Project Overview

Building Gemixo — A Complete Match-3 Game, From Prototype to Google Play in 4 Months

Gemixo is Zulvancy's own mobile game: a free match-3 puzzle game for Android where players swap 3D gems, trigger rockets and bombs, and travel chapter by chapter across a world map — from the Crystal Valley to the Prism Heart. Every level has its own goal, a limited number of moves and up to three stars, with ice and jelly obstacles and four boosters for the toughest levels.

We designed and built the whole product in-house with a team of two developers: gameplay engine, level progression, daily quests, a shop with in-app purchases, tutorial, English and French localisation, ads and Google Play publishing. The game has its own website, gemixo.zulvancy.com, which also serves the lightweight backend the game relies on.

The Challenge

Shipping a polished, complete match-3 game with a two-person team in four months — with smooth 3D gem animations on everyday Android phones, a game that stays fully playable offline, monetisation that never feels intrusive, and a privacy-first design that meets Google Play and GDPR requirements.

Our Solution

We built Gemixo in Unity and C# with an offline-first architecture: progress lives on the device, and the game only calls our WordPress REST API to read a trusted clock (so life and reward timers can't be cheated by changing the device time), download a remote configuration and sync the quest catalogue — so balancing can be tuned without an app update. Monetisation combines optional in-app purchases through Google Play Billing with player-friendly Google AdMob placements only: opt-in rewarded videos and a spaced-out interstitial after a win, never before level 10, with a consent screen for EEA, UK and Swiss players. Firebase Crashlytics reports crashes, while optional Google Play Games leaderboards and a code-based Friends feature add social play without any account.

The Result

Gemixo is live on Google Play, free to play in English and French, with ten chapters to explore. It creates no account, collects no personal data outside its optional social features and stays fully playable offline. It also gives Zulvancy a production-grade, in-house reference for the full mobile game lifecycle: design, engineering, monetisation, store publishing and live updates.