Match-3 Genre
I haven't done a post about this genre but I probably should. For now, here's a short explanation of what these games are like. As the name mentions it already the idea is to match 3 or more of the same object together. It's most often seen as a puzzle game genre but this... well... just keep reading.
Merge Dragons! - Game Concept
The basic game is quite simple there are different types of objects that you merge together to upgrade them basically. You start off with growing plants that if merged form a flower. Additionally, you'll see dragon eggs at the very beginning of the game if you merge those you get a dragon. This dragon can interact with the objects in the game like getting life essence from the flower which can be used to purify dead ground that. Any objects on the dead ground can't be interacted with or moved unless you match them or purify them. In the rest of the game, you will find all kinds of different objects, especially in the camp or housing styled level. Almost all of them can be upgraded many of them can be interacted with.
Match 3 and Building
I don't know if this is the first mobile game that implemented this idea, but it's the first one I found. Now I've been wondering since it's a lot of fun and most of the fun really comes from the housing styled level and not from the puzzle levels. If you take the idea of the settlers, age of empires or any other building game and apply match-3 gameplay to it the resulting game could be quite interesting.
Now the biggest issue I see is that building games and match-3 definitely doesn't clash as seen in the mobile game I've been playing. However, for more building games like settlers or the age of empires, a match-3 theme wouldn't fit the aesthetics.
Inspiration
Having seen and played this game is quite inspiring and like with the most interesting ideas I see, it raises the question. Which other games, genres or mechanics can be matched with the match-3 genre? I have heard and seen a lot of games that implement a game concept like bejeweled and add another game concept running at the same time, like matching jewels or symbols to attack the enemy, but maybe there is a more direct implementation possible? Like a chess field of enemies and you can merge 3 smaller minions to a bigger minion and let those statues fight?
Well... let it sank in-game devs and designers.
