Game development process of designing the content and rules of a game
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Here's a first: we reviewed the copy, not the original. Colony Flow is an ant-themed "destroy the picture" puzzler that's doing an estimated $150K/day — and it's currently being sued over. The crew digs into the game, the monetization trick underneath it, and what the lawsuit might mean for the entire copycat economy.We break down Colony Flow (by OneSoft/ABI Games) — a sort puzzler in the "destroy the picture" genre where a colony of ants slowly carries colored cubes off a picture into your bench. The standout is the monetization: the ants are deliberately slow, which creates constant friction that the game resolves with a rewarded-video (or premium-currency) speed-up. We cover the standard sort-puzzler feature set , the numbers (~100K downloads/day rising to ~200K in July, ~$150K/day IAP with likely 40-50%+ on top from ads), and the UA (~600 creatives, ~90% AppLovin and Mintegral, zero Facebook — because blended campaigns just don't work there). The through-line: the copy is outscaling debate, the friction mechanic is genuinely smart, and this lawsuit could set a precedent for the whole clone economy.⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 We're reviewing the copy — the lawsuit setup02:40 The game — ants destroying the picture04:00 Why the ant pathfinding points to Pixel Flow06:10 Slow on purpose — the friction-into-rewarded-ad mechanic09:00 Blockers, fake "daily rewards," and the feature set13:00 The numbers — $150K/day and the Famfinity lawsuit20:00 The creatives — 600 ads, AppLovin & Mintegral, no Facebook29:30 What the lawsuit means for the copycat economyThis episode is brought to you by Kinoa — the AI operating system for mobile game operations: flows, live segments, in-app messages, push notifications, and A/B testing in one place, run by the operators who own the numbers. Carry1st saw +43% ARPDAU; PlayStudios saw +31% revenue on Tetris Block Party. Learn more at Kinoa.http://www.kinoa.ai?utm_source=MatejPodcast&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=Matej+Podcast&utm_id=100--------------------------------------PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.- Scale fast- Keep your shares- Drawdown only as needed- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors---------------------------------------For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.Our sponsor FastSpring:Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 yearsThey power top mobile publishers around the worldLaunch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiarPlease share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
The EU just fined Google €890M for making it hard to steer users to cheaper web stores — another crack in the 30% wall, and genuinely good news for every developer. That's the lead of a quieter, summer-holiday news week, with Felix flying solo while Matej and Jakub are at ChinaJoy.Felix Braberg walks two stories and a charts tour. First, the European Commission fined Google €890M (split €460M + €430M) under the Digital Markets Act for antitrust practices — preventing developers from freely informing users about cheaper offers and steering them to web stores or third-party channels. Google has 60 days to comply or face periodic penalties of up to 5% of worldwide turnover (~$403B), and it's another blow in the slow unwinding of the 30% app-store tax that companies like FastSpring exist to route around. Second, a Seeking Alpha analysis argues the market keeps underestimating AppLovin: the stock came under pressure in 2026 (swept up in the "SaaS apocalypse" sell-off after the CloudX agentic-buying launch), but the fundamentals are strong, the gaming runway is bigger than assumed, and as the dominant mediation player (AppLovin Max), it holds a structural advantage. Then the US charts: Smash Fest (Flow Games, Turkey) is now #1 in free downloads — beating Roblox — followed by Meow Doku and Vita Mahjong (same studio), with the standout story being that a copycat of Smash Fest (Royal Smash by Cypher Games) has itself cracked the top six out of ~70 clones. Plus Level Devil sold and scaling under new ownership, EA Sports FC still strong post-World Cup, and Turkey vs China duking it out for chart dominance.The through-line of a quiet week: the 30% tax keeps cracking, AppLovin keeps winning, and the copycat economy is faster and more brutal than ever.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 Solo news week — Matej and Jakub at ChinaJoy00:40 Google fined €890M under the Digital Markets Act04:00 Why it's another crack in the 30% wall05:00 AppLovin: why the market keeps underestimating it07:30 US charts — Smash Fest beats Roblox08:30 The copycat that cracked the top six10:00 Level Devil sold, EA Sports FC, and Turkey vs China---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me---------------------------------------If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej LancaricDo you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
This is part two of a new series, based on a talk I gave at MagicCon: Amsterdam, where I talk about the design of all the cards I had a major hand in that would later be banned or restricted.
In this episode, I sit down with Magic: The Gathering® | The Hobbit™ Set Design Lead Annie Sardelis to talk about the making of the set.
