🕳️ Suck It Up: Tactile's new hole game just ate Lily's Garden

two & a half gamers · 2026-09-28

▶ Videoyu YouTube'da izle

💡 Quick Take

1. Try the eat-and-grow hole gameplay in early-stage testing, as Tactile’s new game Suck It Up has scaled rapidly to around 30k downloads per day since its recent launch.

2. Avoid relying on outdated mobile UA channels like Facebook, which the speakers note have completely dropped the ball on gaming traffic and customer support.

3. Try incorporating unique level objectives and side-collection elements like live animals and zen garden modes to increase player retention.

4. Delay interstitial ads until deep into progression (around level 35) to prioritize App Store rating and in-app purchase value over immediate ad monetization.

5. Avoid placing rewarded ads early; the game introduces them past level 50 to treat player time as a substitute for direct IAP sales.

6. Try utilizing diverse ad networks such as AppLovin, Unity, and AdMob for casual puzzle games, given that Unity has rebounded strongly in recent impression-share tracking.

📊 Detailed Explanation

The speakers analyze Tactile's latest release, Suck It Up, a title belonging to the eat-and-grow hole genre that originally traces its roots back to Donut County and Voodoo's hyper-casual hit Hole.io. Having started scaling recently, the game has quickly reached roughly 30k daily installs on the iOS side alone. This makes it a major portfolio piece for Tactile, approaching the performance heights of their older titles like Lily's Garden while carving out a distinct niche in the current market alongside competitors from Moon Active and IronSource.

The monetization structure of Suck It Up relies on a deliberately delayed ad-integration strategy designed to maximize long-term retention. Interstitial ads do not appear until level 35, and rewarded ads are pushed even further back past level 50. The speakers reason that the developers treat player attention during rewarded ads as a direct substitute for in-app purchases (IAPs), keeping ad revenue low—estimated under 10 to 15 percent of total revenue—while prioritizing stickiness and day-one retention.

Gameplay differentiation is driven by additional progression loops, such as specialized collection albums featuring live animals (like jumping frogs) that players must catch during levels, alongside separate calm modes like the Zen Garden. These modes strip away timers and stress to mirror the satisfying mechanics often showcased in fake ad creatives, thereby aligning marketing promises with actual in-game experiences.

On the user acquisition front, the analysis highlights a stark shift in marketing channel performance. While networks like AppLovin, Integral, and Unity dominate the impression share for casual puzzle games—with Unity showing a surprising resurgence in reliability—Facebook has virtually disappeared from the spend mix for many developers. The speakers issue a meta warning regarding Facebook's current handling of mobile gaming UA, criticizing its lack of effective human support and poor targeting efficiency.

🎯 Gaming Expert Opinion

Tactile's entry into the eat-and-grow hole genre with Suck It Up demonstrates a shrewd understanding of how to pivot hyper-casual mechanical foundations into sticky, long-term puzzle meta loops. By combining the immediate satisfaction of hole-eating gameplay with structured progression systems, live animal collections, and stress-free alternative modes, the developers successfully bridge the gap between misleading ad creatives and sustainable core retention.

The strategic decision to severely delay both interstitial and rewarded ad placements is a calculated gamble on lifetime value (LTV) over quick monetization. While it depresses early ad revenue percentages—landing well below the thresholds typically seen in traditional hyper-casual titles—it fosters exceptional day-one and day-three engagement. For publishers looking at this category, this approach proves that treating ad-watching as an extension of in-app purchase behavior can build a healthier, more resilient player base.

Ultimately, developers eyeing the eat-and-grow category must heed the warning regarding modern user acquisition channels. Relying on legacy platforms like Facebook is currently a high-risk, low-reward maneuver due to automation failures and dwindling gaming focus, making diversified networks like Unity and AppLovin mandatory for scaling. Anyone entering this space should adopt Tactile's playbook: pair high-production playable creatives with deep, non-intrusive session loops to capture the market before the genre saturates entirely.

Kanal: two & a half gamers