Goodbye Angry Birds – Rovio takes on Candy Crush, but not in the way you think

The Finnish casual gaming giant is tackling the match-three genre with its latest title, but you won't be catapulting anything at naughty piggies

Smartphone gaming is a tough business - even for the companies at the very top. Candy Crush Saga developer King has struggled to develop new games beyond its hit "match-three" puzzler, while Rovio announced more than 200 lay-offs in August as part of an attempt to restructure and refocus its increasingly bloated business. The app stores are dominated by a handful of longstanding titles, and that makes developing, marketing and launching new IPs even more expensive and risky, especially as it can take several months to start seeing significant returns.

It's a problem Rovio is about to face head-on. The Finnish company's latest title, released this week on the Apple and Google stores, is Nibblers, a match-three puzzler featuring a cast of aquatic creatures. As ever, players need to line up similar pieces of fruit to clear each level. Unlike the company's other recent attempts to explore new genres - including Angry Birds Stella Pop and Angry Birds Go - there are no furious avian creatures or porcine antagonists. The cast - if not the design concept - is entirely new.