog, we look at some of the new and interesting ways developers have implemented minigames into some of the most popular mobile titles on the market, from Royal Match’s Wordle-inspired potion puzzle to Goddess of Victory: NIKKE’s recreation of Dave the Diver.
Royal Match’s Wordle-inspired Magic Cauldron
Dream Games is no stranger when it comes to minigames. As we wrote in our earlier blog post on minigames, the developer previously launched “The King’s Nightmare” into Royal Match – timed match3 puzzle levels where players only have a limited time to complete the level and save the King. Considering that successful example, it’s hardly surprising that Dream Games has been looking at ways to incorporate minigames into its live events pipeline further.
Perhaps the most notable example is the Magic Cauldron event, launched in September 2023, which we named the “Best Minigame Event” for the Casual Market in this year’s Mobile GameDev Awards. Magic Cauldron tasks players with figuring out the ‘formula’ of various elixirs by placing them in the correct order to unlock various rewards, such as boosters and collectible cards.
Royal Match’s Magic Cauldron mode compared to Wordle
Royal Match’s Magic Cauldron mode compared to Wordle
To do this, players must first place elixirs (acquired by playing match3 levels) in a row of three slots on the Magic Cauldron’s event page. Once a row has been filled, the game reveals whether or not the elixirs were placed in the proper position. If they were, the slot would light up green. Assuming they weren’t lucky enough to get it right the first time, players must then complete more match3 levels to have another attempt at guessing the formula, using what they learned from the previous round to work out the correct combination.
If you’re a fan of the viral puzzle game Wordle, all of this should sound very familiar. Magic Cauldron follows Wordle’s template, with similar mechanics but featuring potions instead of words. Wordle fanatics reportedly collectively play the game for over 72 hours a year; while we doubt this event will ever prove to have that same level of immense success, it’s positively impacted general engagement at the very least.
The success is also made evident by Lily’s Garden, which added its own Wordle-inspired minigame, Juice Bar, in July 2024. The only major difference between the two is cosmetic, with Lily’s Garden players needing to figure out the “recipes” of fruits by placing them in the right order.
Digging engagement with more Royal Match minigames
But there’s more to Royal Match’s minigame offering than just matching up potions, especially for those willing to quite literally dig underneath the surface. In Hidden Temple, which has been running weekly since it launched in July 2023, players must use pickaxes – again, acquired by playing match3 levels – to dig out gems from a hidden grid.
It’s somewhat reminiscent of the classic PC game Minesweeper, except without the danger of mines. Once all the gems have been found from a grid, players receive a reward, and they unlock a new temple to dig up.
Royal Match’s Hidden Temple minigame
Royal Match’s Hidden Temple minigame
Much like Magic Cauldron, Hidden Temple’s success has been noted by the competition — significantly more so in fact, with a number of different titles launching their own iterations of the event. Here are just a few examples:
Cooking Madness looked at how it could further monetize the concept beyond pickaxes with Pirate Treasure, which features a $4.99 premium battle pass.
Candy Crush Saga took an unsurprisingly sweet approach to the Digging craze with Baker’s Box, which swaps sand for cookies and pickaxes for spoons.
Matchington Mansion’s Jewelry Jubilee sees players cracking open bricks from a grid with Hammers. Underneath, players can find collectible gems that unlock various rewards.
State of Survival’s variation on the digging minigame event, Jungle Gems, sees players using Jungle Chisels and boosters to dig out differently-shaped gems from a grid. Once all the gems have been found, the level is cleared. The event progression includes normal levels and randomly triggered bonus levels, where players get freebie Jungle Chisels before starting and extra rewards for clearing.
Midcore goes casual with minigames: State of Survival & Honkai: Star Rail
Speaking of State of Survival, this midcore hit has also been looking to boost engagement by introducing its players to more casual gameplay elements through minigames. Alongside the aforementioned digging minigame, the title also launched the Paw-Some Puzzle Party, where players can take a break from State of Survival’s usual 4X Strategy gameplay (and its post-apocalyptic zombie stylings) in favor of feline-themed match3 battles.
In each match, players are joined by a kitten with a special match-3 power that helps players clear the board. This ability can be charged further by clearing gems that match the kitten’s color. By achieving a higher kitten power by the end of the round, players can win the minigame by reducing their opponent’s health to zero. Opponents are controlled by AI and can be tweaked through three difficulty settings (easy, normal, and hard).
State of Survival’s Paw-Some Puzzle Party
State of Survival’s Paw-Some Puzzle Party
While this might sound like a unique idea for the midcore market, it was actually Honkai: Star Rail which first coined the idea with Origami Bird Clash. Launching in July earlier this year, this match3 minigame event saw players going head-to-head with actual players to clear the board of fruit and feed their Origami Birds. In this event, whichever player cleared the most fruits within the limited available moves in each round would damage their opponent’s HP, with victory going to whoever took down the opposition first.
Despite arriving later, Honkai: Star Rail’s iteration of the event offers much more depth. For example, Origami Bird Clash features a Story Challenge mode where players take on characters from the main game and experience a short narrative. This mode also unlocks several new Origami birds that players can choose to bring into battle, each of which has unique abilities that players can use to their advantage. The Birefly, for instance, randomly triggers a cross-shaped detonation on the board every time seven bananas are eliminated from the board.
Completing the story even unlocked two further modes, an “Open Challenge” where players can take on the story battles again with harder opponents and all of the different mechanics unlocked, and Multiplayer Bonanza, a 6-player battler royale where the last player standing emerged victorious. Taking part in the minigame also gave players useful items for the main game, such as a 4-star Character and Stellar Jades (premium currency).
Honkai: Star Rail’s Origami Bird Clash
Honkai: Star Rail’s Origami Bird Clash
Dave the Diver x Goddess of Victory: NIKKE
As Honkai: Star Rail demonstrates, it’s possible for minigames to have an immense amount of depth and cater to an entirely different audience. But one title that showed how you can take this concept even further is Shift Up’s Goddess of Victory: NIKKE, which recently went so far as to recreate a completely different title that’s unavailable to mobile players.
Of course, we’re referencing the action RPG’s collaboration with Dave the Diver, a restaurant management sim turned action-adventure fishing hit that has sold over three million copies across PC and console. In Aegis the Diver, players dived, fished, and foraged for ingredients to use in a restaurant management simulator— just like in Dave the Diver—except using fan-favorite Goddess of Nikke characters. The event looked the part too, utilizing the same pixelated art style as Dave the Diver, and was monetized through a premium battle pass.
