Iteration over Innovation? Case: Makeover Match

Making games is hard. As player expectations rise and market conditions become more challenging, creating a successful game and maintaining that success is becoming increasingly difficult. It looks like these are not enough to stop Tactile, the Danish studio behind smash hit Lily’s Garden, from working on a new title since they launched their latest game Makeover Match in March 2023.

Although the Tactile team has several titles under their portfolio, the well-known swapping mechanic is not very common among their games. Especially with their two most recent titles Lily’s Garden and Penny & Flo, Tactile has been a stronghold for story-driven puzzle games with the collapse mechanic. Releasing a match-3 game with the swapping mechanic is certainly a demonstration of their eagerness to take on a new challenge.

However, quite counterintuitively, the strongest aspect of Makeover Match is the core gameplay! The narrative and the way the story is told, on the other side, seem almost uninspired which is surprising considering it’s coming from Tactile.

How to improve the best match-3 level design

Since the swapping mechanic was not Tactile’s strongest muscle, they looked at the best in the market: Royal Match. Makeover Match genuinely feels a lot like playing Royal Match (Read: The New King from Turkey) for certain reasons:

1. Saturated colors and board clarity: Having clearly distinguishable items and an easy-to-understand board is crucial for a match-3 game to reduce the cognitive burden on players. Each level presents players with a puzzle to solve, and failing to notice items or power-ups can gradually increase that cognitive load and lead to frustration. Makeover Match follows the Royal Match example and the resemblance is certainly undeniable.

2. Speed: Being easy to understand is important, but you have to provide it fast! Makeover Match is certainly built to be an incredibly fast game. Animations don’t take too long while also clearly showing everything that is happening on the board. The large and distinct particles quickly falling out of the screen contribute to the game’s fast-paced feel. Another factor that definitely increases this feeling is the ability to make concurrent matches. Being able to make a move without waiting for the board to settle down increases the overall speed of the game. I think the implementation of animations, particles, and concurrent matching in Makeover Match creates a fast-paced gameplay experience that closely resembles that of Royal Match.

3. Near finishes and fails: Near finish can be defined as the moment when you finish a level either on your last move or with only a few moves remaining. Near fail, on the other hand, is failing a level when you’re sure you only need a few more moves to finish it. Achieving a balanced and regular occurrence of both near-finish and near-fail moments in the game is challenging due to the need for extensive level testing and careful balancing. Having that balance and regularity is crucial for a match-3 game mainly for two reasons:

• Retention: It makes you want to play the game more
• Monetization: It encourages you to make an in-app purchase to buy those extra moves and complete the level

Royal Match is pretty well known for its success in having both of those moments frequently. They hook and monetize players through a well-designed and balanced level cadence. I didn’t keep track of the near-finish and near-fail moments I had, but I think Makeover Match has more of those moments compared to Royal Match! I finished many levels on my last move and failed even more where I needed only 1 or 2 extra moves (or I thought so). I think this is a huge undertaking, especially considering how high Royal Match set the bar!

Overall, I think Makeover Match has done a great job at taking inspiration from Royal Match on level design and improving it further. Of course, what they have done is not as innovative as Dream did back when they released Royal Match. This is more of an iteration of an existent game, but the end result seems pretty decent. The way the levels are designed for optimizing the number of near-finish and near-fail moments is especially impressive! Now let’s look at what the game looks like concerning its narrative…

How to stick to a 30-month-old story?

After playing arguably the best match-3 levels I have ever played, I was expecting a masterclass with the narrative of the game since it’s what put Tactile on the map. Their narratives were so immersive that they even inspired a YouTube channel called Lily’s Garden Confusing Universe, which is based on the ads of Lily’s Garden and Penny & Flo!

However, the narrative of Makeover Match is just a 3D-heavy version of Project Makeover by AppLovin. Granted, producing the whole story through 3D assets is much more difficult, but I don’t think it improves the narrative on its own. It might come in handy for user acquisition since they will have more material to use for creatives, but let’s focus on the narrative itself.

The story arc of Project Makeover is simple: a 3-person fashion crew visits people in need of a life change and performs makeovers for both the person and their living space. The story also features a villain whom the crew fights against, along with occasional appearances by other side characters. Each episode begins with a reminder of the ongoing conflict, providing a glimpse into the ongoing struggle. Remove the side characters and the reminder about the struggle, and you have the story of Makeover Match!

I’m no writer or narrative designer, but I think we deserve to expect more from Tactile. A team that designed a narrative so immersive that the ads alone got their lore is no small feat. It’s not to say the current narrative is shallow or not creative. I think the dialogues are interesting enough for me to not press skip. And the interactions between the characters feel genuine and funny. However, it is the same story as a 2.5-year-old game with less conflict. I think there is a lot of room for improvement here.

How would I change the game?

1.  A different narrative: This might seem radical, considering the game is already out and people are already playing it. But the game is still far away from its potential in terms of downloads, so there is still time for such a change. I’m sure Tactile can come up with an original story that the players will enjoy discovering instead of something that was already told. I’m actually wondering why they didn’t use their Lily’s Garden/Penny & Flo IP to create the narrative. Every game company out there is looking for an IP to support their UA pipeline, and Tactile is sitting on one that feels like a perfect match! The makeover theme could still be applicable. I would love to see the well-known characters from those two games undergo an inner transformation while renovating their living spaces as well!
2. Use ads: Talking about ad monetization for a casual puzzle is always tricky since you want to maximize your IAP. However, the game doesn’t seem to be monetizing well at the moment, and the near-fail/finish balance is incredibly strong. If the team integrates rewarded ads to get extra moves for failed levels, it would be a really helpful way to increase the runway of the project overall. You can even get a bit more creative with that and offer 5 moves in exchange for in-game currency and 3 moves in exchange for watching an ad so it would not entirely cannibalize IAPs.

I truly think this is a game that has huge potential, especially with the well-optimized level cadence. It proves iterating in the right direction is still useful to craft a great gameplay experience. If the right changes are made despite them seeming a bit radical, I think Makeover Match can be a great success.