Waddles

🎮 Inspiration & Context

Waddles is a gamified app blocker that we created with the goal of reducing our own screen time. We very quickly realized that an addiction, like social media, cannot be resolved simply by taking it away. With this in mind, Waddles aims to step in as a mediator, guiding you through a journey of self improvement under the disguise of a game. More than a simple app blocker, Waddles aims to be an application that teaches you how to reduce your screen time gradually.

🚀 Features

Functional app blocker on both iOS and Android;
Multiple stages with built-in difficulty progression;
Over 50+ original assets to customize your penguin & your igloo;
Configurable app blocker settings based on your personal goals;
Virtual currency system to manage in-game rewards!

🎨 Design

The design sits at the heart of this application. Since losing access to your most addictive apps can be frustrating, it was essential to make the character who takes them away irresistibly cute so you can't be mad while it happens 🐧

All assets and animations present in the application are original and created from scratch;
No AI-generated images or animations used in the development of this app;
Custom UI Kit to deliver a delightful and engaging user experience.

Customize your Igloo

Collect 50+ assets

🔊 Marketing & Release

We launched at the beginning of September and wanted to be loud with Waddles clearly positioned to be the hero of our story. So we made that happen! We commissioned a custom plushie with our character and used it as a prop in a series of shorts and skits.

Here are some numbers!

We are active on X, Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Youtube & Reddit;
15000+ impressions as of writing this description;
1000+ interactions with our posts;
200 active users first month!

🐉 Challenges

The process was not easy. Right after our release, we quickly realized based on our analytics that users were dropping out and uninstalling the app before finishing the onboarding.

This was a big problem. Unfortunately, app blockers require special permissions (especially on Android) to be able to detect when a user opens a certain app. These permissions that the user must explicitly grant were deterring users to continue.

As a solution, we reordered the onboarding steps so that users first see and interact with Waddles before being asked to grant access. This led to an 80% increase in completed onboardings.

There were many such instances, but this was by far our most significant one, that did hurt our ASO rankings right after the release.

🎯 What's next

Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. We keep this in mind as we continue with our strategy. Each new user we add to the platform is one more person actively trying to better themselves and spend their time in a more productive way. Throughout the duration of this competition, we had the opportunity to talk to some of our users and we believe Waddles can be a good change to the lives of (hopefully) many people.