Royal Match is a casual freemium match-three game app for smartphones developed by Dream Games. The storyline narrates the protagonist, King Robert, and his attempts to restore his castle's former glory. Completing puzzles awards coins needed to make purchases to refurbish the castle's ever-increasing list of rooms and gardens.
The game stands out for its incredibly false advertising, in which Robert is always shown in life-or-death situations and the player must match enough tiles to clear an open path to trigger a mechanic that will save the King from danger. Of course, in an attempt to stroke the viewer's ego and trick them into downloading the game, the example player in the advertisement always fails this simple task. Occasionally, players will have to complete this type of level, known as a "King's Nightmare", but the mechanics aren't the same as they are in the ads, as they simply require completing matching objectives in limited time. Even today, the ads continue to follow the same tradition of hypothetical players failing to save the King despite millions of downloaders now knowing the truth that most levels do not involve life-or-death thrills and only require players to clear X number of specific obstacles within a set turn limit, including cracking open safes or hatching birds from eggs simply by matching tiles near them.
The game provides examples of:
- An Interior Designer Is You: The objective of the game is to raise money from solving puzzles to reconstruct and then refurbish Robert's castle.
- Big Fancy House: Up to Eleven. Robert's castle is enormous. It has a wide variety of facilities, ranging from rather mundane (i.e., expected for mansions or castles) facilities such as Library and Music Room, to Fire Station and Factory.
- Bonus Stage: If all available levels in the main storyline are completed, players can join the Royal League and compete with other players worldwide until new story levels are released.
- Chromatic Arrangement: The core trio follow this color scheme - Robert is associated with blue. The Butler is associated with red. And the dog is associated with green.
- Distressed Dude: The King's Nightmare levels involve Robert getting himself into dangerous situations. It will be up to the player to rescue him.
- Large and in Charge: King Robert is much bigger than either the Butler or his dog.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The ads would have you believe otherwise, but you very rarely have to save Robert from mortal danger. Not to mention that the mechanics of saving him aren't the same as they are in the ads. What's more, players can skip these levels, at the cost of not earning 50 coins each for completing them.
