#Mobile

Analysis: The Secret to Match-3 Success Is "Not Innovating" — Innovative Levels Drive Players Away?

Naavik analysis argues that forcing "innovative match-3 levels" into the core level funnel creates cognitive friction and filters out mass-market casual players. Attempts like Dream Games' Royal Kingdom, Good Job Games' Match Villains and Queen Digital Entertainment's Pet Panic failed to scale, with Pet Panic shutting down 21 months after soft launch. Royal Match instead dominates the top-grossing puzzle charts by simplifying goals and lowering cognitive effort.

New Hit in Tactics Card Mini Games? "Elite Legion" Lands in WeChat Top 20 Best-Selling Chart!

"Elite Legion," a tactics card mini game published by Nanjing Yuanrong Network, has stayed within the WeChat mini game best-selling chart's Top 20 since launching during National Day, peaking in the top ten. The game features a Red Alert theme with tactics card PvP and human-vs-AI combat, and monetizes through in-app purchases and rewarded video ads.

Wuthering Waves Version 3.7 "Mirror-Locked Illusions, Heart Illuminates the Mortal World" Launches, Closing the Xuanfang Realm Chapter

Wuthering Waves version 3.7, "Mirror-Locked Illusions, Heart Illuminates the Mortal World," has launched, bringing the Xuanfang Realm chapter to its conclusion. The new map Mengshu Tianluo centers on Mengxuan Creek Mountain, while the Chaoyue Festival presents Xinyuehu and the Moon-Chasing Festival as part of its Eastern cultural narrative. An animated PV titled "Seeking the Heart" was also released, alongside a "Chaoyue Festival Special Performance" co-hosted with Shanghai Yu Garden.

From Minecraft Survival Games to Fortnite: How Live-Service Turned Games Into a Battle Royale for the Top Spot

IGN traces the history of live-service games, noting the battle royale market was valued at $11.2 billion last year and is expected to reach nearly $30 billion by 2035. Norwegian YouTuber Dennis Vaeride is credited with launching the first Minecraft Survival Games server in April 2012, while Brendan Greene's shrinking-circle concept led to PUBG's Steam Early Access launch in March 2017 and Fortnite's free-to-play battle royale mode later that year. Ex-BioWare producer Mark Darrah says you have to believe you can dethrone one of the top two players in the genre, or you shouldn't be doing it.

Aion 2's character creator lets you make a freaky little guy

My favourite thing about Aion 2? The freedom to make a freaky lil' guy in a world of beautiful people

Moon Over Xuanfang, Heart Returns to the Mortal World: Impressions of Wuthering Waves Version 3.7

Wuthering Waves version 3.7 concludes the Xuanfang arc with its main story "梦枢心相由心生," revealing the relationship between the Dream Prefecture Sentinel "心月狐" and "心." Developer Kuro Games spent versions 3.5 through 3.7 building out Xuanfang's two-hundred-year history, and 3.7 adds the Dream Pivot Celestial Net map, a Rover-as-fox sequence, and the final boss "天演溯心." The Chaoyue Festival then brings the story back to everyday life in Xuanfang City.

One-Person Studio with AI: MAXX Apps Founder on Building with Replit and Claude

Designer Spencer Wade has been running MAXX Apps solo since April 2026, using Replit and Claude to ship three companion apps for Roblox and World of Warcraft players on the Overwolf platform. He advises other designers to research available data and APIs first, keep AI in plan mode while asking questions, and personally test everything. He draws the line at letting AI generate core elements players engage with constantly, such as game maps.

Aion 2 Ascension Gauge: How to quickly fill it to continue Episodes

In Aion 2, main story Episodes become locked at set points until the Ascension Gauge is filled. Completing Regional side quests raises the gauge by just under 5% each, and Episode quests also fill it, so players focused on the main story likely need only three or four extra Regional quests.

Aion 2 Item Extraction: What to do with old gear

In Aion 2, old gear cannot be sold, but Item Extraction lets you recycle it instead. Select a piece of gear in your inventory (The Cube), click the flask icon on the description panel, and confirm; each extraction costs a small amount of Kina currency. Extraction rewards upgrade materials such as Enhance Stones plus a cosmetic skin of the extracted gear.

All active Aniimo codes list

Aniimo codes grant bonus level-up materials and other currency, including glimmer. Though the game lacks a traditional gacha system, these freebies remain useful for raising your aniimo army, buying items in the in-game shop, or exchanging for Sparkling Cubes to use on eggs.

Aion 2 'Character Creation Restricted' Fix: Solutions and Workarounds

Aion 2 is out now, but incorrect PC settings can prevent players from finishing character creation. The guide suggests enabling automatic date and time, then switching DNS servers to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. If the account or IP has been flagged and banned, the only workaround is using a Taiwan VPN and creating a new Taiwan-region account.