A studio in Gaziantep had the idea in November, started building at the end of December, ran a marketability test in January, and by July they're doing an estimated $300K/day. That's the Cube Land story — and we love it!We break down Cube Land Puzzle by RotateLab (Turkey) — a 3D voxel "destroy the picture" blast puzzler where you rotate a pixel-art object (a gummy bear, a Rubik's cube, a piano, a submarine) and blast matching cubes off it into number-tile slots. They cover why the 3D layer makes it a near-perfect iteration on This Is Blast / Pixel Flow (the rotation adds real strategy and satisfaction a flat conveyor can't), the deliberately light-but-solid feature set (standard blockers, Crown Tournament, Skylift, a journey milestone track, ~650 levels), and the numbers: ~$90K/day IAP visible on Sensor Tower (the hosts estimate the true figure at 1.5-2x that, roughly $150K IAP + ads for a likely ~$300K/day total, with a DAU spike toward ~700K and strong Japan traffic). Plus the UA machine: internal playables, ~90% of spend on AppLovin⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 The game — Cube Land, a 3D blast puzzler04:00 Gameplay — rotate, aim, blast the picture apart07:30 Blockers, Crown Tournament, Skylift & the 650-level saga12:20 The studio story — RotateLab and the earthquake pivot14:00 Idea to scale in 6 months — the timeline18:20 The numbers — ~$90K/day IAP and the ~$300K estimate24:50 The creatives — 200 in 30 days, internal playables27:40 Why Meta can't compete for hybrid gamesThis episode is brought to you by Kinoa — the AI operating system for mobile game operations: flows, live segments, in-app messages, push notifications, and A/B testing in one place, run by the operators who own the numbers. Carry1st saw +43% ARPDAU; PlayStudios saw +31% revenue on Tetris Block Party. Learn more at Kinoa.http://www.kinoa.ai?utm_source=MatejPodcast&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=Matej+Podcast&utm_id=100--------------------------------------PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.- Scale fast- Keep your shares- Drawdown only as needed- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors---------------------------------------For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.Our sponsor FastSpring:Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 yearsThey power top mobile publishers around the worldLaunch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
Send us Fan MailOn this episode Mike, Christina and I are going to talk about professions that you can get into either directly involved in the roleplaying game industry or those professions that roleplaying will help you get into.Or at least that was the goal. You will see that we went an entirely different direction.Christina, as a Dr. of Education games and game designing has played a prominent role in your profession. When did you realize that was going to be your thing and that gaming was going to be a big part of it?Kick to ChristinaMike, You own a gaming company so we have to say that this topic is right in your wheelhouse.Kick to MikeTakeaways: Work Hard, Be Patient, Don't Give Up, Look for Opportunities.
In dieser Folge sprechen Wibke und Florian über I'm Making a Monster, Photomaly, Cat Isle und Moss: The Forgotten Relic.
Was macht Katja eigentlich, wenn sie nicht mit Marcus vor dem Mikrofon sitzt? Seit der letzten Folge zu Switch im März 2023 ist einiges passiert. Das Team um Katja hat ein Kompetenzzentrum für Human-Centred Security aufgebaut und unterstützt vor allem die Schweizer Hochschul- und Internet-Community mit Wissen und Austausch, aber auch praktischen Angeboten, wie dem Security Engagement Kit. Cornelia Puhze und Fabio Gawron, Expertin und Spezialist für Human Centred Security, geben im Gespräch mit Marcus und Katja einen Überblick über die vielseitigen Tätigkeiten des Teams, ihre Leidenschaften und ihre Umwege zum Thema, die eigentlich keine sind. Links: Switch Human Centred Security: https://www.switch.ch/de/switch-human-centred-security Cornelia auf LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corneliapuhze/ Fabio auf LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabio-greiner-3805521a8/ Switch Security Arcade: https://www.switch.ch/en/security-arcade-puzzle-stations Human Centred Security Day: https://humancentredsecurityday2026.events.switch.ch/ Frühere Switchie-Folge mit Rolf Brugger über Passkeys: https://www.securityawarenessinsider.ch/e/passkeys/ Frühere Switchie-Folge mit Céline Neubig über Game Design: https://www.securityawarenessinsider.ch/e/gamedesign/ SRF Podcast "Wie das Internet in die Schweiz kam": https://www.srf.ch/audio/geschichte/wie-das-internet-in-die-schweiz-kam?id=AUDI20260616_NR_0003
In episode 146 of Game Design Unboxed, we talk with Ionah Nguyen, a Seattle-based board game designer and founder of the board game studio Brainy Hearty. Ionah is also the co-founder and CEO of Everjoy Global, a company dedicated to bringing Vietnamese tabletop games to international publishers and distributors by creating opportunities for Vietnamese designers […]
Review of 6502 assembly and how to create a simple number guessing game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Links
Some months the creative trends are wild. This one, Matej says it straight: it's quieter — everyone's copying the same big 4X and Golden Goblins playbook, AI is everywhere, and studios are scaling down for summer. But the detective work underneath is where it gets good, including a live investigation into who actually spends the most on UA and who really leads on revenue once you account for the money Sensor Tower can't see.We run the month's creatives and end up somewhere more interesting than the creatives themselves. They cover the copy-paste economy (Golden Goblins reskinned with bears and trees as AppQuantum's new Animal Valley; Idle Zombie Miner cloning the original one-to-one), Pantheon's ~9,600 creatives iterating on a single three-year-old winning concept, the "revenue down but DAU up" signal that reveals hidden D2C web-shop money (Raid Rush, Monopoly Go), the sad death of Match Villains (UA turned off, ~30% DAU lost in two months)The honest through-line: the creatives are converging, so the edge is in the data — reading DAU vs revenue, spotting the D2C dark pools, and knowing who's really winning.⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 A quieter month — and why that's still worth watching02:40 Top creatives by impression share — how to read the tab05:10 Golden Goblins reskinned — Animal Valley, bears and trees09:40 Pantheon's 9,600 creatives and the D2C revenue tell12:30 Match Villains is dead — UA off, 30% DAU gone16:40 The data detective — who spends the most on UA24:50 The revenue ranking and the D2C "dark pools"31:20 Playrix's AI flood and the Simpsons diminishing returnsThis episode is brought to you by Kinoa — the AI operating system for mobile game operations: flows, live segments, in-app messages, push notifications, and A/B testing in one place, run by the operators who own the numbers. Carry1st saw +43% ARPDAU; PlayStudios saw +31% revenue on Tetris Block Party. Learn more at Kinoa.http://www.kinoa.ai?utm_source=MatejPodcast&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=Matej+Podcast&utm_id=100PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.- Scale fast- Keep your shares- Drawdown only as needed- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investorsFor an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.Our sponsor FastSpring:Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 yearsThey power top mobile publishers around the worldLaunch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
There comes a time for many players where the game changes in such a way that it moves away from what they loved most about it. I talk about this phenomenon and detail my own personal "dark night of the soul" experience.
