Roof Rails, a hyper-casual race game, has just beat out Among Us as the top app in the US App Store. They have been steadily climbing the charts for a few months now. After a mini creative analysis, we can see some interesting themes. Their publisher Voodoo is a giant in the hyper-casual games market, so looking at their campaigns we can see what they do to get their games to the top of the top charts on a regular basis.
1: Maximize Market
This game has good interaction with a pleasant vibration when you interact with objects. The game also shows you exactly what to do without using written language. Though there are English titles, the app is completely understandable without being able to understand English. This means that the application is marketable on an international level.
The visibility of Roof Rails is quite global. When compared to another hypercasual game that has been falling in the charts recently, Roof Rails has huge global visibility. Of course, as a publisher with 154 apps, they may have more resources with which to market themselves. But the takeaway is that no matter your size, make your app appealing to the most people possible. Another demographic that doesn’t usually have an affinity for reading, in any language, is young children. By following a “show don’t tell” principle, you open your app up to a wider audience.
2. Short and Frustrating is the new Short and Sweet
Roof Rails has a current 147 active creatives, the majority of which are short sped up playthroughs of the game. If we do a Roof Rails creative analysis we may notice some patterns. Most of them follow one formula with slight variation. They are between 12 and 30 seconds long, they show the gameplay either as is, with a sepia overlay and banners, or with a photo background ripped at the top with more background underneath to show multiple levels, and one final key ingredient. The “player” failing the game with a close call but seemingly an easy mistake. This is designed to frustrate the person watching into playing the game.
3: Run Your Ads
Almost half of the reviews on the app are negative. Many of them, even those that are positive, are complaining about the number of ads.
The number of downloads and active users, however, remains on the rise. This is due to the genre. Hyper- casual games are played, people get bored with them, and then they download a new one. This mini Roof Rails creative analysis has shown us something important. As long as the game is in the sweet spot of tough, entertaining, and addicting. People will put up with the advertisements.
This game has certainly hit that sweet spot as it is all the way at the top of the App Store US Charts. If you want to learn more about how ad publishers like Voodoo churn out addicting and fun games that score well on the charts, sign up for a demo and get the scoop on everyone’s tactics in the App world.
