best fiends design and monetization audit

1.0.4 Free Oct 9th, 2014 4.6 in 2,721 ra5ngs (US) 68.8 Mb

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@freakyzoid

Best FiendsTM 2013 - 2014 Seriously Digital Entertainment Ltd.

Best Fiends is the rst game released by Seriously, a company staed by a mobile gaming dream team. It had been out for 5 days, is very polished, has easy to grasp mechanics, a solid core loop, and I was enjoying playing it. S5ll, I was condent. Why? And more importantly, was I right?

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(Spoiler alert: Yup)


This document is split in to two sec5ons. The rst (with green headers) gives a breakdown of the game and its key systems, for those unfamiliar with it. The second (blue headers) contains my analysis of its performance, and sugges5ons for improvements.

Game Overview

Gameplay Currencies Core Loop Menu Flow Progression Mone5za5on

Analysis

Download Ranking Grossing Ranking Mone5za5on

Social Gameplay

User Interface


Best Fiends is a line drawing Match 3 game. Players take a team of up to 5 uniquely coloured Fiends in to each level, where they are presented with a puzzle grid, a progression of enemies (encountered one at a 5me), and a selec5on of objec5ves which include matching amounts of 5les (either special, or certain standard colours), and defea5ng a number of enemies. Each 5me the player matches 5les, the associated Fiend launches an adack on the current enemy. Matching also builds up the special 5le charge for a Fiend. Once this is full, a special 5le of their own colour spawns in a random column on the top row of the board. Some enemies are able to spawn blocking 5les on to the board at regular move intervals.


Players team of Fiends

Number of moves remaining

Level comple5on goals

Current enemy

Standard 5les (Matching Fiend colours)

Special 5les (Diamond & Mul5-hit crate) Blocking 5les


Diamonds Gained by Matching Diamond 5les. Purchase through In App Purchase (IAP). Connec5ng to Facebook. Used by Upgrading Fiends (when the player doesnt

have enough Meteor Mites). Buying Keys. Increasing maximum energy. Bypassing progress gates.

Keys Gained by Matching special 5les. Purchased (packs of 3) with Diamonds. Used by Opening Lucky Dip crates.

Meteor Mites (In Yellow and Blue varie?es, blue are rarer & more valuable by a factor of ~100)

Gained by Random drop when matching 5les &

defea5ng enemies. Lucky dip prizes. Used by Upgrading Fiends.


The core loop sees the player comple5ng Match 3 levels, and upgrading their Fiends. Beginning a level always costs energy, and currency earned on failed adempts is kept, allowing players to grind. Energy regenerates over 5me. As Fiends are upgraded the damage dealt per adack increases, as does the potency of their special 5le. Objec5ves and enemies encountered get tougher to beat as the player progresses, forming an increasing soj barrier that eec5vely forces the player to regularly upgrade.

Upgrade Fiends

Play Match 3 level

Lucky Dip


Map

Lucky Dip

Fiend Menu Info Upgrade

Fiend Select Loading Gameplay

Out Of Moves Failed

Passed

Splash

Return to Map


The player progresses through a series of numbered levels, presented on an adrac5ve 3D scrolling map. The dierences between the four loca5ons currently in the game appear to be purely cosme5c. New gameplay features and blocking 5les are introduced as the player progresses. Players are able to replay passed levels to earn extra currency. Progress is occasionally blocked completed by a gate. Players are able to pass once their Fiends are suciently leveled up, or by paying a fee.


The second area of progress is in unlocking and upgrading Fiends. Fiends are unlocked in the Lucky Dip, and appear to become available ajer a set number of levels are completed. The rst 5 Fiends unlocked are the same for all players, ajer this the unlock order becomes random. As the player upgrades their Fiends, the amount of damage they do per matched 5le increases. Every 5 levels the Fiend evolves in to a larger version, and their special adack increases in strength.


Lucky Dip System Players are presented with a 3 by 3 grid of mystery crates, which are unlocked using Keys. They are able to buy more Keys using Diamonds. Rewards include various sized currency packs, and new Fiends.

More Moves At the end of a failed level, the player is able to purchase an addi5onal number of moves, as a Tier 1 IAP. This is a standard hot state mechanic, working on the players belief that victory is just around the corner, and that to give up now would be a wasted opportunity. As usual in games that include similar IAP, it is the best selling item.


Upgrading Fiends If the player doesnt have the required number of Meteor Mites to upgrade one of their Fiends, they are able to pay using diamonds.

Energy Every play of a level costs energy (not just failed adempts). This slowly regenerates over 5me, or can be immediately lled with a Tier 1 IAP (the games second best seller also a hot state item). Players can also spend Diamonds to permanently boost their maximum energy.


The game fared well during its launch week when it was featured by Apple. Since then it has dropped by roughly 100 places on the US-Games chart, and has subsequently done well at holding around that posi5on. Performance is similar between tablet and phone (though the Overall chart drops o for tablet). A recent update has not made a signicant boost to downloads.

The boost during the week preceding the update suggests some secondary featuring.

From October 9 November 5. Source: App Annie

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From October 9 November 5. Source: App Annie

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iPad

Looking mainly at the US-Games curve, grossing ranking is steady around the 200 mark with a highest rank of 124. For a polished game with these mechanics (match 3 and light RPG elements) it would be reasonable to expect higher placing. Again, similar performance between tablet and phone, with slightly lower posi5oning on tablet. (Though again App Annie has holes in its data.)


