In recent years, the momentum of the internal roll in the field of overseas casual games is no weaker than the traditional SLG and other heavy tracks, in the field of match-3 games, the "merge gameplay" of merging the same items to obtain more advanced items has also emerged, such as Gram Games' "Merge Dragons" has maintained a monthly revenue of nearly 100 million yuan overseas, and "Merge County" released by Microfun last year just achieved nearly 50 million monthly turnover last month. Data analytics company GameRefinery also posted earlier that merged games are expected to become the next match-3 category and become a new field with a scale of more than $3 billion.
Recently, GameLook discovered a merged gameplay game "Fantasy Merge Zoo" (hereinafter referred to as Zoo) released overseas by Mu Hitomi Technology, which was actually put on the shelves in some parts of overseas in August last year, and is still in a continuous testing state until now.
It is worth mentioning that this game has a great difference from Mu Hitomi's previous products, in addition to the test area of the game from the Southeast Asian market that Mu Hitomi is more familiar with to the United States, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and other European and American countries, in the gameplay is more the use of casual merger play, which also makes GameLook curious, in Southeast Asia to win the numb mu hitomi, how to start another stove with the merger game to break the European and American markets.
The gameplay is traditional, and the plot is heavy
Zoo's core gameplay follows the currently popular farm operation + merger type in Europe and the United States, but the theme of the operation has been changed to a zoo. Same as most merge gameplay: players need to start with a small plot of land to merge, earn game material, reclaim new land, and expand more merge elements.
Zoo gives the player a classic opening: "Escape from the City" The couple arrives at the abandoned zoo and grows step by step. Similar to most casual games, Zoo's beginner tutorials and plot complement each other, and when you first enter the game, players will start crafting from the most basic parrot eggs, and the three same elements will change their morphology in addition to obtaining in-game resources after crafting.
In addition to the traditional "three-in-one", Zoo also allows players to perform "five-in-two" operations, and 5 items of the same category will produce 2 higher-level props after merging, which can also facilitate players to quickly merge operations with more resources in the later stage.
After unlocking a new animal form, players can build a fixed building of that form in the map, feeding it by consuming specific items that can produce items such as experience points, gold coins, and "contracts" that unlock the map.
In addition to animals, Zoo also has banana trees, headphones and other "strange" merged materials, even gold coins, game coupons and other items can be synthesized and picked up, after the player unlocks a new map, there will also be many items that produce merged resources, which will disappear after the production of resources, and depending on the level, the time required for production will be different.
It is worth mentioning that in the business link, Zoo also has a quite interesting game event for visiting the park, which can help players quickly earn gold coins, and the influx of large numbers of NPC players also brings good graphics vitality to the game, and it is easier for players to have a sense of presence that seems to be really opening a zoo.
Overall, Zoo combines elements of combined gameplay and business simulation, with players producing more development resources by constantly arranging and combining resources on the map layout. At the operational level, Zoo gives players more freedom, in addition to almost any resource can be merged, the game also allows players to merge more than three in one.
The addition of the plot can be said to be a major feature of Zoo, in addition to the use of character dialogue in the tutorial part of the "edutainment", in the later stages of the game players will also unlock more NPC characters and generate new game plots, which is also deeply loved by European and American players.
Zoo is designed with two main game tokens, one is a paper currency that can be purchased directly or obtained in small quantities in the game, and the other is a gold coin that is easier to obtain in the game. In the monetization mode, Zoo adopts a hybrid monetization model, such as gaining stamina can be purchased by watching ads or direct cash, of course, you can also use in-game gold coins, in addition to the game will sell some limited-time discount packages.
Chinese companies have successively entered the field and merged the gameplay into a popular track for going to sea
Whether it is character design or scene performance, Zoo has revealed a very strong "European and American style", and the overall style of partial realism and the animation effect of Q bombs also make this game look more like the work of a native overseas company.
Although Zoo is still in the observation period of continuous testing, in terms of the quality performance of the game itself, it is indeed a strong team on the combined track. In addition to the design of art style and UI design, the game plot part pays more attention to the localization of the target market.
It is worth mentioning that as a casual game that focuses on overseas markets, Mu Hitomi is quite patient and careful in the entire product test tuning process in GameLook' view, and in several updates and iterations of the game, Mu Hitomi has also been trying more possibilities. For example, in the visual elements section, the prop used to open up new maps in the previous version was the "Golden Key", and in subsequent versions, it became a more appropriate "contract", and the changes in such detail elements also made the visual label of the game more unique.
With the game going out into the deep water, the situation of companies on the dominant track is becoming more and more stable, and the competitive landscape is gradually becoming white-hot, in this context, how to break the game from other tracks has become a major challenge, and with the rise of merger games, many Chinese game manufacturers have begun to notice the unique potential of this subdivision.
For domestic game manufacturers who are more good at medium and heavy types such as SLG and RPG, although the casual tracks such as match-3 and merger are still relatively new, there are already many first innovators.
As GameLook previously reported on the domestic veteran casual mobile game manufacturer Lemon Microfun, just last November launched the "Merge County", the game integrates farm operations and merger play, from the perspective of revenue performance, the momentum can be hit almost every month, almost every month can hit a new high, last month's estimated flow of nearly 50 million yuan, which not only shows that the market potential of the merger track is worth looking forward to, but also shows that Chinese manufacturers can still be promising in the merger leisure race.
"Merge County" is not the only case of domestic overseas manufacturers succeeding in synthetic categories. Previously, Beijing Jiangyu Interactive's "Top War: Battle Game" achieved an excellent market performance of more than 200 million yuan per month with the innovative gameplay of military SLG+ merger, and achieved a category breakthrough in gameplay, completing the perfect combination of SLG's "heavy" and "light" merger of match 3.
It is worth mentioning that beta games that have been focusing on overseas markets may have foreseen the rise of merged mobile games, they launched the merger game "Mergical-Match Island Game" as early as 2019, and also achieved very good market performance, and the current estimated turnover of this game last month remained at about 3 million yuan. In addition, Beta Games also launched a new animal-themed merge game "Meeerge" in 2020.
epilogue
With the continuous deepening of the game going to sea, many game companies have begun to "grasp with both hands" strategy: on the one hand, to stabilize the competitiveness of the advantage track "self-reserved land", on the other hand, to create a "test field" in the blue ocean market, the merger game that is gradually becoming popular in the world, or will become a new focus for domestic game manufacturers, and the previous successful cases have also continuously proved to the overseas manufacturers that it is still a feasible way to deepen the localization and popularity of the theme and achieve breakthrough with differentiation. This is also likely to become one of the advantageous directions for the new round of going to sea.
With the full count, Zoo has been testing and polishing for 9 months, and as the momentum of the merged game gradually rises at the moment, it can't help but look forward to the future performance of this game.