🧊 Cube Land: How RotateLab went from idea to $300K/Day in Just 6 Months

When you scale really quickly on the tower, it's
fix honestly this is IIP at least 1.5 or two times more at least from
Yeah. You'll see how DA is even spike. So I'm guessing we are
so look if at least
if 90k is there then I would say 150 we are looking at for sure
the only I
yeah yeah
yeah and Felix how much do we add on ads
it's diceen [music] [music] jack up designs world two and a half gamers the midnight crew talking UA adverts [music] and game design too feeling Jack bringing the insight. We're rocking those vibes till the early daylight [music] a master eyes on the prize. Tracking data through the cyerspace skies. Felix like a wizard [music] in disguise. Jack's craft reals lift us to the high. Two and a half gamers talking smack. Slow hockey sick [music] got your back. Ads are

beautiful. They like the way. Click it fast. Don't delay. [music] Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. [music]
[music]
Hello everybody. This is Two and a Half Gamers. My name is Mate Ancharich.
I'm Felix Broberg. And I'm Yakob.
And we are your hosts and we need more energy from you, Yakob.
Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.
Cuz it's puzzle mania. [laughter]
Let's do it once again.
We need more energy from you, Jakob.
Use the energy.
Y very good. Very, very good. So, so, so we are talking about the game. No [ __ ] No, but not any game. We're talking about the game from our friends from

Turkey. And the game is called Cube Land Puzzle Game. And oh my god, what a game. Uh, what are your levels, guys?
I'm 20 or 22. Not that far.
You look quite good for 21 years.
25. This is exactly M's type of game. This is what he loves.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is.
It is. So, I'm 55.
Yeah.
More.
Yeah. I know. I wanted to be 100 but I'm leaving that for a plane to Shanghai.
Oh, plane to Shanghai.
Yeah, because Yeah. Well, when you play without the internet connection, it's better because you are not able to see any interstitials in between the levels. So, because that's
Don't listen to him. It's a trick. It doesn't actually work. Let's watch your ads. Ads are beautiful. [laughter]
I mean,
let's try not to ruin my industry. Of

course they are beautiful. Oh, now I have a sky lift event. Nice. Which you don't see. And I just Yeah, I just open.
How many mechanics did you see, by the way, until 58?
I'm 58. Sorry. I'm 58.
So 58. How many mechanics?
Um I now uh had like fourth or fifth.
So I have one big cube right now which I unlocked like few levels ago,
right? And I mean I have the crown tournament which is on the left hand side and I
No, but those are features. I mean Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. I know what you're talking about now. But now only now I unlocked the sky lift which is again the the features and I'm expecting way more which will unfold eventually. So
actually they have it all in the journey by the way.
Yeah. Why not?
So it's there like written what? what like unlocks there incidentally. But

yeah, uh shall we look at the game play then?
Well, we should.
I think we should. It's a good idea.
Yeah.
So, as Mate said, sending regards to the team because these guys really really deserve it. They are extremely hardworking.
What
can you name the company? Maybe [snorts] lab.
Yeah. Thank you very much. [laughter]
Yeah. from guys to you guys and and yeah, sending regards to Sally and and his brother.
So yeah, what we have here is uh
is a sad octopus.
Sad octopus, but I would say
in Egypt
is near perfect iteration of uh something that's Oh, yeah. 58. That's nice. Of something that's very close to screw gem to screwdom. Yes, very similar process. And I don't know why my emulator keeps crashing on this, but uh we'll get back.

Uh
just buy iPhone.
Buy iPhone. That's it.
It's an emulator.
That's it. That's your emulator right there.
Anyway, so what's happening here? This game is uh again absolutely awesome. It's an iteration on uh pixel flow if I understand correctly or this is blast.
Yeah, I would say this is blast by more than
that's the question because most probably this this is actually closer to this is blast.
Yes, you [snorts] don't have the conveyor belt.
Yeah. Yeah.
Can you imagine like how like what would be the conveyor belt kind of structure? If you have the 3D object, you can do whatever.
No,
I mean,
it's just so much fun turning it and aiming so that basically like you find a little area. It's so much fun.
Yeah. And it's it's not only about area. It's like you need to be strategic because if I, let's say, want to get this orange out, I need to turn it this way. If I want to get this orange out, I need to turn it this way.