What to Play During the National Day Holiday: A New Photography Adventure, Ace Combat Takes Off Again, and Watching the Sea With an Overworked Office Worker

Touch Music editors recommend six games for the National Day holiday. Flotsam has over 80% positive reviews on Steam, TOEM 2 launched on September 29 with a 15% off first-release discount until October 14, Casualties: Unknown has a free demo with a full version expected this year, Goblin Sushi is in Early Access with a $4.99 mobile version, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve launches on October 2 with Simplified Chinese support, and the visual novel about an overworked office worker is a gentle pick for laborers.

A million players reach top rank in twenty days as a player reviews Honor of Kings: Chess's learning curve

Honor of Kings: Chess announced on September 30 that a new Diamond Frenzy mode will unlock once one million players server-wide reach the top King rank, meaning over a million had already done so within about half a month of launch. The author, who has played over 100 hours, estimates that experienced players need 70 to 80 matches, roughly 40 hours, to reach that rank. The game topped the iOS free chart from pre-download through its first week, and after the Sun and Moon Walker skin line launched on September 25 it rose to sixth on the top-grossing chart and stayed in the top ten for several days. The author also notes community discussion moving from memorizing answers to understanding them, with players studying lineup logic and mid-game branching.

走到两周年的《三角洲行动》，把“叙事”打造成了新王牌

What to Play This Mid-Autumn Holiday: Touch Music Editors Recommend The Roottrees are Dead, Riders Republic, Soulframe and More

Touch Music editors recommend six games for the Mid-Autumn holiday, including the Steam detective puzzler The Roottrees are Dead at 76 yuan and Ubisoft's open-world extreme sports game Riders Republic at a 90% discount, now 16.8 yuan. Digital Extremes' new title Soulframe, from the Warframe developer, is still in early testing. The list also includes the free short visual novel The Thief, the Witch, the Toad, and the Mushroom, the 2015 release Life is Strange, and the web-based sudoku puzzler Murdoku.

"Gulong Qunxia Lu" Open Beta: Can a "Wanderable Jianghu" Be Another Answer for Wuxia IPs?

Gulong Qunxia Lu launched its full-platform open beta on September 23, pitching a "wanderable jianghu" built around open 3D exploration and turn-based strategy combat. The game uses ink-wash visuals to evoke Gu Long's settings and gives original side characters like Qin Shuang their own storylines, with free horseback exploration and random encounters. Special stages such as Jiguan Island and Guiying Cave let combat break out of turn-based mode into real-time resolution.

Tokyo Game Show 2026 celebrated the past, and an uncertain AI future | Opinion

Tokyo Game Show 2026's 30th instalment ran only four of its five days after the final day was canceled due to an oncoming typhoon, with remakes and legacy IP dominating the showfloor. A preliminary CESA report found 86% of developers self-reported using AI tools, up from 51% last year, while Level-5 drew controversy for prominent AI use in its showcase and trailers, prompting CEO Akihiro Hino to apologize.

ChuLe GuaiHua: The "Old Grandpa" on the Board

In Honor of Kings: Chess of Kings, the AI assistant "Lingbao" guides players on when to level up, draw cards, and pick cards, helping the author learn the game from scratch and reach Gold rank. As rank rises, the AI's usefulness declines and opponents start using "unconventional moves" the AI wouldn't use, which the author expects will bring more variety to matches between experienced players.

On the Path of Pursuing Player Experience, Wuthering Waves Has Gone "Off the Deep End"

Wuthering Waves' 3.6 main story "烟云幽远心剑鸣" has Qingxiao choose to reconcile with her inner demon rather than defeat or submit to it. The development team says the key to long-term operation is making players trust the game is still growing, not relying on a single major version or crossover. Version 3.6 also adds sword-flight and sword-intent puzzle mechanics, and the official team says it will optimize performance across all platforms by switching programming languages, raising iOS performance by over 10 frames on average.

Chuapp Talk: "Your Time Is Running Out"

EA Sports FC 26 has reached the end of its lifecycle, with Ultimate Team no longer running new events and its web and app versions shut down. Playing only the web-based pack-opening mode, the author earned 4.16845 million coins over the year, about 350,000 a month, enough to buy each season's 500,000-coin paid pass without extra spending. Ultimate Team data resets every year, pushing players to FC 27, while FC 26 still costs at least $69.99.

"More than anything, what's valuable from a human is judgment and taste"

Petit Planet preview: HoYoverse's first foray into family-friendly games is very careful to colour within the lines

Petit Planet, HoYoverse's first family-friendly social sim, has launched its second beta test and is being compared closely to Animal Crossing. It swaps the usual desert island for a desert planet in space, but the preview finds few new ideas and no confirmed release window. The beta also flags content made with generative AI, with NPC real-time dialogue likened to the 20-year-old indie game Façade.

"AI was my engineering team, not my creative director"