Paul Raubic is a solo developer and founder of the Pau Rau game studio. His previous title, Move People, reached the top three on both app stores after he partnered with Supersonic. Working with the team again, he’s grown Move Animals into a hit and won the Supersonic Superstars contest. Here, explore the story behind the game and how Paul worked closely with the entire Supersonic team to reach the #2 spot on Android and maximize profitability.
Build it and the creatives will follow
The success of my previous game, Move People, inspired me to create a sequel. Users clearly enjoyed playing that game (D0 playtime was over 1800s), and I felt an updated version featuring lovable and accessible characters could also perform well. So instead of featuring human characters, I wanted to build a version that highlighted animals. I didn’t see any examples of games using the inverse kinematic mechanic for animals - only for people - which indicated it would be an original concept in the market.
I started developing Move Animals using a different approach - traditionally, I start by designing and testing creatives to confirm the concept is marketable. But this time, I built out some levels first and then tried to find a creative that performed well with a low CPI.
The Supersonic creative team gave me a lot of support in testing and iterating videos. With their help, we found a creative with a good enough CPI to move forward and that proved the concept was marketable.
Applying what’s already worked to reach #2 on Android
Working closely to build out Move People with Supersonic last time, we learned a lot and applied many of these best practices while growing Move Animals. Doing so helped us shorten the learning curve and optimize performance more efficiently. For example, after running A/B tests for Move People, we saw that adding a voice-over and making gameplay less challenging improved in-game metrics. So from the get-go, I implemented these features into Move Animals.
"We applied many of the best practices from our previous game to Move Animals. Doing so helped us shorten the learning curve and optimize performance more efficiently."
- Paul Raubic, founder of Pau Rau
This time around, I knew how to quickly integrate the Wisdom SDK and felt more confident using the Supersonic platform to manage and improve my game, like for running A/B tests. Together with the Supersonic team, we built out the game and determined the best path forward based on what succeeded with our previous title, like prioritizing building out levels and keeping a consistent narrative. While building out the game, we achieved over 2000s of D0 playtime on Android and reached launch quickly. The game was an immediate success - it scaled to #2 on Android in the US and maintained significant profit.
Consistent support from all sides
Publishing a game with Supersonic for the second time was even easier and more efficient than our first title together - their support and cooperation remained at the highest level. The Supersonic creative team, in particular, was a huge help in running hundreds of creative tests to unlock CPI and try out different concepts. They also helped me grow my skills as a developer: I had never created a playable ad before, but the Supersonic team guided me through the process and now I know the basics for designing them.
"Supersonic helped me grow my skills as a developer: I had never created a playable ad before, but they guided me through the process and now I know the basics for designing them."
- Paul Raubic, Founder of Pau Rau
Receiving feedback from the design and monetization teams throughout the publishing process helped improve game performance and gave me useful knowledge I’ll apply to future titles. Publishing Move Animals was another great experience with Supersonic - and winning Supersonic Superstars was the best kind of icing on the cake. I’m looking forward to testing new games and growing a third hit together.
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