Yeah. Let me tell you one thing. You don't really need to because if you if you get stuck, then it will just start spinning and it will find a way how to make it.
Yeah. Yeah, but like you could have done it better before.
Yeah.
When you start spinning, it's like last resort of like
Yeah. Yeah. Then you are like close to get stuck.
Because I was I was also like curious like how they actually did manage their fail state because it's a little bit tricky because sometimes it starts spinning and then like one shoots one.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like it's like
or you have like this like oh in 3 seconds
in Yeah. somewhere there. Yeah. I mean, [laughter] I was playing the this sniper game already few if in few levels like, "Wait a second. I see I see that
the the blue cube." Yeah, blue cube right there. Like, [ __ ] my life. Come on.
So, it's a little bit tricky, but it's still very engaging. As Felix said, the 3D gives it definitely much better feel of you being able to aim it properly and like go around it. And yeah, here we go. Interstell as usual.

Beautiful salt of the earth. for me 19
I guess 16 for me then on Android emulator.
Yeah, I think they do some type of stuff there because basically the the reviews on sensor tower basically says some complaints about ads starting at different points. So probably what they're doing here is either by UA campaign type which is a really popular way of segmenting right now or basically country uh as well.
Country like why would you do it by country? What you can do is basically you know your conversion rates by country and then you do playable minutes or playable hours to conversion and then sometimes you start rolling out ads after that especially for puzzle games that tend to convert relatively quickly.
So puzzle games usually convert quite heavily within the first two hours of gameplay. So what you can start by doing is also rolling out ads quicker then. [snorts]
Okay. Um, why does interstitial keeps on going

so long?
Because you haven't seen the X button. It's right there.
Yeah.
Kingdom Guard, our favorite tower defense game. [laughter] Uh, yeah. So, getting back to the actual game, what's happening here is the usual sword puzzler setup, which means there's the usual blockers added along the way in the level saga, which is like hidden block, joint blocks, and I'm guessing some blockers like ice or whatever. Nothing, I guess, that fancy. I was looking at like some high levels that didn't didn't much. Then we have some basic levelup systems such as crown tournament as Mati said like I guess like other things that are there and then uh interestingly this is something new that wasn't like usually included in these kind of sort of puzzlers where you have this journey which just tells you I would say level

milestones where you get
Yeah. But those are only those are not new features man like that is it's boosters and coins. It says before the levels were this kind of loading thing that those are new features but yeah this is just like rewards track something something I don't know
rewards like something something yes
that's there but again it's uh
quite light on the feature side as usual that these games do because the only thing that matters is really the levels and the level saga. So what's the most important part is as you see here that they have what 650 levels which is a lot which usually means like few months for puzzle fanatic people and then
unless your name is Mas who will do that in [ __ ] two days.
Yeah I mean I mean honestly
pay it like there's like there's no tomorrow. like the but the thing is like 500 levels for here it if I play

more which I will
I mean it needs to get harder because there's literally no time right so it needs to get harder I only used a booster once which was super hard level on 54 until then it was actually quite easy I just had figure match way that like you know levels are very very easy like the first 100 levels
I'm seeing inter intercessors almost every every level by now so I mean that might be the case like you have
you purchased
no
okay that's that's weird you usually buy stuff
no no but I'm making a point here because basically maybe the game is too easy
yes
like exactly what M is saying
but is it easy because you know like you then go through levels and you see [ __ ] ton of interstitials and then kind of you make money because but the game is also making quite a lot of money on the IIP side. So you know

they have some kind of cool down though and I think cuz I failed like I basically failed a couple of levels and basically you'd expect interstitials to be after levels but basically there is a cool down period. Uh so basically if I fail like three levels in a row really quickly by just clicking out then I don't get an interstitial. So, they're cooling it down somehow. So, yeah, I guess they're timing it some way. Did anyone say web revenue? Oh, yeah. This episode is brought to you by Fastpring, the no drama D2C partner that's been scaling with mobile publishers for over 20 years. They're fast growing, profitable, and seriously reliable, which is more than you can say about most vendors in this space. Anyway, whether you're launching a new web store, replacing your current D system, or adding a backup plan, Fast

