Drop Pop
A hyper-casual mobile game built entirely solo — from an original mechanic with no direct analogues to a Google Play release, live-ops and two data-driven rebalances after launch.
From concept to 5,000+ downloads
Design the game
An original mechanic, two game modes and an economy built to keep players coming back.
Game design
I designed a core mechanic with no direct analogues in the genre: physics-driven throws where trajectory and hits are resolved by real physics. The game ships with two modes — an 18-level campaign and an endless survival mode. To vary the pacing, a slow-mo precision challenge with a chase camera fires at the end of each level, and once a minute in endless mode.
Level design
Locations are assembled from modular asset kits into a seamless world — no visible chunk seams, no map edges on camera cuts. The result reads as one endless road.
Economy & progression
A dual-currency economy (coins and diamonds) with rewards for campaign levels and endless-mode survival, feeding a character skin shop and an upgrade shop.
Build everything
Animation, VFX, lighting, sound, UI and performance — all made and integrated by one person.
Animation & VFX
NPC animation sets — walk, run, bicycle, scooter — plus the player's ball-throw. On impact, paint splashes color characters and the road, with several sprite variants; the effect color is driven by the ball skin equipped in the shop.
Lighting, sound & haptics
A full day / night cycle with smooth light transitions and street lamps that switch on only at night. SFX and vibration feedback cover hits, UI and menus — tuned separately for gameplay and interface.
UX / UI
Menus, HUD and popups (shop, quests, ranks) with clear navigation and no redundant screens. The interface is adapted for 15 languages — text length and readability checked per language.
Device optimization
Low-end phones are detected via GPU tier and live FPS sampling during play. Two lighting profiles — full and simplified — switch automatically so the game stays smooth on weak devices.
Ship it
The full Google Play release cycle — store listing, localization QA and paid user acquisition.
Localization & QA
15 languages shipped, each checked manually on device — two languages with broken text rendering were found and disabled before players ever saw them.
Release & marketing
Full Google Play publishing: icon, screenshots, listing, Data Safety and privacy policy. Then user acquisition on Google Ads and TikTok Ads, including a TikTok Business SDK integration for attribution.
Run it live
Analytics, live-ops and monetization — where design decisions get validated by real players.
Analytics & data-driven balance
Firebase Analytics, Crashlytics and BigQuery export power funnel analysis: level completion, retention, first-session drop-off. The data showed level 1 was killing new players — a rebalance fixed it. Crash and ANR reports are triaged to separate game bugs from device and driver issues.
Monetization
Interstitials between levels on a controlled cadence, plus rewarded ads players opt into for extra lives or balls after a loss. I found and fixed a critical bug: after one network failure, ad requests never retried — revenue was near zero.
LiveOps
Seven daily quest types rotating by weekday, a rank system with score-based rewards, and retention hooks — a fresh quest every day and a leaderboard.