Peko App Review – Earn $10 for playing simple games! (DISCONTINUED)

Ever wanted to make money while playing a game? For me, that would be interesting as I would get to have fun while making money too. I found out about this app called Peko which is basically mini games that revolves around the idea of getting points, then converting them to real money. Sweet!

For an overview, Peko is created by DeNA Co. Ltd as a way to meet new people, and give monetary incentives for interacting and playing games with people.

You will start by earning points, and when you hit 100,000 points, you could cash it out for US$10. The steps are simple:

1. Find someone to ‘Peko’ – Imagining it as ‘poking’ on Facebook
2. The person responds to your ‘Peko’
3. You play a short game to drop a ball in a slot to earn points
4. Reach 100k points, cash out!

EDIT (25/9/14): Peko is going to shut down the app on 31/10/14. The item shops will close down at 16/10/14. I will be leaving this up this page for reference in the future though.

Summary

Name: Peko

Owner: DeNA Co. Ltd (http://dena.com/intl/)

Pays through: Paypal

Available on: iOS, Android

Free to download: Yes!

(You can click this link on your mobile for a bonus 5,000 points!

How to get started..

First off, you would need to download the app on either the Appstore or Google Playstore. You would then need to log in to facebook to start an account. If you can see the picture below, there is no other
alternate way of registering.

If you do not have a Facebook account, you would not be able to use this app unless you sign up.

One more thing, don’t worry about signing in with Facebook as the App does not spam your Facebook wall at all, unless you choose to spam it yourself!

Basics of the App

1. You have 10 Pekos to start with, with 1 Peko recharging every hour. These are tokens for you to ‘poke’ people.
2. The person you peko with has to peko you back within 1 hour, or you would not be able to play the game. Your peko will be wasted too if it expires.
3. If someone peko you first, you do not need to spend a peko to return. The person who initiates the peko will spend the peko.
4. Once both parties peko each other, Peko-peko is achieved and you can play the mini-game.
5. If peko-peko is achieved within 10 minutes, you get a 25% time bonus. Being 3 miles within each other gives a 25% location bonus. You can achieve up to 50% point bonus.

These points are crucial to understanding the game. Don’t worry however, this game is easy for anyone to grasp within 5-10 minutes!

Without further ado, I will explain the process of getting the points in the app.

How to use the app

Step 1 & 2: Finding people to peko

Both steps are roughly the same so I would explain it together.

There are 3 ways you can find people:

1. Scramble Match

To find this page, click the option on the side menu.

There are a lot of people utilizing this method to get pekos.  All you need to do is click the picture icon of the person, then proceed to peko them.

You can also spam the icons in the page, or make your own message to send in this page. This is one of the places to make people peko you so that you don’t need to spend pekos.

Besides that, there is a mini-game you can play on this game as well. Once you click join game, you play a mini game that is very similar to bejeweled.

You can either play free, or gamble your points in order to earn WAY more points. Personally, I do not play the mini game at all and use the page just to spend and receive pekos. Do give it a try if you are bored

This method has a high response rate of peko back with time bonus.

2. Jackpot Challenge

To find this page, you have to play a game, or finish a jackpot. You will then find the list of recent jackpot winners with all their names and prizes they have won.

I will explain more about the Jackpot in the later steps. But basically for this part, you are looking through the list of jackpot winners
recently. Since most wins are within the last 5 minutes, they are very active still.

This method has a high response rate of peko back with time bonus.

3. Find people/Radar

To find this page, click the option on the side menu.

You can search around the map to peko people. Once you click their icon, you can peko them. There is icon on the top left hand which looks like 9 mini squares which allows you the people at the location of the map you are at easier.

Also, You can click the radar and let the app find the people who are nearby to you as well. Ideally, you should find people who are recently online.

You can see the small circle next to their name. A blue circle means last active within the last 2 hours. A black circle means last active more than 2 hours ago. This is good for finding any friends on the map to peko as well.

However, I do not recommend this method as this method has a low response rate of peko back.

Step 3: The game

Once you have achieved a peko-peko, you can start playing the game. It will like the picture below.

The job is simple, land the ball in the gold slot for maximum points, followed by Green then blue. The points you can get is randomized, as you can get points as low as 300 points for gold, and as high as 9000 points for gold, or even higher.

You get to play the bonus jackpot challenge if either you or the other person you pekoed score a gold. To land the ball in gold slot more, you would need to find your ‘sweet spot’ where you release at a speed at a location of the gold slot.

A good position many people use is when the gold slot is around 1-2 o’clock like in the picture above, you can drop the ball with no speed.

If you can see on the picture on the right, I landed the ball in the green slot. An ideal gauge of whether your sweet spot works is if it
always drop within 3-4 slots of the gold slot, means it is working well!

