two & a half gamers 🧙 Solo Dev Journey #1: How to start with UA? From a store link to a LIVE UA Campaigns
Game discussed in the video - One Mage Army: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eyaegmoranm.onemagearmy
A solo developer messaged Jakub at Gamesforum to say the podcast helped him grow his game from zero to $25K a month, now heading to $50K. This video is for exactly that person: one game, no creative team, no UA department — and a launch that needs to happen anyway.
Matej Lančarič goes solo for the first episode of his dev journey, launching his own game, One Mage Army (Android now, iOS in a couple of weeks), in the least ideal conditions: the build was done, Singular and ad monetization were in, but every motion designer and playable person was busy on client work, there was no gameplay footage anywhere online, and all he had was the store page. He walks the whole setup in order: wiring the network connectors (Unity, Google, Mintegral, Meta, Moloco, and more), the Singular events he needed before anything could run (ad impressions, purchases, level victories, hero unlocks — the first-session events), then the creative problem. With nothing to work from, he fed Layer.ai the store link and one brief — 59-second, story-driven, "one mage vs. a horde," keep the store's art style — and had ten AI videos in about 90 minutes, no gameplay at all. They're not perfect, and he says so: any client would reject them. They're also his best performers on Facebook and Apple. Add Playable Maker playables (plus playables built in Layer from the game's own sprites, seven more in the back pocket), and the campaigns: on Facebook, an ad-impression campaign to get any data ($0.18 CPI, ~200 installs), then a level-5 achieve campaign that started producing purchasers on its own (10-13 IPM, ~$0.90 CPI on tier 1, Germany best), then tier-1 purchase campaigns (~€3 CPI, US ~$4.50). On AppLovin, blended-ROAS worldwide (the game is ~40% IAP / 60% ads): a brutal $60 CPI on day one, $30, then $7, now $3.60 and heading toward $2 — and the discipline of not panicking when it's your own money.
The lesson, stated plainly: volume and diversity beat polish. Ten imperfect videos beat one perfect one. Get data in first, ladder the campaigns, iterate the winner. Next up: Firebase, Google Ads, and hybrid ROAS.
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This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let’s not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.
Panelists: Jakub Remiar, Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric
Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA
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Matej Lancaric
User Acquisition & Creatives Consultant
https://lancaric.me
Felix Braberg
Ad monetization consultant
https://www.felixbraberg.com
Jakub Remiar
Game design consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar
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