This is the start of a new series, based on a talk I gave at MagicCon: Amsterdam, where I talk about the design of all the cards I had a major hand in that would later be banned or restricted.
In today's episode we talk about the Fantasy genre for games. What is a fantasy game? How can you make them special? Does a fantasy game have to be set in a certain period? What is high vs low fantasy? We give you our thoughts and answer all these questions and more in today's episode.Leave us an email for feedback, questions, or thoughts at levelupyourgamingpodcast@gmail.comor Follow us on Facebook and engage with us at https://www.facebook.com/LevelUpYourGamingPlease leave us a review or a five star rating wherever you get your podcast.
GTA 6 pulled an estimated $260M in its first week of pre-orders — and the real story is that its launch has quietly become a proxy for every gaming company's valuation. If it opens well, the industry holds. If it doesn't, the bottom could fall out — and mobile goes with it.Felix Braberg flies solo for the news segment, with three stories that matter. GTA 6 pre-orders hit roughly $260M globally in the last week of June (Newzoo forecasts $3.3-5.2B by launch week in November, ~51M units), and Felix explains why the whole industry is watching it as a valuation bellwether. Tencent is rumored to be in talks to buy Playtika's Superplay for $1-1.5B — a fascinating story of an earnout gone right for the founders and wrong for the parent: Playtika bought Superplay for $690M in late 2024 with a performance earnout, Superplay is smashing every target (Disney Solitaire alone is ~$5M/week, ~$300M/year), and the ballooning earnout liability (now ~$829M) plus a $2.3B debt wall in 2028-2029 is forcing Playtika to consider selling its crown jewel. And PubMatic signed an OpenWrap deal with Zynga, bringing transparent, fixed-margin ad buying to Zynga's inventory — the same play as Amazon TAM and Bid Machine.The through-line: the money is moving, and the balance sheets are calling the shots.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 GTA 6 pre-orders hit $260M in week one02:30 Why GTA 6 is now a proxy for all gaming valuations04:00 Tencent in talks to buy Superplay for up to $1.5B06:30 The earnout trap — how Superplay's success became a burden09:00 Playtika's $2.3B debt wall and the forced-sale logic10:30 PubMatic x Zynga and the OpenWrap transparency play12:30 Top charts — Block Out and Meow Doku dominate downloads---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me---------------------------------------If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej LancaricDo you have UA questions nobody can answer? Ask Matej AI - the First UA AI in the gaming industry! https://lancaric.me/matej-ai
Send us Fan MailWelcome to you heard it here last where we talk about news, you've already heard.Our first news article is going to kill two birds with one stone.https://ttrpgfans.com/origins-awards/The Origins Awards winners were announced at this years Origins convention that was held in Colombus Ohio June 17th through the 21st. The Origins Awards are an annual award that recognizes excellence in the tabletop gaming industry, including board games, card games, miniatures and roleplaying games. First presented in 1975 at the inaugural Origins Game Fair in Baltimore, the awards are currently managed by the Game Manufacturers Association or GAMA.The winner of the Roleplaying Game of the Year is the Land of Eem Deluxe Box Set by Exalted Funeral. Notably, Land of Eem is a rules-light TTRPG created by authors Ben Costa and James Parks (and based on their Rickety Stitch and the Gelatinous Goo graphic novels). It's described as a lighthearted blend of Lord of the Rings and The Muppets, with a dash of Adventure Time thrown in for good measure.The Winner of the Roleplaying Supplement of the Year is Call of Cthulhu: The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising from Chaosium.The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising is a campaign supplement for the Call of Cthulhu RPG, set in 1980s Japan. It reimagines the iconic King in Yellow mythos by having a lost, ancient scroll resurface with ties to a sinister entity. The book features three interconnected scenarios and, in addition to featuring many of the familiar Lovecraftian tropes, also explores the unique cultural and historical setting (which is a radical departure from the traditional 1920s setting of New England).But before we dive into the winners and the long list of nominees, Dr. Christina attended Origins this year. Christina, how was the convention this year?[Kick to Christina]Mike, any thoughts on this year's winners[Kick to Mike]Christina, what about you, thoughts on the 2026 Origin Awards Winners?[Kick to Christina]Our next news item will make Dr. Christina very excited.https://ttrpgfans.com/masks-a-new-generation-rpg-second-edition/Ten Years ago, Magpie Games released Masks: A New Generation, the ENNIE award-winning tabletop RPG of teenaged angst and superhero action.Now, after more than a decade, Magpie has officially unveiled details for a new Masks Second Edition. The upcoming core rulebook will include new mechanics, character options, GM advice, artwork and lore for the setting of Halcyon City. The project will first land on crowdfunding, but you can sign up for alerts now on Kickstarter or the Magpie website.Christina, on a scale from 1-10 just how excited are you about a second edition of one of your favorite roleplaying games?[Kick to Christina]Mike, I know this isn't up your alley. But when Christina gets the second edition are you going to suck it up a play a session or two?[Kick to Mike]And there you have it, all the news, you've already heard.
