Sonic Rumble marks Sega’s first joint project with Rovio since acquiring the studio in 2023. The app’s core gameplay revolves around 32-player matches in which players race or battle around intricate maps to collect the most rings. Sonic Rumble distinguishes itself from other party royale apps by including enhanced movement controls and extensive customization for all of the IP’s characters.

Century Star’s Truck Star combines polished match-3 gameplay with a progression involving restoring semi-trucks and heavy machinery.

Angry Birds 2 introduces a quest event in which players complete event levels in succession to upgrade characters and earn prizes. Plus, an upgradable ability in Trivia Crack and a battle feature in Candy Crush Saga.

Zen Match’s Achievements continues a trend of multi-stage mission events that dates back to 2022—and achieved the highest revenue impact of any mission event in tracked puzzle apps this year. Achievements innovates on this trend by letting players progress in all missions simultaneously but requiring them to claim rewards sequentially, encouraging players to spend if they're stuck on a mission.

Street interview ads, a combination of TikTok-style interviews with top ad creatives, allow top casual apps to reuse existing ad content while driving substantial impressions.

In this month's Competitive Intelligence Career Panel, we discussed the panel's favorite data sources, how they use AI, and how to have difficult data-driven conversations.

Supercharge first-time user experiences with “aha” moments, interactive tutorials, and by showing IAPs after users are onboarded.

In this month's Economy Expert Panel, we explored Legend of Mushroom's genre-spanning identity and how it’s part of a trend in guiding players to effective profit models.

Sea War: Raid is a 4X app that stands out from its competitors by including a huge number of features, advanced upgrade systems for heroes and guns, complex combat events, and extensive buffs for the player's base. The app also offers a unique mini-game in which players assign heroes to a U-boat and manage ammo to sink enemy ships and aircraft.

Archero 2 is the sequel to Habby’s highly successful roguelike shooter Archero, which builds on the original by introducing faster-paced combat, improved visuals, and a new timed survival mode. Like its predecessor, Archero 2 features a unique mechanic in which the hero only fires while standing still, adding a twist to roguelike shooters.

Cookie Run: Kingdom adds a mini-game where up to six players compete to chop down a beanstalk and achieve the highest score within a time limit. Plus, a social mechanic that grants discounts on IAPs in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and a unique battle pass map in Pixel Gun 3D.

In this month's Growth Marketing Expert Panel, we explored virality, TikTok's Creative Challenges, and Monopoly GO!'s AR mini-game Tycoon Racers—a successful mini-game with limited scalability.