Scaling Radar — September 7

2026-09-07

40 candidates, 17 new alerts, four of them substantive. The main thing is not among the new ones: two titles the radar had been tracking as one- and two-country tests went out to the whole of tier-1 within 24 hours.

The main thing

Brobuddy (24 HIT Riga, iOS, 18 days) — it sat alone in Denmark at #20–21 for four days, then in a single salvo took 18 countries: HK #9, CH and DK #10, CA #14, GB #16, US/DE/AU #17, FR #21. Only 220 ratings in total. A Danish test → the whole of tier-1 overnight: that is what a "we're going" decision looks like once the metrics have been cleared.

Colony Flow! (ABI) — iOS 2 → 9 → 14 → 19 → 22 → 26 countries in six days: CH #6, BR/DK/US #7, AU #8, NL #9, DE #10. Android in parallel brought Top Free back from 17 → 26 (US, FR, ES, PL, MX, PT, SG, TW switched on) with Grossing in all 47 countries at #11. Both platforms growing — the widest rollout of the week.

New alerts

Melon Hunter: Seek n Shoot (Sprigame, 20 days) — entry into IN #47, TR #65, MY #83, ID #88, 10k installs, zero ratings. A cheap test of yet another conveyor-belt title — more on the conveyor as a whole at 11:00.

Fish Sort Puzzle (Shycheese, 164 days) — 5 → 34 countries in two weeks: PL #12, NZ #16, CH #17, AU/DE #18, 940 reviews a day. By age we caught it late, but the rollout is fresh. The worrying part: 5.5 months in, purchases in the catalogue up to $99, and Grossing — zero countries.

Alliance: Air War (Art of the State, 6 days) — 12 → 25 countries in 24 hours, GR #1, CZ/AE #6, AT/SA/EG #7, NL #8, PL #10. Not HC, but a rollout at that pace is rare.

Skincare ASMR: Makeover Games (CozyTap, 18 days) — CZ #51 and PL on a thousand installs: a clone of the identically named CAT Studio title (5M+) going into test. Shoe it All! (Amberbite, 3 days) — NO #25, a pure soft launch. GOGO! Blast on iOS for the first time — PK #25.

Another ten — noise: one country, zero reviews; among them a SEGA re-release, an RPG in TW and a coin wrapper.

Movement

Wild Water World (iOS, day 6) — 17 countries, #1 in HK/JP/TW, #2 in KR/TH, #3 in MY, and it has gone west: TR #12, GB #18, SE/SG #20, NL #21, AU #22, CA #23. 27 ratings for all time.

Cozy Cat Tree (LoadComplete, 52 days) — TW #1 for a second day, HK #16, JP #38, ratings 168 → 400 in a day. Still 10k installs and six countries — a Korean publisher pressing East Asia precisely.

Connect Tracks (Oakever, 30 days) — 2 → 8 countries: GB #35, DE #40, AU #41, JP #42, FR #45, CA #52. 10k installs, and the geo is expensive from the start. Colorever (Oakever, iOS) holds 23 countries, IL #5, US #13.

Superstore Story 3D (Pusilung) — iOS 5 → 7 (NL #11, SG #17, FR #18), Android DE #6, Grossing DE #89 → #80.

Solitaire Stack Sort (HM Games, 93 days) — 5 → 12 countries: BE #46, PT, FR, IT, CZ, NL, ES; its single Grossing line (PT) disappeared at the same time.

Escape Tsunami: Obby Run (oZ, 74 days) — AT #92 → #26 over the week, 1 → 4 countries.

Tests shut down within a day: Catedrop (Goodroid) — EG #22 and zero the next day. Dummy Drop! (Playwill) — of CA/AU, only AU #14 is left. Survivor Tapper — HK #24 → #15.

Publishers

Sprigame — six titles in the charts at once: Melon Hunter, Prison Escape Journey (IN #6, 5M+), Steal Monster (1M+), Runaway From Vlogger, Ragdoll Monster Sandbox, Fear Kid (#1 in BR/PE). oZ Studio — three (Ragdoll Survival 17 countries, Prison Break: Dig Escape 13, Escape Tsunami 4), while the old Ragdoll 3 was cut from 33 → 8 countries. Oakever — three on the move; ABI, Cypher, Pusilung — a title each across two platforms.

_A Sunday-morning snapshot; deltas are over three days._

Money — September 7. Sprigame and oZ Studio: two escape-game conveyor belts, 18M+ installs, zero in Grossing

For two months now the radar has been flagging their titles one at a time — Prison Break, Ragdoll Survival, Escape Tsunami, now Melon Hunter. Time to look at the portfolios as a whole.

Sprigame — nine titles in the base, six in the charts this week.

Fear Kid: House Escape (December 2024, 10M+) — at the end of August it went 2 → 31 countries in five days: #1 in BR and PE, MX #2, AT #4, ES #5, DE #8 — and it has held 30 countries for two weeks. For a year-and-a-half-old game that is not organic, it is buying restarted on the flagship of the series. The radar does not show it only because of its age.

Prison Escape Journey 3D (97 days, 5M+) — IN #6, PK #7, PE #15; 1,454 ratings, rating 2.8. Steal Monster — 1M+, 186 ratings. Ragdoll Monster Sandbox — 1M+, 323 ratings, rating 2.4. Runaway From Vlogger — 500k, 381. Melon Hunter — 10k, zero.

The lower bound across the portfolio is 18M installs. Grossing: not a single country for any of the titles since mid-August. One rating per 3,000–5,000 installs at ratings of 2.4–3.4 is the profile of traffic that installs and never opens.

oZ Studio — six titles, four in the charts. Ragdoll Survival Playground (1M+, MX/CO #20, 704 ratings, rating 2.7). Prison Break: Dig Escape (100k, GR #21, and zero ratings in a month in the charts). Escape Tsunami (500k, AT #26, 212 ratings). And Ragdoll 3: Monster Playground from 2024 — 33 → 8 countries in a week: the budget was moved off the old title onto the new ones. Grossing — the last line was August 17 (Ragdoll 3, PE #66), and it has been empty since.

What this means

Two studios on one model: escape / ragdoll / brainrot themes, IAP in the catalogue for show ($0.99–29.99), monetisation entirely on ads, geo — LATAM, MENA, IN/PK plus Greece and Austria as a cheap way into Europe. There is one difference: Sprigame runs a flagship for years and brings in clones under it, while oZ cuts the old title to feed the new one. Neither has a single line in Grossing in three weeks — not because it is early, but because the model is not about IAP.

This is the same wave as ASMR and keyboard obby on Thursday: the volume is there, the ratings are not, and the store shows no money. As a signal that "the theme is working", it will do. As an economics benchmark, no: comparing your own prison escape with Sprigame's 5M on installs is pointless until you can see what is behind those installs.

For contrast — which of the week's young Android titles are in Grossing after all: Colony Flow! (ABI) 47 countries #11, Royal Smash (Cypher) 38 countries #19, Frost Valley (LiteOrange) 42 countries #13, Superstore Story (Pusilung) DE #80, and the first entry of Sand Fill (Stormborn, 32 days) — GB #99 on two Top Free countries.