Backpack-like games enter Top 100 games in many countries

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Following the first half of 2024, the unique game dark horse “backpack chaos” brought fire to the “backpack” gameplay, starting from May, there are a number of “backpack like” products running out one after another in China alone. The first one is the pure IAA product “Garden Agent Attack Team” which innovatively integrates the backpack + Rogue gameplay, opening up this wind mouth; the second one is the garden like product “Pocket Pet Pig”, which is also the first hybrid product, further accelerating the perfection of the backpack like commercialization mode; the third one is “Can't Eat Me”, which creatively integrates backpack and TD gameplay, as well as the raising logic of “Hop Hop Hop Hero” and “Eat Me”, which is the same as “Eat Me”. The third one is “Can't Eat Me”, which is a creative combination of backpack and TD gameplay, as well as “Hop Hop Hop”'s formation logic and “Lucky Defense”'s “chance” experience, becoming an absolute dark horse in the backpack-like track (click the link to read the related article: Changsha Touring Product's “TD Tower Defense + Garden-like” Airborne in Jitterbug). Small game list TOP2, IAA game may have found the traffic code to turn red).

After the success of domestic market verification, “Pocket Pet Pig” was transformed into “Bacon's Revenge”, which was officially logged into 16 countries and regions in the global market on July 4. The Android version is now stable in China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Denmark's adventure game list Top 10, and China Taiwan's total list 124, and is one of the brightest products (including overseas ones) in the backpack like performance up to now. It is also one of the products (including backpack products in overseas markets) with outstanding performance up to now.

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It should be mentioned that, because Pocket Pet Pig has been well-known in China for a long time, the attention to this product is higher, but before it went to sea, there was another backpack like that went to sea first, which is the product we are going to focus on analyzing today--Weapon Master: Backpack Battle. Backpack Battle”. This backpack product is published by “Night God” Nox (“Nox Interactive Technology Limited” account), the initial global launch date of June 12, has entered South Korea, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Denmark, Vietnam and other five countries and regional games. It has entered the TOP100 of the total game download list in five countries and regions, including Korea, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Denmark, Vietnam, etc. As of press release, the product is ranked TOP91 of the total game download list in China and Taiwan, and TOP89 of the best-selling casual list, and it has been dominating the list for nearly a month, which is another backpack-like explosive model after Pet Pig.

Iteration + volume buying, “cast” the next hit!

Through careful investigation of the data platform information, we found that although Weapon Master: Backpack Battle was launched earlier than Pocket Pet Pig, the product's official volume started at the beginning of July, and from July 7th to July 14th, the double-end download volume of Weapon Master: Backpack Battle quickly climbed from 2000+ to 18500+. 2,000+ climbed to 18,500+, and the total number of downloads up to now is 560,000+, and the number of daily downloads increases or decreases at a relatively even rate of about 10,000 on average.

One of the main reasons for Weapon Master: Backpack Battle's rapid emergence from the ring is rapid iteration. Investigation found that since the initial launch on June 12 to the official volume, this product has experienced more than seven version updates, the frequency of updates in a week as much as two times, before and after the official volume in early July, the number of updates is even more intensive, to a certain extent, highlighting the advantage of the follow-up iteration speed of the big manufacturers.

Up to now, the number of iterations of Weapon Master: Backpack Battle has been close to 20, and the update content is not only limited to bug fixes, but also the addition of new gameplay, gift packs/weapons/characters, event events, leaderboard modes, etc., but the size of its installation package has only increased from the original 210M to 250M.

From the iteration level, we basically judged that this product should be one of the key products of Nox in the near future, in addition, in terms of advertising, Nox has also made a large investment. According to the vast large data, Weapon Master: Backpack Battle has placed as many as 17,979 advertisements on both ends in more than two months, and the number is 9,463 after de-weighting, and most of the placed materials show the gameplay, Rogue elements and the coolness of the late game, and there are six advertisements with the display valuation of more than 1.1M, and there are three that reach the maximum of 1.2M.

With rapid iteration + intensive placement in a short period of time, Weapon Master: Backpack Battle has generated more than $70,000 in in-game purchase revenue (excluding IAA revenue) since its launch, climbing to TOP91 on the total game download chart & TOP89 on the bestseller casual chart in Taiwan, China.And to be able to do that, we believe that Weapon Master: Backpack Battle has achieved more than $70,000 in in-game purchase revenue since its launch, climbing to TOP91 on the total game download chart & TOP89 on the bestseller casual chart in Taiwan, China. Backpack Battle” has a lot to do with the quality of the game itself besides marketing.

