Key numbers:

Release date: June 10th, 2021
Income for 30 days: $1.8kk
LTV, All time: $3.96

Happy Clinic is a simulation/tycoon game. The main character, controlled by the player, is a nurse who works in a clinic and helps doctors treat patients. The focus is, on the one hand, on caring for patients and, on the other hand, on creating and developing something of one’s own. This creates an emotional connection between the player and events within the game.

The tycoon hospital genre has been around for a long time and is well-liked by the players. For example, Two Point Hospital (2018) or Heart’s Medicine (2016), which has very positive reviews on Steam. One of Heart’s Medicine’s latest installments was released not only on Steam (in 2020) but also on mobile platforms (in 2022).

Gameplay

The player is engaged in building and developing their clinic, hiring doctors, and treating patients.

The gameplay can be divided into two parts: Levels, in which we treat patients; and improvements to the clinic. For completing levels the player receives:

1. Coins that allow the user to buy upgrades useful for subsequent levels;
2. Stars are used to customize the hospital and unlock new doctors.

The levels become more and more difficult over time, which motivates the player to spend money on hospital upgrades.

In general, this is reminiscent of a classic setup, where the main game loop is a mini-game, and the meta-level is the decoration and development of a place or story (like Homescapes with its match-3 or June’s Journey with its hidden object mechanic).

Monetization

Currently, the game has few mechanics that are directly focused on monetization. While playing, I’ve only encountered the cashier, offers, and a piggy bank. So the game has great potential for monetization development.

Cash register

At the cash register, you can buy both gold and rubies:

1. Gold is spent on improving equipment used in the levels (speeding up the heroine’s movement, the patience of patients, speeding up the replenishment of items).
2. Rubies are spent on buying of:

• gold
• boosters (freezing time, speeding up the heroine)
• infinite lives
• unique upgrades for the levels (for example, automatically retractable beds, which greatly streamlines the game)

All boosters, lots, and packages are located in one cash register, which you can switch between using the panel at the bottom. It’s a rather controversial decision, as most players convert to the offers that are not visible on the screen below. This is especially true for bonuses that are at the very bottom, which players may simply not scroll through to.

In Homescapes, the key lots are placed on the main screen. There is reason to believe that the conversion to lots that are not visible on the first page is much lower since the player has to make an additional tap to see them.

With bundles, the focus is clearly on their profitability: you can buy a lot consisting of 600 rubies for $10 or a bundle of 650 rubies and get a bunch of bonuses on top of that. On the one hand, this motivates the player to buy the bundle and gives them the impression that they “cheated” the game, but on the other hand, the lots themselves lose value.

Regardless, it is worth noting that the offers appear not only in the panel on the right but also in the cash register. The first $5 conversion offer can be easily compared to a bundle, and the lots can be compared to the bundles. Here the player sees that they get more gold and hard currency for the same price. Admittedly, though, the 75% benefit sounds somewhat unbelievable.

Offers

An event offer becomes available at the start of the game, but it did not open automatically and took a lot of effort to find. Perhaps it was because my game start coincided with the event, and I had to wait until the event offer expired and before the conversion offer appeared.

For some reason, the game displayed an expired offer but without the option to buy it. This is a good chance to show the player: “This is your last chance! This will not happen again!” which can have a positive effect on conversion.

Пигги-банк

The piggy bank is pretty simplistic. The player goes through the levels for which he receives hard currency that flies into the piggy bank.

The visuals stand out from the bright style of the game! There are no vivid colors or characters here, and the background itself is a simple white. However, the piggy bank itself is recognizable, and the interface makes it pretty clear how to collect rubies and how many rubies are needed to crack the piggy bank.

When you open the cash register, the profitability of such an offer becomes obvious, because there the $3 can only get you 150 rubies.

The game does not contain any advertising revenue. There is a button to get free soft currency, but it leads to another project by the same developer — Pocket Styler (2020). I wonder why this decision was made because the game has lower metrics ($450k revenue in 30 days, $1.94 LTV).

What can be added?

The game does not have many meta-mechanics, meaning there is a lot of room for their introduction and, consequently, for monetization increment.

First of all, you should look at successful projects with similar gameplay. For example, Homescapes, Fishdom, or Project Makeover, that use match-3 levels instead of patient treatments.

Events