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Wait.
Yeah.
Um, do we have some info from the team?
Maybe yes, maybe no.
Wait, what? We have inside information?
Maybe yes, maybe no. No, I look uh you didn't really do a proper like introduction to the company.
Yeah. So, you know, the the company was founded in 2020 and they worked with Rolik for about two and a half years before deciding to go self-publishing. And I think we discussed this with with brothers uh in Estanul a couple of years ago.
Yeah. As I work with them.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're very close and you know we re they said they received guidance from industry expert

like Jakob. [laughter]
It is true.
Yeah. Two and a half gamers own game designer Yakob Remier and now the game is succeeding. I'm not even surprised.
Oh my god. I mean,
what a surprise. The Slovakian strikes again.
Jokes aside, like we are not the heroes here. Like they are they are. At the beginning of 2024, they launched Swordland and they operated for about one and a half years. And once it reached the stable state, they started building and testing new prototypes which eventually led them to Cuband. But from 2020 to 2024, they worked mostly in the in the office. But after the earthquake, they transitioned to fully remote and they love it. So, you know, it's actually possible to work remotely. No [ __ ]
And make hits.
And make hits. Exactly. And you know like but it's you know you need a strong companies and culture anyway. So they they came our people Yeah. No. Yeah.

Whatever. Let's not go there.
Uh so so about this game. So this game like they come came up with the idea in November and started development at the end of December last year 2025. Yes. The first marketability test was done in January 2026. The signals were really positive. So they spent next two months fully focused on production and by the end of March they run the retention test and after seeing strong results as well like the entire team shifted the focus to this cam pretty much and now we're talking about it. It's July. It's [ __ ] July. Like this is really really fast. This is it is
come on like well done well done.
This is a good time to segment to the numbers then to basically show how well done it is.
Yeah. Yeah. [laughter]
I would like I would love to see like
how that this is not on pixel flow but

this is blast maybe.
Exactly. No
like we already in October we talked to Kubra.
Yeah. We already saw Pixel Flow and Pixlow was picking up be beginning of beginning of the of the year, right?
October. Start of October. It starts
start of October. We saw the the game and then they started running the UA. But like the real
these guys know each other very well.
Yeah, I know. Yes, I know. I know. [laughter]
He's the Turkish puzzle mafia.
Yeah, it's the new peak mafia.
Yeah, but I think like Yeah, I think it's it's more closer to this blast than than Pixel Flow. I mean,
yeah.
Who am I to judge?
Let's see. But it's done very well. I'm I'm like
very happy for the guys that they uh finally doing the big leagues. Um yeah, let's look at the numbers.
Well, no, no, no. Show the 106 level that you had there in the on YouTube.
On YouTube,
this one?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I just like was looking up a

little bit like how it how it looks there on the
on the high end.
High end. Yeah. if I spot something different. But uh
yeah, but you know I know what you didn't didn't [ __ ]
Yeah, it's the same as as m know this sumo environment or whatever.
Yeah. No, I I'm 58.
But you still see on level 105 they're like pretty light ops like well the thing is again as I said I see the sky lift which is a new icon under that crown tournament. So again I assume there is more.
Yeah it is more and again
if it's not more then will it will be more. You can again can do different things here because it has the standard set of blockers from pixel flow like hidden pig, join pics and like all these other things.
But on the other hand on the top side with the 3D object, you could do different stuff there. Especially with the layering like the layering itself is like a

completely different let's say
level design dynamic that this whole game is is using. So I'm guessing that they will work with that like later down the line. But again, it's sort puzzler. Sort puzzlers don't have, you know, that many mechanics or big mechanics curves. They they just do like pixel flow, which is what, like 15 mechanics on 300 levels. So, you can you can do pretty okay. It's a lot of times it's about the picture itself. If it's enjoyable to kind of destroy it, shoot it out, and like slowly unfold it and like peel it off like onion. So I guess that like the level design is still quite important itself just in the base form not only just adding [ __ ]
very interesting and eye-catching as well and
something very familiar to me as well because if I look if I look at just random stuff which is doesn't you know do anything no emotions like
yeah if I see Sonic the Hedgehog and I can take it apart with my blasting that's going to be fun.
Yeah. Good luck with the with good luck

