Andrei Zubov

Welcome to our new series where we break down big genres to spotlight rising subgenres and standout games developers should keep an eye on 😉We’re kicking off with Puzzle — one of the loudest genres lately. So far in 2025, it has generated $4B in IAP revenue, growing 15% year-on-year (YoY) 🚀Match-3 remains the dominant subgenre, bringing in 58% of Puzzle revenue, up 9% YoY. It’s driven by well-known Royal Match and Candy Crush 👑 Merge follows with 18% of Puzzle revenue, showing impressive 64% YoY growth. The subgenre thrives on Merge-2 titles with complex meta layers like Gossip Harbor, Travel Town, and Seaside Escape 🔥 Two smaller subgenres worth watching due to their fast growth are Block Puzzle (12x YoY) and Sort Puzzle (1.2x YoY). Block Puzzle’s rise is largely driven by Block Blast!, while the Sort Puzzle space […]

5 New Wool Puzzle Games Released — Just a Week After Our Article 🤯 Each week, we scan Top Trending to spot rising hits. That’s how we noticed Wool Sort—a game that jumped from nearly 0 to 180k daily downloads in just a month 🚀The game itself reminds us of Screw Jam, one of the most advanced games on the growing Screw Puzzle market 🧩However, it falls short on IAP monetization and relies heavily on ad revenue instead💡That is why, we see two scenarios for Wool puzzle trend to get into the top grossing charts:1️⃣ Wool Sort will double down on monetization and LiveOps like Screw Jam, pushing beyond download charts. 2️⃣ Big players, like iKame Games, will pick up the formula and scale it further.

Thread vs Screw: How Wool Sort Stands Out in the Screw Puzzle Subgenre 🤔 A new type of the Screw Puzzle hit our Top Trending with 2M installs in May alone. Wool Sort swaps screws for threads—but that’s just the start. Let’s see how it stacks up against its closest reference, Screw Jam 👇1️⃣ GenreWhile Wool Sort beats Screw Jam in daily installs (180k vs 75k in the peak), its IAP revenue is much lower ($2.6k vs $211k in the peak). It clearly follows a Hypercasual model driven by ads.2️⃣ Core Gameplay 🔩Screw Jam offers short, progressively harder levels and a “limited lives” system to boost retention and drive early purchases.🧶Wool Sort opens with tougher levels to spark a sense of achievement and maximize rewarded ad views, though this might hurt long-term retention.3️⃣ Meta Systems🔩Screw Jam features light city-building: players […]

Merge Fellas: No More Fruits—Merge Memes Instead 😄 Over the past two weeks, we spotted a new Simple Merge-2 puzzle rising fast in the Top Trending — Merge FellasOn May 10, the game peaked at 788k daily installs, less than two weeks after almost zero downloads number 🤯Merge Fellas is a fresh reinterpretation of the Suika Game — the once-viral console title where players merged fruits to create the ultimate watermelon 🍉We’ve seen plenty of mobile versions inspired by Suika (like Fruit Merge), but Merge Fellas stands out by swapping fruit for memes: think cute animals, capybaras, and yes — Italian Brainrot 🦈👟🏖️ While the spike is already cooling off a week later, let’s see if this pop-culture twist on a familiar mechanic can hold its ground against the visuals we’ve gotten used to 😉

Brainy Prankster: Turning Misleading Creatives into Quirky Puzzles 😈 We’ve all seen those misleading ad creatives with absurd situations and puzzles — always a bit cringy, weirdly catchy, and hard to ignore! Here comes a Brainy Prankster, a new game that turns this format into actual gameplay. Players solve quirky puzzles like helping a policeman gather evidence or sneaking a secret lover past an angry spouse 😏We spotted the game in AppMagic’s Top Trending chart this week — and since its late-February launch, it has already hit 19.5M installs. 🚀The game relies almost entirely on ad monetization with little to no IAP revenue. A reminder that not all hypercasual titles are chasing the IAP-heavy model in 2025! ✍️👉 Check out the game’s AppMagic public card here.

Screwdom — The Top Grossing Game In The Screw Puzzle Genre 🔥 In our new Hybridcasual report for Q1 2025, we shared that Puzzle games are dominating the market, with Screw Puzzles accounting for 20% of total Hypercasual Puzzles IAP Revenue 🧩Screwdom is already leading the subgenre — and this is just the beginning. In April 2025 alone, it earned $6.7M — almost twice as much as in Q1 2025 🚀Part of the success goes to iKame Global experience — they already have 9 Screw Puzzle titles in their portfolio 👑But what truly sets Screwdom apart is its leap from 2D to 3D. This shift makes gameplay more tactile and challenging — rotating the camera adds spatial depth, making every move count 🔩

Lucky Wheel: How Travel Town Increases Session Length and Engagement 🎡 ✨The UpdateTravel Town introduced a Lucky Wheel: after completing the last Daily Challenge, players can spin a wheel to receive a random amount of energy. But only one segment grants a full 100 energy refill. 🔎 The Motivation BehindDaily tasks and related events (like Chest Challenger, Cookie Craze, and Reward Road) are a major driver of daily playtime in Travel Town, which is why they get reskinned and relaunched so often. However, completing dailies requires a lot of energy, through either several logins or by purchasing.❗️When too many tasks pile up, players risk giving up their attempts and losing engagement.🛠️ The SolutionBy offering a chance to regain energy after completing all daily tasks, the Lucky Wheel boosts the perceived value of participation. In turn, this encourages multiple daily logins, […]

Sharks are getting eaten by All in Hole! 🦈🕳️ Homa's latest hit made over $8M in IAP revenue in March 2025 alone!But even more impressively, it’s reshaping the entire Eat & Grow subgenre.I checked AppMagic: among 21 new releases in 2025, only 2 feature sharks. The other 19? Holes.You’ll spot the same shift in the top-grossing chart — sharks are falling out of the top 10, all because of the holes.How did All in Hole pull it off?It built on an ultra-addictive, player-first core (as Homa always does) — and layered it with best-in-class casual and hybridcasual monetization systems.Want the full story?We’ve just published a deep dive on hybridcasual games in Q1 2025 — and All in Hole gets the spotlight it deserves.