Hexa Away did something genuinely clever — it took the arrows/sort mechanic everyone's chasing and rebuilt it on a hexagonal 3D grid, which turns out to be a better fit than flat arrows ever were. Then it scaled hard on AppLovin, hit a wall, and downscaled almost completely. It's a great game and a UA cautionary tale in one.We break down Hexa Away - a hexagonal-grid sort puzzler from the CyberAgent/GooDroid studio (yes, the Uma Musume people). They cover why the hexagonal grid is a genuinely better canvas for the arrows mechanic (escape routes, tangible blockers, room for more mechanics), the standard-but-solid IAP puzzler feature set, and the numbers that make it significant: it's now the sixth-biggest sort puzzler by revenue (behind Pixel Flow, Magic Sort, Yarn Loop, Marble Sort, and Block Out), doing ~$90K/day IAP plus ~$42K/day in ads at peak, with 500K+ DAU on pristine US-heavy traffic. But the real lesson is the UA story: they went ~90% AppLovin, scaled to 800K DAU in April, then crashed back — because a ~4% day-30 retention simply can't support that level of scale, and once you burn through the AppLovin audience, the ROAS doesn't come back.The takeaway: a great core and a clever mechanic aren't enough. Concentration risk on one channel plus weak retention is how you overshoot your UA and torch your cash.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 Why Hexa Away is significant — the 6th-biggest sort puzzler03:40 Arrows on a hexagonal grid — "hexagons are the bestagons"07:40 The blocker framework and monetizing on difficulty11:20 The numbers — $90K/day, 500K DAU, pristine US traffic12:20 The ad-revenue breakdown — ~$42K/day, 36% of total13:30 Four new creatives, ~200 total, and the banner problem15:00 The AppLovin over-scale — 800K DAU then the crash18:30 The 4% day-30 retention that explains everythingPotensus is a premium ad network built by people who've actually been on both sides of this industry - game publishers, agencies, and successful exits. They get it.Here's the thing - Potensus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafone. Not programmatic. Direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs, no middleman tax.And they handle everything with their in-house team. PLUS they're partnered with PlayableMaker WINK WINK - so they'll take a brand's YouTube video or a static banner and actually turn it into a playable ad or rewarded video. Proper interactive format, built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming-native creative, publishers getting higher CPMs. Everyone wins.Head to potensus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio here https://vimeo.com/showcase/12093300?fl=so&fe=fs---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
Classnotes Podcast (July 21, 2026). How can game design help students become confident problem-solvers and future software developers? In this ... read more The post VisionCoders Students Learn Through Game Design – IDRA Classnotes Podcast Episode 258 appeared first on IDRA.
Take Minesweeper. Add Sudoku logic. Put cats on it. Congratulations, you've just made $200,000 a day..We break down Meow Doku by Oakever, the cat-puzzle that came out of nowhere to shake up a category that hadn't changed in a decade. They walk the game (it's Minesweeper crossed with Sudoku — one cat per color, per row, per column, cats can't touch — simpler than Minesweeper and endlessly satisfying), the pure ad monetization (100% ads, no IAP, ~80%+ from interstitials, a clever cooldown timer that tightens the longer you play), and the numbers (~400K downloads/day, 2M+ DAU with huge US and Japan share, an estimated ~$200K/day and climbing). Then the portfolio: Oakever (real name Learnings / Beijing Lexing) is a fully bootstrapped, Singapore-based Chinese giant with a ~200-300 person R&D team, 70M MAU, a billion cumulative downloads, five straight years of 100%+ revenue growth, and a claim to being the #1 Chinese game company by ad revenue on Meta and Google. And the twist that makes the whole thing a masterclass: MeowDoku isn't original — it's a cats reskin of "Queens Master Sudoku," a game that sat dormant making almost nothing for a year and a half until Oakever found it, added cats, and out-executed everyone on UA. Plus, this game is a LINKEDIN GAME!!⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 The game we've wanted to cover for 3 years03:30 Minesweeper meets Sudoku — the core rules06:30 Why it's simpler than Minesweeper (and better)10:20 100% ads — the cooldown timer trick14:30 The numbers — 2M DAU, ~$200K/day22:50 Inside Oakever's monster portfolio27:30 The bootstrapped Chinese ad-revenue king36:40 The twist — it's a reskin of Queens Master SudokuThis episode is brought to you by Kinoa — the AI operating system for mobile game operations: flows, live segments, in-app messages, push notifications, and A/B testing in one place, run by the operators who own the numbers. Carry1st saw +43% ARPDAU; PlayStudios saw +31% revenue on Tetris Block Party. Learn more at Kinoa.http://www.kinoa.ai?utm_source=MatejPodcast&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=Matej+Podcast&utm_id=100PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.- Scale fast- Keep your shares- Drawdown only as needed- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investorsFor an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.Our sponsor FastSpring:Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 yearsThey power top mobile publishers around the worldLaunch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiarPlease share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
This is another in my series where I attempt to give every Magic expansion an episode of my podcast. Today, I talk about Ravnica Allegiance, the second set of our third visit to Ravnica.
I use this episode to talk about dealing with negativity online.
