The concept of "Palu Like" has been around for nearly two and a half years now. Domestic manufacturers have also shifted their thinking and implementation in this direction from the initial innovative gameplay of "pet catching+pet development+SOC" to "the game is centered around pets", and "pet catching+big world" is the framework that many big companies are betting on.

For example, on March 26, Chinese Mainland's public beta of "Rock Kingdom: The World" is becoming Tencent's new evergreen game with the help of multiple BUFFs such as IP, Pet Catching, Open World, and GaaS. The game earned $39.15 million (approximately RMB 266 million) in its first month on iOS, and has remained at $21.73 million (approximately RMB 150 million) in the past month. Since its launch, the iOS game sales chart has remained stable within the top 20.

There are also products under miHoYo, such as "Collapse: Fate Elf," which features a "Collapse" IP and unique self chess gameplay, as well as "Imo," which uses real-time combat and allows players to share perspectives with pets through a "Connect" system.

But currently, the direction of "Palu Like" seems to have been adjusted again, with pet themed packaging nested and lightweight gameplay structure becoming a new entry point, in order to reduce the threshold and burden on players, adapt to fragmented experiences, and attract more general users.

01

Is Palmon: Survival showing signs of stagnation? Lilith focuses on lightweight pet themed gameplay

New game optimization for over a year, open beta for 4 days, US iOS game bestseller list continues to climb

In this long and increasingly diverse intense competition on the track, various overseas SLG manufacturers are the core players and have been involved. Lilith is a typical representative, and her "Palmon: Survival" (Chinese version name "Palmon Battle Diary") is the first explosive product to run on the entire Palu SLG track.

The game was first released in May 2024 and will gradually be officially launched globally starting in 2025. In March of this year, the monthly revenue reached a peak of $8.4 million (approximately RMB 56.8 million, excluding domestic Android devices, the same below), but there has been a significant decline since April. Currently, the daily revenue is fluctuating around $110000 (the total revenue of the game is about $63.45 million, approximately RMB 431 million, with the United States, Germany, and France ranking among the top 3 with a proportion of 50.82%, 9.97%, and 5.13%).

However, just as Palmon: Survival was on the verge of slipping, another heavy punch that was more in line with the current trend of lightweighting quickly caught up.

On May 21, Lilith's pet themed Coin Master like (following the lightweight cycle of "turntable construction plunder") vertical leisure tower defense game Clash of Critters officially opened a public test in 170 countries and regions around the world (excluding Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and other Asia Pacific markets).

On the day of the game, it surged to the top 50 of the iOS game free rankings in 35 regional markets. Since then, its ranking has not declined, but has further surged in more regional markets (on May 25th, it was ranked in the top 50 of the iOS game free rankings in 61 regional markets).

At present (May 27th), it is still in the top 50 of the iOS game free list in 41 regional markets and has entered the top 50 of the iOS game best-selling list in 16 regional markets.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that Clash of Critters has shown particularly strong performance on the charts in the US market. It has never dropped from the top 10 free to play iOS games chart in its first week of beta testing, and has steadily risen on the best-selling list. On the first day of beta testing, it only ranked 104th, but has now risen to 66th place.

In terms of market data and download volume, it achieved 190000 downloads on the first day of the public beta, and has continued to grow since then. Currently, the daily download volume is about 290000.

In terms of daily revenue, the estimated earnings on the first day of the public beta were around $120000 (approximately RMB 812000), and have steadily increased thereafter. Currently, the estimated daily revenue is around $280000 (approximately RMB 1.9 million).

As of May 24th, the cumulative download volume of the game during its 4-day public beta is about 924000, with the United States, Brazil, and Thailand ranking in the top 3 with 35.63%, 6.88%, and 5.46% respectively. In terms of platform share, the APP Store and Google Play are almost in a 50-50 position;

Based on the download data from the public beta and the material volume after deduplication provided by Da Da in the past 30 days (1987 for Apple and 3569 for Android), it can be inferred that the game did not achieve a one-time explosive volume on the release end, and overall it was relatively restrained. It is estimated that the daily release before the public beta should be below 500000 US dollars (between 2 million and 3 million RMB), with Europe and America being the core release markets;

The estimated total revenue for the 4-day public beta is around $750000 (approximately RMB 5.1 million), with the United States, Singapore, and Thailand ranking in the top three with contributions of 56.72%, 8.42%, and 4.3%. As for the platform, the App Store has a significant advantage of 79.9%. The RPD (Single Download Revenue) is approximately $0.81 (approximately RMB 5.51).

