Roadmap
Where we are, where we're going. Pulled from docs/PRD.md in the repo. Dates are best-effort.
✓ Shipped
Phase 0 — Foundations
22 backend slices + admin polish + auth hardening + observability + payments + art wiring.
- Auth: JWT + refresh rotation + reuse detection, password reset, email verify, TOTP 2FA + recovery codes
- Gacha: x1/x10, 50-pull pity, 6 rarity tiers, 36 heroes
- Combat: deterministic resolver, status effects, gear sets, log pruning
- Guilds: chat, raids (3 tiers, leaderboard), apply/accept/transfer/promote
- Arena: rating-proximity matchmaking, defense teams, replays
- Daily quests, daily bonus, energy refill, LiveOps events
- Stripe payments + mock-payments dev mode + per-account-limit + refund flow
- Admin: CLI, ban (timed + permanent), audit log, analytics overview, announcements
- Anti-cheat: per-account rate limits, JWT-on-ban, ownership checks
- Observability: Prometheus, JSON logs, request IDs, Sentry, worker supervisor + telemetry
- PWA: installable manifest, service worker, Apple touch icons
~6 months · 320+ tests · Postgres CI
✓ Shipped
Phase 1 — First 10 minutes feel good
A new player can register, do the tutorial, get a free summon, and use the dashboard without typing hero IDs into a text box.
- Guided first-session flow (Next-Step CTA card on /me)
- Tutorial completion grants +1 free summon credit
- Roster redesign — rarity-tabbed grid + bottom-sheet detail overlay with real card art
- Team presets — POST/GET /me/team-presets, "Use last team" one-click, "Save team" on victory
- Dedicated Summon tab — banner header, pity bar, recent-pulls feed
- Jump-Ahead Bundle — $4.99 starter pack, one-time, 7-day window
- Polish — signed-in pill, shards counter, dead-code cleanup
- Acceptance test — 9-step E2E flow, all green
1 week · 6 sub-sections · 275 → 320 tests
✓ Shipped
Phase 1.5 — Systems on top of the foundation
Side quests off the main PRD that came up while play-testing.
- Event quests + currency exchange (gather-and-spend mechanic, week-long Summer Slowdown spec)
- Shard store (in-game gems → shards exchange with daily cap)
- Crafting (6 materials, 5 recipes, drops on battles + raids, dedicated tab)
- Inventory slots — caps + gem-priced expansion + mailbox overflow
- Sound system — synth-based SFX, settings panel, mute persistence
- Marketing site — about / FAQ / support / privacy / terms / press / changelog / devblog / status / roadmap
⏳ In progress / next
Phase 2 — Feels like a real game
3–4 weeks. Players have reasons to come back daily beyond login bonus. We measure what they actually do.
- Hero detail page V2 — weapon/armor/accessory slot semantics, skill tree UI, star-up flow with "pick which dupes to use", next-stat preview
- Sell heroes / gear for currency + auto-sell rule presets
- Achievements system — ~30 lifetime milestones with rewards
- Story campaign + account-level XP — Chapter / StoryStage hierarchy, text-driven cutscenes, Exile faction wired
- Myth-tier event hero end-to-end (TBFAM playable during banner windows)
- Stat variance on duplicate summons so owned copies aren't identical
- PostHog self-hosted analytics — 12 events instrumented, retention funnels
- Apple StoreKit 2 + Google Play Billing receipt verification
- Balance notebook — Jupyter, gacha EV / DPS curves / arena rating convergence
New deps: PostHog, app-store-server-library, google-play-billing-validator, numpy/pandas/Jupyter
Planned
Phase 3 — Combat depth
4–6 weeks. The biggest fun bet. Player can win a hard fight by playing well, not just by stats.
- Melee / ranged attack split, mana / focus resource for casters
- 5%-HP "hail-mary" abilities — role/faction-flavored one-shots
- Active combat UI — turn pause, click-to-target, auto-pause on special ready
- Auto-battle as a paid QoL unlock (never default; always optional)
- Animated battle actors via Rive — 3 rigs (ATK/DEF/SUP), 5 states each (idle/melee/ranged/hit/death)
- Evolution-art mechanic — heroes get visual upgrades as they ascend (1★/3★/5★ tiers)
- Level-50 Alignment Fork — Corporate Resistance vs Board Ascendant. Two epic chapters, one exclusive hero per side, cosmetic-only mechanical impact
New deps: Rive runtime · Highest design cost of any phase
Planned
Phase 4 — In the stores
3–4 weeks once Phase 2's IAP work is done. Ship to Apple App Store + Google Play.
- Capacitor wrap — same web UI, native shell, store-submittable .apk + .ipa
- Native push notifications — APNs + FCM for raid-ending, daily-reset, guild @mentions
- Store compliance — privacy + ToS post-lawyer-review, kids age-gate, screenshots
- Hosted backend on Fly.io or Railway with TLS
- Production Stripe + Apple + Google live keys + nightly DB backup
New deps: Capacitor + @capacitor/push-notifications + @capacitor-community/in-app-purchases · hosted target TBD
Things we won't do
- Real-time multiplayer combat. Async turn-based is the genre's selling point.
- NFT / web3 / crypto. Irrelevant audience, hostile in many jurisdictions, contradicts the satire.
- Full SPA rewrite. HTMX works fine for this scope. Revisit if Phase 3 outgrows it.
- Procedurally generated content. The hand-crafted IT-satire tone is the product.
- LLM-generated hero lore in-game. Useful as a writing tool. Gimmicky as a player feature.