Creating a Puzzle Game App: Understanding the Expenses, Advantages, and Additional Insights

Puzzle game apps are an extremely popular genre with millions of downloads. Even with the rising craze of multiplayer FPS games, puzzle games have a dedicated user base consisting of hundreds of millions of users and generate billions of pounds of revenue. Puzzle game app development is a profitable opportunity for businesses in the UK due to the rising demand and fanbase. MAD will explain all the details you need to know in this blog for creating successful puzzle apps. Let’s hop right into it.

First, let’s understand the advantages of investing in puzzle game development.

Puzzle games are one of the most popular genres of gaming apps, with hundreds of millions of downloads and loyal fans. The puzzle game market is expected to grow to 17.68 billion pounds by 2027, with an annual growth rate of 9.05%.

Compared to other genres of games, puzzle games are relatively simpler and faster to develop. This is due to them being less demanding in terms of graphics and animations. They have shorter development cycles, as they can be tested and iterated quickly. You have various tools and frameworks, such as Unity, Cocos2d-x, Corona SDK, etc., for developing puzzle apps.

Puzzle games generally have a higher retention rate compared to other apps due to the constant grind for challenges and rewards. You have multiple sources of revenue, such as in-app purchases, ads, and season pass subscriptions. Along with this, you can leverage social features such as leaderboards to increase user engagement.

The benefits extend beyond your business and reach out to your users as well. Puzzles are excellent for improving mental skills such as logic, problem-solving, creativity, and more. They provide educational content and are excellent for kids who want to learn. Along with this, puzzles provide a relaxing and fun experience that helps to reduce stress and anxiety.

A puzzle game is a broad term in itself. There are multiple subcategories in the same that improve problem-solving, spatial awareness, pattern recognition, word knowledge, etc. Here are some of them:

Jigsaw Puzzles

Crossword Puzzles

Sudoku

Word Search

Match-3 Games

Logic Puzzles

Puzzle Adventure Games

Maze Puzzles

Hidden Object Games

Tangrams

Sliding Block Puzzles

Cryptic Puzzles

Trivia Quizzes

3D Puzzles

Riddles and Brainteasers

Understanding the exact sub-category of the puzzle game you want to develop will help you get a precise pathway to the development process.

Estimating the cost of developing a puzzle app needs careful consideration of multiple factors. Here are some of the major ones that influence the development cost.

This includes the gameplay and functionality of the app, such as the scoring system, leaderboard, social sharing, multiplayer mode, etc. The features determine the complexity of the app. The higher the complexity of the app, the more time and resources it’ll require to develop, leading to increased costs.

This includes the visual and audio aspects of the app, such as the graphics, animations, sound effects, UI, etc. Developing an app with high-quality graphics and music will require hiring expert animators and composers, adding to the project cost.

This refers to the people involved in your project, such as project managers, business analysts, designers, developers, testers, etc. The more people your project demands, the higher the development cost will be. The expertise of the developers also contributes to the development cost. Here’s a rough estimate of the puzzle app development cost: These figures are indicative. The actual numbers will vary based on specific project requirements, complexity, and the development team's rates.

How you design your puzzle game plays a huge role in its success. Here are some tips from MAD to make your puzzle app idea more engaging and fun for players:

You need to start with the basics. What is the mechanic that’s going to move the game forward? That particular mechanic should be easy to grasp while having enough depth to keep players interested. Refine your app idea by removing unnecessary features that distract players from core gameplay.

The game market is already saturated with thousands of puzzle games. Having an original idea is crucial to making your app stand out. Think of a unique twist or theme for your puzzle game that makes it more appealing.

A good idea needs good execution for it to flourish. You need to create a well-balanced difficulty curve that keeps users interested. Along with this, the controls, the user interface, the sound, and the graphics of your puzzle game should be on point. It’ll result in a game that’s fun, fair, and satisfying for the players.

With over two decades in the field, MAD has developed multiple apps for kids. Our mobile app developers know the ins and outs of designing a puzzle app that keeps kids and adults hooked. Our all-around solutions allow you to get all the necessary services and technologies under one roof. Let’s have a discussion about your project!