One more feature in the game is the ‘Hurry’ feature (As writing of this point, this feature is only available in iOS), you can speed up the game by pressing the hurry button after dropping the ball. This not only speeds up your game, but manipulates the end result as well.

Ideally, this should be for more advanced users who have the feel of the game and can use this feature to score more gold. Don’t worry about this feature too much really!

If you get gold, you would be able to click the Jackpot button below, and be able to play the jackpot challenge. You have 10 tries to try to score a jackpot here by getting 3 in a row horizontally or diagonally. You can win up to 100,000 points ($10) at one go!

This is mainly 100% luck based like most other slot games.

Cashing Out

The minimum cash out is $10, when you hit 100,000 points. Once you achieved that, you can cash out your money by clicking the ‘Redeem points‘ on the side menu.

Once you hit the ‘Get Paid’ button, you would be directed to log in your Paypal, then a confirmation page before finally deducting your points and sending the money.

The process is usually instant (within 1-2 minutes), but can take up to 7 days for the cash out to fully register. You will
receive $9.70 after deducting taxes into your Paypal
account.

Personal Tips

This section is where I would list my personal guidelines and points to fully maximize your use of the app.

1) When you peko people, your timer resets as well. For example, if your timer has 30 minutes left and you have 5 peko. After spending one peko, you will be left with 4 pekos but a 60 minutes timer. Utilize this to peko at the right time and not waste your timer.

2) Try to peko the people near you as it nets bigger bonus. Remember people who are more active and peko each other daily for bigger bonuses. Of course, feel free to strike up a chat as well!

3) DO NOT message people for pekos. I realized that this is a huge annoyance to many people, and
people would be less inclined to peko you in the future.

4)Since you can only have 10 pekos maximum at a time, make sure not to hit the cap. Remember to use your pekos when you wake up, once during the day, and before you sleep. The process should take about 5 minutes each just to spend your pekos.

5)  Once peko-peko is achieved, you do not need to immediately play the game. You can store the game to play later if you wish. You can find all your games under my challenges. Remember to scroll down to load more games if you have a lot stored. For me, I play my games during my travel time and downtime. You can also spam scramble match while watching TV to get more pekos too!

6) FOR iOS only: When prompted to share for more points, you can ‘share’ via different ways such as SMS, email, facebook or twitter. For me, I usually just share through SMS by messaging myself to get 10 free pekos as I hate spamming others. You can only share once every 24 hours.

Referrals

If you are new, you can use my referral link in order to start with a 5,000 points head start! Access the link on your mobile and you would be directed to a website to copy down my code.

It should auto-direct you to the relevant app store for your device, but you can click the links I provided on the top of the article to access the download page for the app as well. Since the referral link expires every week, I will update it accordingly.

Please leave a comment if you find my link invalid already and I will get back to you as soon as possible!

After started, you can also refer your friends to join Peko by pressing the invite button on the menu.
Similarly, your friend would start with 5000 points too. The best part is you get a bonus 5000 points too!

New Updates

This section will include the new features as the app updates itself, and I will constantly update in order to reflect the
latest changes.

1) Stamps

With one of the latest changes, you would need to utilize stamps in order to spam icons or post texts in scramble match. One message would spend one stamp.

Stamps can be bought using coins, which can be bought as an in-app purchase.

As of today, the latest exchange rate is as follow:

100 coins = $0.99 (~400 stamps)
500 coins = $4.99 (~2000 stamps)
1000 coins = $9.99 (~4000 stamps)

Users would be able to utilize Tapjoy in order to get free coins by downloading apps, watching videos, signing up for offers, and more.

2) Boosters

After achieving peko peko, you can use boosters such as x2 points or to buy an extra gold slot. These costs 1 coin each, and you can use one or both boosters in each game. They are consumables so the coins are a one time use.

You can buy coins at the rate I have listed above at the ‘Stamps section above.

Honestly speaking, I find the gold slot to be redundant, so if you are using the coins for boosters, spend them for double points as it is more worth it.

Payment Proof

Here is a list of payment proof for Peko. I have been paid so many times, I have actually lost count on the amount. These are a few cashouts I received for the month of May.

Final Thoughts

This app is one of my main side income earners right now. On the average, I can cash out about 10-15 times a month without much effort. It is also a fun way to earn money as you are essentially playing a mini-game to earn points too! I find Peko an alternative thing to do besides surfing Facebook, Twitter, etc and find it fun as well!

Peko is an app that I use to supplement my side income. There are many other apps that I have reviewed which makes decent side income too!

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Have you played Peko yet? Tried out but didn’t like it? Any tips you want to share? I would love to hear your comments right below!

– Terence