Scaling Radar — August 3

2026-08-03

310 in scoring, 40 above the threshold.

Most interesting by stage

1. Loop Master™: Color Jam Sort (Pleasure City) — 14 days, already 31 countries, 1M+ installs, 630 reviews/day. A sort puzzle poured out wide from the start: US, GB, DE, FR, BR, MX, JP. The youngest title with real volume on the list — this is the beginning of the phase, not its middle.
2. Ocean Block Shoot (HM Games) — 18 days, 32 countries, top 6 in Greece, 1,200 reviews/day at 100K+ installs. Reviews are outrunning installs — the traffic is very fresh. A new publisher, hasn't shown up before.
3. Stack Smash — Block 3D Puzzle (Tripledot) — 21 days, 30 countries, top 11 in the US. Tripledot rarely tests small: if a title went into the US in its third week, the budget is already signed off. 100K+ installs — the rollout has only just started.
4. Royal Smash! (Cypher Games) — 34 days, and it's the only title today that is moving noticeably on both platforms at once. Holding top 1, bought up Europe (BR, DE, IT, NL, PT, IE, NZ, PE) — it has come out of its Turkish-Asian core into tier-1. Not "early," but the phase is in full swing.
5. CubeAway — 3DPuzzle (GOODROID) — +11 countries, top 1 for the first time (Sweden). The new geos are all Asian: JP, KR, TW, TH, ID, PH, MY, SG. A classic second wave — they took Europe, now Asia. Age 143 days, caught in the middle.

Movement

• Car Lot Management! (Rollic) — from nowhere into 15 countries in a day, straight to top 4. The title is three years old: Rollic put budget back into the old catalog. The sharpest move today.
• Police Chief (VoyagerOne) — 26→27 countries and top 1 for the first time. Growing for the third week straight, not a single pullback.
• Lordrush (Century) — 25→20 countries, top 6 → top 10. The first pullback since it appeared, geos were cut.
• Hotel Legacy (Century) — 26→22. The same handwriting: Century trimmed both.
• Word Tiles (Agave) — yesterday's earliest signal didn't go anywhere: still just Turkey, #20 → #22. Goods Sort Match (Gamovation) dropped out of the charts entirely.
• Meowdoku! (Oakever) — 28→30, held top 1. A bounce after a week of decline, but it didn't reach the peak (34 countries).
• Car Sort: Color Puzzle (Rollic) — entered the Israeli chart at #24 with 108 reviews/day. One country, but that review volume doesn't match one country — a pinpoint test before a rollout.

Publishers

Rollic — two moves in a day (Car Lot Management + Car Sort). A portfolio salvo, the publisher is what to watch.

GOODROID — CubeAway on both platforms plus Bus Traffic Fever! (46 countries, top 1). Two titles, both wide.

VoyagerOne — Police Chief at top 1 and Hollywood Merge (42 countries, top 2). Holding pace for a second week.

Oakever — four titles in view (Meowdoku, Amaze GO!, Paint by Number, Zen Color), but no new entry points — milking the catalog.

Noise

The rest of the new entries are one country and around zero reviews/day: local spikes in SA, AR, AU, KR. Nothing to take from them.

_Deltas are over 3 days, not over a day._

Scaling Radar — the money, August 3

Who on today's list is actually paying back their buying. We look at the Top Free × Top Grossing pairing: high in both — the traffic pays off; high only in Free — either it's early, or it's in the red.

Paying back

• Clash of Critters (FARLIGHT) — 31 countries in Top Free and top 3 in Top Grossing (Singapore), Grossing in 45 countries at once. The best economics of the day: grossing is wider than the buying. 1M+ installs, IAP up to $199. The game is 79 days old — we hit exactly the moment when the buying went into the black.
• Hollywood Merge (VoyagerOne) — top 7 Grossing in Japan, 45 countries in grossing against 42 in Free. 1M+ installs. A merge on the Japanese market — the most expensive audience there is, you only buy there when the math works.
• Bus Traffic Fever! (GOODROID) — 10M+ installs, Grossing #19 in Thailand and 45 countries. The volume is there, monetization works.
• Food Hunt: Pixel Puzzle (EVERFUN) — Grossing #16 in Vietnam, 44 countries. At 1M+ installs and 82 days — a healthy curve.
• Royal Smash! (Cypher) — Grossing #20 in Turkey, 40 countries, IAP $1.99–99.99. For a 40-day-old title at top 1 in Free, that's early but already confirmed payback.

Anomalies

Just Desserts: Merge & Story (Century) — only 100K+ installs, but Grossing in 43 countries and top 20 in India. Grossing is far wider than installs: a narrow audience with a high check. Century found the payers before it started buying volume — this pattern is usually followed by sharp scaling soon after.

Dynasty Warriors: Overlords (NEOCRAFT) — 5 days from release, 10K+ installs, and already Grossing #7 in Vietnam, 22 countries. Midcore ARPU at launch: a lot of money per player, few players. Not our profile by genre, but useful as a reference point on Asian monetization.

Pouring it out for nothing, or living on ads

• Amaze GO! (Oakever) — 50M+ installs, 45 countries, and not a single country in Top Grossing, no IAP at all. Pure ad monetization. Enormous volume without a single dollar from IAP — income comes entirely from the ad stack.
• Meowdoku (Oakever) — 10M+ installs, IAP declared ($3.99–69.99), but Grossing is empty. Which means there are almost no purchases and the title lives on ads. At that volume it's a conscious choice, but the ARPU ceiling is low.
• CubeAway (GOODROID) — 158 days, 1M+ installs, top 1 in Free, IAP up to $98.99, zero countries in Top Grossing. Now that is worrying: for a five-month-old title with active buying, the absence of grossing means the traffic is running at a loss or only pays back through ads. Worth watching whether they cut geos in the next week.
• Tile Clear (Cedar Games) and Jewel Coloring (TaTa) — 10M+ installs each, both outside Grossing. The same profile: the volume is there, the IAP money isn't.

What this means

The gap between Free and Grossing splits today's list in half. Young titles (Loop Master, Ocean Block Shoot, Stack Smash — all under a month old) are forgiven for having no grossing, they simply haven't gotten to monetization yet. But titles older than four months with millions of installs and an empty Grossing — that isn't "early," that's a chosen model: ads instead of IAP. Their ceiling is visible in advance, and the only way to scale them further is through volume, not the check size.

_There are no dollar revenue estimates here — only what the stores themselves show._