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A social roguelite on Solana where every death matters.
🎮 Play Now • 📊 Pitch Deck • How It Works • Integrations • Roadmap • Tech Stack
Die Forward reimagines death in gaming. In most games, dying means failure and frustration. Here, death is a gift to future players.
When you die:
- Your corpse persists in the dungeon
- Your final words become someone else's discovery — moderated and, if the death was notable, rebroadcast as an Echo Husk recital or inscribed on the Architect's walls
- Your stake (Pale Coins or staked SOL) joins the pool that funds other players' bonuses
- Your run record is written on-chain via MagicBlock (staked SOL runs) or as a signed InstantDB receipt (Coin-Bound runs)
Lonely but not alone. Shared suffering, shared rewards.
┌─────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐
│ CONNECT │ → │ STAKE │ → │ PLAY │ → │ DIE / WIN │
│ Wallet │ │ Coins or SOL│ │ Navigate │ │ │
└─────────────┘ └─────────────┘ └─────────────┘ └─────────────┘
│
┌────────────────────────────────────┴─────┐
▼ ▼
┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐
│ DEATH │ │ VICTORY │
│ │ │ │
│ • Corpse │ │ • Stake │
│ persists│ │ returned│
│ • Stake to│ │ • +50% │
│ pool │ │ bonus │
│ • On-chain│ │ │
│ record │ │ │
└───────────┘ └───────────┘
Die Forward runs on a three-rung Offering Ladder: play Unbound (free, no stake), stake earned-only Pale Coins to go Coin-Bound at the Toll, or — where enabled — stake SOL to go Blood-Bound on-chain.
- Connect your Solana wallet (Phantom, Solflare, or Mobile Wallet Adapter) — or play as a guest
- Choose your rung: free Unbound play, Coin-Bound (stake 60/120/240 Pale Coins), or Blood-Bound (stake 0.01-0.25 SOL, when the admin-controlled staking posture allows it)
- Roll your modifier — each run gets one: Blood Pact, Glass Cannon, Iron Will, and more; a daily world shift can add its own modifier pool and mask map edges for the day
- Navigate a branching dungeon graph (not a straight line — 20-23 nodes per zone with client-only side chambers); explore nodes give you real choices (advance safely, risk it for loot, or spend 1⚡ for an intel peek)
- Fight enemies using an intent-reading combat system with 11 signature rules (rupture, reform, multiply, blink, absorb, drain, chant, pounce, honor, dormant, repeating) and a Bait verb that forces a one-shot crit window; the current community-elected apex creature hits harder and drops bonus loot; manage a 4-slot inventory with Common to Legendary items
- Die → Leave final words (moderated before anyone sees them), become content for others; cross a death milestone to unlock titles and perks; a Coin-Bound death burns your stake into the pool and resets your Binding Streak
- ...or Win → Claim your stake back plus a pool-funded bonus, and — if Coin-Bound — extend your public Binding Streak toward its next seal tier
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| 🪙 The Offering Ladder | Three staking rungs: free Unbound play, Coin-Bound (earned-only Pale Coins, never purchasable), and Blood-Bound (on-chain SOL, gated by an admin stakingPosture setting) |
| 🔥 Binding Streak | Consecutive Coin-Bound clears build a public seal tier; a Coin-Bound death resets the streak |
| ⚔️ Intent-Based Combat | Read enemy telegraphs, exploit weaknesses — no HP trading ping-pong |
| 🩸 Signature Rules & Bait | 11 creature signature rules (rupture, reform, multiply, blink, absorb, drain, chant, pounce, honor, dormant, repeating) plus a Bait verb that forces a one-shot crit window |
| 👑 Apex Creatures | A community-elected apex per zone carries a +15% HP/damage buff and a bounty payout on kill |
| 🗺️ Branching Dungeons | Each zone is a 20-23 node branching graph (not a straight line), with client-only side chambers revealed by Bone Dust — Sunken Crypt, Ashen Crypts, Frozen Gallery, Living Tomb, Void Beyond |
| 🌒 Daily World Shift | A seeded daily shift changes each zone's modifier pool and masks map edges/side doors |
| 🕸️ Community Layer | Nightly aggregation across all runs surfaces the apex creature, mass-death curse nodes, and a single deadliest Architect node per zone |
| 📯 Dispatches & Push | A shared dispatch pipeline surfaces the day's threats on the home screen and zone select, with opt-in push notifications at your local morning |
