Playrix: “The total DAU of Gardenscapes is more than 3.5 million”

Tanya, hi! Even though it’s been a little more than a month since the launch, I can’t help but congratulate you! We wrote that on the first day the game had more than a million downloads and that it got into the Top 150 box office games in the USA. A cool start! And a recent study of App Annie clearly showed the success of the game.

Tanya Evdokimenko

Thanks! Yes, the game quickly broke into the tops of the countries of Europe, the Americas and many other regions. We have already noted that on the very first day Gardenscapes entered the Top 10 free games on iPhone and iPad in 100 countries. Moreover, in the very first week, our new match-3 game was already consistently in the Top 15 highest-grossing on iPad in the USA.

US Box Office Top (App Store, iPad), September 7, 2016

I can’t help but ask right away – but how so? There was a seven-year hiddenom series and suddenly turned into a three-in-a-row. How and why did this happen?

This happened at a time when we almost had the iSpy version of Gardenscapes ready. Against the background of the Fishdom softphone indicators, we thought that the match-3 + garden bundle could also work. We decided to conduct an experiment: we combined a ready-made garden from Gardenscapes and a match-3 from Fishdom. Based on the launch results, we realized that we would be releasing a match-3 game, although the hidden object indicators were also at the hit level.

Top highest-grossing games in Russia, iPhone / iPad, the third day after the launch of Gardenscapes

It turns out that you “transplanted” all the content of the iSpy version to match-3? How many iSpy versions were developed in time and how much did it take to “transplant”?

Yes, everything was transferred to match-3, except for some little things that were strongly tied to HOG mechanics. For example, there were plot-driven tasks to find certain items in different rooms: all sorts of screwdrivers to unscrew something in the garden, etc. We were able to beat some tasks, but some were simply removed. Nevertheless, it is a drop in the ocean. We can say that we used all the content, except for the hidden object levels.

And it took about three months. It would take a lot more if we didn’t already have Fishdom. In fact, we took the match-3 part of Fishdom to start and redrawn the graphics. But this is only on the softphone, after that we decided to develop the mechanics to be different from Fishdom – and it took about three more months.

Tell me, iSpy wait? Or now you need to draw the body kit content to it, and therefore it’s not worth it?

We don’t know yet. Perhaps we will decide to launch a similar game, but in any case, it will be a very large amount of work for us. “Body kit” is not even half of what will have to be done. We are not trying to increase the number of games and are now focusing primarily on quality. It is more important for us to pay attention to already launched games and those that are currently in development.

The current project was originally developed as a hidden. How did the employees perceive the “change of course”? Did the change of the root mechanics require changes in its core team?

Making a decision to change course when the game is almost ready is not so easy. However, the goal of Playrix is to create hits. And when we decided that the match-3 version would be more successful, it became obvious that this is exactly what we need to do.

As for the transition itself, the company already had the necessary expertise, so it was relatively painless, let’s say. We employ professionals who can easily switch to different tasks.

Workflow

And how many people on average worked on the project at the same time?

At different times in different ways. There were more than 50 people at the peak, and about half of them worked remotely. If we divide by functionality, about a third are programmers, a third are artists and animators, the rest are game designers and managers.

I’m sure the original Gardenscapes has a large community. How painful do you think the transition from hidden to match-3 will be for them? And in general, by the way, who do you see the target audience, has it changed since the first games of the series?

There is a possibility that after the launch of the game, some fans of the original Gardenscapes could get upset. On the other hand, the match-3 genre itself is broader than iSpy. Realizing this, we thought that in the end there will be many fans of the new version. In addition, the audience of both genres intersects, and fans of the original Gardenscapes will be happy to play match-3. Actually, this is exactly what happened after the launch.

Why am I asking about CA: I am immediately touched and frightened by the main character of the game – a 50-year-old lonely mustachioed uncle with a bald patch. He’s cute, of course, but as an archetype he’s weird. By the way, what’s his story?

If you look closely at popular casual games, for example, at King, you will notice that the main characters have long since moved away from some kind of “pure nash”. To be memorable, a character does not need to be perfect or particularly beautiful – some successfully use even the aesthetics of the disgusting. The main thing is that the hero must evoke emotions. It’s not surprising that Austin evokes feelings and associations in any player – either it’s surprise, like you, or sympathy, because he looks like your neighbor or uncle.

Austin sample of 2008

If we talk about the history of Austin, it was invented by our artist for the downloadable version of the game in 2007. As a character, a butler with a slightly aristocratic appearance was needed, such that women over 30 liked him. The very first options – with a smoking pipe in hand and with a watering can were not quite “to the point”. Well, who do women like at this age? The ideals could still be those from whom the fair sex were delighted some time ago. Obviously, in the last century, The Beatles dictated fashion for a long time, and the general detail was the characteristic shape of the hairstyle, mustache, sideburns… The artist left his sideburns and mustache, changed his hairstyle, because years have passed and time does not spare anyone – so there was a bald spot. The rest has already been superimposed along the way, and I liked such a hero. The main thing about him is his character and memory, he is alive. And by the way, the artist who invented Austin continues to work in the company and create new interesting images.

The very first version of Austin

Personally, Austin doesn’t seem strange to me. He is an ordinary person, not without flaws – which on the contrary attracts. I think all attempts to rationalize character development are doomed to failure. You can’t make a perfect character, he will be “plastic”, it will be hard to believe in him.

