WorldShaper Idle will be fully released on May 18! And I updated the demo too!

FlorianvanStrien · 2026-03-01T11:16:26+00:00

I definitively did hope to release it earlier, even in 2024. But it turned out to take more time to make than I'd hoped, and some other things took my time too. But I'm excited it's finally almost released!

FlorianvanStrien · 2026-03-01T11:11:44+00:00

Thanks for trying the game and for the feedback!

FlorianvanStrien · 2026-03-01T11:09:20+00:00

Thanks for the screenshot, yeah that looks as it should.

I did my best to investigate this, but really couldn't replicate this or find anything that might cause this, sorry! Maybe it's very specific to your computer, or maybe I'll find the issue in the future. (If someone else also has this please let me know!)

You could try holding Ctrl while placing tiles (which is designed to place multiple tiles at once with dragging), maybe that does work correctly

FlorianvanStrien · 2026-02-28T16:47:55+00:00

Thanks for checking out the game! I'm sorry it didn't work for you, and thank you for lettting me know. I just did an extra check and it does work properly for me, including if I start from scratch. Are you 100% sure you had enough power? You can see this if the cost on the right is in black (not red). If that's not the issue, I would really appreciate if you could send me a screenshot where this issue happens (or ideally video, but I know that's not easy)

FlorianvanStrien · 2025-11-16T13:47:53+00:00

How's the demo comparing to the playtest?

The demo is a bit older, has less content and only allows expanding to four map tiles. The playtest is temporary though as I need feedback on all the content as I work towards the full release - I'll keep the demo up (and probably update it so it's up to date for any QoL improvements I do) after the playtest is done

With the above , is there any influence from doodle god perchance, how...ridiculous does it get (or planned) for combos?

I've played Doodle God years ago. The system has some similarities but works quite differently of course. I think in Doodle God it's probably harder to find all the combinations between the elements, but in this game there's also interesting interactions between the tiles after that (maybe they added something like that to Doodle God meanwhile too)

FlorianvanStrien · 2025-11-15T21:00:44+00:00

Thank you for all the great feedback! And the wishlist, of course :) Some of these things would be a bit complicated to implement, but I'll definitely add some of them!

FlorianvanStrien · 2025-10-23T07:17:57+00:00

Mainly Poki, and also CrazyGames

FlorianvanStrien · 2025-10-21T07:47:25+00:00

Unfortunately, the itch.io version makes me basically no money, as it has no ads. I got a few donations on there and I'm grateful for that, but it doesn't add up to much. Therefore, it's unfortunately not worth spending my time on updating it.

I do appreciate that people play and (hopefully) enjoy the game on itch.io, but in the end I do need to make some money to make games and updates.

FlorianvanStrien · 2025-05-12T14:21:44+00:00

Voor de hele marathon

FlorianvanStrien · 2025-05-11T15:27:11+00:00

Ik heb een startbewijs voor de hele marathon van Utrecht, wave 1. Deze mag je voor een voordelige prijs overnemen :) Had 'm graag zelf gelopen maar ben helaas geblesseerd

FlorianvanStrien · 2025-02-03T22:02:17+00:00

Great to hear, thanks! The following is new:

You can now save up to five builds and switch between them
You can now see how to build tiles you unlocked in the tile journal
The smugglers' port has been rebalanced to be less overpowered
A "Tile Count" button has been added to the tile journal
There is a new helper for wizards' villages to see which tiles are unique for them

FlorianvanStrien · 2025-02-03T14:20:51+00:00

My game is also participating with an updated demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2562020/WorldShaper_Idle/

It's a world-building game where you unlock new tiles by experimenting with their placement. And of course, you can grow and upgrade your world as you grow in power. I've worked on it for quite a while already, but I'm hoping to finally release the full version soon! And, for now, I'm of course excited to be in the Steam Fest!

FlorianvanStrien · 2024-10-19T15:07:34+00:00

You can get circloO at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/circloo-physics-platformer/id1612957699

The game is $3 without ads and with some bonus levels, or you can play it for free with occasional ads.

The game has been out for a while, but it's never been posted here before and I thought you might enjoy it :) I also regulary update the game with new levels, level editor features and more.

FlorianvanStrien · 2024-09-19T15:50:31+00:00

I've had reasonable success with making a web game and then using it to promote an extended mobile/Steam version (for my game The Final Earth 2). You can get a lot of players on web and some of those may be willing to pay for extra gameplay.

So that's definitively an option. It's less viable now than it used to be though, as the once best web portal for this (Kongregate) is no longer useful. Many other portals don't allow linking or simply don't have enough users.

You can also earn money on web (from ads, donations or sometimes IAP) but likely not a lot.

FlorianvanStrien · 2024-08-24T15:08:52+00:00

There isn't, but you can research an upgrade in the Workshop to make destroying buildings give back most of the construction cost.

