Towards the end of 2015 an unexpected surprise landed on the App Store. That surprise was Dashy Crashy, arriving out of nowhere, a free2play driving title based on tried and tested game mechanics, but with a joyous mentality rarely seen in free games.
The studio responsible was Dumpling Design, made up of Studio Head Travis Ryan and engineer Brent Poynton, experienced developers that previously worked at major studio Rare.
Now, in an interview with Pocket Gamer, the pair have discussed the set up of the studio, and the months they spent trying to decide how to monetize their game.
“There was a lot of people saying ‘just do Crossy Road‘, telling us to use incentivized ads but we just found it didn’t work for us. A lot of the time with the Crossy Road-style games you see people playing the game less and playing the meta more, checking in every six hours to get rewards, but not actually playing the game.” – Travis Ryan
The result has been over 10 million plays shortly after its launch from a total of 350,000 downloads adding up to an extremely successful first title.
For more insight into the launch of a free title, read the interview in full.