with that.
Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's let's
don't forget you're not you're not in Vietnam or China, man. Like you can't do IP infringement as as easy as it's there.
Yeah. Not that far east. Yeah. [laughter] So looking at the portfolio, this game is pretty much currently the only game uh running the company
and they they said like they switched fully to
Yeah. I guess everything there. And as Matty said, this started in March uh this year as for the soft launch itself.
Yeah. And now it's scale to something like 80 90k a day IP only with like
it's usually more, right?
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There's no equity dilution. You can repay as you get paid. And it's flexible and fully tailored to your growth. So, you can secure funding in 30 days and get a term sheet in just 24 hours. [music] Don't you wait. Take control of your UA budget without giving away of uh a piece of your company. Visit pvxpartners.com and uh see how they can help you grow your game faster and stronger. Don't wait. Go to pvxpartners.com. When you scale really quickly on the tower, it's
honestly this is IIP at least 1.5 or two times more at least from
Yeah. You'll see how DA is even spike. So I'm guessing we are
so look if at least. Yeah.
If 90k is there then I would say 150 we are looking at for sure
only I
yeah yeah
yeah and Felix how much do we add on ads?
Uh we add so according to the active

user base it's 282,000 which I don't really believe. I think it's going to be more if it was 282,000 is 38k a day. So that would be 40% of the AP that's shown in Sensor Tower. I feel though that this is probably a 50/50 game looking at it because most puzzlers is probably going to be
300k
something like that. Yeah,
it's pretty pretty
pretty solid. By the way, Japan on the second spot is also pretty solid.
Yeah,
they love puzzle games in Japan, which is why it's so sad that Roabs is missing out on deadly ad revenue by not working with Line. You mean the strongest ad network inside of Japan and they're not working with Line. So start working with them.
Start working with them
and get paid in Japanese yen.
Yes.
Anyway, uh yeah. So I think again very successful iteration in destroy the picture genre of sort which is becoming

destroy [laughter]
because we see like so much stuff iterated on the same.
Yeah, of course. So yeah, and I'm again I'm really glad that this happened because this will go directly to my deck on perfect iterations examples right after screw and screw them.
Yeah. Yeah. And yes, exactly.
Can I add another thing here as well? So I agree perfect iteration on like a concept. I agree that completely. But can I also say that they got very lucky on the timing cuz we all know what usually happens. No, no. Listen here. Listen here. We all know what happens when you make a hit game, right? And it starts growing like this. Everyone in Vietnam, China, Turkey, everyone starts copying your game, right? All the big studios are busy copying Smashfest right now. So basically, they have like some time basically before they're going to notice this game growing really quickly.
But this is, as I said, this is most

probably not following Pixel Flow. This is following this is Blast. But he's talking about something else. He's talking about a different game which is scaling like crazy. Like there's no tomorrow. And every like the Sauron's eye is on that game. So everybody's
80 copies in two months. Yeah.
Sauron's eyes on everybody's game that's scaling up.
Yeah. Exactly.
The thing is like half of those studios are copying that game. They're not going to copy this game, right? And that means there's already a smaller eye of Sauron.
They're going to copy this game next month.
Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. But that time valuable for you to scale. super valuable to scale, right? Like that's super valuable that month, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Of course. Now you need to scale and then like next month, you know, all the copy [ __ ] comes in for you.
Well, look, I mean, it's pretty obvious like when you do a marketability test in January and then you start actually and there's like literally no evidence. I mean, you need to protect pretty much your game, right? and then they started scaling or like retention whatever

numbers in in in March. So you need to protect everything that you can before you start actually scaling. So anyway, well going to say finish your thought when you finish your thought.
No, like anyway, uh like you said, there's so many different gaming companies copying the the other game like this is next on the block.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah,
100%. There's going to be 50 copies of this episode, [laughter]
especially after this episode.
No need to thank us, Sally.
Yeah, sorry, man. I'm sorry, man.
I mean, you like need to give them some credit because this is an amazing game. So,
one one last thing before I go. Uh, look at this.
Look at all that thing that these guys did before. This is not something of like oh one game one hit wonder. It's like
is that sword or is that Oh, it's everything.
Everything.

