The segment of hyper-casual games was quite stable during the first half of 2021 and even showed a historical record for downloads in May 2021. Monthly aggregated downloads of all hyper-casual games worldwide are presented in the graph below:
Leaders were variable throughout the term, as is always the case with this super dynamic market:
As the graph suggests, the top has been renewed by 60%: 6 games are the new names, and only 4 have remained from the list of H2 2020—that is, Join Clash 3D, Stack Ball, Tiles Hop, and Worms Zone.io.
Let’s now have a more precise look at several games that boomed in 2021:
Bridge Race
While Bridge Race was released in February 2021, it started gaining a lot of attention in spring only, reaching 41M downloads in May. What is this game about? The general idea is that the player has to collect color blocks in order to build a bridge of that particular shade. In order to win, you also have to hit other players that have collected fewer blocks, so that they drop them and cannot finish the bridge faster than you.
Hair Challenge
Another hit of H1 2021 is the Hair Challenge that peaked in May but went on to a downtrend towards the end of the first half of the year. This also led to the overall spike in downloads for the publisher, which had previously enjoyed rather nonvolatile dynamics year on year without any remarkable spikes. Now, the release of Hair Challenge upped it from a monthly figure of 990K in January 2021 to almost 59M in May, declining to 46M in June. The idea of the game is quite simple but no less exciting because of it: the player’s character has to collect hairdos to make their hair longer and avoid all scissors and other cutting objects in order to keep the length until the finish line. Are we going to see this game come on top again in the second half of 2021? Well, let’s check in 6 months!
Going Balls
Another game to catch our attention is Going Balls. It also had its fair share of fast growth in the first half of 2021, peaking in May and slowing back down with fewer and fewer new users afterward. The publisher of the game, Supersonic Studios LTD, has so far tripled its number of downloads compared to August 2020, reaching 126M in April but starting to lose newcomers in June. In the game, the player gets to roll the ball all the way to the finish line, avoiding all obstacles. Sounds easy? Go on and test your attentiveness and reflexes to prove you can go calls alright!
Source: AppMagic
