Rovio moves past Angry Birds with new title, Nibblers

Despite finding at least a moderate level of success with Angry Birds 2, a recent cut of 260 jobs in August makes it pretty clear that Rovio has been struggling to gain fiscal ground as of late. Could something new and unrelated to Angry Birds be the key to renewed interest by mobile gamers? While it’s too early to say for sure, Rovio has now released a brand new game called Nibblers!

Not only is the game completely bird-free, its mechanics have nothing to do with Angry Birds or its spin-offs either. Instead, what we are looking at is more of a Candy Crush-esque experience. This matching puzzle game stars fish and other aquatic creatures as they journey out of the water, onto land, and start apparently matching fruit together in order to consume as much as they can.

Unlike most puzzlers, this game seems to put as much emphasis on the special characters as it does the puzzle grid. Each of the characters also have their own unique abilities that can help enhance the gameplay experience. The game still has a good guy/bad buy theme to it, just like Angry Birds, though this time we see fish vs reptiles, instead of birds vs pigs.

The game is currently comprised of 200 levels, with Rovio planning to add more as time goes on. Each game level will have at least one reptile to defeat, and there are also boss battles every so often. Certainly a unique spin on the matching-puzzler genre.

Nibblers is a free to play experience, though you can expect the usual Rovio-style in-app purchases as well.