Competitive Trends Puzzle Games
- Puzzle game competitors: June’s Journey, CC Friends Saga, CC Soda Saga, Gardenscapes, Homescapes, Toon Blast, Toy Blast, Cookie Jam, Sweet Escapes, Lily’s Garden, Funky Bay, Best Fiends, Lost Island, Manor Cafe, Resort Hotel, Passion Puzzle, Design Home Express, Meow Match, Diner Dash, Pet Rescue Saga, Choices, My Home:Design Dreams, My Cafe, Word Villas, Vineyard Valley, Township
- Hidden Object game competitors: Pearl’s Peril, Criminal Case, The Secret Society, Agent Alice, CSI Hidden Crimes, Diggy’s Adventure, Hidden City, Letters from Nowhere, Murder in the Alps, Mysteries of the Past, Tropicats, Adam Wolfe: Dark Detective Mystery Game, Adventure Escape, Hidden Objects Mystery Society, Pearl’s Peril, Seeker’s Notes: Hidden Mystery, Bubble Island, Survivors: the Quest, Temple Run 2, Township: Farm & City Building, Horse Haven World Adventures, Klondike Adventures, Diamond Dash, Stand O’Food, Virtual City Playground, Just Dance Controller, Just Dance Now, Trials Frontier, Ubisoft Club, Cage & Aviary Birds, Clipomatic, Colorfy, Color Your Call, Galatea, Murder Minute, Paint Color, Quiz Crazy, Shudder, Tarot
- To view competitive videos, click here

Puzzle Game Trends
- Cinematic Storytelling: Romantic, dramatic stories (Murder in the Alps, Criminal Case, Galatea)
- Female-centered storytelling: (StoryScape, Solve It, Galatea)
- Cats!: “Find the Cat” concepts are becoming more ubiquitous and beginning to evolve (Criminal Case, Hidden City)
- Hidden Object Countdowns: (Pearl’s Peril, Hidden City)

Player Profiles
- Demographics/Profiles Summary:
- 91% women aged 35+, 18% of whom aged 65+
- 70% play in the living room, 40% play in bed, 60% watch TV while playing
- Favorite YouTube channels include Bernadette Banner (sewing, vintage art), Rachel Maksy (vintage makeup), and Kendall Rae (murder mystery)
- Other games they enjoy are also strongly story driven:
- Hidden Object: Seekers Notes: Hidden Mystery, Hidden City, Criminal Case, Pearl’s Peril, Murder in the Alps
- Words: Word Whizzle Search, Bible Verse Collect
- Town-building: Klondike Adventures
- Target Audience
- “Escapist Homebodies” (Introverted High Payers)
- Demographics Women 45-60+
- Motivations: Escapism, Self Improvement, Self Expression, Self Care
Player Motivations
- Solitary Story Player:
- Hooked by the story and can’t wait to know what’s next!
- Wants to know what happens next in the story, but doesn’t want to sacrifice her island decoration to progress faster
- Wants to decorate her island to her own taste
- Looking for an immersive solitary bubble to recharge away from the world
- Solitary Self-Challengers:
- Story and decorations are nice but secondary: what matters is hidden-object scenes
- Immersive gameplay helps her relax into repetitive, hypnotic focus
- Wants to relax through steady self-improvement Play is “me-time”
- Looking for a good brain-teaser to improve their memory
- Cares most about the gameplay, less about the story
Concept: Story-focused challenges
- Attract Hidden Object players with hidden object challenges in a movie trailer like format, like Murder in the Alps and Criminal Case
- Try counted clues in Criminal Case style (before and after)
- Use a series of images/hidden object challenges that tell a story (similar to Murder in the Alps)

Concept: Story-focused countdowns
Use crime scenes to create more of a story in finding hidden objects (Pearl’s Peril, Criminal Case, Murder in the Alps)

Concept: Character-centric Stories
- Utilize simulation/role playing-style (e.g. Pocket Gems Episode) technique to tell character-centered stories (Solve It, Storyscape)
- Create simple puzzles that “save” your main character – targeting both solitary story-centric and self-challenger players (Homescapes)
- Tell character-centered stories with voice over and/or supers (Galatea, Dream Home Solitaire)

Concept: Gameplay Methods
- Combine live action people playing the game (relaxed, escapist) with gameplay (Klondike, Pearl’s Peril)
- Combine gameplay with leaderboards (Tropicats)

Concept: “Find the Cat”
- Incorporate saturated interiors with food with “Find the Cat” challenge or other short headers/items:
- “Find the Gun”
- “Find the Dog”
- “Find the Rope”
- “Find 5 Cats”
- “Find 5 Oranges” (Criminal Case, June’s Journey)
- Consider using cinemagraphs like the bar scene (Pearl’s Peril, Hidden City)

To See More Hidden/Object Game Trends
- Section 1: Why Creative Is So Important
- Creative Tunnel Vision and How to Overcome It
- Section 2: Inspiration for Puzzle / Hidden Object Game Ads – Facebook and Google
- Puzzle / Hidden Object Competitors We Studied
- Puzzle / Hidden Object Competitive Trends
- Puzzle / Hidden Object Creative Concepts We Recommend
- Section 3: Using Player Profiles for Market Segmentation and Creative Targeting
- Pasta Sauce, Pickles, and Howard Moskowitz
- Horizontal Segmentation for Facebook User Acquisition
- Game Theory and User Behavior Models
- People Can’t Always Tell You What They Really Want
- Player Profiles as UA Creative Strategy 2.0
- Section 4: Creative Testing and Why the Control is So Hard to Beat
- Statistical Significance vs Cost-Effective Approach
- How We’ve Been Testing Creative Until Now
- Creative Testing 2.0
- Conclusion
- Special Offers
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