| 🛡️ Moderated UGC | Final words and other player-authored text are server-moderated (homoglyph/leet-aware filter, trust-weighted, report-suppressed) before they're rebroadcast |
| 🎲 Explore Choices | Every explore node presents 2-3 options: safe advance, [RISK] loot gamble, or [1⚡] intel peek |
| 🔮 Run Modifiers | Each run rolls a unique modifier (Blood Pact, Glass Cannon, Iron Will, and more), plus a shift-day modifier pool |
| 💀 Death Milestones | 6 death thresholds unlock titles, cosmetics, items, and HP boosts |
| 🎒 Inventory Limit | 4-item cap with rarity tiers (Common → Legendary) and a swap modal when full |
| 🌑 Legendary Items | Death's Mantle (death save) and Voidblade (+50% dmg, -5 HP/turn) |
| 💀 Persistent Deaths | Your corpse, final words, and loot persist for other players to discover |
| 🎴 Death Cards | Share your death as a stylized card on social media |
| 💸 Corpse Tipping | Tip SOL to fallen players whose corpses you find |
| 🏆 Leaderboards | Compete on depth reached, total deaths, and earnings |
| 🎮 Free Play | Try empty-handed (Unbound) without staking, including fully offline — deaths still count toward milestones |
| ⛓️ On-Chain Records | Blood-Bound runs recorded via MagicBlock ephemeral rollups, with VRF-verified run seeds |
| 🎵 Decentralized Soundtrack | Music streamed from Audius — your death track goes on the leaderboard |
| 🤖 Agent API | AI agents can play via REST API — their deaths appear in the feed |
| 📱 Mobile Native | Full Mobile Wallet Adapter support (Phantom, Solflare) |
Every run generates data at multiple layers. Here's what happens:
START PLAY END
┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────┐
│ • Session │ │ • Room state │ │ DEATH: │
│ created │ → │ updated │ → │ • Death record saved │
│ • Player │ │ • Events │ │ • Corpse spawned │
│ record │ │ logged │ │ • Player stats updated │
│ • ER run* │ │ • ER room* │ │ • ER committed* │
└──────────────┘ └──────────────┘ │ │
│ VICTORY: │
│ • Payout processed │
│ • Player stats updated │
│ • ER committed* │
└─────────────────────────┘
* Only for staked runs with wallet connected
| Data | Location | Retention |
|---|---|---|
| Sessions | InstantDB | All runs |
| Deaths & Corpses | InstantDB | All runs |
| Player Stats | InstantDB | All players (guest + wallet) |
| Run Records | Solana (via MagicBlock) | Staked wallet runs only |
| Social Posts | Tapestry | Wallet users only |
| Type | Stake | On-Chain | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blood-Bound (Staked SOL) | 0.01-0.25 SOL | ✅ Full ER lifecycle | Core gameplay, leaderboards (when stakingPosture allows) |
| Coin-Bound | 60/120/240 Pale Coins | ❌ InstantDB only (receipted) | Core gameplay, Binding Streak, no wallet needed |
| Unbound / Empty-Handed | 0 | ❌ InstantDB only | Practice, wallet users trying it out |
| Guest Run | 0 | ❌ InstantDB only, offline-capable | Onboarding, no wallet needed |
All run types:
- Create corpses for other players to discover
- Appear in the death feed
- Track player stats (deaths, highest room)
- Write a signed run receipt (
runReceipts) capturing the run seed, day key, shift state, and chosen modifier
Blood-Bound runs additionally:
- Record on-chain via MagicBlock ephemeral rollups
- Eligible for victory payouts (+50% bonus) from the on-chain pool
Coin-Bound runs additionally:
- Draw from / contribute to the pool-funded
coinPool - Build (or reset) a public Binding Streak toward its next seal tier
See MAGICBLOCK.md for technical details on ephemeral rollups.
Die Forward is built on cutting-edge Solana infrastructure:
Game logic runs on ephemeral rollups powered by MagicBlock, enabling:
- <50ms transactions — No waiting for block confirmations
- 100% on-chain logic — Game state lives on the rollup
- Gasless gameplay — Players don't pay per action
- Automatic settlement — Final state settles to Solana mainnet
- VRF randomness — Provably fair game seeds via on-chain oracle (✅ deployed, see below)
Mobile Client → Ephemeral Rollup (MagicBlock) → Solana
↓
VRF Oracle (free on ER)
MagicBlock's VRF oracle provides verifiable randomness for game seeds:
- Runs free on the ephemeral rollup
- Seeds are committed to L1 with the run record
- Anyone can verify the randomness was fair
- Enable via admin panel:
enableMagicBlock+enableVRF
See docs/MAGICBLOCK.md for implementation details.
