I’m going to show you how to reskin an app – the right way and for optimal success.
Slice and Dice Technique
Slice and Dice is picking something from a gameplay and combining it with another idea to create a new one. Look for existing apps and search for mechanisms that you can incorporate in it. You can take inspiration from existing apps or those events you observe in the real world.
David Reichelt, creator of the popular game Color Switch, incorporated this technique in his app. He took an existing app and sliced it and diced it with something different.
There was already an app called Flight that got featured by Apple in August 2015 and another game is Doodle Jump that has the same gameplay. You tap the screen and the thing moves up — the two have similarities.
But David didn’t just copy the existing ones, he also took inspiration from Uno. Uno has a wild card that allows you to change color and he applied this to his game. He also looked around and noticed how the Gmail login screen changed colors and this got him inspired.
I personally played Flight and Color Switch, but I think the latter really took off because it has a sticky gameplay. The publisher has created more games but none has been as popular as Color Switch.
I think the brilliance of Color Switch comes down to the simple mechanics of changing colors because it keeps the game more engaging with its simple gameplay.
Build a Game Around a Keyword Using an Existing Mechanism
Take a popular game mechanic and see where the hole is. I have a client who saw an existing game mechanism and recreated it to a different market using ASO.
He saw that there were skewered volume for particular keywords so he decided to create an app that matches that particular keyword using the game mechanism of an existing app. That game was a big hit.
These are the two ways to reskin your app the right way for optimal success.
