Minigames have proven to be one of the most effective ways to boost user acquisition and drive engagement for casual and midcore games alike, and they come in all different shapes and sizes. But last month, there was one minigame that stood out amongst the rest: Plinko. This classic Japanese pinball-style game appeared in numerous top-grossing titles, with Lords Mobile even going so far as to make it the main attraction of its collaboration with Coca-Cola.
But February wasn’t just about minigames, it was also about major updates—and the most significant of them all had to be in Brawl Stars. The game’s new and improved Ranked Mode came with a wave of enhancements, including improved matchmaking, a refined ranking structure, an all-new Pro Rank that grants access to leaderboards and esports tournaments, and a four-month-long battle pass.
Last month, we also saw some notable new releases. Enigma of Sépia, a turn-based RPG featuring gender-swapped anime characters, soared to second place in downloads and cracked the top 100 in revenue, while NetEase’s officially licensed NBA street basketball game, Dunk City Dynasty, entered soft launch. Finally, just as the month came to a close, the location-based Disney STEP landed in Japan, where it ranks among the top 100 titles.
For more information about these updates and titles, as well as the latest trends from across the mobile market, check out our latest analyst bulletin below.
February’s casual game updates
Coin Master introduced a competitive race event called Sky Runners, which ran from 13-16 February. While this might have been the game’s first-ever competitive race event, it was somewhat familiar to existing Coin Master fans as it was largely based on Rapids Rush—a Social Win Streak event launched in July 2024 where individual players race one another to compete for a grand prize.
The biggest difference between the two is that Sky Runners required players to finish levels before others, with only 100 players qualifying per round, whereas Rapids Rush had players competing against time. Sky Runners also featured a league system where players advance through three tiers: First, Advanced, and then Final. Those who managed to reach the Final league and beat all its levels were awarded a Grand Prize (a bundle of event items and currency).
It’s also worth noting that Sky Runners lasted four days, whereas each iteration of Rapids Rush (held in-game several times a month since its launch) only lasted 24 hours. The extension was likely to give players sufficient time to climb through the ranks.
February was a busy month for Solitaire Grand Harvest, which added two well-known event types into its LiveOps repertoire. These included the Greenhouse partner co-op event, in which players worked together in pairs to grow plants by using a “water wheel,” and the Rita’s Lair win streak, where 100 players competed to keep an active win streak for four levels in a row to reach a shared treasure.
During the Superbowl weekend (9-10 February), the game also introduced a Choose Your Winner IAP Bundle for $1.99. The Bundle had two options: green or red. These represented the teams competing in the real-world tournament, the Philadelphia Eagles (green) and Kansas City Chiefs (red). While all players received an assortment of in-game items upon purchase, they were awarded extra items after the event if they correctly chose the color of the winning team.
February also saw the rise of a major new minigame trend: Plinko. In this game, players drop a ball down a board with pegs and try to land it in a slot with a reward. Plinko appeared in several new titles as a minigame during February, both casual and midcore:
- Phase 10’s Plinko, Lucky Pinball, incorporated competitive mechanics. The event grouped four players together to see who could get the most points during a round.
- To play Tile Match 3D’s Plinko event, Music Tour, players had to first earn Plinko balls by completing levels in the main game.
- Lords Mobile incorporated a Plinko minigame called Fizzy Pinball as part of its collaboration with Coca-Cola.
Additional casual gaming highlights and other news
February marked yet another significant month for hybrid-casual games—titles that combine the simplicity of hyper-casual games with the more complex features/live events of casual/mid-core games—with two notable new entries into the genre.
The first was Magic Sort, the first successful hybrid-casual game based on water-sorting mechanics (where players must arrange colored water in the correct order). Compared to other water-sorting titles, the game isn’t doing anything unique with its core mechanics or overall meta. However, being a very polished iteration and the first hybrid-casual title to use the mechanic helped it rank among the top 50 most downloaded titles and the top 100 in the grossing charts.
Another noteworthy addition to the hyper-casual space is Color Block Jam, which leverages a simple yet engaging block puzzle mechanic. The game continues to scale, consistently ranking among the top 2-3 in downloads. It has also maintained a position in the top 50 grossing charts since mid-February.
After steadily scaling throughout January, Good Job Games’ match3 title, Match Villains, made it into the top-grossing 200 during February. Match Villains shares many similarities to Royal Match and Toon Blast but, as the name suggests, is themed around cartoonish villains, many of which are reminiscent of characters from Sony Pictures’ Hotel Transylvania animated film franchise.
