This guest post is written by Gordon Rowe, an experienced product leader that has spent 10 years building and operating free to play games on mobile, web, and consoles.

It’s 2:02 pm on a Friday and I’ve got a lot of work to do. Yet I can’t stop thinking about EverMerge. It’s the last thing I do before I sleep, and the first thing I check when I wake up. I play at least 5 times a day. I’m hooked on this game.

My gameboard is full of consumable resource piles that I’ve been saving all week in preparation for today. These piles are the rewards from my week spent mining for resources, and now I’m in a mad dash to harvest them all at once. My screen is rapidly filling with tiny objects waiting to be merged, and my builders are working overtime to keep up with the sudden rush of new buildings. After 2 months of playing 3 sessions per day, I have unlocked a large gameboard, but now every inch of it is full. I’m working as fast as I can to merge these objects and create more space because I’ve used a rare 30-minute unlimited energy buff and I want to make the most of it.

The ‘work’ I’m doing is to methodically group the smallest matching objects into groups of 4, and always 5… because the bonus is important. Every 5-way merge results in 2 objects of the next tier, so holding out for 5 objects instead of merging at 3 results in a very noticeable 20% increase in progress. It is meticulous work that occasionally borders on zen. It is most often done in 5-minute bursts a few times a day, but every few days I’ve built up enough piles to spend a long session that results in a huge leap in progression. My regular tiny efforts pay off during these longer sessions, when I finally ‘roll-up’ a merge chain, stringing multiple merges together that simultaneously free up precious inventory and give me coins (soft currency), gems (premium currency), characters (story progress and boosts), and or buildings (story progress and boost factories).

The Merge sub-genre: The 2020 growth story

Over the last 12 months, the merge sub-genre has seen a flurry of activity with 10 new titles emerging on the app stores, including 2 substantial success stories in Merge Magic! from Gram Games, and Evermerge from Big Fish/Neskin Games. These new entrants have driven this subgenre to more than double its size from a year ago in both downloads (up 109% YoY*) and revenue (up 131% YoY*).

The Merge sub-genre has seen massive growth driven initially by Zynga’s (Gram’s) Merge Dragons and Merge Magic and now fast-followed by numerous competitors to a point of near saturation (downloads up, revenues down) data: Sensor Tower — The Merge sub-genre has seen massive growth driven initially by Zynga’s (Gram’s) Merge Dragons and Merge Magic and now fast-followed by numerous competitors to a point of near saturation (downloads up, revenues down)

data: Sensor Tower

Above you can see the four top Merge titles. Zynga owned nearly the whole pie. Now the size of the pie is increasing and Zynga’s share is decreasing, though still overwhelming. What’s important to notice is that the top 3 Merge titles take well over… — Above you can see the four top Merge titles. Zynga owned nearly the whole pie. Now the size of the pie is increasing and Zynga’s share is decreasing, though still overwhelming. What’s important to notice is that the top 3 Merge titles take well over 90% of all sub-genre revenues. This is an unhealthy level of concentration.
data: Sensor Tower

Core Loop and Gameplay

Every game that raises the bar in an established genre does so by capitalizing on at least 2 elements of the framework described by Mark Pincus at Zynga as ‘Proven-Better-New’. EverMerge is a classic example of a success story built on this framework.

Proven:
The first merge games in the app stores were the immensely popular 2048 and the game design darling Triple Town (also by Neskin). These games established the sub-genre and early mechanics but had minimal revenue systems based on boosts and lacked any progression system aside from mastery (getting further each game) and leaderboards. Despite having relatively little in the way of progression or monetization, these games drove large download numbers that indicated the potential for this mechanic. Like the match-3 evolution of Bejeweled -> Candy Crush -> Gardenscapes, EverMerge delivers a solid progression system consisting powered by the collection and light story elements of its fairy tale characters.

Better:
EverMerge improved on the core merge mechanics by pulling an old trick out of the product playbook and implementing it extremely well: The energy system. Unlike the rudimentary energy systems of old, the implementation by Big Fish is the big cog that drives multiple different types of player progression. Energy, build timers, and resources are the gates for all progress in the game, but players must constantly balance these 3 inputs with their available gameboard space. Central to this system is the variety of gameplay and reward vectors that allow players to extend their play with extra energy from event progress, or via a rewarded video implementation that has me willingly watching 6 ads a day in exchange for more playtime. The end result is a game that gives players a remarkable sense of agency and the ability to plan their own strategy for regular small sessions or longer, less frequent play.

New:
In addition to improving on the core merge mechanics, EverMerge introduces 2 new wrinkles that set it apart from the rest of the sub-genre. The first is a well-known mechanic that is new to the sub-genre: character collection that drives narrative progression. This twist is reminiscent of the match-3 evolution that was successfully pioneered by Playrix with Homescapes and Gardenscapes.

