The first thing that every single match-3 game should have is a large amount of levels. No matter how good a game looks or how fun it is to play, players simply won’t like it unless it gives them lots of levels to enjoy. As of today, every single match-3 game worth its salt has at least fifty, if not more, stages to enjoy and the games that have at most thirty or thirty five levels don’t really get much attention from the player-base.

Other than the large amount of levels, a game should also have good design as well. You can shove in hundreds of levels but unless every single one of them feels unique and engaging, the experience won’t be enjoyable at all. As of today, game developers have figured out many different ways to add some depth to the levels and every single match-3 that can be considered good has multiple different kinds of levels and all of them have unique designs.

Since most match-3 games of today are played on online platforms like Facebook, social features have become sort of a necessity. At the very least players should be able to compare their level scores with friends. Having social features for these games is great because it makes players want to invite their mates to play them and it also promotes some competitive gameplay as well which is something that this genre lacks quite a bit.

A wide variety of power-ups is also something that all good match-3 games should have. Most games of this genre today offer at least four or five power-ups that players can make use of in order to get an edge during levels. Power-ups should be balanced as well, an insanely strong power-up that can immediately win a level should never be a part of the gameplay and players shouldn’t be given access to them right from the get-go. Allowing players to unlock power-ups as they progress through the game gives them an actual sense of progression and makes sure that these games don’t feel like an endless grind with no actual reward at the end.

Last but certainly not least, looks are pretty important as well. There’s a pretty large audience of players out there whose first priority is graphics so unless a game looks really good, it’s bound to miss out on a really large amount of players. Good visuals in a match-3 include things like fluid animations, bright colors and of course quality artwork.

All said and done, the things mentioned above are those that we feel, when combined together, would create a great match-3 game that almost every single person would enjoy.