An inside look at Funcell’s Trash Tycoon growth strategy

Funcell's hybrid casual title Trash Tycoon has seen its metrics rise thanks to using IAP and rewarded videos, as well as moderation from the team and updates.

That's according to the company's CEO, Abhishek Malpani, who shares with us where the game's initial concept came from, taking it from a prototype to the game we see today, and how it has worked with a publishing partner in Supersonic throughout the development process.

PocketGamer.biz: Can you tell us a little about yourself and your journey in the games industry?

Abhishek Malpani: I’m AB, CEO at Funcell Games. My love for the games industry began with the launch of the iPhone in 2009 when I developed my first mobile game with the help of some developers I met around that time.

Since then, it’s been a rollercoaster of a journey with thousands of failed games and a few multi-million dollar hits like Idle 9 Months, Idle Human, Perfect Lie, Stairway to Heaven and others.

I founded Funcell in 2016 with an eight-person team; today, we are a 100+ person company. Our main focus is the idle tycoon and puzzle genre. My main role at Funcell is to inspire the team to come up with unique ideas.

What can you tell us about the idea behind Trash Tycoon? Where did that come from?

The idea of Trash Tycoon came from one of the senior game designers, who happens to be my nephew as well. He had the idea to give people a sense of urgency right from the start of the game.

The concept was to show a whole town covered in trash, evoking an immediate urge from the player to do something about it. A prototype was made, and from that moment, we knew we had something big in our hands.

Supersonic from Unity also supported this game's journey. What was the process like working with them? You’ve partnered before with the likes of Perfect Life.

Supersonic has always been a great partner for us. The best part about them is that they don't force any ideas on you but rather give suggestions, and I feel that this is what helps a creator make the game he wants to make.

The Supersonic team understands that when a studio makes a game, it’s their baby, and they know how to make it grow with the right care. 

And about Trash Tycoon itself, how did you evolve the game from its initial prototype to what it is today?

Once the prototype was made and we felt that it could be something big, we devoted a lot of time and effort to the game. The whole team would play it and pitch in their ideas on how we could improve it.

Our main focus was to develop a game that would last forever, so we started putting more effort into creating loops - we created a problem and its solution, but that solution would lead to another problem for the user, and so on. We kept on increasing the depth of the game.

Were there any big challenges during development? If so, how did you tackle these challenges?

One of our biggest challenges was the manpower required to work on the game. We slowly kept on increasing the size of the team and finally settled on a 12-member team, which included three developers, six artists, one game designer, one QA person, and one UI designer.

The other big challenge was balancing the game in a way that was neither too rewarding nor too punishing. It took us at least 20 to 25 tries to find the right balance.

Another challenge we face with tycoon games in general is keeping the size of the game in check, and Trash Tycoon was no different.

We wanted to make all the assets in 3D so that they looked good, but then had to convert them into 2.5D to reduce their size.

Lag was also a big challenge due to the quantity of trucks and people generated in the game. But we finally managed to solve all of the challenges.

Throughout it all, the Supersonic team supported us by implementing data events to analyse and identify issues and improve the metrics. 

How have you managed updates and what changes to implement within the game? And what role has Supersonic played in supporting this development?

First, we sit down with our dedicated team at Supersonic to decide on the next scope for the game, and then we have a deadline for each step.

We dive into each item and tackle the more urgent ones, and while that scope is being executed, we're already planning the subsequent scope. So, basically, everything is planned and organised in advance together with Supersonic, with a long-term plan for the game. We’re currently planning our live ops and in-app purchase optimisations.

The Supersonic data analysts have also been indispensable in identifying churn areas and improving and optimising the monetisation strategy and IAP offers. Their creative team came up with some very successful new creatives that helped scale the game and were even implemented in the game later on.

How have things been going since the launch? Stats show the game is seeing continuous growth. What do you attribute this success to?

Trash Tycoon has been continuously growing since its launch due to the various iterations we are making to the game at every update.

The Supersonic team is always testing and adapting the UA strategy, and we’re continuously looking at the churn rate and pain points in the game, addressing those issues and fixing other bugs along the way.

It’s a busy operation! There’s my 12-person team in addition to the Supersonic team, which includes a studio manager, a game designer, a monetisation manager, an economy specialist, a data analyst, a creative producer, a UA manager, and a social manager.

How do you plan to maintain or improve on this current trajectory? 

We’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing: continuing to run A/B tests on various aspects of the game and improving KPIs.