The second and even-more-compelling evolution is the introduction of a lightweight but extremely satisfying mastery element. Mastery in this context refers to the feeling of advancement that players earn as a result of improving their skill as opposed to simply unlocking new levels or more powerful items. Players gain mastery in EverMerge naturally, as they learn to optimize their limited inventory in order to collect 5 items (as opposed to the standard value of 3-for-1) in order to earn a 20% bonus on each merge.

By requiring players to hold additional pieces in order to merge 5-for-2, EverMerge creates endless player choice moments that require you to sacrifice some progress in one system in order to achieve your goals in another. With an inventory system that excels at providing never-quite-enough space, this mastery mechanic forces players to make decisions about which items to prioritize for high-value bonus merges and which items to sacrifice in order to have the board space to save up for a sequence of 5-way matches. The result is an extremely satisfying sense of mastery that players develop over time.

Core Loop

Keys to success

Key #1: Good old fashioned game balance

EverMerge is a master-class in balancing. With 3 systems (energy, resources, and inventory) that dictate the possible moves a player can make, the game is remarkably fresh in each session. Sometimes my goal is to maximize construction in order to free up board space. Other times, I prioritize starting my build timers so that they will run overnight while I sleep. But by far my favorite sessions are focused on using a rare unlimited energy powerup to fill my board with as much stuff as I can fit, resulting in a huge leap in progress toward one or more of my goals. Throughout each of these session types, I’m focused on the meticulous build-up of more and more sets of 4 objects on my board. This culminates in the moment that a tiny level 1 object will set off a chain of merges that results in completing a level 10 object.

Key #2: Multiple layers of progression with player agency and (some) randomness

In EverMerge, players are always working on merging multiple types of objects through multiple evolutions, with each resource type offering slightly different behavior. Some merge immediately and can be consumed at the end (currencies and characters) while others have build timers that grow increasingly long as you reach the end game. Some of these tasks can be accelerated by using energy to generate more resources, but the resources earned and the energy awarded on a particular day also have an element of randomness that keeps the game fun.

Key #3: Event systems with high-value, achievable rewards

Across the free-to-play ecosystem, content cadence is one of the most critical contributors to successful products, and EverMerge again has delivered a compelling system. Different event types incentivize forward-thinking, and reward players for storing prize chests or waiting to build certain buildings in order to ramp up a big session just in time to finish the latest event and earn its plentiful rewards.

Key #4: Mastery

EverMerge has 2 layers of mastery, one in the metagame and one in the game mechanics themselves. Metagame mastery revolves around planning for upcoming events and using accumulated resources and buffs to complete events. Merge mechanic mastery involves the meticulous creation of groups of fives and making tradeoff decisions about which resource is the most important to optimize for at any given moment.

Monetization

From a monetization standpoint, EverMerge offers a range of purchases including premium currency, one-time purchase bundles, targeted offers, impulse buys for high-tier building and a best-in-class implementation of rewarded video. Each of these purchase vectors is cleverly integrated into gameplay. Premium currency impulse flows appear in the form of an object that slowly floats across your gameboard and taunts you at exactly the moment you are one object short of the next merge. Rewarded video can be used to earn a limited number of mini energy packs, or to speed up a build timer, or to earn a single resource piece to drive you toward a goal.

A strong start with significant opportunity ahead

The end result for EverMerge is a product that feels like an extremely well-tuned vehicle. Taken independently of one another, each of EverMerge’s systems is unremarkable. Sporting an energy system that turns into items that are redeemed for progression, the description of the core loop could easily be mistaken for any of a hundred other titles. The magic of Evermerge is that all of these elements are extremely well balanced against one another. This results in end-of-session conditions that are dynamic and a sense of agency and mastery for players.

Opportunities:

Leverage the network effect: With the success of EverMerge, Big Fish has the opportunity to follow the Playrix strategy and launch sequels that expand the merge ecosystem. There are still many opportunities to target in this space, from simple narrative variation (merge… IN SPACE!) to character collection + metagame (merge for heroes) to self-expression (merge for fashion). Each new game entrant that leverages the core merge mechanic offers Big Fish the opportunity to leverage the reduced UA costs that are inherent in cross-promoting your own titles.

Create deeper social gameplay: Once again the mature Match-3 sub-genre offers examples of further opportunity in EverMerge. One of the most glaring omissions in the game is the lack of substantive social systems. When implemented properly these systems drive a significant number of high-value notifications, which in turn have a very positive impact on retention and reactivation rates.

Improve player messaging and customer service: Perhaps due to recent changes at Big Fish, EverMerge has suffered from a lack of developer messaging to players around significant events. In the last month alone, updates to the game have radically reduced the effectiveness of builders (aka gnomes), removed hard currency rewards from the game (along with a significant meta-game element of amassing the objects to harvest), and removed the previously awarded and highly desirable unlimited energy buffs. All of these changes have led to the significant negative sentiment on the Subreddit for the game, r/EverMerge. The fact that an unmonitored subreddit is the best source of public information about the game is a perfect representation of the opportunity that exists for Big Fish to improve their customer relationship management.

Despite this, EverMerge is an incredibly satisfying game to play and remains a core part of my day. But it doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from what it does right and what it does wrong.