It’s a calendar day related to sensible jokes and trickery, however this yr’s April Fools’ Day resulted in loads of intelligent stunts, occasions and updates from cellular recreation builders. As anybody who follows our seasonal occasion posts will know, worldwide calendar days are a unbelievable alternative for cellular recreation builders to spice up their revenues and participant counts with event-specific updates, and April Fools’ Day is not any totally different. 

The weird and playful nature of April Fools’ Day makes it the right match for cellular recreation builders that need to experiment and do one thing totally different. If you happen to’re searching for inspiration, check out how the likes of Cookie Run: Kingdom, Garena Free Hearth, Pokémon and extra celebrated April Fools’ Day this yr. 

Cookie Run: Kingdom

Let’s begin with a recreation that made the largest effort on April Fools’ Day. Cookie Run: Kingdom celebrated by giving each cookie character (besides the collaboration characters Sonic and Tails) a brand new pores and skin that might be unlocked for the occasion interval – nearly 70 new outfits in whole! The seems to be diversified from anime characters and reimagined memes to ASCII artwork and for some motive, a coin!

The April Fools’ occasion lasted for 14 days, and gamers wanted to carry out duties to acquire Shroomies, an unique occasion materials that might be swapped for the brand new costumes. With 70 outfits to unlock, gamers needed to make investments a substantial period of time in selecting up each character’s various April Fools’ costume. Unlocking a brand new outfit would additionally unlock a brief narrative sequence for that character, the place they clarify how consuming the Shroomie modified their look and conduct. Clearing sufficient duties rewarded the participant with an in-game poster the place they might admire all the new seems to be in a single image.

The occasion was additionally calmly monetized. Gamers might buy an inexpensive bundle containing a particular avatar, 4100 gems, 600 rainbow cubes (= two pores and skin gacha pulls), and 5 Shroomies (which might be swapped for 5 April Fools’ skins). The provide additionally featured an alternate model of the sport’s essential character, GingerBrave.

Brawl Stars

After all, April Fools’ day is all about enjoyable and joking round, so a technique of celebrating the big day is to make your gameplay extra quirky. Brawl Stars did this by holding “The Completely Regular Problem.” It capabilities on a fundamental stage like another Problem within the recreation: five-or-so maps from numerous recreation modes, with gamers needing to win every map a few occasions to maneuver on to the subsequent one. You get rewards for every win, and after three losses, you might be out.

This time, every map had a unusual modifier to combine issues up: Gem Seize had double motion velocity, Sizzling Zone had a tilting floor creating uphills and downhills to decelerate or velocity up gamers, and Brawl Ball had a burning ball that not solely triggered harm to anybody holding it but additionally destroyed any partitions it hit. The rewards have been additionally quirky within the sense that the very best rewards have been for the primary wins, with reward values reducing in direction of the tip. This ensured most gamers would get the primary prizes.

Garena Free Hearth

Garena Free Hearth featured a slightly unconventional April Fools’ Day login bonus with its ‘Lethal Baguette,’ a brand new knife pores and skin awarded to anybody that logged in on April 1st. Alongside the brand new weapon, a farming/tycoon occasion mode was additionally added to the sport, which lasted for ten days – one other uncommon addition and an attention-grabbing instance of hybrid gameplay. Gamers accomplished duties to acquire seeds and develop crops. When the crops have been grown, they might be offered to acquire a particular occasion forex. The occasion forex might be used to improve the farm and the home or to buy particular occasion rewards.

Pokémon

April Fools’ Day was celebrated with a coordinated theme and energy throughout a number of Pokémon video games, lots of which featured the Pokémon prankster Ditto, who is ready to remodel into different Pokémon, objects, and even folks.

In Pokémon Masters EX, all the characters that function in the primary menu space had been duplicated. A detective from the sequence was on-hand to unravel this thriller. Dittos are unable to talk, so it was comparatively straightforward to determine which characters have been actual and which characters have been Ditto, however issues have been made tougher with the addition of the protagonist Purple from the first era of Pokémon video games, who’s infamous for not talking! The sport made enjoyable of this with some tongue-in-cheek humor, however fortunately his rival Blue was there to level out which Purple was the actual Purple based mostly on the aura they’ve. Alongside the Ditto detective sequence, the sport additionally featured a particular 1000 gem login bonus for anybody logging in on April 1st.

Pokémon Go had a Ditto-themed set of duties to clear. It might look like the professor himself was a Ditto as properly, contemplating he solely communicated with “…”. The spawn charge of Dittos was additionally elevated, and gamers might receive particular Ditto-themed stickers by spinning Pokéstops.

A lesser identified Match3 Pokémon recreation, Pokémon Café Remix, additionally featured Ditto because the star of its April Fools’ Day celebrations, with gamers capable of recruit the Pokémon as a personality within the Café all through the occasion.

Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle

Corporations are identified for pulling pranks on April Fools’ Day, and Dragon Ball Z Dokkan gamers have been teased with a brand new rhythm recreation mode for the Puzzle RPG. The mode was featured within the information part and teased as a reputable announcement however was by no means supposed to make it into the sport.

Lily’s Backyard

Lily’s Backyard is an instance of a extra easy method to April Fools’ Day. The sport had some IAP provides with the April Fools’ title to have a good time the occasion. If all provides are bought, gamers can add Charlie the Quokka beauty pet to their backyard.

April Fools’ Day: One other alternative for enjoyable and monetization 

Because the examples above have proven, April Fools’ Day is one other alternative for cellular recreation builders to have some enjoyable with quirky occasions, new gameplay modes, and monetization components. You may make investments loads of time into a chronic occasion within the hope of accelerating playtime (similar to Cookie Run: Kingdom did), run an April Fools’ Day prank by teasing a pretend function, occasion, or gameplay mode much like Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle, or you possibly can simply drop a few IAP provides to reference the actual fact it’s April Fools’ Day like Lily’s Backyard did. 

What seasonal occasions are you planning on celebrating in your cellular recreation? If you happen to’re searching for some inspiration, make sure you take a look at extra examples from GameRefinery SaaS to see how different cellular video games are celebrating seasonal occasions all year long. GameRefinery employees can also be completely satisfied to level our prospects to essentially the most memorable ones that we now have witnessed over the numerous years we’ve been monitoring top-performing cellular video games, particularly in the event you’re searching for particular examples in the identical style or out of your opponents. Additionally, don’t overlook to take a look at our earlier April Fools’ Day in-game occasion compilation from a few years again if these examples have been to your liking.

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