Our Narrative Design Toolkit provides insights into how to design compelling narratives in apps of any genre and at any scale. The report begins by breaking down the fundamentals of storytelling, including plot structure, characters, and scenes. Then, we analyze the strengths and weaknesses of different storytelling techniques and how to implement those techniques in your app’s live ops.

Clash Royale split its main competition into two modes: a progression of PvP arenas called Trophy Road and a ranked competition called Path of Legends. While Trophy Road saves players' progress, Path of Legends uses rank demotions and seasonal resets to offer a more competitive experience.

Lightning Link Casino’s Once Upon a Time is a rare example of a casino app using a story to connect a long series of events. Players access the events through pages of a storybook that contains a short narrative about a wizard. The events award tokens that players exchange for rewards in a shop.

Clash Royale replaced its main competition with two new modes: a progression of PvP arenas called Trophy Road and a ranked competition called Path of Legends. While Trophy Road gives players a more casual experience by saving their progress, Path of Legends offers a more hardcore competition with rank demotions and seasonal resets.

A free preview of our new Casual Market Impact Report, which analyzes live ops and revenue data to find the best- and worst-performing mechanics in the casual market.

Challenges are tasks that players can complete in any order for rewards. Usually, players complete challenges by engaging with preexisting gameplay mechanics, though some challenges introduce new systems.

Lightning Link Casino’s Once Upon a Time is a rare example of a casino app using a story to connect a long series of events. Players access each event from a different page of a storybook that contains a short narrative about a wizard. The events award tokens that players exchange for rewards in a shop. 

Mario Kart Tour’s Spotlight Shop replaces the app’s gacha mechanic with a more traditional store that changes its offers each day. This is a significant shift in the app’s monetization strategy that makes it easier for players to buy the specific vehicles, drivers, and equipment they want. It also more closely aligns with the Mario Kart franchise’s spirit of prioritizing accessibility.

Mario Kart Tour’s Spotlight Shop replaces the app’s gacha mechanic with a more traditional store that changes its offers each day. This is a significant shift in the app’s monetization strategy that makes it easier for players to buy the specific vehicles, drivers, and equipment they want. It also more closely aligns with the Mario Kart franchise’s emphasis on accessibility.

Cash Frenzy’s Bonny Buccaneer includes a social bonus in which players pick characters that compete to earn multipliers and cannonballs. Each character then shoots their cannonballs at ships to earn additional multipliers.

Cash Frenzy’s Bonny Buccaneer includes a social bonus in which players pick characters to collect multipliers and cannonballs on a shared reel set. In a final stage, the characters shoot their cannonballs at ships to earn additional multipliers.

My Singing Monsters’ Anniversary Month offers an unusually large amount of new content generated by the player community, including monsters, skins, decorations, and profile titles. The app is able to offer so much community-generated content in part because it has a whimsical theme and a core loop focused on custom design mechanics, both of which allow for a lot of flexibility in content designs.