Puzzle Games Plus has partnered with leading App Store analytics company Data.ai (née App Annie) to deliver an exclusive, monthly report based on the most downloaded puzzle games (across Google Play and the App Store) in four major regions; the UK, China, Japan and USA.
This time out we will be taking at each region’s download charts within the month of September 2022. It’s worth noting that this isn’t a chart about the highest revenue, and doesn’t consider whether the games are premium or not. As such it’s likely to be led by F2P titles, and those in turn might be entirely ad-supported, or microtransaction based.
First up, we’ll start closer to home.
UK Top Download Puzzle Games | September 2022
A lot of familiar faces, like Angry Birds 2 and Wordscapes hold decent positions at the end of September, however the real winners here are Woodoku which held its position and Trivia Star which has blasted its way up into 6th position from 25th. Elsewhere Tetris (N3TWORK), Words of Wonders and Triple Tile pushed their way back into the top ten.
USA Top Download Puzzle Games | September 2022
As might be expected, there are a lot of similarities between the UK and USA rankings, with Wordscapes, Woodoku, Wordle and Angry Birds 2 all featured in the top 5 of both. Don’t be fooled by the absence of Trivia Star and the presence of Fun Feud Trivia; Both are from Super Lucky Games. FFT, however, only climbed four places for its current position, cementing its top ten positions rather than gaining it as its UK counterpart did.
Tetris (N3TWORK), Scavenger Hunt, Words of Wonders and the ever-popular (albeit slightly less so, it seems) Figgerits make up the rest of the games shared between the two, with Block Blast in the USA, and Triple Tile in the UK, being the only major variation between the two for the month.
Japan Top Download Puzzle Games | September 2022
Here’s where it gets fun. Japan played a critical role in the growth of the pre-mobile gaming industry, and arguably still plays a major role not least through companies like Capcom, Nintendo, Sega and Sony, however, there’s always been a cultural gulf between itself and the US, UK, French and German markets.
Perhaps then, unsurprisingly, there’s not actually much in common. Tetris (N3TWORK) and Woodoku has completely crossed the board, and Triple Tile has spirited its way into both the UK and Japanese mobile charts through a recent surge in activity, however, Japan features another Tile-Matching game in BlockuDoku, as well as three word games, a Hidden Object game (Find Out) and, topping all of it, Nurturing’s Nice Choices, a quiz game from Tap Tap Times where you need to make consecutive correct choices to muck through life. It sounds interesting and is actually available in most other regions, however, I bet they have some great regionalised adverts in Japan – where the developer is based – that are keeping those download numbers nice and high as it holds its 1st-place position for another month.
China Top Download Puzzle Games | September 2022
Finally, from the spiritual birthplace of many major proponents of modern gaming, to the home of some of the most influential voices in the industry (including Tencent and Moonton), China.
Surprisingly, Cut The Rope 2 features here. While it’s an absolute classic, its rarely seen in UK/US puzzle charts (not least as it’s in subscription services), and so was quite a surprise to see here, not only that, but it’s its second week at fifth place in the China region. We don’t have specific ID numbers here, so don’t know if Find It! is related to Japan’s Find Out!, but Block Blast-Block (previously mentioned in the US discussion) and Triple Tile (UK, Japan) are names that we recognise.
Interestingly Triple Tile is one of the two games which raced back into the charts, alongside Find Diff 2. Their rapid ascension is something to watch, but its also worth keeping in mind that Cut The Rope and 茶叶蛋大冒险 (Loosely, ‘Tea Egg Adventure’; also available on Steam) held their own and that Tetris (N3TWORK) is nowhere to be seen as it was not released in the region.
Thanks again to Data.ai for providing this information, we’ll be back again next month with more insight.