Music is streamed directly from Audius:
- Dungeon Synth & Gaming Arena playlists
- Death Soundtrack Leaderboard — When you die, your track gets upvoted
- Community-driven vibe — The crypt's music is shaped by the fallen
Player profiles and social features powered by Tapestry:
- On-chain identity — Your profile lives on Tapestry's social graph
- Achievement tracking — Run history and stats
- Social discovery — Follow other players, compete with friends
No HP trading ping-pong. Every choice is a risk/reward tradeoff. Read enemy intent, exploit weaknesses, gear up. Each run's modifier changes the math.
Enemy intent matters:
| Intent | Effect |
|---|---|
| AGGRESSIVE | Normal attack |
| CHARGING | Low now, DOUBLE next turn |
| DEFENSIVE | Reduced damage both ways |
| STALKING | Harder to flee |
| HUNTING | Bonus damage |
- ⚔️ Strike — Trade blows (+50% vs AGGRESSIVE/HUNTING)
- 🛡️ Brace — Tank hit, negates charge (Iron Will modifier: zero damage)
- 💨 Dodge — Avoid damage, counter-attack on CHARGING
- 🩸 Bait — Forces the enemy's next intent to AGGRESSIVE, opening a one-shot crit window (costs a resource set by
baitCost) - 🏃 Flee — Try to escape (Bone Hook / Pale Coin boost odds)
Creatures carry one of 11 signature rules that change how a fight actually plays: rupture, reform, multiply, blink, absorb, drain, chant, pounce, honor, dormant, and repeating (an Echo Husk that recites a moderated line from a past run's final words). All 11 live in creature-rules.ts, wired against pure combat math in combat-math.ts.
Each zone has a community-elected apex creature (the one racking up the most kills across all players that day) carrying a +15% HP/damage buff; killing it pays a bounty — a bonus loot roll plus bestiary-mastery credit.
Each run rolls one modifier from six: 🩸 Blood Pact (+25% dmg, -30% healing), 🌑 Blind Descent (intent hidden turn 1), 💀 Death's Echo (+30% corpse chance), 🧊 Numbing Cold (+1 stamina regen/turn), 🛡️ Iron Will (Brace negates all damage), ⚡ Glass Cannon (60 HP start, +50% dmg) — plus a daily world shift that can swap in its own modifier pool for the zone.
Die Forward exposes a full API so AI agents can play the game. Agent deaths appear in the live feed alongside human deaths.
# Read the skill file
curl https://dieforward.com/skill.md
# Start a game
curl -X POST https://dieforward.com/api/agent/start \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"agentName": "my-agent"}'
# Take actions
curl -X POST https://dieforward.com/api/agent/action \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"sessionId": "...", "action": "strike"}'| Endpoint | Method | Description |
|---|---|---|
/skill.md |
GET | Skill file with full documentation |
/api/agent/start |
POST | Start a new game session |
/api/agent/action |
POST | Take an action (move, fight, etc.) |
/api/agent/state |
GET | Get current game state |
See /public/skill.md for complete API documentation.
| Layer | Technology | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile App | Expo SDK 54 + React Native | Cross-platform app (iOS, Android, Web) |
| Smart Contract | Anchor (Rust) | On-chain escrow for stakes |
| Ephemeral Rollups | MagicBlock | Real-time on-chain game logic + VRF |
| Wallet | Mobile Wallet Adapter | Native mobile wallet support |
| Music | Audius SDK | Decentralized soundtrack streaming |
| Social | Tapestry | Player profiles and social graph |
| Database | InstantDB | Real-time death feed, corpse persistence |
| Web | Next.js | Landing page and web version |
| Deploy | Vercel + Expo | Web hosting + mobile builds |
| Network | Solana Devnet | Blockchain transactions |
| Program | Address | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| die_forward (Escrow) | 34NSi8ShkixLt8Eg8XahXaRnaNuiFV63xdtC3ZfdTAt6 |
Stake management |
| run_record (MagicBlock) | 9rGjguBZAnittA4Cbm7YNP5qomatY3c4MTV7LSqNomzS |
On-chain run records |
Die Forward is a mobile-first experience:
- Expo SDK 54 with React Native
- Mobile Wallet Adapter for Phantom/Solflare on Android
- Web version at dieforward.com
- Android APK available for direct install
Phase 0 — Hackathon Prototype (Feb 2026)
- Roguelite dungeon crawler (3 depths, 12 rooms, boss fight)
- Intent-based combat system with 7 enemy intents
- Death persistence — corpses, final words, memorials
