King has released a new puzzle — Pet Rescue Puzzle Saga. The meta of the game resembles Tamagotchi

The world release of Pet Rescue Puzzle Saga took place. This is a new puzzle King, whose main mechanics is to remove two or more elements of the same color from the field with a tap (this subgenre of match games is also called “collapse”). As in many other recent games of the company, Pet Rescue Puzzle Saga has a complex meta-gameplay.

History of the genre

The history of collapse, as well as the history of bubble shooter, in general, has always gone hand in hand with three-in-a-row (match3). As a rule, they were made by the same teams, using common approaches and solutions, for the same audience. That’s why they are so often “rowed under one comb”.

The first “take-off” of interest in collapse happened in the early tenth on the wave of Panda Jam’s success on Facebook. In the social game of Jam City studio (then it was also called SGN), the player had to save panda cubs from a baboon by lowering them to their mother.

The project attracted the attention of not only Facebook (which called it one of the best games of 2013), but also King. The latter, a year after the release of Panda Jam on mobile, released its own variation on the theme: Pet Rescue Saga, where the player rescued various animals from trouble.

Pet Rescue Saga
Financially, Pet Rescue Saga has never been comparable in success with Candy Crush Saga.

Apparently, it is for this reason that King, after its release, did not turn to collapse mechanics in its games for a long time.

For the second time, the genre loudly declared itself in early 2017, when the monthly earnings of Toy Blast Turkish studio Peak Games exceeded the $10 million mark. The project went to this figure for two years. The studio’s next game in this mechanic, Toon Blast, consolidated its success: by the middle of 2018, the monthly earnings of the game reached $ 20 million.

Thanks to this, top casual studios again drew attention to the genre. Including King, which returns to its old IP as part of the Pet Rescue Puzzle Saga.

Features of the new product

Visually, Pet Rescue Puzzle Saga has abandoned the experience of the original game. The size and shape of the elements are very close to those of the Peak Games projects. Unless the decision to make a character that reacts to the player’s actions larger and more emotional refers more to the experience of Jam City when working on Juice Jam than to Turkish titles.

In terms of basic mechanics, the novelty is a good example of how exactly solutions from games in the three—in-a-row genre are transferred to similar mechanics. Despite the fact that the main task on most levels since Panda Jam remains to bring the animals to the bottom of the screen, a set of obstacles came straight from Candy Crush. This was also true for Toon Blast, but only at later levels.

Toon Blast
The main innovation of Pet Rescue Puzzle Saga also refers to the traditional three-in-a-row.

Today, no new game in this genre, thanks to the success of Homescapes and Gardenscapes from Playrix, is complete without a complex meta. This also applies to King games. Despite the fact that she is still not ready to play on the same field with Playrix in terms of narrative, she tries to offer an original meta-solution in each new release.

Such an innovation in Pet Rescue Puzzle Saga was the animal house. When passing the levels, some released animals settle in a separate game location. Animals periodically ask the player for something. For example, buy them a hat or wash them with soap. Fulfilling each request requires soft currency, which is earned during the passage of levels. To this, in the first approximation, the main game cycle is reduced.

Pet Rescue Puzzle Saga
Interaction with animals is also considered an important new feature in King.

However, the company considers it, among other things, as narrative mechanics.

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Despite an extensive portfolio of almost several dozen games, King remains a single IP company. Most of its revenue and audience is from Candy Crush. Novelties in the framework of other titles of the company are not yet comparable in terms of indicators.  In the context of the situation, experiments with an eye on the experience of colleagues is a natural step for King, who wants to diversify her brand portfolio.