Lily's Garden
GameBy Tactile Entertainment · Released Feb 4, 2019
Documents about Lily's Garden
Analyst Bulletin: Mobile Game Market Review January 2021
GameRefinery's January 2021 analyst bulletin surveys notable mobile game updates, events, and chart movements in the US, Chinese, and Japanese markets, drawing on the firm's analysts tracking feature changes and top-grossing rankings.
- In the US market, titles like Puzzles & Survival and Top War: Battle Game have successfully climbed into the top 30–50 grossing ranks by integrating casual mechanics, such as match-3 and merging, into traditional 4X strategy games.
- Collaboration events remain a primary driver for revenue and engagement across all three regions, with notable examples including AFK Arena’s Persona 5 partnership in the US, Honkai Impact 3rd’s Neon Genesis Evangelion event in China, and Jantama’s Saki collaboration in Japan.
- NetEase’s IP-based MMORPG Tian Yu reached the top 7 in the Chinese grossing charts in January, while other new entrants like Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links and Fairy Tale also secured positions in the top 20.
Penny & Flo: Finding Home is the Perfect Sequel to Lily's Garden
Penny & Flo: Finding Home, a free-to-play tap-to-blast puzzle game from Tactile Games, is presented as a well-judged sequel to Lily's Garden that follows a "more of the same but different" formula.
- Tactile Games' 'Penny & Flo: Finding Home' functions as a sequel to 'Lily's Garden' by maintaining the core 'invest, express, and expand' gameplay loop while introducing distinct mechanical variations.
- The game differentiates itself from its predecessor by allowing players to choose between two protagonists, Penny or Flo, before each level, which alters the available power-ups and board dynamics.
- Choosing Penny provides access to Line Rockets (6–7 tiles) and Bombs (8–11 tiles), while choosing Flo provides Paper Planes (6–7 tiles) and Cross Rockets (8–11 tiles), with both characters unlocking Magic Flasks for 12+ tile matches.
3 Successful Creative Trends for Mobile Gaming Ads
Mobile game publishers face intensifying competition for user attention, and paid user acquisition creative has become a key battleground where advertisers often have only seconds to make an impression.
- Major publishers like Zynga and Rollic Games are successfully using intentionally misspelled ad copy, such as 'Only %1 poeple can pass this,' to drive engagement across platforms including TikTok, Facebook, and Snapchat.
- Playrix has shifted its creative strategy for Homescapes toward character-focused narratives involving infidelity and heartbreak, mirroring themes previously popularized by competitors like Matchington Mansion and Lily's Garden.
- KamaGames' Pokerist achieved a No. 1 ranking for Chartboost casino creatives in November 2020 by using a 'pause' button mechanic to surprise viewers and pivot into a multi-product showcase.
How Player Motivations & Archetypes Can Help You With Your Key Audiences
Player motivations and archetypes can be turned into a practical workflow for identifying key audiences and deciding which features to build for them.
- Game developers can optimize engagement by mapping a game's specific motivational drivers against identified player archetypes to pinpoint target audience preferences.
- Using 'Lily’s Garden' as a case study, the game differentiates itself from the average match-3 title by prioritizing 'Role-playing & Emotions' and 'Customization & Decoration' as its primary motivational drivers.
- The 'Expressionist' player archetype aligns strongly with the 'Customization & Decoration' driver, suggesting that adding decorative or story-related features can effectively increase appeal to this specific audience segment.
Boost Your Monetization With IAP Mechanics
Mobile free-to-play monetization increasingly depends on specialized in-app purchase mechanics layered on top of traditional sales of currencies, items, and boosters.
- Battle Pass plans have emerged as the most significant monetization trend, driving both revenue and player retention across all mobile game genres by requiring active gameplay to unlock tiered rewards.
- Piggy Bank features, which allow players to accumulate currency through gameplay for a fixed-price purchase, have seen a massive rise in popularity, particularly in casual and casino titles like those from Playrix.
- Top-grossing games are increasingly using progressive limited-time offers, such as those in Lily's Garden, where players unlock increasingly valuable tiers of rewards to incentivize higher spending.
Can Hay Day Pop Solve the Puzzle?
Supercell's Hay Day Pop, launched March 16, 2020, is a polished, well-featured match-3 game that nonetheless faces a difficult path against entrenched competitors King, Playrix, and Peak.
- Hay Day Pop faces a significant challenge in the match-3 market because it lacks a narrative layer, which is a critical component for driving player retention and effective performance marketing in the genre.
- The game utilizes a 'Puzzle Pass' as a seasonal engagement tool, but its current implementation fails to drive strong monetization because the rewards are too fleeting and lack exclusive, high-value items.
- Supercell’s choice of a 'collapse' style puzzle mechanic is less effective for long-term retention and monetization than the 'switcher' mechanic used by industry leaders like King, Playrix, and Peak.
2020 Predictions: Prepare to Crown the New King of Puzzle Games
Mobile puzzle games entered 2020 as a large and still-growing category, and the central thesis is that Playrix is poised to displace King as the sector's leading force.
- The mobile puzzle genre generated $4.5 billion in in-app purchase (IAP) revenue in 2019, with Match-3 games accounting for $3.4 billion of that total.
- Playrix is positioned to overtake King as the leader in the Match-3 category, driven by the shift toward 'Puzzle & Decorate' sub-genres and aggressive user acquisition spending that resulted in 308 million annual downloads.
- Marketability has become the primary gatekeeper for scalability in the puzzle genre, forcing companies to prioritize vertical integration and M&A to secure traffic and audience fit.
Deconstructing Lily's Garden
Tactile Games' Lily's Garden, a roughly 50-person studio's most ambitious title, is analyzed here as a case study in how a multi-dimensional Collapse puzzle game with a redecoration meta-game reached the top 50 grossing on mobile in late 2019 and approached the top 100 during Q2 and Q3.
- Tactile Games achieved top 50 grossing status in late 2019 by differentiating Lily's Garden through a narrative-heavy approach that tackles mature, realistic themes like divorce and death, rather than the superficial storytelling found in competitors.
- The game successfully differentiates itself in the crowded redecoration puzzle genre by employing four dedicated writers to create genuine narrative immersion, avoiding the common trope of fourth-wall-breaking dialogue found in titles like Homescapes.
- Lily's Garden utilizes a 'Collapse' core-game mechanic combined with redecoration meta-gameplay, though the random 50/50 generation of line rockets can lead to player frustration due to perceived lack of agency.