This month at Coda, we’re excited to kickstart a new series designed to inform and keep developers’ fingers on the pulse of hyper-casual trends and insights. In every monthly report, we’ll aim to provide you with an overview of the current trending game mechanics, top charting games and industry trends worth noting.
This information is collected from a combination of sources - including our in-house market intelligence platform (you can create your free account here) and insights from our expert gaming team at Coda who have a constant ear to the ground of all things hyper-casual.
Top Trending Mechanics
This month ‘Tap Timing’ has been dominating the charts as the top trending game mechanic with the most installs. Despite a 13% decrease month over month, the mechanic has been popular in top charting games including Restaurant Life, Spiral Roll and Little Alchemy 2. Within some trending ‘Tap Timing’ games, secondary mechanics such as ‘Saving’ and ‘Shooting’ have also been identified.
Top Performing Games
This month’s top hyper-casual game was Acrylic Nails by Crazy Labs - a 3D simulation game that lets you become the nail technician with your own nail salon. From the colour down to the shape and design of the nails, you get to decide the final result for each new client. As you finish each level, you earn money that you can later spend to renovate your salon.
One of the reasons why we believe this game is so popular is down to the great execution of satisfying mechanics included in the game. From grinding away dirty nails, nail filing, shaping and painting designs - it includes all the parts of nail care that many people find satisfying and therapeutic.
October Industry Insights
In mobile gaming this month, we saw the unexpected rise of the hugely popular multiplayer game, Among Us. So popular is the game that even politicians are getting involved, with U.S Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) breaking records with her first Twitch stream of Among Us becoming one of the top three most viewed English language streams in the platform's history. With an estimated 3.92 million downloads in October alone, the mobile & desktop game has become a cult favourite reaching #1 in 33 countries.
While Among Us doesn't fall into the genre of hyper-casual games, it does open up the conversation as to whether its success will bring new innovation to hyper-casual games in the months to follow.
One of the core attractions of Among Us is the multiplayer feature and the ability to connect and chat in real-time with friends locally or with strangers online. While the majority of hyper-casual games are single-player, we speculate that IO could become a top trending mechanic with a rise in the amount of hyper-casual IO games published.
Only time will tell if we see this new trend emerging, but you can stay up to date with the latest trends in hyper-casual with our Market Intelligence dashboard. Join the Coda Platform to gain access to the dashboard and other developer tools that help you test and build better games, more efficiently.
