Jam City launches Disney Frozen Adventures mobile game

It’s time to let it go. Jam City is launching its Disney Frozen Adventures mobile game in advance of the November 22 launch of the Frozen 2 film. And it hopes to encounter plenty of pent-up demand for a game associated with Frozen, which generated $1.3 billion at the box office in 2013.

Disney Frozen Adventures is a match-3 game with a narrative set in Frozen’s kingdom of Arendelle. I got a demo of the game and talked about it with Chris DeWolfe, CEO of Jam City, during an interview.

Players can join the characters Anna, Elsa, and Olaf to solve puzzles, decorate the castle, and explore environments inspired by Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Frozen and Frozen 2 films.

It’s a big game for Jam City, which previously launched Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery in April 2018 in a partnership with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The Harry Potter game helped Jam City raise $145 million in funding in January.

“We’re super-excited about it because it’s really authentic to the movie,” DeWolfe said in our interview. “It follows a lot of the same storylines, the same design, obviously the characters, decorations, interior design, costuming, music, all those kinds of things. We want to make it feel like, in some ways, an extension of the movie, but really put the user in control. We also wanted the fun of a match-three mechanic. It’s a match-three game that takes place inside the Frozen world.”

The new game aims to take match-3 up a notch with “decoration experiences.” When you get through a level, Disney Frozen Adventures shifts the perspective of the game, putting players into the rooms of a place where they can decorate and explore.

Jam City designed the game putting players at “eye level” within environments to create an immersive point of view rather than looking down at the action. The 3D nature of the game allows players to pan around the room to better explore their surroundings and choose their favorite decorative options.

“Disney Frozen Adventures brings beloved characters Elsa, Anna, and Olaf to life in a new journey that allows players to design and explore the world of Arendelle while pushing the boundaries of game design to create a one of a kind adventure,” said DeWolfe. “Collaborating with our friends at Disney on the globally beloved franchise has been a tremendous experience. With the continuing meteoric growth of mobile gaming, we hope to delight millions of fans with this interactive Frozen experience.”

Above: Disney Frozen Adventures lets fans decorate their fantasy palace.

Image Credit: Jam City

Besides your usual match-3 gameplay, the game is a deep dive for fans of the world of frozen. It has quests and adventures, multiple locations, key characters, and a storyline that is authentic to Frozen.

Jam City’s team worked with the Frozen 2 film team to make the environment and music of the game as authentic as possible. When you solve a puzzle in the match-3 game, you earn snowflakes. You use them to decorate the palace in a meta-game. You go into a 3D-like environment that resembles 18th century Norway. You have to collect things and use them to decorate. You’ll run into different characters, who can give you quests to complete, keeping you on an endless cycle of collecting snowflakes and solving puzzles.

Above: Disney Frozen Adventures is a match-3 game.

Image Credit: Jam City

DeWolfe said Disney is helping to promote it, and Jam City itself will do a big mobile marketing campaign in places like Japan, where Frozen is really popular.

DeWolfe said of the original Frozen, “That was six years ago. There’s massive pent-up demand for anything Frozen. We all remember the song. All of our kids were singing it. Any store you went into, someone was singing it. Halloween costumes, that whole year. There hasn’t been any real major project around Frozen that’s come out since then. But there’s a real devotion by Disney to the IP and growing it out into a franchise.”