+ case study
RoyaleCard Arena
On-chain competitive strategy game
- year
- 2025
- type
- Product, competition
- role
- Game design, architecture, full build, launch
- status
- shipped
An open-world game where market knowledge is the edge. Rules live on cards, the cards trade for you. Draft, ban, escrowed best of three. Winner, National Campus Hackathon.
01+ the problem
What they came in with
Most trading games reward execution speed. We wanted one where market knowledge is the edge.
02+ what we found
What it actually was
The fix was to stop players executing trades by hand. Players write their strategy as rules on cards and the cards trade for them, so a match is won by iterating strategy, and losing teaches you which rule was wrong.
03+ the build
- 01
Cards that trade
Players configure rules on each card and the card executes them. Strategy is iterated, not hand-executed.
- 02
Draft and ban
MOBA style: scout an opponent’s profile, ban their best-performing card, then draft your own.
- 03
Two worlds
Paper trading in the open world to practise. In the arena, escrow and winner takes all: best of three, two-minute battles, three single-use buttons per game that can turn a match.
04+ architecture
Written down, so your team can extend it
05+ the result
- Winner
Competition result
National Campus Hackathon, Solana Foundation with Colosseum Frontier
Final standings, RoyaleCard Arena
- 1 day early
Dual deadline
Shipped to a second hackathon on the same date: video, deck and launch post
RoyaleCard Arena, same-date hackathons