Before Toy Blast, "blast" wasn't a genre. It was clicker-match, and the closest reference points were Pet Rescue Saga and Diamond Digger: scrolling boards, a single correct solve path, and a fail rate baked into the design. The episode digs up a detail about Pet Rescue's early funnel, which is that its success curve went down before it went up, because players needed a few attempts to work out the right answer before they could solve it consistently. That friction was considered a bug at the time, and teams were actively trying to engineer it out. Today the same design sits at the heart of Block Jam and the whole solitaire-association wave, where failing three times before you crack a board is the product.