Merge Mansion | Game Analysis #1

As my education started with game design in Finland and followed with game production at DBGA I decided to also post game analysis to show what I have learned.

Merge Mansion

Platform: Mobile (iOS, Android)

Developer: Metacore, based in Helsinki, I was lucky enough to talk with two of their devs during my time in Finland)

Genre: Puzzle, in the subgenre of merge games

First Impact

When you first open the game, you are welcomed with a loading screen that immediately showcases the art style of the game and something about its meta game (in this case, the mystery aspect of the story).

We are then welcomed to the hub where the characters move and talk and where we can see the mansion that showcases our progress in the game in a visual manner.

Gameplay

The core loop of the game consists in opening your game board where you find or spawn objects (by spending energy, one of the three currencies of the game) to merge the identical ones with each other to create higher-level objects; crafting the correct items allows you to clear mission goals thus progressing in the game by getting harder missions with more or higher level objects to craft.

The meta game is based on the mansion, not only by doing the missions you fix or clean your new house, but you are also trying to uncover the secrets of your family buried deep within the mansion, as suggested by your mysterious grandma.

The game is simple, and the core mechanic of merging is addicting in itself, every UI element is also centered on it. The game is played in vertical mode and at the top we can find the player level (it gatekeeps progression and grants rewards such as objects to merge or currency) and the three currencies, energy is fundamental to play as every action requires it and refills with time, coins are used to speed up progression by buying pre-made objects and gems are used to buy the other currencies, skip timers or to directly buy objects and can be bought with real money.

On the right we find options, daily tasks based on special objects to merge to get free objects and timed offers to get currency at a better deal.

At the bottom we find progress trackers and the button to go to the merging board.

The game is very straight forward about what you have to do and about what you’re going to get, it manages to give you a good game time with just the free energy but the addiction factor of the merging mechanic along with the focus on progression (both of the mansion and the mystery) always leave you wanting more, especially considering that a relatively low spending gets you a good amount of help and extra playtime. The monetization also doesn’t feel predatory as it doesn’t seem to be mandatory for progression, at least within the first 10 to 15 hours of gameplay.

Events

The game has multiple type of events always based on the core mechanic and motivations of the game.

The events could be seasonal (Halloween, Christmas, etc.), narrative, or generic, they create a different board with different items to merge with each other or they spawn event objects in the regular board; By reaching a higher level within the time frame of the event you get better rewards to improve standard play or event coins to spend on decorations for the house.

If we take the narrative events as an example, they include everything someone might like about the game in one package while giving both core and meta reasons to come back to the game.

It gives you a new board to play with that both gives you a break from your usual one that might be cluttered by this point but also gives you the extra motivation that by doing well in the event you will get a boost to the progress in your standard play.

At the same time, it sprinkles in narrative content that, while secondary, was instrumental to spreading the word about the game and building the community. It’s also relevant to notice that some of the events aren’t punishing as they can be replayed once finished for a better performance and rewards.

Possible changes

The game works very well, it's very successful and it's clearly a well-oiled machine in every way, the performance is smooth and the gameplay loop is satisfying and once a I started a session I didn’t really want to stop until I ran out of energies. In this regard the story serves as a good enough hook to keep playing.

If I had to find a suggestion for a new direction for the game in the coming years it would be to change the strictly single player nature of the game while making the progression less linear, allowing you to personalize the mansion to some degree (as they've already started doing with the small decorations from events), this would be preparatory to the introduction of social elements where player could visit each other mansion to check on progression and personalization or they could collaborate on bigger community events, while making the game more interesting and varied this would probably also help monetization by stimulating competition between players and allowing the introduction of “hardcore” tasks used to build specific distinctive items or rooms for the mansion.