Looks like they were doing some copying as well, right? So, [laughter]
you know, what goes around comes around, right?
Marble smash.
Oh, well, you know,
it is what it is.
It is what it is. It is what it is.
But it is nice. Like, uh, that's not there. It's like again, you build the expertise. You build the expertise and it's a frequency game. You need to have as many shots on goal as possible and one of them will be the goal. This is their goal. Check how many shots they had to go before they actually get there. Like this is what 20 games
and just the ones that we see that launched, not the one that were prototyped. So
yeah, but Turks don't fail, man. Not in this story.
Not in this fairy tale. [laughter]
Not in this fairy tale. Yeah, you can go my
Yeah. One sec. I'm trying to find well unfortunately we don't see playables in here but you know a little bird told me

they have playables and I asked Sally right away like why like I can't see flables they said I couldn't make ads without the dev team they said I couldn't [music] understand the tech guess what I just made a fully working gorgeous top to play while eating noodles and watching trash [music] TV and taking care of my daughter. All thanks to Playable Maker. No code, no stress, no cheap Herald. But we have them and they're making them internally. So, they're definitely there because I was like, wait a second, you have only 200 creatives in the last 30 days,
250
and you're scaling like crazy. Uh, but it's pretty much exactly what we discussed. Look at this. He's my favorite.
The cow.
Yeah, of
course. And if they're scaling with 200 creatives, that's amazing. The game is a

machine. Like,
my god.
Imagine like this is pretty much this this is only the start,
right? [snorts] It's only the start. It's actually quite quite nice to to look at this creative. It's it has everything. So this is basically just finding what converts
because there I might this might be altered gameplay but
alter gameplay because it's exaggerated to giant numbers.
Not not this one. 80 is it's a normal
200. Not really.
Especially like you see it's it's not shooting. It's literally like shotgunning it.
Of course. I mean the shotgun approach is the best approach. It's the best approach. So basically it's just fighting what you won't get sued for and that converts really well with users. [laughter]
What do you mean sued for?
No IP infringement.
You mean just IP infringement and stuff?
Yeah,
because he wanted to see the the Sonic the Hedgehog. Well, don't worry, man.

Like it's not going to happen. It was interesting.
I see an Angry Bird in one other game that we will cover.
Yeah, I will cover. But you know you know the story here. Yeah, I know exactly what's happening here. [laughter]
So, the story with you saying 50/50, it's most probably the case. And coming back to your saying, "Oh, you need interstitials to scale." And me saying, "Oh, I see interstitials every every level." Well, here's your answer for the 300K. Oh my god, this is just insane. Let's go back to
Do you think they're only running app screen? Yes.
Yeah. Do you think they're only running appin because the ad row campaigns are performing so well. It basically doesn't make sense right now to add more UA sources.
No, they are adding more UA sources, but it's just uh like if you say if you look at here, I mean, well, that's that's revenue actually. One sec.

What's happening? I don't want you here. That's the next podcast. Spoiler
alert.
Yeah, I want this and out sources and here. So, they're doing like all of these like different things, right? Integral obviously. I mean, they need to scale on integral like quickly.
It's not on iron source. I can guarantee you that.
Yeah, it was probably not. But it's is Unity. uh but I think there Google and and Facebook as well but I think the app login for this specific case and for all the cases with this monetization strategy anything else it's not going to work anywhere near the app login. It's just I've seen this before and if you run blended campaigns on on Facebook is absolute [ __ ] I mean really it's absolute [ __ ] You can send both