Pokémon Go removed the paywall from its biggest event of the year and made more money than any paid version in half a decade. That's the monetization masterclass of the week — and it's just one of five stories that matter.Matej Lančarič flies solo for the news segment, and it's a heavy week. Pokémon Go hit its 10th anniversary with over $9B in lifetime revenue, then ran GoFest 2026 as its first-ever free, no-ticket event — triggering a $15.1M single day, the game's highest in five years, and a 17-position leap to #2 in monthly revenue. Love and Deepspace is unfolding into the most instructive disaster of the year, with a cancelled love interest, a 230,000-signature petition, funeral flowers and cow dung sent to the studio, and a pulled Bilibili World appearance. Microsoft cut 4,800 jobs with Xbox facing roughly 3,200 over the next year — about 20% of the division — with King in the blast radius and a memo admitting the business "is not healthy" at ~3% margin. AppLovin opened Axon to global self-serve and the stock ripped from the mid-$440s to $564 in two weeks. And Meta shipped Muse image plus new AI-ad labeling that puts a visible tag right next to "Sponsored" if your creative features a photorealistic AI person.Five stories, one theme: the old assumptions about paywalls, scale, and trust are all breaking at once.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 Cold open 00:30 Pokémon Go's free GoFest monetization masterclass02:30 The Love and Deepspace catastrophe05:00 Xbox cuts 3,200 — King in the blast radius07:00 AppLovin opens Axon to self-serve08:30 Meta's Muse image and the new AI ad labels10:00 Quick hits — UK job losses, Netmarble takes 40% of WeMade━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Pokémon Champions launched on mobile doing roughly $300-400K/day. Two days later it was collapsing. It's now around $80K/day and falling — a textbook shark fin from the biggest IP on the planet. We cover the wins on this podcast, but we also cover the failures, and this one is genuinely fascinating.We break down what went wrong with Pokémon Champions. The game is essentially Pokémon Stadium (the N64 classic) rebuilt for mobile — a pure battler with no exploration, no gyms, no story, no breeding, no catching Pokémon in the wild. The gacha is neutered into a "pick one of ten" system with no randomness at all. And the killer: Pokémon Home import lets players bring their existing collections straight in from Pokémon Go and other titles, so many players arrived on launch day with everything already unlocked — what Jakub calls "Web3 interoperability in play," and a total economy destroyer. Monetization is cosmetics, a battle pass, and ranch refresh tickets. That's it. The crew also contrasts it with the Pokémon apps that genuinely print money (TCG Pocket at ~$15M/month, Pokémon Sleep at ~$150K/day and ~$150M in three years, Pokémon Go spiking on the 30th anniversary), and picks apart the UA: ~300 creatives that are really about 7 concepts, almost all 15-21 seconds, cut from a year-old trailer.⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 Why we're covering a failure02:40 It's Pokémon Stadium, rebuilt for mobile07:05 The neutered gacha — pick one of ten11:26 The shallow monetization: cosmetics and a battle pass12:30 Pokémon Home import — the economy killer14:35 The numbers — shark fin, Japan-driven, 16% US17:06 The Pokémon apps that actually print money19:59 The creatives — 300 videos, 7 concepts, all too shortThis episode is brought to you by Kinoa — the AI operating system for mobile game operations: flows, live segments, in-app messages, push notifications, and A/B testing in one place, run by the operators who own the numbers. Carry1st saw +43% ARPDAU; PlayStudios saw +31% revenue on Tetris Block Party. Learn more at Kinoa.http://www.kinoa.ai?utm_source=MatejPodcast&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=Matej+Podcast&utm_id=100PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.- Scale fast- Keep your shares- Drawdown only as needed- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investorsFor an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.Our sponsor FastSpring:Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 yearsThey power top mobile publishers around the worldLaunch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SAMatej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiarPlease share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
Send us Fan MailI was sixteen years old in 1985, sitting around a table with a group of friends, a pile of dice, some character sheets, and a copy of the James Bond 007 roleplaying game.Now, I'd seen the movies. I'd watched Bond race across exotic locations, escape impossible situations, and somehow always come out on top. But that day was different. We weren't watching James Bond. We were James Bond.I still remember the adventure taking us through the famous speedboat chase from Live and Let Die. The GM described the engines roaring to life. The water spraying across the deck. The bad guys closing in behind us. Every turn of the river felt dangerous. Every die roll mattered.What sticks with me all these years later isn't whether we followed the movie exactly. Honestly, I couldn't tell you. What I remember is the feeling. The excitement around the table. The tension as we tried to stay one step ahead of our pursuers. The laughter when something went wrong. The cheers when a crazy plan actually worked.For a few hours, a bunch of teenagers in the Midwest weren't sitting around a table anymore. We were spies. We were secret agents. We were caught up in a world of danger, intrigue, and adventure.And that's the thing about espionage as a genre. At its best, it makes you feel clever. It makes you feel like information matters. It creates suspense not because of what you know, but because of what you don't know. Who can you trust? Who's lying? What's really going on behind the scenes?The older I get and the more games I run, the more I realize just how powerful those ideas are. Whether you're running fantasy, science fiction, horror, or historical games, espionage elements can elevate a campaign in ways that few other genres can.So today, we're going to talk about the espionage genre. We'll look at where it came from, some of the movies, books, television shows, and games that helped define it, and the key ingredients that make spy stories so compelling. Most importantly, we'll discuss how you can bring those elements into your own tabletop roleplaying games to create adventures filled with mystery, intrigue, tension, and unforgettable moments.Because sometimes the most exciting thing at the table isn't defeating the villain.It's discovering who the villain really is.Mike, do you have any specific memories of your favorite espionage movie?
