Scaling Radar — August 5

2026-08-05

773 in scoring, 40 above the threshold.

Highlights

Top Force: Commander (Century Games) — yesterday a two-country test in Scandinavia, today 2 → 24 countries in a day and #1 in Denmark. Top 5 in Australia, Belgium, Austria, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Sweden; #6 France, #8 Germany, #13 UK, #19 US. Plus all of LatAm (MX, CO, CL, AR, PE), the Philippines, Indonesia. Around 30 reviews a day — midcore strategy pace, so you have to judge it by the chart, not by velocity. They flipped the switch all at once, with no gradual rollout. iOS only, the game isn't on Android at all.

New alerts

Essentially empty: FMC TYPER (9 days, 4 countries), Murdoku (10 days, Portugal), Real War: Survival (India) — one to four countries and zero reviews. Noise.

Breakdown

Ocean Block Shoot (HM Games) — 19 days, 30 countries, top 7 in Greece, +2,641 reviews in a day, the sharpest acceleration on the list. The install bracket is still 100K+ though, and Grossing is empty. Early phase, caught in time.

Loop Master: Color Jam Sort (Pleasure City) — 15 days, 32 countries, already 1M+ installs, top 15 in Brazil. You don't pick up a million in two weeks organically. Grossing is empty, but for a fifteen-day-old title that's normal.

Stack Smash (Tripledot) — 22 days, 36 countries, top 8 in Greece, 100K+. Same profile: wide and fast, monetization not switched on yet.

Quack Bag: Duck Mafia (NOODLE GAMES) — 16 days, 41 countries, 500K+ and Grossing #29 in Korea, present in 34 countries at once. The only one of the young titles whose buying is already paying back.

Knock Fever (Kite Games) — 29 days, 28 countries, top 16 in Singapore, Grossing #52 in Vietnam across 18 countries. Narrow geo and small volume — the very beginning of the phase.

Movement (iOS)

A day of contraction: CubeAway 37 → 27 countries, Royal Smash! 36 → 30, Food Hunt 34 → 28, Drive 2 Climb 23 → 6, Hotel Legacy 22 → 15, Lordrush 20 → 11. Almost nobody is up: Amaze GO! 30 → 31 (top 3 Pakistan), Jelly Busters 8 → 12, Endless Puncher (Rollic) jumped #22 → #9 in Singapore.

Publishers

Century Games — Lordrush down, Hotel Legacy down, Top Force sharply up. They didn't cut the budget, they moved it around inside the portfolio. Century is what to watch, not any single title.

Tripledot — Stack Smash (36 countries) and Angry Smash (14 days, two countries, top 90 — hasn't taken off yet). HM Games — Ocean Block Shoot and Solitaire Stack Sort. Nebula Studio — Tap Tile! and Zoodoku. Flyfox — Triple Harvest and Zapout.

Scaling Radar — the money, August 5

Who is paying back their buying, and who is just pouring it out for now.

Buying pays back

Clash of Critters (FARLIGHT, 80 days) — the most interesting case of the day. In Top Free it's modest: 31 countries, top 3 in Denmark. But in Grossing — #3 in Singapore and a presence in 45 countries, purchases up to $199.99. Review growth is low at the same time. This isn't a game running on buying, it's a game running on retention: they built the audience earlier and are milking it now. Same thing on iOS — only 9 countries, but a steady top 3 in Japan for a week.

Hollywood Merge (VoyagerOne, 187 days) — Grossing #7 in Japan, 45 countries. A mature earning title, 42 countries in Top Free and top 2 in Japan. Works both on the way in and on the way out.

Royal Smash! (Cypher Games, 41 days) — 47 countries, #1 in Hong Kong, 1M+ installs, Grossing #20 in Turkey across 40 countries. The only young title that is fully rolled out and already monetizing in the same geos it's buying into.

Bus Traffic Fever! (GOODROID) — Grossing #15 in Vietnam, 45 countries. Food Hunt (EVERFUN) — #14 in Vietnam, 43 countries. Frost Valley (LITEORANGE) — #19 in Brazil, 34 countries. All three keep Top Free and Grossing in roughly the same geos — a healthy picture.

Living on ads, not on IAP

Empty Grossing plus an empty purchase-price field means ad monetization, and that's a deliberate choice, not a failure:

• Amaze GO! (Oakever) — 45 countries, 50M+ installs, not a single purchase in the catalog;
• Mahjong Master (Mindful Daily) — all 47 countries, 5M+, no IAP;
• Jigsaw Drop (Runyou) — 46 countries, 1M+, no IAP;
• Tap Tile! (Nebula) — 39 countries, 1M+, no IAP.

This is the classic HC profile: wide reach, cheap install, payback on impressions.

Warning sign

Meowdoku (Oakever, 102 days) — 36 countries, 10M+ installs, top 1 in Australia, purchases from $3.99 to $69.99 do exist in the catalog, and yet Grossing is empty in every single country. The store listing has purchases, but they aren't selling. For a three-month-old game with ten million installs that isn't "still too early."

A similar picture with Maze Madness (Ashita, 173 days, 5M+, a $9.99 purchase, Grossing empty) and Tile Clear (Cedar, 202 days, 10M+, purchases up to $44.99, Grossing empty).

Separately: Ocean Block Shoot, Loop Master and Stack Smash are also empty in Grossing, but they're 19, 15 and 22 days old — for them that's normal. Coming back to them in a month and seeing whether they've shown up there is the most useful test.

Two platforms

Loop Master: Color Jam Sort — on iOS the game has been out since April and sits in eight countries, top 15 in New Zealand, no movement for a third week. The Android version came out 15 days ago and is already in 32 countries with 1M+ installs. The same product, and the budget went entirely to Play.

Top Force: Commander — the opposite, an iOS exclusive: it isn't on Android in any country. Century is rolling the strategy out on Apple first.

Not a single game jumped into a new install bracket over the day — Play showed no confirmed jump for anyone.