Match Villians also throws in some unique core mechanics, such as a “Lucky Snitch” that occasionally randomly doubles the power of a specific in-game booster piece. It’s the company’s second attempt at this kind of match3 game. The first was Wonder Blast, which had an amusement park theme.
Over in Japan, a new location-based game based on the Disney franchise launched on 3 March, and has since been steadily climbing its way up the top grossing 100. The game, titled Disney STEP, revolves around collecting decorations to customize your character.
Location-based games are incredibly popular in Japan, with six titles regularly ranking among the top 200: Dragon Quest Walk, Pokémon Go, Pikmin Bloom, Nobunaga’s Ambition, Monster Hunter Now, and Disney STEP. Their popularity in the region is primarily related to Japanese lifestyles. In Japan, most people commute using public transportation, and location-based games are a good way to pass the time. Comparatively, in the West, cars are a more popular method of transportation, leading to fewer natural opportunities to play location-based games.
February’s midcore game updates
Brawl Stars made a massive comeback in 2024 following some clever gameplay tweaks from Supercell, but the developer is only just getting started. In February, Brawl Stars launched a new and improved version of its Ranked mode, complete with improved matchmaking, a refined ranking structure, and the introduction of Pro Rank—the new highest tier that unlocks global leaderboards and esports competition access.
The introduction of Ranked 2.0 also introduced the following changes:
- Players now have access to three maxed-out Brawlers (rotating each season) for exclusive use in Ranked matches, and new game modes are introduced regularly.
- Modifiers have also been removed from all modes, providing a more balanced experience.
- Rank reset no longer puts everyone in Bronze I every month. Instead, players get reset to 6 minor ranks below their ending rank. For example, Gold III resets to Silver I, and so on.
The update also introduced a new progression system for Ranked on 25 February, the Pro Pass. This all-new battle pass is entirely separate from Brawl Stars’ main battle pass and lasts four months, which helps it tie directly into esports events throughout the year. The Pro Pass features both free and premium reward tracks. The premium option includes new Pro Skins with exclusive upgrades and costs $24.99 ($6.25 a month).
Players must earn Pro Pass XP by winning matches, ranking up, and engaging with esports events to progress in the pass. Interestingly, there’s a cap on how much XP can be earned each week, which is likely to encourage players to engage with the mode throughout each month. Those with the Premium Pass have a much higher cap, although they earn twice as much XP, which balances things out.
Speaking of Battle Passes, Last Fortress introduced Growth Plan, a unique Battle Pass system that consolidates three traditional passes into one. While this sounds complicated, it essentially just gives players more flexibility over the rewards they can earn.
The Growth Plan is divided into two tracks, free and premium. The free option always stays the same, but the paid option is where the options become available. After paying for the upgrade, players select a Battle Pass “growth theme” from one of three options, determining what rewards they will unlock as they progress. Players can swap to one of the other themes at any time, although they’ll only be able to progress from the same point they were in the previous theme.
User-generated content has become increasingly prevalent in the mobile market over the past few years, and Free Fire is one title that does a lot to encourage players to create their own gameplay experiences—even going so far as to highlight player-created modes in the main menu. For example, last month, Free Fire featured a Squid Game-inspired mode where players competed in a series of challenges to be the last one standing.
Additional midcore gaming highlights and other news
The turn-based RPG Enigma of Sépia drew quite a lot of attention when it launched last month, soaring to second place in downloads and breaching the top 100 in revenue, although it has since seen a gradual decline.
The RPG mechanics of Enigma of Sépia are fairly standard fare. Still, the game has stood out for its vast array of female versions of beloved male anime characters, which players are encouraged to collect in-game. Some noteworthy examples include Vegeta (Dragon Ball), Deku (My Hero Academia), Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece), and Shinji (Neon Genesis Evangelion).
It’s worth noting that the game doesn’t appear to have any official rights to these characters. The developer is likely hoping that these gender-swapped variants are different enough to avoid anyone taking legal action against them.
Dunk City Dynasty, NetEase’s officially licensed NBA street basketball game, soft-launched in February in Australia and New Zealand. The game features NBA stars like Stephen Curry and Luka Dončić and offers fast-paced 3v3 matches, ranked play, and a 5v5 Full Court Run mode. NetEase brings extensive experience from launching and operating similar basketball titles in China, including 全明星街球派对 (All-Star Streetball Party), positioning Dunk City Dynasty for strong performance in global markets.
