Royal Match

Royal Match builds on the classic match-3 principle, but connects individual levels into a single continuous map around a castle that gradually gets repaired, furnished and decorated according to the player's progress, giving otherwise isolated levels a meaningful shared goal. Controls are purely touch-based - moving pieces across the grid, combining them into bonus power-ups like a rocket or a bomb - and the game skillfully paces its difficulty so that the player regularly runs into a limited number of lives and offers for real money at exactly the moments of greatest frustration. The character of King Rollo, who guides the player, encourages them and comments on their progress, gives the game an unusually distinct identity in a crowded market of similar titles.

Dream Games released the game in 2021, and thanks to aggressive marketing with short ad clips as well as a sophisticated live-ops system of gradually unfolding events, weekly happenings and seasonal passes, Royal Match climbed among the absolute highest-grossing mobile games in the world, even competing against much older and more established puzzle series. The success showed that even in a genre that looks mined to the last detail, it's possible to earn enormous amounts just through precise tuning of the sense of progress, rewards and social comparison with friends. It's free to download, but key progress is often accelerated precisely by microtransactions and purchases of extra lives, moves or special boosters for hard levels.

Why play it: Suitable for fans of relaxed puzzle games who want a nicely tuned match-3 experience with a narrative framework and can ignore the constant purchase offers.