Block Blast got pulled from Google Play, and everyone assumed it was catastrophic. It wasn't — DAU dipped from about 56M to 50M and stabilized. The real story is much more interesting: Block Blast has hit its scale ceiling on the core game, and their answer is to quietly turn the app into a games portal.Jakub Remiar flies solo for a single-game Review Radar update on Block Blast, six months on from the original deep-dive. He covers the takedown's actual impact (minimal, and DAU had already peaked in March), the massive UA downscale (from ~30,000 creatives and 1.5M downloads/day in December to ~5,000 creatives and ~600K/day now — a downscale, not a decline), the arrival of Block Blast's first real competitor (Color Block Combo Blast from Chinese studio Flyers Technology, growing fast but on tier-2/tier-3 traffic with almost no US DAU), and the pivot that matters most: "More Games" has moved from a hidden settings menu into a full main-menu button, now housing eight fully-fledged games (Fruit Merge, Mahjong, Sudoku, and more) — the same playbook as the no-wifi offline-games portals. Plus Sensor Tower's ad-revenue estimate (~$22M/month, ahead of Vita Mahjong) and the standing Jakub-vs-Felix bet on whether Block Blast ever passes Garena Free Fire.The read: don't sleep on this game. The core has peaked, but the winter blitz is probably coming — and the portal play is the real evolution.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 Revisiting Block Blast — six months on01:30 The takedown — how much damage did it actually do?03:00 The first real competitor arrives05:30 Why the competitor isn't a real threat (yet)07:00 The massive UA downscale — 30K creatives to 5K10:09 The pivot — "More Games" hits the main menu14:00 $22M/month in ads and the Garena Free Fire bet17:00 Has Block Blast peaked, or is the winter blitz coming?Potensus is a premium ad network built by people who've actually been on both sides of this industry - game publishers, agencies, and successful exits. They get it.Here's the thing - Potensus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafone. Not programmatic. Direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs, no middleman tax.And they handle everything with their in-house team. PLUS they're partnered with PlayableMaker WINK WINK - so they'll take a brand's YouTube video or a static banner and actually turn it into a playable ad or rewarded video. Proper interactive format, built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming-native creative, publishers getting higher CPMs. Everyone wins.Head to potensus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio here https://vimeo.com/showcase/12093300?fl=so&fe=fs---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
In episode 145 of Game Design Unboxed, we talk with game designer and owner of Ludoliminal, Sabrina Culyba, about the story behind her completely accurate, family-friendly dinosaur game Uh Oh, Dino! Sabrina shares how after spending 13 years in the video game industry, she found her way into tabletop game design through a game design contest that challenged […]
Designing a board game that works well for exactly two players is a very different challenge from designing one that supports a range of player counts. Many games include a two-player mode, but board games such as Patchwork and Jaipur show that a dedicated head-to-head experience can be unique and not simply an adapted and reduced version of a game that is really aimed at larger player counts. In this article, I want to look at the design challenge these dedicated two-player-only games present.Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2026/07/14/the-two-body-problem-design-challenges-of-two-player-only-games-topic-discussion/Useful LinksPatchwork review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2020/11/21/patchwork-digital-eyes/Jaipur review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2020/02/29/jaipur-saturday-review/Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: https://www.routledge.com/Building-Blocks-of-Tabletop-Game-Design-An-Encyclopedia-of-Mechanisms/Engelstein-Shalev/p/book/9781032015811Rules of Play: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262240451/rules-of-play/Fundamentals of Game Design: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Fundamentals-of-Game-Design-by-Ernest-Adams/9780321929679MusicIntro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)Music by: BensoundLicense code: 9FDOOSFAVUSZQWDPArtist: : Lunar YearsMusic: "in between violence" provided by mobygratis.SupportIf you want to support this podcast financially, please check out the links below:Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/TabletopGamesBlogPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/tabletopgamesblogWebsite: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/support/(Photo by Planet Volumes on Unsplash)
In today's episode we talk about the Sci Fi genre for games. What is a true sci fi game? What about Star Wars? How do you make a sci fi game special? We give you our thoughts and answer all these questions and more in today's episode.Leave us an email for feedback, questions, or thoughts at levelupyourgamingpodcast@gmail.comor Follow us on Facebook and engage with us at https://www.facebook.com/LevelUpYourGamingPlease leave us a review or a five star rating wherever you get your podcast.
Gossip Harbor is now the fourth-highest-grossing game on the planet — behind only Royal Match, Honor of Kings, and Whiteout Survival. The merge category the crew has been covering for years is bigger and more stable than ever, and Century Games just showed exactly how you stack another winner on top of your portfolio.We break down Hotel Legacy by Century Games (of Tasty Travels fame), using it as a lens on the whole merge category. They recap the state of merge (Gossip Harbor at ~$95M/month and still climbing, Tasty Travels, Travel Town, Flambe, Seaside Escape), walk Hotel Legacy's board and its standard-but-polished feature set (three LiveOps systems, bubble offers, generators, the min-max storing loop), and dig into the genuinely puzzling part: the winning My Perfect Hotel / Last Asylum creative concept that's driving installs isn't actually in the game yet. The lesson: you stack merge games by shipping essentially the same game with a new theme, then testing creatives at scale until you find what to build next.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 The state of merge — Gossip Harbor is #4 globally05:00 The revenue picture — $95M/month and climbing06:46 Hotel Legacy enters at #15 — 50K/day, all tier-one09:00 The "six merge games" player behavior theory10:06 Walking the board — LiveOps, bubble offers, min-maxing17:00 The mystery — the winning creative isn't in the game17:42 The creatives — My Perfect Hotel, Last Asylum, 500 in 30 days27:16 How to stack a merge game on your portfolioThis episode is brought to you by Kinoa — the AI operating system for mobile game operations: flows, live segments, in-app messages, push notifications, and A/B testing in one place, run by the operators who own the numbers. Carry1st saw +43% ARPDAU; PlayStudios saw +31% revenue on Tetris Block Party. Learn more at Kinoa.http://www.kinoa.ai?utm_source=MatejPodcast&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=Matej+Podcast&utm_id=100--------------------------------------PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.- Scale fast- Keep your shares- Drawdown only as needed- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors---------------------------------------For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.Our sponsor FastSpring:Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 yearsThey power top mobile publishers around the worldLaunch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me
In this episode, I explain what a mana curve is and how they impact how we design Magic sets.
This episode is another in my series where I talk about every Magic expansion. Today, I talk about Rivals of Ixalan, the second set in the Ixalan block.
