#GameDev

𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗢𝗠𝗜𝗖𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗖𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗜𝗕𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗭𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 & 𝗥𝗢𝗬𝗔𝗟 𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗗𝗢𝗠 Dream Games is opening the UA floodgates for Royal Kingdom, deploying significant marketing spend and celebrity-driven creative. This move reflects a familiar pattern: Royal Match itself required about two years to scale effectively. But now, the Dream Games UA team faces a new paradigm: how to optimally scale spending across two titles and manage new franchise-level LTV dynamics. In the short run, allocation optimization is obvious as UA managers frequently “rotate” spend across channels within a day as CPIs spike with additional channel capital. The marginal game should function as a new channel of sorts to balance spend against ROAS. However, franchises also bring new modeling considerations.The expected value of players engaging with both games simultaneously can be modeled explicitly as:expected value,DualPlay = probability,DualPlay(LTV,old + LTV,new)Here, the probability of simultaneous engagement represents the remaining […]

Meme Bots: Obunga Chase Rooms – Trending Game with Pop Culture Characters 👻 Yesterday we had a look at the Top Trending for the last month and noticed these two surprise horror games.We looked into one of them — Meme Bots: Obunga Chase Rooms, now nearing 10M lifetime installs after the recent relaunch 🚀In the game, players run through maze-like maps, chased by meme-inspired characters like Obunga, Sanic, and Tralalero Tralala 🦈👟💡Who are Nextbots?They’re AI-driven pursuers, often shown as 2D meme images, popularized in Garry’s Mod and later adopted across many games.Once again, TikTok trends + high gameplay virality = perfect combo for organic growth 🤭Check out the game yourself.

🎡 Wheel of Cats… with a twist! While playing 'Find The Cat' by Agave Games, I came across something that genuinely surprised me in the best way: a free spin wheel where one of the rewards is... a 3-day free trial to remove ads 😮Why I like it:✅ Encourages players to spin ✅ Introduces the subscription passively ✅ Makes winning feel exciting and generousSmart, playful, and effective. More of this please.

How to fail 😩 at hybrid-casual puzzle ⤵️ Recently I've worked with several clients transitioning from hypercasual into hybrid-casual.Mostly puzzle games, which represent ~50% of successful hybrid-casual launches since 2023 (AppMagic data, Arcade is the other 50%)Each of these developers is doing a LOT of things right.But they were all making the same mistake:Underinvesting in or deferring robust loss aversion / streak features.𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗺𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝗣𝗦𝗔:For linear, level-based puzzle games with loss states:• Streaks systems are not LiveOps• Streaks are 𝗮 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝘆 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲• Without streaks, I have little concern about losing• Why boost or revive?  I'll just lose / try again.• Do lives motivate? Maybe, but they end the session• If I don't care about losing, the economy is inert• If I don't engage with the economy, I've no interest in RVs or IAPs except maybe 'remove […]

Vertex Games's Matching Story scaled to $300K a day after nearly 3 years in soft launch. Is it a Match3 game or a Merge 3 game? Read the story behind this exceptional combo here 😎 It was soft-launched in May 2021 and only started scaling at the start of last year. Initially, we thought that this was a Merge game that added the Match3 core later, but this was not the case. It was a combination of Isometric Merge3 + Match3 from the initial build 😱. The Match 3 layer is basically Royal Match now, with all of its trigger events meta and collectible album, etc. But instead of a basic visual renovation progression based on stars, you get chests with merge tokens after winning Match 3 levels. Also, this is Merge 3, not Merge 5, as traditional isometric merge games […]

Insane jumps in top mobile gaming charts for US and Worldwide 📈 Let’s break down the biggest movers 👇 Changes are based on downloads in March 2025 vs. Feb🇺🇸 USA• I am cat by Estoty → climbed 599 spots to reach #3 ↳ Ran 49 creatives in the US - 45 of them were brand new ↳ Top creatives - POV gameplay with hilarious voiceovers• Good Coffee, Great Coffee by TapBlaze → jumped 90 positions to land at #6 ↳ Yes, a coffee game is trending. Not creatives found so far. 🌎 Worldwide• Cricket League by Miniclip → up 530 spots to #12 ↳ Most creatives were old... ↳ But increased spend in India, they’re riding the IPL wave like pros• Snake Clash by Supercent → skyrocketed 1341 positions to take #16 ↳ Ran 1081 creatives in March (474 were […]