Merge Dragons x Rick & Morty Crossover
- Developer: Gram Games
- Role: Game Designer
- Engine: Unity
- Platforms: iOS, Android
- Genre: Puzzle-Merge
Overview
The Rick & Morty crossover events were limited-time live events that reimagined the core merge and heal gameplay through the lens of the Rick & Morty universe. Featuring themed maps, event items, and narrative flavor inspired by the show, players progressed by merging objects tied to iconic elements such as portals, gadgets, and interdimensional resources, to heal land and generate event points.
These events introduced Rick & Morty themed dragons as rewards, along with visual quest storytelling that reflected the tone of the original series.
This demonstrated how the modular event framework could support external IP integration, highlighting the flexibility of the game’s live ops design.
Contributions
- Worked with PM on content pitch to Adult Swim.
- Iterated on content while collaborating with Adult Swim team.
- Collaborator and editor for narrative bits.
- Created Magic Moon level and designed mergeable items.
- Design for Baby Moo in Mortyablo Event (Diablo x Rick & Morty x Merge Dragons Event)
Levels
Moon Juice was the first of the Rick & Morty crossover events. To ease players in, the event was placed on Merge Dragon tiles with Moon themed assets, but introduced narrative beats from the characters Rick and Morty, reusing the story system seen in the previous Shogun Shiba Zen themed event.
The map was shaped to look like planets leading up to a crescent moon surrounding Rick’s ship. This level served as an intro to the series of crossover events.
Mortyablo Deja Moo was the last Rick & Morty crossover event that also was heavily inspired by Diablo’s iconic cow level. Rather than adopting Diablo’s darker aesthetic, the event maintained Merge Dragon’s bright, whimsical visual style.
A key design challenge arose around tone, as the idea of Rick and Morty harming the Chthonian cows conflicted with the game’s typically wholesome, non-violent experience. To resolve this, I wrapped the characters in a narrative solution where Rick and Morty used shrink rays to transform the vows into harmless, cute “lazy baby moos” that rewarded players with loot. This allowed us to repurpose the Zomblin functionality for the cows, and continue to align with the game’s core values.
