Stack Drop Tower

Building a mobile game that's complete and publishable from a one-page specification: not a prototype, but an app that a player installs, understands without explanation, and comes back to for weeks, with a monetization model that is wired up, consented, and compliant.

The constraint we set for ourselves: restraint. One mechanic, one control, one purchase. No energy gauge, no timer, no pay-to-win.

Depth through subtraction

The next block inherits the width left by the previous one: the player's mistakes are the difficulty curve. A sloppy run shrinks the tower and ends on its own; a precise run earns room to stay precise. A near-perfect placement keeps the full width and chains a Perfect.

The feel is the product

With a single mechanic, everything plays out in the milliseconds around the tap:

• every placement has weight: a squash on landing, a slight camera nudge, haptic feedback, flying shards;
• perfect placements are celebrated proportionally, with a pitch that rises with each streak;
• failure stays gentle, and a new game starts in less than 400 ms ;
• all sounds are synthesized in code at launch: the app ships no audio files. The icon is drawn by the same code as the game blocks.

Monetization designed to be declined

The game layer knows nothing about ads, purchases, or consent, each isolated behind an interface with one real implementation and one fake. Rewarded ads are always player-initiated, ad breaks are spaced out, and a single purchase, Remove Ads, removes the interruptions without selling anything else. No ads are requested before consent: this is verified by a test, not by convention.

Stack Drop Tower has been available on the App Store since October 2026, for iPhone.

• Levels that introduce one idea at a time (speed, direction changes, a swaying tower), then an Endless mode with no ceiling.
• 192 automated tests, including the consent → ad SDK order, proven by mutation.
• Consent (Google UMP), the tracking request (ATT) and App Store compliance built in from the first version.

For players: support and privacy policy.