I agree. Let’s get back to the project. The novelty has two conditionally connected pillars. Actually, three-in-a-row and a plot – after all, it would be too bold to call it a construction part. And when I was playing, the following confused me. In a three-in-a-row, the player collects apples and pears, and for this he receives stars and coins. Within the framework of the plot, the player mainly builds something. And the fact that he builds “for apples” – a little ruins the game logic. Is not it so? And wasn’t there a desire, for example, for a person to collect bricks, like Awem in Cradle of Empires?

After choosing the setting of the entire game, the temptation is too great to make all the elements of the playing field in a similar style. Candy, crystals, vegetables, flowers and so on are used — there are a lot of options. But you need to understand that the setting of Gardenscapes is not a single-layer and not so simple. Austin has a garden, why not use a fruit theme? And in my subjective opinion, it is much more important to achieve an effect so that you want to touch the elements, and not dogmatically fit them into the setting. I think we did it. In our setting, on the contrary, bricks would look less logical, they would need to be tied much more strongly to the plot part of the game. In Gardenscapes, no matter what we collect: apples, bricks, flowers, brooms or something else – we get stars that are given for completing tasks on levels. This scheme seems absolutely logical to us.

The general idea of the game remained the same, only the mechanics in which the player earned stars changed

By the way, since we were talking about Fishdom here, you didn’t adopt its match-3 mechanics one-on-one. For example, gnomes appeared, an analogue of the stones from Sky Charms… What else has the root mechanics been implemented, of the most significant?

Oh, I don’t agree here as a hardcore casual matchmaker, Fishdom and Gardenscapes have different modes and different elements of level design. After all, we do not seek to reinvent match-3 globally, but we try to take the best of this genre, the mechanics we have already tested, and of course, we add new “highlights” there.

Yes, we have gnomes. It is worth saying that we have been planning to introduce such mechanics for a long time. We also added pipelines in the form of rivulets – this element gives the game dynamics, each turn there is a shift of a certain part of the field. True, it sacrifices strategy a little, everything becomes more unpredictable, but this is an interesting element for design.

There is also an order for certain chips implemented in Gardenscapes – there is no such thing in Fishdom. This is not a very conceptual difference, but you can create some unexpected levels or elements based on it. You can demand chips that do not fall on the field, but appear under other circumstances. For example, we have a flower bed, which from matches nearby can throw flower chips to a random place on the field. In combination with the order for these flowers, a whole layer of new levels other than Fishdom appears.

When we were talking about the launch of Fishdom, your colleague Anton Andreev mentioned that the game uses the FUUU factor. As I understand it, it is also a novelty. Can you share the nuances that have been changed in the balance? For example, did you increase the complexity or did you make more “teeth” on the complexity curve?

The apparent simplicity of match-3 always hides a lot of work. We don’t take Fishdom and its complexity curve as a basis – we rebuild it there, too. The team did a lot of work in Gardenscapes – they tried to make the difficulty curve balanced, with an optimal number of “peak” levels. We make edits constantly. Sometimes, the level fits perfectly into our complexity curve and seems great to us, but we see from the behavior of the players that it did not turn out to be the most successful – in this case, we make changes, up to cardinal processing.

One of the things that makes Gardenscapes related to your previous hit, Fishdom, is three-in-a-row self-sufficiency. The player can ignore the body kit in the game. Is there any data on how the presence of a plot affects retention, how much it encourages players to continue returning to the project (for example, maybe those players who pass the plot spend more, and so on)?

In general, the logic of the game is simple – you develop a storyline, arranging a garden, and at the same time you play match-3. Gardenscapes is just an example of how short-term, medium-term or long-term goals are set for a player. Short-term – victory at the levels, medium-term – arrangement and solution of some specific problem that Austin is currently busy with (for example, pet establishment), long-term and big goal – to build a beautiful estate.

We did not conduct experiments to launch the game without meta – because it will be a different game altogether. According to our internal statistics, almost all active users play meta. This is an integral part of the game, which is directly related to retention.

And is there any information about which part of the players ignores the plot and plays only three-in-a-row?

If you look at the percentage, the number of players who ignore the plot tends to zero. According to our data, even those who initially play only match-3 are gradually becoming interested in restoring the garden.

One more question about the plot component. I was struck by how much optional content there is in the game. There is a lot of it. Can you share how much as a percentage of the total budget was for this part, and how much for three-in-a-row?

It is clear that drawing content for a match-3 field is less time-consuming and resource-intensive than arranging a garden in which there are a huge number of elements, a large number of characters interacting with each other, where there are complex animations, etc. We did not make accurate estimates, but creating a garden is much more difficult.

And the last question is about metrics. The project had a very successful launch – both during the soft launch period and the world release itself. Can you tell us what were the DAU and LTV and what are the indicators now? Roughly speaking, what numbers should other three-in-a-row developers focus on?

We focus on the following retention figures: on the first day – 50%, a week later – 30%, a month later – 20%. Here it is worth immediately making a reservation that retention depends on the quality of traffic, so such measurements should be done carefully. However, these are very good metrics for a successful game.

For LTV, I can’t give any specific guideline, it all depends on the country, the device, the quality of traffic, on how much the game is in demand as a whole. With DAU as an indicator for analysis, too, not everything is so clear — in the end, it will be related to how much you attract users to the game and what long-term retention you have. I can say that our current total DAU at Gardenscapes is slightly more than 3.5 million.

I was particularly proud and inspired by the recent App Annie research: after the launch of Gardenscapes, we entered the Top 20 game publishers in the world and took second place among mobile game developers in Europe. We have many plans for the development of our current and upcoming projects. We will monitor further ratings and our growth in the list of world leaders.

And so are we. Thanks for the interview!