Publishing with Kwalee: An Interview with App Design Company

The Publishing With Kwalee series sheds light on the brilliant developers we work with. As a special guest, they’ll dive right into topics ranging from how they began their journey in the games industry to what their development approach is like, their thoughts on current trends, and what publishing with Kwalee is like.

This time we’re speaking to Hugo Furneaux, developer of Clean Up 3D and director of his studio App Design Company. Clean Up 3D has been a top-10 game in countries including the USA, Canada and the UK, as well as being a number one action game in 12 countries.

What inspired you to start making Hyper Casual games?

We were originally a company focused on creating websites and business apps, but we thought we’d dabble in our first game back before the Hyper Casual trend started. 

It was a game called ’50-50′, which was really simple and didn’t take long to develop. It earned us millions of downloads, so we decided that this was the way to go!

How did you begin the relationship of publishing with Kwalee?

I met the Kwalee team at Casual Connect in 2019 and since then we have had multiple video calls and been in close contact throughout the publishing of Clean Up 3D. I have also been up to their cool offices in Leamington Spa!

What’s a single standout benefit of publishing with Kwalee?

The biggest benefit has been the wealth of knowledge that they have within their ever-growing team.

What has been different about publishing with Kwalee and other publishers in your experience?

I’ve been really impressed with the constant A/B testing that the Kwalee team does to improve games.

It’s been around six months since we launched Clean Up 3D and weekly testing still continues to be done by the Kwalee team to make it the best game it can be.

How would you describe the experience of publishing with Kwalee and the Publishing team?

The level of collaboration is high, especially around launch time and in the months post launch. This high level of collaboration really helped us push through Clean Up 3D from testing to launch super quickly, which is crucial in Hyper Casual.

Any advice for developers looking to make and publish Hyper Casual games?

Start a relationship with a publishing manager and try and get as much info from them as possible – they’re in a great place to pick up on trends before they go massive and have a wealth of data about what is working currently.

As far as Kwalee are concerned, we’d certainly work together again and it’s been great working with the team on Clean Up 3D so far!

As an award-winning mobile game publisher, we know what it takes to turn your mobile game into a chart-topping success. Submit and market-test your games through our official Publishing Portal. All you need are a few minutes and a couple of gameplay videos or a simple playable prototype of your mobile game. Follow us on social media (TikTok | Twitter | YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn) to get the latest news on our gamedev efforts.