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App Store listing
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current iOS app icon
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game job complete screen
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game job with robots
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game job without robots
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RevenueCat Ads, Oct 1: 30 rewarded video views, 0.66 EUR in under two days
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Entering: Best Game, Catvertising, HAMM and Design.
Inspiration
I played the Carpet Cleaning Simulator demo with my two girls, 5 and 3, and realized I could make a 2D version they could actually play since they are too small for using keyboard and mouse efficiently.
So I built Carpet Diem mostly for them, but also a little for my soul.
When I was a 13 year old kid (41 now) I started learning programming mostly because I wanted to make games. That was before Steam or similar distribution channels. Me and my team shipped one of our games on a CD and offered others for free on our website! It was hard to make money that way so I went into web development, later mobile app development, and now, with part time work and parental leave, I finally have the chance to make games again... so this is me restarting my passion.
What it does
Gives you up to 10 hours of satisfying progression, cleaning carpets, upgrading your business, and shutting down your brain for a while. I put a lot of time into making the game feel good... from sound effects, particle effects, haptic feedback and silly conversations.
How it makes money
After a few carpets, every job has about a one in three chance of ending with an offer: watch an ad and double that job's reward. It's never forced. AdMob plays the video, and every view is reported to RevenueCat Ads.
The game launched with a permanent "double your income" pack in the shop, and it barely converted. After watching RevenueCat's HAMM video I changed the approach: characters now come to you. First you meet me (Dino), the creator of your universe, asking for a small tip (one oat milk matcha latte) in exchange for secrets about your world, the start of a story where the hero finds out he lives in a video game. Then Robin, a crooked accountant, turns up about once an hour with ways to trick the IRS and double your income. This change goes live with version 1.10.0 today!
How we built it
I built it mostly with Claude Opus 5 and some Fable 5, in Godot, with RevenueCat for purchases and ad tracking.
Challenges we ran into
Building the game itself was mostly just fun.
The biggest challenge was actually shipping it.
Apple took around two weeks to review the first submission, then rejected it with some questions. After another few days they responded with more questions that I felt were already answered. I explained everything again in more detail, waited a few more days, and eventually the exact same build they rejected initially was approved :shrug:
Then AdMob did the same thing. I applied in early September, waited about two weeks, got rejected with no clear reason given... luckily, I got it approved a few days later. The double-income video went live on September 29 and earned its first cents the next day.
On Android, I am now trying to find more testers to get through Google Play's testing requirements since the first batch was rejected after successfully testing for the full required period :shrug:
The next big challenge will definitely be marketing.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
I shipped a game.
More importantly, I really enjoyed building it.
My kids play it. Even my wife plays it... and she never plays mobile games. And a surprisingly good percentage of people who download it stick around and play for quite a while: across 183 players on recent builds, the average player has spent about an hour and a half in it, the top 10% more than two hours, eleven players have passed ten hours, and the top player has put in over 55.
That is probably the most satisfying part.
What we learned
I learned that I can actually build and ship a decent game in about a month.
Which is slightly dangerous knowledge to have.
I also wish I had watched RevenueCat's award videos sooner. The HAMM one changed how I think about making money from a game.
What's next for Carpet Diem
Learning how to market the things I build. Also doing more A/B tests when it comes to payments. Right now I am testing which in-game character shows up first... (Dino, me) that asks for 1$ with nothing in return (donation), or Robin who asks for 1$ to double the income forever... so I want to see which order helps me get 2$ :D
My current highly sophisticated marketing strategy is taking screenshots of messages from friends and family complaining that their fingers hurt from all the tapping and swiping, and turning those into ads. I will start testing that this weekend.
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