My top 100 grossing predic5on was based on the observa5on that there are rela5vely few ways for the player to spend their Diamonds, and only two hot state purchases (not a coincidence they are the top two most popular purchases). I would recommend adding more op5ons for the player to buy and in par5cular focusing on further hot state items. Boost powerups available to buy during a level are a common and popular hot state purchase in this genre. These allow players to directly inuence the layout of 5les on the board and the current enemy, by clearing whole rows or immediately adding special 5les. (Yes, this is enabling pay to win, but this is largely a solo game.) Boosts would also make it less likely players will get stuck on a puzzle level. Currently, stuck players are able to grind to increase the abili5es of their Fiends to make defeat X enemies goals easier, but there are no paying op5ons to lower the diculty of other goal types.

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Consider adding a way for players to purchase premium Fiends (either directly, or through some form of high cost Lucky Dip), that do more damage and whose specials charge faster.

Give the player a way of mul5plying the number of Meteor Mites they earn in a level. If this is permanent then unlock through IAP or a large number of Diamonds (similar value to the energy increase), or it could be op5onal on a round-by-round basis and paid for by watching video adverts. If the player isnt using a mul5plier, the amount of Mites they would have earned if they were should be pointed out to them.

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Though I havent seen any special oers called out in game, the list of IAP suggests that some variable pricing is available for the two larger packs (though this is possibly an A/B test on the price 5ers).

There are only 4 packages of currency to buy, which is atypical many other high performing casual puzzle 5tles that use virtual currency have a 6 or more price points (Cookie Jam has 6, Farm Heroes Saga has 7, and Candy Crush Saga has 8 for example). This allows them to include much larger purchases (such as Tier 60 - $99.99) without disrup5ng the spacing of their low and mid-range.


The game is lacking a social aspect just leaderboards and friend progress (though these are well integrated). Adding features focusing on co-opera5ve ac5ons would aid user acquisi5on & reten5on.

Friends Fiend system. Similar to Puzzles & Dragons, players could choose a friend to take in to a level. The extra Fiend increases the players ability to deal damage, and the friend earns a bonus for being used. P&D also stops friends from being reused by any player un5l they have re-engaged with the game. This ensures friends who want a lot of bonuses must re-engage each 5me they are used.

The game could give players a number of power-ups each day that must be gijed out, one each to their friends. Players earn a bonus for sending all of their gijs. Community goals, such as rewarding the community for defea5ng a combined number of X enemies over the space of a week. Everyone who contributed to achieving the goal gets a reward.

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The games diculty relies heavily on puzzle levels, but rigidly created boards with a limited number of moves can be frustra5ng to play. Cramped boards also result in the player having no moves available, forcing a large number of reshues. This is an unsa5sfying outcome to be avoided, if possible. Change the 5le spawning to give favourable outcomes in situa5ons where the player would have no moves available.

Every enemy in the game is a slug. There are varia5ons in appearance, but there is only so much visual variety you can get out of a black splotch with a face. It would be good to tweak the story to allow a greater range of enemy types as the player progresses, as discovery of new content helps the game remain fresh.


Some enemies are able to spawn blocker 5les, some5mes doing this ajer every player turn. Frequently they will also target special 5les. This has the eect of doubling down on the frustra5on players feel any 5me they are forced to make burner moves (poor matches that do not make signicant progress towards their goals, but are the only move available).

My gut feeling is that the frequency of blockers generated is high enough to be frustra5ng rather than fun or sa5sfying to play against. I would suggest A/B tes5ng the rate these spawn, and see how this aects the life5me value (LTV) of players. When the player has only one move available, ensure the blocker doesnt spawn in a way that removes the players move. This will also help with the reshuing situa5on.

A puzzle layout and high blocker spawn rate on this level results in a lot of unsa5sfying reshues.


Once the player has passed a level, their only reason to replay it is to farm currency. As some are easier than others, less easily farmable levels will get fewer repeat plays. I suggest adding a mastery system to encourage repeat on every level, making full use of all of the games content. This is ojen seen as a 3 star scoring system; As Best Fiends is not score based, players could earn stars for comple5ng more advanced op5onal goals in the level (beyond the regular pass condi5ons).

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The lucky dip system could be tweaked to mone5ze more heavily by showing the player what prizes are exist in the crates they didnt open. This would mo5vate them to con5nue buying keys un5l they collect all of the high value rewards available. One way to do this would be to change the ow so that on entering, the player is shown the rewards in every crate. Ajer a short pause, lock the crates and shue them. Depending on the developers feelings on skill vs. chance, shuing could be done in a way that allows the player to follow a crate to its end posi5on.


The main 3D rolling map is novel and immediately hooks player interest and gives a feeling that this game is not just another match 3 clone. There are a couple of down sides: Firstly it gives me a slight feeling of ver5go; Secondly it stops players getng a good feeling of how much progress they have made, and also how many levels are ahead of them.

The game has lovely presenta5on of rewards. For example, winning big on the Lucky Dip explicitly tells the player that this was a large prize to highlight the feel good moment. The currency IAP screens are great as well, with lots of game characters and more signicantly all op5ons visible without scrolling.


On the Fiend menu there are 2 budons per Fiend. The larger one is to upgrade the Fiend, the smaller is for a character informa5on screen. Could the informa5on on both of these screens be combined, to only require one budon?

The Tap to con5nue requirement on the level loading screen is odd Asking for an input to move in to gameplay feels redundant. (Could be done to allow players more 5me to read loading 5ps, or has it been caused by technical issues?) They are also being held on what is probably the games most visually drab screen. It could be improved by including some key art and / or repea5ng the levels goals.


One great feature is the ability for players to earn an amount of Diamonds by viewing informa5on about Malaria. This is 5ed in to the friendly mosquito character.


I hope you enjoyed reading this document, and found some of the ideas Ive discussed useful for your own 5tles.

Find my design & mone5za5on audit on Rovios racing game Angry Birds Go! By clicking my name under the presenta5on.


Would you like your game to benet from an audit by an experienced designer?

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Contact: [email protected]


best fiends design and monetization audit

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