Mixed-variant, garden-like, IAA design worthy of reference

When looking at the quality of a game, the art is often the most direct. Weapon Master: Backpack Battle” uses a bright painting style similar to that of ‘Heroes of Hop Hop’ in its art style, with a cartoonish character design and excellent art details, such as the use of a large number of contrasting colors to create a sense of hierarchy, and the design and layout of the size of different icons and text to make the UI interface simple and clear.

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In terms of monster design, Slime, Sunflower (similar to the sunflower in Plants vs. Zombies), Mushroom Man and so on were also chosen, and a certain degree of “moe” processing was done, for example, Sunflower's attack method is to spit melons, Slime is to cast magic, etc. Overall, Weapon is very well designed.

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Overall, the art quality of Weapon Master: Backpack Battle is closer to that of Heroes of Harmony, and compared to other backpack products of the same genre that we've observed, the art performance is absolutely impressive.
In terms of gameplay, the core framework of Weapon Master: Backpack Battle is garden-like + bull's-eye-like. Under the management of backpacks, the in-bureau gameplay combines the three mature gameplay and popular elements of TD Tower Defense, Rogue, and Binary, and brings the players a sense of excitement similar to that of card matching and strategy gaming.

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In detail, Weapon Master: Backpack Battle currently has 5 map levels, each of which consists of different monsters, bringing more fun and variety. In each level, there are a different number of mini levels, and as the difficulty of the level increases, the number of mini levels gradually increases from 10 (first level), 15 (second level) to 20, 25, 30, and every 10th mini level will be met with a boss battle.

During the battle, players will receive a certain amount of silver coins for each level completed and jump to the backpack interface to manage their weapons, and after returning to the level, each level up will provide a triple choice of Rogue options for empowerment and reinforcement. After victory, the player is able to return to the outside of the Bureau, through the materials obtained from the level and the store treasure chest to obtain weapon fragments to upgrade the weapon, and the weapon according to the rarity of the difference (more detailed inside and outside of the Bureau and the development and gameplay and the Garden Squad is more similar to the “Garden Squad”, we do not want to go into the details here).

Just looking at the differences, there are three points worth noting, one is that with the version update, Weapon Master: Backpack Battle provides a gradual increase in the number of weapons, has been able to provide more than 16 different types of weapons, although the form of weapons for the more common staffs, hammers, long swords, etc., but the higher quality of the weapon has a stronger effect and output performance, and the purple and higher quality can only be purchased through the purchase of the weapon. Purple or higher quality weapons can only be obtained by purchasing packs (advertisement material also shows more powerful weapons' grass-cutting effects).

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Secondly, different types of monsters in Weapon Master: Backpack Battle have different characteristics, and different weapons and equipment also have mutual benefits, for example, some monsters will appear with a light shield, which requires magic attacks to break; cloaks have a bonus for magic attack weapons, and rings have an effect on the cooldown of physical weapons, etc. Thirdly, Weapon Master: Backpack Battle has a lot of different weapons and equipment.

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Third, Weapon Master: Backpack Battle, despite its hybrid design and increased depth of commercialization, is still dominated by IAA. The IAP portion is basically store pack purchases, while the IAA portion includes watching ads to get free backpack grids, watching ads in the game to speed up, replacing in-game effect gains, and getting extra sign-up rewards/opening treasure chest times. What's special about Weapon Master: Backpack Battle is that the advertisement acceleration is only for this game (the main level), and although it still takes more than 5 minutes to pass a single game after accelerating, if you don't accelerate, the battle process will be further extended, which can be said that it's a good IAA setup.

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To summarize, Weapon Master: Backpack Battle's IAP section is moderate, the points and pricing section is more in line with similar products on the market, and the IAA section has made richer levels. However, the problem is that Weapon Master: Backpack Battle does not allow adjusting the direction of the weapon like Backpack Battle, and the frequency of the grids is low, the first and middle stages are extraordinarily reliant on watching ads to get extra backpack grids, and as the difficulty of the level rises, it is almost difficult to get a complete game experience without watching ads, but frequent watching of ads interrupts the sense of the player's experience.
In terms of how to balance IAP and IAA, as well as how to reduce the proportion of IAA and increase IAP revenue, it can be said that almost all of the hybrid mini-games have to face this problem. Obviously, Weapon Master: Backpack Battle has yet to find a reasonable solution.