Happy Hospital: ASMR Doctor closely resembles Crazy Hospital: ASMR Doctor, a hospital time management sim that we covered in our January ‘23 Casual Report. These apps share similar core mechanics, upgrade systems, and design elements, but Happy Hospital has improved visuals and a secondary progression focused on individual patients. Due to these apps’ similarities and the identical terms of service on their developers’ websites, we believe that they may share a common parent company. Both apps generated comparable revenue last month.

Lily’s Garden’s Makeover Time continues the trend of successful events with makeover mechanics in the casual market. During this event, players complete base game levels and other events to earn tokens that they spend to give a character a makeover. At the end of the event, players receive different endings to the event's story based on how far they progressed.

A successful first-time user experience (FTUE) gets players playing within the first minute of opening your app, teaches players key mechanics and progressions within the first session, and introduces monetization through high-value starter bundles. The most effective FTUEs combine learning with playing. You can teach through play by using (sometimes strict) guardrails to encourage players to complete desired behaviors rather than explicitly telling them what to do or how to do it. For example, match-3 apps can teach players how to make boosts by offering a level in which the only available first move creates a boost.

Merge Mansion seized on the success of a series of animated ads by creating a big-budget live-action campaign starring the famous actress Kathy Bates. These ads went viral by embracing an absurd premise that was popular with fans, helping to boost downloads by 180K per month for over six months.

Candy Crush Saga has used celebrity partnerships for all of its annual Candy Crush All-Stars tournaments and its 10 year anniversary celebration. The tournament’s first iteration in 2020, which was only available in the UK, partnered with British radio personality Roman Kemp as well as a supporting cast of well-known British celebrities. The 2021 version was only available in the United States and partnered with reality TV star Khloé Kardashian with support from rapper Doja Cat and former NFL player Rob Gronkowski. In 2022, Candy Crush Saga partnered with Meghan Trainor for their 10 year anniversary celebration. And the most recent tournament in 2023 partnered with hip-hop artist Saweetie and celebrity jewelry company Icebox. 

Over the past year, external payment systems have become significantly more common. Thanks to ongoing regulatory changes and waning opposition from Google, it’s become easier for developers to implement these systems. As a result, major developers like Scopely and Supercell have launched a large number of new web stores, expanded existing stores, and developed new strategies for driving traffic to them. 

AI art generators like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion are more useful for quickly iterating through concepts than creating final products. Even so, AI art is already being used to speed up development, reduce costs, and open up new possibilities for user customization.

Clash Royale’s Pass Royale 2.0 battle pass update and accompanying An Update For Losers expansion led to a massive revenue increase of 41% MoM. However, this revenue dropped off quickly compared to previous updates, and the app's active users decreased to its lowest point since September 2021. This decrease in active users is likely due in part to negative player reactions to the update, which made the premium pass less valuable to players while increasing its price.

Honkai: Star Rail, the latest release in miHoYo's Honkai series, became the top-grossing RPG app within a mere three weeks of its launch. In this installment, players navigate a vast world map using an interstellar train, explore diverse planets, visit train compartments, and interact with passengers. The app offers rapid turn-based combat, excellent anime-inspired visuals, and an engaging storyline with full voice acting.

Pokerist’s weekly Leagues competition takes the innovative step of allowing players to instantly advance to higher leagues by reaching currency milestones. Players can also advance to higher leagues by ranking at the top of their leagues’ leaderboards at the end of the week.

This page provides teardowns of innovative event, feature, and app releases from our May 2023 Casino Coverage.

This month's notable releases include a trio of wild bonuses: one from Cash Frenzy and two from Scatter Slots.