Scaling Radar

Scaling Radar — August 13

2026-08-13

40 candidates, 13 new alerts.

Headline: the Paint & Hide clone wave on Android

12+ titles built on the same mechanic — "paint and hide" — are sitting in the charts at the same time. Already wide: Painty Hide n Seek (CDT Games) — 26 countries, #1; Hide in The Backrooms (CASUAL AZUR) — 43 countries, #6; Hide 'N Seek! (Supersonic) — 29 countries, #10. Just getting going: Chameleon Paint: Hide & Seek (MobGame) 24 → 31 countries, Paint & Hide: Color Guys (HIGAME) 2 → 26. On iOS the wave has only just started — Meccha Paint, Hide and Seek took #1 in JP on day 11 of its life. The mechanic is in the land-grab phase, the window for entering with a clone is still open, but it's a month or two, no more.

Worth watching (young, narrow geo)

Paint & Hide: Color Guys (HIGAME GLOBAL, Android) — candidate of the day. 16 days, geo 2 → 21 → 26, rank #63 → #17 → #8 (FI). Exactly the moment when a test flipped into rollout.

Amaze Romantic Goddess (OSIRIS INFO SEC, Android) — 13 days. Until August 9 it sat in a single country at #38, now it's 29 countries and #4 in US. Installs jumped into the 50,000+ bracket. Entering through the US rather than through cheap geo is rare, and a sign of confidence in the unit economics.

Mystery Dumpling: Unbox ASMR (Brocker Bus, Android) — 6 days, 44 countries right away, #2 in IL, installs in the 500,000+ bracket, reviews +116%. This isn't a soft launch, it's a worldwide dump from day one.

Chillquarium (Snapbreak, Android) — 93 days, but geo 2 → 15 in three days, #83 → #36 (CA), reviews +150%. The game lay around for three months and only now got a budget.

Little Wing Windows (32 days, 2 → 6 countries, #83 → #29) and Hedgehog Ranger (71 days, 1 → 5 countries) — the earliest stage, too soon to bet, but onto the list they go.

Whereas Royal Smash!, Meowdoku, Tap Tile!, Jigsaw Drop with their 35–47 countries have already scaled out — a high score here isn't about "we caught it", it's about "we're late".

Movement

Dear Passengers (JOY FAST FOOD) is squeezing geo 27 → 24 → 18, but took #1 in IE — the budget wasn't cut, it was concentrated. Get Color Pack (Tripledot) 3 → 8 countries, #76 → #48. Human Rise: Idle Evolution 3 → 9 countries, #79 → #41. Grass Master (SayGames) 7 → 19 countries. Who dropped off the list — Bracelet Maker (42 countries, #2), House Cleaning ASMR (25, #3), Drama Story (21, #12) — they're standing in the charts exactly where they stood.

Publishers

Oakever — four titles at once: Meowdoku on both platforms, Paint by Number (18 countries, #9), Color Aura. A portfolio, not a single shot.
Tripledot — Wordoku on iOS (2 countries, 8 days) and Get Color Pack on Android; launching something new and relaunching something old at the same time.
Nebula Studio — Tap Tile! (43 countries) + Zoodoku (18). GOODROID — CubeAway (40) + Bus Traffic Fever (46). HM Games (two legal entities) — Ocean Block Shoot + Solitaire Stack Sort.

On both platforms at once: Meowdoku, CubeAway, Rap Star: Idle Clicker, Ghost Sniper. The publishers are buying on both stores, not testing one.

_Deltas are over 3 days, not 24 hours._

Scaling Radar — money, August 13

Android only: Play shows install brackets and Top Grossing, iOS has none of that.

Buying pays off

Royal Smash! (Cypher Games) — the benchmark of the day. Installs jumped into 5,000,000+, #1 in Top Free in 47 countries and at the same time #16 in Grossing in 45 countries. A month and a half old, IAP $1.99–99.99. A title where everything lines up.

Bus Traffic Fever! (GOODROID) — 10,000,000+ installs, #1 Free and #11 Grossing in 46 countries. Frost Valley (LITEORANGE) — 5,000,000+, #3 Free in 42 countries, #16 Grossing in 36. Both are older than 4 months, nothing to catch here, but it's a reference point for what healthy economics look like in the genre.

Spot entries into Grossing: Rap Star: Idle Clicker (7 countries, #32 CO), Bus Loop: Jam Master (4 countries, #61 BR), Ghost Sniper (3 countries, #63 AU) — while sitting in 34–46 countries in Top Free. The buying is wide, the money so far is in a handful of geos.

Installs moved up

The bracket jumped for six titles: Royal Smash! (5M+), Mystery Dumpling (500K+), Amaze Romantic Goddess (50K+), Bus Jam: Traffic Trouble (10K+), Human Rise: Idle Evolution (5K+), Little Wing Windows (1K+). That's not an estimate, that's a fact straight from Play.

Of those, none are in Grossing except Royal Smash!. For Mystery Dumpling (6 days), Amaze Romantic Goddess (13) and Bus Jam (9) that's normal — too early. But Human Rise: Idle Evolution on day 55, with a declared IAP catalogue of $2.99–49.99 and a zero in Grossing, is a title gathering volume that hasn't learned to earn from it.

Volume grows, no money

The most interesting group. Titles with millions of installs and a wide Top Free that haven't been in Grossing in a single country for ten days:

The difference is fundamental: for Tap Tile! and Jigsaw Drop there shouldn't be a Grossing presence — there's nothing to sell. For Meowdoku, Get Color Pack (Tripledot, 500K+, IAP up to $89.99) and Solitaire Stack Sort (HM Games, 100K+, IAP up to $99.99) the purchase catalogue is declared and Grossing is empty — they haven't found the payers.

Separately — Grass Master (SayGames). Until August 9 it sat in Grossing (up to 6 countries, best #58), after that — not a single country, even though Top Free grew from 5 to 19 countries over the same period. They're expanding geo and revenue isn't following. For a title on day 163 of its life, that's a bad signal.

Chillquarium (Snapbreak) — 50,000+ installs, IAP $3.99–8.49, hasn't shown up in Grossing in ten days. The rollout is on day three, so it's early, but the price bracket suggests a bet on IAP rather than ads — and that's worth watching.

_Deltas are over 3 days, not 24 hours._

← 2026-08-12 Report 2026-08-13 2026-08-14 →