Royal Kingdom: A Bold Strategy for Experienced Players
Royal Kingdom is Not for Beginners. If my analysis is correct, Dream Games has taken an unconventional approach rarely seen in the industry.
Designed for Loyal, Experienced Players. It seems that this game was crafted to deepen the loyalty of advanced Royal Match players. It feels deliberately designed for existing users to play alongside Royal Match, almost like releasing a massive update as a separate app.
A Stark Contrast in Onboarding. Royal Match introduces new players through a friendly tutorial, guiding them through repetitive learning for smooth onboarding. Royal Kingdom, however, takes a very different approach.
No Hand-Holding from the Start. The game starts without any basic tutorial. From the first level, obstacles like wooden crates appear, making progress challenging unless players already understand how to clear them. This sends a strong message: “If you don’t get it, this game isn’t for you.”
Rapid Difficulty Spike. By Level 3, double-layered wooden crates (requiring two matches to break) appear. At Level 4, ice blocks that must be matched within the tile to be removed are introduced. This contrasts sharply with Royal Match’s approach of easing players in.
Boss Battles from Level 5. Level 5 introduces “Kingdom Levels,” a boss battle concept where players fire magic through puzzle matches to damage monsters or enemy castles. Despite being early in the game, the difficulty spikes around Level 20, leading to frequent failures.
High-Quality Story Integration. Cinematic storytelling scenes accompany Kingdom Levels, enhancing world-building and player immersion—something absent from Royal Match. This narrative depth contributes to brand loyalty and emotional engagement.
This Game is Not for Novices. After playing up to Level 20, it’s clear: Royal Kingdom is intentionally designed for seasoned players. If another company had released a match-3 game with this level of challenge from the start, it would likely be criticized for poor early-game design.
Perfectly Tailored for Veteran Players. But for seasoned Royal Match players, the design is brilliant. Teaching basic match-3 mechanics to those who’ve conquered over 1,000 stages would be boring and lead to churn. Instead, Royal Kingdom challenges experienced users with high difficulty and introduces Kingdom Levels for fresh stimulation.
This Strategy Shouldn’t Be Blindly Copied. The overall quality—background music, objects, and design—is exceptional and worth noting. However, copying its early-game experience design and level progression could be fatal for games targeting new users.
A High-Risk, High-Reward Strategy. Dream Games seems to have intentionally excluded beginners to enhance loyalty among existing users—a bold move almost unheard of in the match-3 genre. However, this comes with risk: beginners who struggle with the difficulty might leave negative reviews, impacting ratings.
Is This Strategy Effective? Existing players likely embraced Royal Kingdom as an expansion pack of Royal Match, leading to invisible ranking competitions and increased revenue.
Target Audience: Experienced Royal Match Players. The primary user base is likely experienced Royal Match players familiar with match-3 mechanics and comfortable with in-game purchases, contributing to a high ARPU. Although it’s too early to make a final judgment, the game climbed from 168th to 59th in the U.S. App Store’s top-grossing charts within 90 days, signaling effective strategy execution.
Why Release Royal Kingdom as a Separate App? I believe it’s about maintaining consistency in user experience. When returning to Royal Match after a long break, the game is familiar and accessible. The seamless continuity ensures that even after a year, players can resume without feeling lost.
Consistent User Experience Philosophy. I played Royal Match up to Stage 1,600 but took a year-long break. Upon returning, I was able to seamlessly continue where I left off. Most games change so drastically over a year that returning players feel overwhelmed and quit.
Avoiding Player Burnout and Maximizing Revenue. By releasing Royal Kingdom separately, Dream Games preserved Royal Match’s user experience while offering a new challenge to loyal users, ensuring revenue from an already engaged audience.
This is Just a Hypothesis. Dream Games might have had other reasons for this strategy, such as the increasing familiarity of players with match-3 mechanics, making beginner tutorials unnecessary.
Challenging Traditional Match-3 Design. Regardless of their intent, Royal Kingdom challenges conventional match-3 design enough to inspire new hypotheses. It clearly alleviated burnout among high-level Royal Match users while driving revenue growth.
Strategic Takeaways. Blindly copying Royal Kingdom’s approach is risky, especially for games that need to attract new users. Implementing its high difficulty could backfire.
Learn, Don’t Imitate. The key is to learn from Royal Kingdom’s bold strategy while maintaining your own game’s direction. Successful adaptation requires a clear strategic foundation tailored to your audience.
Caution Against Blind Advocacy. It may sound obvious, but someone might still argue, “Do you think you’re better than the Royal Kingdom’s producers?” My analysis aims to provide a nuanced perspective to help avoid such simplistic reasoning.
This article was originally created and published by Sungsu Kim (LinkedIn), and remains his independent intellectual property.
