A Mini-Game About Balls Just Went Viral on WeChat

This post comes courtesy of our content partners at TechNode.

WeChat released a new selection of mini-games in April, and there is one that is on the rise to become one of the most popular mini-games the platform: “The Best Tan Yi Tan” or “The Best Bounce and Bounce” (最强弹一弹 zuì qiáng dàn yì dàn; our translation).

Tan Yi Tan resembles the classic arcade game pinball and has the qualities of addicting mobile games – players simply press down on the screen and move in horizontal directions to determine the angle at which the ball will be released, and collect points for each geometric object hit. Like in Tetris, the player must destroy each of the shapes by hitting them a certain number of times before they pass the line at the top of the screen and power-ups can be obtained by striking special objects. Scores can be shared with friends on WeChat.

Mini-games have taken WeChat by storm attracting 170 million daily active users on the messaging platform. The most popular of all is none other than Tiao Yi Tiao, also known as Jump and Jump, which was released last September. The game is so popular that WeChat recently dedicated an entire competition to Tiao Yi Tiao.

WeChat currently has over 1 billion monthly active users and mini-games are becoming one of the most popular features on the messaging platform. It took mini-games only four months to launch in-app ads, while WeChat Moments, another popular feature, waited four years for ads integration. Big corporations including Nike and McDonald’s are reportedly paying millions of yuan per day to put ads in Tiao Yi Tiao.

Images courtesy of TechNode, 最强弹一弹