Almost 3.5 years after launch, Puzzle & Dragons is still going strong in Japan, generating over US$100 million in sales per month and having crossed 36 million downloads domestically on May 15.
Maker GungHo Online Entertainment (3765) has been doing its best to keep the game alive in recent years, i.e. by:
- updating the app with new characters, gacha, or dungeons
- creating in-game events continuously
- entering numerous “collaborations” with other apps and brands
- continuing to use TV ads and mass offline promotion to continue to acquire users
- releasing two Puzzle & Dragons games for the Nintendo 3DS
- licensing the IP to Square Enix for an arcade version
- character merchandising
- etc. etc.
In summer last year, the company made the first drastic change to the game itself by adding a new mode called “Puzzle & Dragons W” to the Japanese version. The mode, which is still live today, is supposed to address users that find the original game too hard to play.
Puzzle & Dragons To Get More Social
And today, at the so-called “GungHo Festival 2015” (a fan event organized by the company in Chiba near Tokyo), the second drastic change was announced: the addition of multi-player.
The obvious goal is to make Puzzle & Dragons more social, boost user engagement and subsequently prolong the lifecycle of GungHo’s only (aging) hit app.
So far, Puzzle & Dragons’ social elements have been famously limited: there is no chat, no real social network connectivity, and most importantly no PvP or multi-player mode.
There were a few attempts going in that direction: in 2013, GungHo released a spin-off app called “Puzzle & Dragons Challenge” (which let users play against each other) and later updated the original with a “challenge mode” that increased the social factor – albeit to a very limited extent.
But GungHo today said at their fan event that Puzzle & Dragons will get a “true” multi-player mode: just like Japan’s other top mobile game, Monster Strike by Mixi (2121), the mode will focus on cooperative (not competitive) gameplay.
The idea is to let two players clear the same dungeon at the same time by letting them taking turns.
This sounds very simple but opens new tactical possibilities (especially for hardcore fans), for example trying to find the right mix of monsters not only in one’s own party but also with regards to the one the friend plans to bring to battle.
Observe how in the picture below (taken at today’s event, via Gamer) both users attack the same enemy and solve the same puzzle:
At the event, producer Yamamoto said that in the multi-player mode, the health points of both players are added: as always the goal is to clear the dungeon without the HP bar reaching zero.
He went on saying that the mode will be included in a future update that will be “so comprehensive that it’s no exaggeration the result could be called Puzzle & Dragons 2” (to make it clear: there will still only be one app, this mode will be included in Puzzle & Dragons proper).
The company is yet to say when or if the multi-player mode will be included in international versions of Puzzle & Dragons as well.
In any case, the yet to be dated addition of this mode into the Japanese version makes a lot of sense – given how popular multi-player is becoming in mobile gaming in Japan at the moment, much more so than the first drastic change, the addition of Puzzle & Dragons W.