It is worth mentioning that Clash of Critters also went through a long testing cycle before its public beta.

The game was initially launched on Google Play in a few regional markets around January 2025 under the title "Ace Trainer" (known as "Elf Trainer" in Chinese). At the same time, the game also began operating on official FB accounts (with all official account deployments completed by the end of December 2025), and its gameplay structure was almost the same as it is now;

In mid to late February of the same year, the game was officially renamed as the current Clash of Critters. During this period, it was mainly tested in the United States and Japan, with a focus on content optimization and validation. Around August, it will expand its testing area to four countries including the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, marking the start of continuous small-scale testing;

Until mid to late March of this year, the game officially opened for iOS pre registration, and the advertising volume further increased. Its daily download volume gradually fluctuated between 10000 and 20000 (with 470000 downloads in April), and its daily revenue also continued to rise, reaching a peak of $21000 before the public beta on April 25th (with a revenue of $430000 in April, about RMB 2.92 million). It was also on the same day that the game announced the public beta release date.

Based on the changes in the above rankings and market data, the monetization ability of this work is considerable and has good potential.

02

Pinball machine+pet development+vertical split line tower defense+CM like

Clash of Critters forms a positive dopamine loop

As mentioned earlier, although there has been a significant increase in the release of Clash of Critters during its public beta, there is still a considerable gap compared to other overseas blockbusters, and even our own company's 2024 public beta AFK2. The game's current performance and attention from the industry are closely related to its super integrated gameplay of "pinball machine+pet development+vertical branching tower defense+CM like".

The game adopts a relatively flat hand drawn style of "graffiti stickers" with some rough edges in art, combined with high saturation color matching, which not only ensures the cute and healing feeling of the "pet" theme, but also has memory points and personalized output.

In terms of background setting, players are in a world invaded by various zombie monsters (stinky army), and need to use their cute creature "Tata" with different personalities, attributes, professions, and evolutionary chains to fight and respond.

After entering the game, although it appears to be a challenge, the longest and most essential interactive interface for players to stay outside is the nostalgic arcade style "pinball machine", which replaces the traditional slot machine turntable of Coin Master and becomes the resource mining engine of the entire game.

Players consume marbles (stamina) by long pressing the screen and firing them continuously. The marbles bounce back and forth between obstacles, and eventually receive corresponding amounts of candy according to the different areas where they fall to the bottom. During this period, strong phone vibrations bring in a strong sense of excitement. If they fall to the center of the bottom, random activities will be triggered, including visits, PVE battles, and PVP loot (players can attack or sneak attack other online player camps. If the opponent does not have a "shield", players can loot a large amount of candy. If the opponent has a shield, the loot income will decrease) and other high reward activities.

The screen of the pinball machine also has two areas, Tata Ball and Shield. With each continuous touch of the pinball, when the progress bar in the corresponding area is full, corresponding rewards will be obtained.

In addition, the pinball machine will also drop various resources required for regular activities, recurring activities, and limited time activities, such as screws (not available for gift package purchase, rewards can be obtained when accumulated), cakes and other task props, as well as tickets for activities such as cola (tickets for gold grabbing activities), fishing rods (tickets for fishing), hammers (tickets for camp treasure hunting) (which can be obtained through gift packages).

In order to increase players' sense of luck when using the pinball machine on the numerical side, the game strongly guides players to "long press and release 15 pinballs at once", so that the probability of experiencing the "Emperor of Europe Grand Prix" compound will skyrocket.

The pinball machine is responsible for producing resources, and the consumption and numerical verification of these resources are carried out by the multi column automatic propulsion placement tower defense mechanism within the bureau. In the early stages of the battle, there was only one column, but in the later stages, it will expand and swarms of zombies will rush down from above. Once any column is breached and approaches the bottom of the forest, the battle is declared a failure.

