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Play Tumble Panda – Support the environment!

Announcing TumblePanda.org

Last week, we launched our first big game, Tumble Panda.

Instead of spending lots of money on marketing, we are using a percentage of our earnings to support the environment.

tumble panda - get it on google play

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Announcing TUMBLE PANDA

I am absolutely excited to announce Andlabs’ first big game: Tumble Panda, coming to Google Play tomorrow.

Pandas are quite cute and adorable. We always knew that and always loved the cuddlesome black and white, bamboo-loving bears. And when the opportunity came along to make a Panda the hero in one our newest game, we took it.

Tumble Panda is a 2D jump ‘n’ roll adventure game. As a hungry Panda, the player is perma- nently looking for delicious bamboo. And since trotting is just not fun, the little Panda prefers to roll through the 40 handcrafted levels.

But obstacles are blocking the way. Geysers eject hot water and steam, unstable paths made of lampions need to be crossed and trampolines used to reach high platforms. A normal day in the life of a hungry Panda.

The Panda curls up into a ball, gains speed and launches himself over an abyss. While flying, he uses his Panda-powers to trigger an explosion at just the right time to destroy a pile of stones obstructing his way on the other side. Alternatively, he could have also caused an earthquake to clear them away in advance. Many adventures and challenges await the little Panda.

We will have many more information soon, at this place. In the meantime check out our website at TumblePanda.com and the screenshots bellow:

screenshot_menu_1024x576
screenshot_lampions_text screenshot_looping_text screenshot_explosion_textscreenshot_geyser_text

Tumble Panda’s (non-intrusive) monetization strategy

Recently, we launched the beta test of Tumble Panda. While this test is still ongoing, some of you may have already tried the game. All the others are still invited to join. Today I want to talk about the thoughts we had when building Tumble Panda’s monetization strategy.

Free to play & pay to win

If you have played games like Candy Crush Saga, you have probably experienced something like this: You are beginning to enjoy playing a game, but then, all the sudden it tells you that you have No more lives and need to wait until you will get new ones. However, lucky you, there is a simple way to fulfill your desire to continue that darn level you had almost beaten: For the small amount of only $0.99, you will be granted another full set of sweet lives.

Candy Crush Saga's pay n' play strategy

Candy Crush Saga’s pay n’ play strategy (picture by business.financialpost.com)

Now this strategy surely is clever and the psychology that is at work in Candy Crash Saga can be the topic of at least one PhD thesis. Also, this way of monetizing would be very applicable for Tumble Panda: We could make the user wait after every 10th time he fails to complete a level.

We could. However, we have a very clear idea how our games should be made: They should be free to play. And by that, we mean that it should be possible to always play the game and that it should be possible to win the game without having to pay for it. We do use in app purchases in our store, but it is never mandatory to use them. Also, we don’t like to use multiple currencies (such as gold and diamonds) when it is not necessary. That’s why we only use one currency in Tumble Panda, which the Panda’s most favorite: Bamboo.

 Monetizing by helping the user

The user is our focus in Tumble Panda. We do never force them to buy anything or wait until they can play the next time or have them pay for an artificially shortaged currency. However, there are spots in our game where we think the user could want to make a purchase or get free bamboo by using Tapjoy.

Prompt to the bamboo store

The first of this spots is when the user wants to purchase an item without having the needed amount of bamboo on their account. In this case we prompt the them to the bamboo-purchase part of the store. Here they have the possibility to purchase bamboo via in app purchases and get free bamboo by using an offerwall or by following us on social media.

Tumble Panda's store

823 Bamboo is good but not enough for another upgrade of Ki-Training…

Tumble Panda's Bamboo Store

…that’s why you will be prompted to the bamboo store, in which more delicious bamboo can be obtained. The “Not enough Bamboo”-text you are seeing is a standard Android Toast using a custom TextView. Also, when making an in app purchase in Tumble Panda, we are giving a part of that to reforestation projects – more on that soon.

Skipping a level

When a user repeatedly fails to finish a level, we ask them if they want to skip it. This comes to the price of 15 times the amount of bamboo that can be collected in the level. For example, in level 40 there are 60 bamboo to collect, which means skipping the level would cost 900 bamboo.

Tumble Panda's skip level dialog

In Level 40, the cost of skipping the level is 900 bamboo

Of course, when trying to skip a level without having a suitable amount of bamboo in one’s account, we will again prompt the bamboo store.

Free bamboo after a canceled purchase

This one is my personal favorite.

Users will cancel purchases. May it be because they don’t remember their password to Google Play, an error occurred or they changed their mind. That’s why we are showing a dialog asking them whether they want free bamboo, once a purchase was canceled. Accepting this offer leads to Tapjoy’s offerwall, where they can receive tons of tasty bamboo.

Tumble Panda's free bamboo dialog

When an in app purchase has been canceled, we are asking the user if they would prefer to receive free bamboo instead

Ads – the backup solution

Since we built a very non-aggressive strategy on monetizing via in app purchases and offer walls, we are using ads to further support us. When first designing Tumble Panda, we thought about displaying banner ads inside of the game, in a similar way Angry Birds used to.

Angry birds ads
Angry birds used to show banner ads during gameplay (picture by http://www.businessinsider.com.au/)

However, the times changed and full screen interstitial ads gained more and more acceptance while banner ads lost theirs. That’s why we also adjusted our strategy and are now exclusively relying on interstitial ads in Tumble Panda. We are trying to show a banner every 5th time a level is loaded and on average every 3rd time a user is accessing the main menu when coming from the game. In this way, we are providing a solution that is giving the user a less intrusive ad experience while still providing us with some earnings.

For those of you that are interested in numbers, in the statistically not significant beta phase, this ad-backup-solution so far provided us with an ARPU (average revenue per user) of about $0.12 so far.

Conclusion

Tumble Panda uses a monetization strategy that is much less intrusive than it could be because our main focus is a good user experience. We sincerely hope this will not harm the overall financial success of the game, but future will show. I will keep you updated!

Wanted: Beta Tester

We will soon release our first big game, Tumble Panda.

We put a lot of effort in this game, and I think we created a great and fun product. However, in order to find the last bugs and get your valuable feedback on where to improve next, we need beta testers. If you are interested, please go to our Google plus community and click on “Ask to join” . I will grant you access within 24 hours.

A click on "Ask to join" will open your gate to tremendous amounts of gaming fun

A click on “Ask to join” will open your gate to tremendous amounts of gaming fun

Enough of the text, here are some screenshots:

menublueskyboom3

And some of Tumble Panda’s features:

  • Be a furry Panda
  • Tumble around the world
  • Eat bamboo
  • Collect hidden stars
  • Jump on trampolines, fly on geysers, balance on lampions and fall into water
  • Destroy obstacles using Panda-powers
  • Train your Panda’s abilities
  • Hand illustrated, colorful graphics
  • Simple gameplay
  • 40 Levels, all free
  • Regular updates with new levels

Thank  all of you that are joining in advance. I’m looking forward to your feedback.

 

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