Voodoo's Path of Kings looks like Skyrim from the surface. It plays more like Tinder. And underneath the swipe mechanic is one of the more clever fusions of gameplay and monetization we've seen — where the gameplay itself is basically the offer pop-up.We break down Path of Kings, the Voodoo mid-core idle RPG they flagged on the Creative Trends episode. They walk it live — the swipe-to-choose mechanic (swipe right and you go straight into a purchase, swipe left and you skip), the Legend-of-Mushroom-style idle core streamlined for a Western fantasy audience, the ads-as-biggest-upgrade loop, the prestige treadmill that resets the map when content runs out, and a genuinely useful tangent on how to actually price a "remove the interstitials" offer (Felix does the ad-monetization math live). Then the numbers and the bigger picture: Path of Kings is doing ~$30K/day and sits right at the make-or-break threshold early Voodoo games have to clear, while Voodoo overall is doing ~$25M/month in IP revenue off Marble Sort and Castle Clashers/Busters — a real mid-core pivot that has everyone talking IPO. Plus the creatives: ~1,384 in 30 days, 100% AI, and gloriously broken (floating horses, dragons you don't sit on, four art styles per video).This episode is brought to you by Kinoa — the AI operating system for mobile game operations: flows, live segments, in-app messages, push notifications, and A/B testing in one place, run by the operators who own the numbers. Carry1st saw +43% ARPDAU; PlayStudios saw +31% revenue on Tetris Block Party. Learn more at Kinoa.http://www.kinoa.ai?utm_source=MatejPodcast&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=Matej+Podcast&utm_id=100--------------------------------------PVX Partners offers non-dilutive funding for game developers.Go to: https://pvxpartners.com/They can help you access the most effective form of growth capital once you have the metrics to back it.- Scale fast- Keep your shares- Drawdown only as needed- Have PvX take downside risk alongside you+ Work with a team entirely made up of ex-gaming operators and investors---------------------------------------For an ever-growing number of game developers, this means that now is the perfect time to invest in monetizing direct-to-consumer at scale.Our sponsor FastSpring:Has delivered D2C at scale for over 20 yearsThey power top mobile publishers around the worldLaunch a new webstore, replace an existing D2C vendor, or add a redundant D2C vendor at fastspring.gg.---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me---------------------------------------If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
Episode 273- dnup and Iterative Game Design In this episode we talk about iterative game design. Why do designers go back to ideas they've already explored? On that note, we also discuss the new hotness dnup and how designer Kai Kajino built it upon the foundation of his modern classic hit Scout. Timestamps 3:30- iterative design 32:20- Scout 46:00- dnup Preplanners We have another decade draft coming up soon! Music and Sound Credits Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&t=3s You can find more information about Hembree at https://www.hembreemusic.com/. Thank you to Flash Floods for use of their song Palm of Your Hand as a sting from their album Halfway to Anywhere: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fE6LrqzNDKPYWyS5evh3K?si=CCjdAGmeSnOOEui6aV3_nA Intermission Music: music elevator ext part 1/3 by Jay_You -- https://freesound.org/s/467243/ -- License: Attribution 4.0 Bell with Crows by MKzing -- https://freesound.org/s/474266/ -- License: Creative Commons 0 hammer v2.wav by blukotek -- https://freesound.org/s/337815/ -- License: Creative Commons 0 Contact Follow and reach us on social media on Bluesky @decisionspace.bsky.social. If you prefer email, then hit us up at decisionspa@gmail.com. This information is all available along with episodes at our new website decisionspacepodcast.com. Byeee!
Send us Fan MailWelcome to you heard it here last where we talk about news, you've already heard.https://www.enworld.org/threads/paizo-laying-off-12-due-to-fallout-from-diamonds-bankruptcy.719446/No one likes layoffsPiazo, the publisher of Pathfinder among other games has announced it will be laying off 12 employees due to the fallout from Diamond Comics bankruptcy last year. We discussed the Diamond Comics bankruptcy and the possible fallout from that in a previous episode of You Heard it Here Last, but it looks like the ripple effects are starting to kick in.Piazo states they lost over 2 million dollars in 2025 due to the seizure of their books being held by Diamond Comics on consignment. And the layoffs as well as other cutbacks are temporary until they can start to see some profitability.2 million bucks in our industry aint chump change. It's a big deal and it's a shame to see companies like Piazo having to deal with the fallout.Mike, give us your business thoughts on this one.[Kick to Mike]Christina, how about your ethics hat, anything to discuss with this one?[Kick to Christina]Next, we find ourselves going back to Hasbro and D&D.https://www.enworld.org/threads/d-d-beyond-admits-that-blocking-drops-sharing-was-not-the-right-decision-will-release-yearly-bundles-of-drops-content-for-sale-for-non-subscribers.719383/D&D Beyond has released a statement about its decision to not allow sharing on their new drops. We talked about this announcement on a previous YHIHL and evidently the users have expressed their dissatisfaction. In a post D&D Beyond stated "It's become clear from your feedback that there were two main things we got wrong with D&D Beyond Drops: content sharing and non-subscriber access," the post also states that not allowing sharing for drops "was not the right decision."They followed this statement up with doing…absolutely nothing to change it.So, I guess an admission of a mistake is something, but damn it. Fix the mistake. It's easy to just turn on sharing again, or am I asking for too much.Mike, thoughts?[Kick to Mike]Christina, what about you?[Kick to Christina]And there you have it, all the news you've already heard.