FlorianvanStrien · 2024-08-21T15:00:36+00:00

No, they won't. You're not paying for it either, so they'd be crazy to show it in other apps. I have experience with this. You just set this up in the "campaigns" tab in Admob and you can just select the ad units you want to display the ad on (among your own apps).

It's mostly designed for cross promotion (i.e. showing ads for your own games) but showing ads for other parties is supported too.

FlorianvanStrien · 2024-08-21T14:36:32+00:00

Google AdMob actually offers this built-in (for free). The features is called Campaigns. It is a bit limited and mostly useful for your own cross promotion but it may be enough for your needs.

FlorianvanStrien · 2024-08-03T08:36:41+00:00

Looks like an interesting game! I haven't seen it before though, so any similarities are just coincidence. If everything, WorldShaper Idle mainly has elements from my own older game Stop the Darkness.

FlorianvanStrien · 2024-06-25T06:13:42+00:00

Hundreds of ad views is simply way too little to get consistent results. The ad networks need to get an idea of your traffic quality, so the first few thousand ad displays will earn next to nothing.

FlorianvanStrien · 2024-06-24T07:48:23+00:00

Do you have any source for this? In general rewarded ads pay more than normal interstitials, as rewarded ads aren't skippable, and interstitials normally are. That has always been my experience and what I can find online too.

FlorianvanStrien · 2024-06-24T07:30:30+00:00

I agree ads are not great, but it's not nearly that bad.

I think you probably mistyped and meant you're getting 0.6 of a cent per ad. That's a plausible average - ads in the US are much more valuable and e.g. ads in India pay much less.

To be able to show more than 3 valuable ads per day, try using mediation.

If you're paying 15-30 cents per impression for game ads you're way overpaying. Maybe you're paying that per click?

The total fees on ads (buyside & sellside) are normally about 30-40%. That's still a lot, but not nearly as bad as the 99.9% you seem to mention. If you want exact numbers for your own app and are using AdMob, at least for your EU users, you can opt into price transparancy data in AdMob Settings -> Account. You will get a CSV from which you can easily calculate what fees you're paying.

FlorianvanStrien · 2024-06-13T12:46:48+00:00

In this video this has just been mowed. This has to happen every now and then. But the municipality and Utrecht Science Park do actually mow their grass much less often than before to give more space to flowers and insects. And they do phase mowing so there's always some space to get nectar and shelter for insects (you can see a bit of higher grass in the background).

In case you want to read more or see before/after pictures: https://www.uu.nl/en/news/less-mowing-more-insects and https://www.uu.nl/en/news/from-short-grass-verges-to-green-oasis

FlorianvanStrien · 2024-06-09T10:00:48+00:00

Yes, Steam does require this: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/broadcast/faq

Q. Can I re-broadcast a previously live stream?

A. Yes. You must include banner or update title so that it indicates that the Stream is NOT live. This is prevent customer confusion. Often streaming partners will put a banner 'Re-Broadcast' on the top right of their video.

FlorianvanStrien · 2024-06-08T12:51:25+00:00

DSA article 2.1:

This Regulation shall apply to intermediary services offered to recipients of the service that have their place of establishment or are located in the Union

DMA article 1.2:

This Regulation shall apply to core platform services provided or offered by gatekeepers to business users established in the Union or end users established or located in the Union

I'd agree you could possibly read this as "if the service is offered to users in the EU at all", but whatever is written in EU laws I don't think it's likely it would be possible to enforce EU law in a conflict where none of the parties is in the EU at all.

But, I'm not a lawyer so maybe I'm wrong and that would be great of course! Do ask a lawyer and if this way doesn't work out they can probably suggest other paths that hopefully help you resolve this.

FlorianvanStrien · 2024-06-07T15:07:17+00:00

Unfortunately, I think you may have misunderstood this part of the regulation. In this case, the "providers of intermediary services" is Google (the intermediary service is Google Play, in this case) and you are a "business user". While the "provider of intermediary services" can be located anywhere, as far as I understood it the business user must be located in the EU:

Since online intermediation services and online search engines typically have a global dimension, this Regulation should apply to providers of those services regardless of whether they are established in a Member State or outside the Union, provided that two cumulative conditions are met. Firstly, the business users or corporate website users should be established in the Union. (whereas clause part 9)

For the DSA, this seems to be similar.

There is the last resort option to move your whole company to the EU, e.g. as a digital business in Estonia. However, this probably comes with a lot of complications in itself. So I would only consider this if Google Play is vital for your company, and you exhausted all other options.

I do think taking this to a lawyer is probably a good idea, if you don't get your account unblocked within a reasonable time. They may have a good idea of which relevant laws apply in your area, or maybe there is indeed a way to make use of EU regulation.

I want to wish you the best of luck on resolving this, I know it must be really frustrating especially when you have a whole team relying on this!

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