Tata has the native attributes of "water, fire, wood, earth, and thunder", and the system will prompt the enemy's attributes before each level begins. The numerical weight of attribute restraint in this game is extremely high, and whether it is placed in the right restraint position directly determines whether it is a "complete destruction failure" or a "no damage clearance". Although the game supports automatic AFK in the background, players still need to manually adjust their strategy position when the card is turned off.

In order to provide a warm shell for the cold numerical machine CM Like, the game introduces a "pet development line", which is also the core of extending the product lifecycle and hiding deep spending points. At present, there are two entrances for obtaining Tata balls. One is the area in the pinball machine where the ball needs to touch and fill the progress bar. The other is to activate the "rebuild home" activity by obtaining screws on the pinball table, which will trigger a capture gameplay similar to that of a twisting egg machine (releasing the cat claw ball at the appropriate time, the number of balls will increase dramatically through the "multiplier door", hitting the wild Tata moving below, and meeting the number of hits will successfully capture it). Of course, a certain amount of tata balls will also be provided in various activities.

The progress bar above the pinball machine displays the upgrade progress of the tower. When the candy bar is filled, the overall level of all existing towers will be increased.

When duplicate tatas are captured, they can be used for star elevation, and each tata can evolve to a certain star level. The number of evolution stars required for different pets varies, and the number of evolution times for different tatas also varies. Evolution will change the tata's name, form skills, and increase a certain level of attack and defense rating. In addition, feeding will increase Tata's attack health percentage attribute. At the same time, feeding specific items will randomly receive Tata's flash shape, and each Tata is limited to feeding 15 times a day.

In terms of external assistance loop, the game provides a simulation of building a campsite. Players can obtain shovels and stars by constantly passing levels. The former can expand the scale of the campsite, while the latter can unlock the number of marble trees planted and the food processing factory that produces feeding resources by continuously accumulating quantities. Other decorative buildings need to be pushed through levels and various activities to obtain building exchange vouchers.

The game builds an extremely smooth positive dopamine loop, where players can quickly press the buttons on the pinball machine to obtain a large amount of candy and screws, and sneak attack their friends. They can also use candy to upgrade all the Tatas with just one click, play the multiplier door with screws to capture/evolve Tatas, and put the Tatas into the vertical tower defense. They can use their attributes to restrain hanging up, mowing, pushing and closing the door, unlock more buffs and functions, and feedback to improve the pinball machine and activity income.

03

Clash of Critters has potential, but there is constant competition in the same direction

Pet elements tend towards generalization and absorption

Overall, Clash of Critters uses a "high emotional intelligence" cute pet healing shell to wrap around the hardcore and gold absorbing CM Like skeleton, which gives it the potential to become an ultimate fusion lightweight explosive.

At present, the revenue of the game is still steadily increasing, but it is estimated that with the complete opening up of the European and American markets, the launch of the Japanese, Korean, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan markets, especially the Japanese market that is sensitive to pinball machines, the game may enter a stage of true revenue explosion. In addition, the Chinese version of "Tata Adventure Team" released in February this year has also obtained a license.

Although Clash of Critters has currently demonstrated its dominance in the "pet+CM Like" segment, Bilibili's "Shining Bar! Lumi Master" (international version name "Lumi Master") has also launched a limited time download and deletion test on May 8th this year. Bilibili also expressed during the Q&A session of the first quarter financial report conference that the game's goal is still to be launched globally in the fourth quarter of this year.

In addition, there are also many similar mini games emerging in China, so it is necessary to continue to observe who will become the king in the future.

Finally, it should be mentioned that due to the popularity and continuous extension of "Palu", in addition to the true "Palu Like" products mentioned above, the broader pet or elf themes have naturally gained more attention. Therefore, many games, although only having elements related to them, will also make this part of the content the focus of new game drainage and promotion.

For example, Fantamon: Idle RPG, a game under Shengqu, started testing in the United States in March and was launched in nearly 130 countries and regions in April. In the first month, its revenue was only $1.14 million (approximately RMB 7.72 million), and the data slowly increased to $1.4 million (approximately RMB 9.3 million) the following month with the increase in investment. Although this is an RPG with anime different world fantasy adventure theme, it is strengthening the "pet system" in terms of product packaging, product promotion focus and launch materials.

It is expected that this trend will continue in the future.