Offerwall eCPMs in the US can hit $800 to $2,000 for a single completed task — compared to $20-50 for a normal rewarded ad. But most publishers either add one too early, segment it wrong, or let it cannibalize their whales. This is the no-bullshit introduction to doing it right.Felix Braberg flies solo for a 15-minute offerwall masterclass, built from seven years of decks and hands-on experience across titles like the Ludia Trailer Park Boys games. He covers what an offerwall actually is (paying your time-rich, cash-poor users to complete tasks in exchange for in-game currency), the one rule that determines whether it'll work at all (you need at least 20% of revenue from non-ad sources — and "remove ads" as your top IAP disqualifies you), the metrics that define success (DoDAU, with ~10% as the benchmark), the segmentation and hand-holding that separates a sub-10% opt-in from a real revenue stream, how to think about exchange rates and avoid IAP cannibalization, why you start on API and graduate to SDK, and how sales and holiday boosts (yes, even Arbor Day) spike offerwall revenue. Done right, an offerwall can add 8-12% to total app revenue.The core lesson: offerwalls reward deep economies and clever segmentation — not a plug-and-play install.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 What an offerwall actually is and how it works02:15 Who should use one — the 20% non-ad revenue rule04:30 The players it monetizes: time-rich, cash-poor05:30 DoDAU and the ~10% benchmark07:00 Segmentation and hand-holding — the real unlock11:00 Exchange rates, cannibalization, and fraud13:00 API first, SDK later — the rollout strategy16:00 Sales and holiday boosts (even Arbor Day)Potensus is a premium ad network built by people who've actually been on both sides of this industry - game publishers, agencies, and successful exits. They get it.Here's the thing - Potensus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafone. Not programmatic. Direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs, no middleman tax.And they handle everything with their in-house team. PLUS they're partnered with PlayableMaker WINK WINK - so they'll take a brand's YouTube video or a static banner and actually turn it into a playable ad or rewarded video. Proper interactive format, built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming-native creative, publishers getting higher CPMs. Everyone wins.Head to potensus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio here https://vimeo.com/showcase/12093300?fl=so&fe=fs---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej LancaricJoin our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultanthttps://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultanthttps://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultanthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me---------------------------------------If you are interested in getting UA tips every week on Monday, visit lancaric.substack.com & sign up for the Brutally Honest newsletter by Matej Lancaric
One of the most complicated elements of the Magic rules is something known as "layers." I sit down with the man in charge of the rules, Jess Dunks, to help walk through an introduction to layers.
In this episode, I talk about the weird fact that I'm a published Magic artist on an evergrowing number of cards. Note that I recorded this before Bicycle Elemental was made public.
We hope you've had a good month! Blake and AJ are back from their busy busy lives to create more chaos! This week the boys are catching up, but next week were getting back to Game Design!LET'S PLAYS: https://www.youtube.com/@spiritualsuccessorDISCORD: https://www.patreon.com/Spiritualsuccessorpodcast?fan_landing=true Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Send us Fan MailHave you ever had this awkward moment in your roleplaying game?“As you turn the corner you come face to face with an animated walking corpse! Give me a Fright Check”“Uh, this game doesn't have fright checks.”“What, Seriously…hang on, surely it has a mechanic…crap.”If so, then you are not alone. I pretty much pulled that dialogue word for word out of one of the games I was running.The more games you play the more you learn about game systems, what works, what doesn't work, and more specifically what you like. Now I am a fan of playing a variety of systems. We change games up a lot, not just because I like to try new genre's but because I want to try new systems and over the years I have found a few mechanics that I think are just amazing.On this episode we are going to talk about our Favorite Mechanics in roleplaying games. The little things that we might take for granted originally but as we move from game to game we realize we can't live without them.Mike, Chistina and I are going take turns revealing our favorite game mechanics, what game they came from, or at least what game we first encountered them, and why we think they are the bomb.Let's just dive right into this one.Mike, give me one of your favorite game mechanics that you just can't live without.
In episode 144 of Game Design Unboxed, we talk with freelance game designer and co-founder of Postmark Games, Matthew Dunstan. Matthew shares how his curiosity for understanding what happens behind the scenes led him from being a sports referee and umpire in Australia to moving to the UK, where a growing design community, weekly meetups, […]
In this episode, I talk about the pressures of changing things that have been the same for decades.
This episode is another in my series to talk about every Magic expansion. Here, I talk about Aether Revolt, the second set in the Kaladesh block.
Here, I talk about the basic strategy when playing Mood Swings. To make sure everyone gets their full allotment of Magic design episodes, this episode is bonus content.
Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Distraction Pieces Podcast with Scroobius Pip!This week Pip is joined by the awesome actor and now also game designer ABUBAKAR SALIM!What an absolute gem of an episode you have before you right here, as Pip checks in with Abubakar, one of the most power-move making-est actors in the game. You'll likely/surely recognize him from House Of The Dragon (Alyn of Hull), or Raised By Wolves (serving iconic costume realness), but chances are you might have also come into contact with his game 'Tales Of Kenzera' too. Even if none of those ring any bells, Abubakar is someone you'll get along with from jump, and has tales and perspective for days - working with Ridley Scott and what that process taught him, how the House Of The Dragon casting came about (crank call instincts on high alert), and how the inclusion of game design factored into life. A lovely chat with loads to enjoy for wherever you connect in those touchpoints, so enjoy!PIP'S PATREON PAGE if you're of a supporting natureIMDBINSTAGRAMHOUSE OF THE DRAGONRAISED BY WOLVESTALES OF KENZERASPEECH DEVELOPMENT WEBSTOREPIP TWITCH • (music stuff)PIP INSTAGRAMPIP TWITTERPIP PATREONPIP IMDB Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this episode, I cover one of the main goals of game design: to create specific emotional responses in the players.
In this episode, I talk about many of the weird elements of Magic's first set.
This episode is part five of a five-part series. In it, I go through every single Mood Swings card, in collectible number order, and talk about how they were designed, including many of the changes they went through and some strategic tips on how to play them. Note: This is a bonus episode for this week.
I just returned from a trip to Los Angeles, California, where I went to a red carpet event celebrating Magic: The Gathering® | Marvel Super Heroes. I then spent three days doing interviews about the set at Summer Game Fest. This podcast talks all about that trip.
In this episode, I talk about designing Magic: The Gathering® | Marvel Super Heroes.
This episode is part four of a five-part series. In it, I go through every single Mood Swings card, in collectible number order, and talk about how they were designed, including many of the changes they went through and some strategic tips on how to play them. Note: This is a bonus episode for this week.
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