IIP revenue and ad revenue to Facebook and it's not working like their algo was not built for these types of campaigns and they can say whatever they can try to do adas campaigns and it's still going to fail because they never actually thought like this is going to be the case. And even after talking and saying like you should do hybrid campaigns like no it's not a highest priority. Well I can understand why but well uploving is your is your goto channel and then integral right afterwards. It's crazy how meta has just seeded this whole part of the market because basically the whole market started heading towards hybrid monetization. Of course, it makes sense. Hybrid UA campaigns is going to be the way like the whole market goes, right?
But their whole world is not built for this. That's the thing. Like their whole pipeline and engineering and tech is not

built for the hybrid campaigns and anything bes like besides the day seven um attribution window. They can't do day 28 because they were never ready for it. They need I have no idea like why not. because their pipes are built for day seven, maybe day one first and day seven and then that's it. Because they never thought, oh, actually day 28 will be a great thing in the past. So now when they try to do it, like they had to just redo the whole engineering around it, which will never happen because they're [ __ ] big company and it will take like 10 years.
Is that because it's mainly e-commerce and that's Facebook's bread and butter and that converts quicker or like
I don't think it's bread and butter though. Maybe now it is, but uh yeah, you know, like the gaming division really
got butchered.
They scaled. Yeah. Scaled back.
They went from like 2,000 to 700 people or whatever. Like it's crazy.
Oh my god. Nowhere near it was before.

Yeah. Nowhere near it was before. So that's quite sad. But I mean, I don't care if they don't want money from gaming. Like that's their problem. Then you go to AppLav, it's and and now suddenly you're making 300,000 per day. You know how many cases like this there are in the world?
50 a month.
Thousand 50,000. [laughter] There's a lot of companies like this. They can grow like this like overnight pretty much. Like there will be a hit in their portfolio eventually. So yeah, I mean too bad Facebook is not going to cash that money, but I believe it will. Anyway, like you see all of these different different objects. This is what I mentioned before, like you need to have something eye-catching and have something that kind of sparks the emotion. And I'm looking at this, I may be a little bit biased obviously because we know it guys, but like this is exactly how I would structure the the creative uh depth. I mean,
if you had to bet, let's say if they're

spending hypothetically 100,000 a day, just for simplicity,
do you think app is taking 95,000 of that right now? Like 95%.
You mean spend? Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
If not 100%, right?
If not, not 100% but yeah, like 90% of the spend. Definitely. Yes.
Yeah.
So, yeah. And can you imagine if they like add like different live ops layers like you you mentioned, Yakoup, like that that will unlock way more spend afterwards.
Of course.
And you know like who is really good with live ops? Kinoa because most mobile games leave serious revenue on the table and it's almost never the game it's game ops. So Kinoa is here for you. It's system for mobile games flows live segments inapp messages push AB testing all in one place you know go there

kinoa.ai book a demo see what your game is already leaving money on the table kinoa.ai AI, you know, I actually personally invested as well. So, you should you should look closure. It is closure. Yeah, disclosure. You should you should check it out. But anyway, but it is, you know, it is a very big uh potential uplift when they introduce like more live systems in there and definitely the collective album. How would you structure the collective album though in here?
You mean how like structure collective album?
Yeah. But what would what would you collect?
Like win the boosters.
Yeah. Yeah. Like what do you what would you collect
in the events?
Okay.
You win levels, man. It's very easy.
Sure.
Because they already have the crown tournament with you.
Yeah. It's the same [ __ ] You just
daily layer, weekly layer, seasonal layer, all these layers of different live ops events that are overlapping and you just get stuff from them. It's quite easy.
The only thing you care about is people

winning levels and moving them like through them.
Yeah. Okay. So, you need not 500 levels, but 5,000 levels.
Yeah.
Eventually.
Get ready. [snorts]
Well, h
halfway to China, you're going to be at level 500. Mia.
No, no, no. I don't think so. I mean, most probably 100. It's fine. And by time this airs, we're already in China. Preparing for the presentation anyway. Okay. So, anything else you want to cover with uh
I think we uh talked this uh
nice okay so let's guys thank you very much for coming uh also kudos to rotate lab and to our dear friends keep rocking and also for the rest of the guys join the slack channel and see you there bye-bye Okay, bye-bye.