- SOL staking with on-chain escrow (Anchor), MagicBlock ephemeral rollups
- Audius decentralized soundtrack, Tapestry social profiles
- Mobile Wallet Adapter for Phantom/Solflare
- Agent API for AI players; Android APK via GitHub releases
Phase 1 — Content Engine + Progression (Mar 2026)
- Zone system: 5 zones with unique creatures and bosses (zone-loader.ts powers dungeon generation)
- Explore room choices: primary / [RISK] / [1⚡] intel peek options
- Run modifiers: 6 unique per-run modifiers (Blood Pact, Glass Cannon, Iron Will, and more)
- Death milestones: 6 thresholds unlocking titles, cosmetics, items, and HP boosts
- Inventory limit: 4-slot cap with item swap modal
- Item rarity: Common / Uncommon / Rare / Legendary tiers with weighted drops
- Legendary items: Death's Mantle (death save) and Voidblade (+50% dmg, -5 HP/turn)
- Combat determinism: seeded RNG for creature HP and intent
- Healing centralized through applyHealing (Blood Pact applies consistently)
Phase 2 — Branching Maps + Pale Coins (2a/2b)
- All 5 zones converted to branching DAG dungeons (20-23 nodes each) with client-only, item-gated side chambers
- Pale Coins introduced: earned-only in-game currency (never purchasable) with concave depth income + clear bonuses
- Content bible and zone-aware creature/item generation via
zone-loader.ts
Phase 3 — The Offering Ladder (3a/3b)
- Daily seeded world shift: per-zone modifier pool + masked map edges, admin-toggleable
- Coin-Bound staking at the Toll (60/120/240 Pale Coins), pool-funded escape bonus, Binding Streak with seal tiers
stakingPosturesetting to hide/ritualize/open Blood-Bound (SOL) staking independently of Coin-Bound
Security Hardening
- Server-verified InstantDB auth (
verifyAuthToken) required for all money-affecting session/game routes - Closed coin-mode IDOR on both client and server; admin routes gated by
verifyAuthToken+ admin allowlist; deny-by-default InstantDB perms
Phase 4 — Community Layer, Dispatches & Moderation (4a/4b/4c)
- Nightly aggregation surfaces a community-elected apex creature (+15% HP/dmg buff + bounty), mass-death curse nodes, and a deadliest Architect node per zone
- Shared dispatch pipeline (home panel + zone select) with opt-in push notifications sent at each player's local morning, capped to respect quiet days
- Server-authoritative UGC moderation (homoglyph/leet-aware filter, trust-weighted, report-suppressed) gates every rebroadcast of a player's final words — Echo Husk recitals and Architect wall inscriptions included
- 11 creature signature rules (rupture, reform, multiply, blink, absorb, drain, chant, pounce, honor, dormant, repeating) and the Bait combat verb
| Item | Status |
|---|---|
| Push notification credentials | Pipeline built (expo-server-sdk); production credentials still needed |
| iOS local build script | Android has a local build path (build:android:local); no iOS equivalent yet — EAS/App Store distribution still pending |
CRON_SECRET in prod |
Cron routes (/api/game/shift, /api/game/dispatch, session/cleanup) run open-and-warn without it — must be set before mainnet |
| Pre-mainnet security residuals | Known non-money-affecting gaps: A5 wallet-sybil keying, missing ownership check on players writes — must close before real value is at stake |
| Mainnet Launch | Deploy to Solana mainnet, real stakes |
- $DIE Token — Earn tokens for notable deaths, spend on cosmetics
- Guilds & Clans — Team leaderboards, shared pools
- Spectator Mode — Watch runs in real-time
- Run Replays — Share your best (and worst) moments
- PvP Zones — Invade other players' runs
- Node.js 18+
- Solana wallet with devnet SOL
- (Optional) Android device with Phantom/Solflare for mobile testing
# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/jpbedoya/die-forward.git
cd die-forward
# Install dependencies (mobile app)
cd mobile
npm install
# Run on web
npx expo start --web
# Run on Android
npx expo start --androidTo build a standalone APK locally — not just the dev server:
cd mobile
npx expo prebuild --platform android --clean # first time / when native config changes
npm run build:android:local # standalone debug APK (~78 MB)
npm run build:android:local -- --prod # release APK (~40 MB, R8-minified, signed)
npm run build:android:local -- --prod --publish # release + GitHub release at dev-<version>Output lands in mobile/dist/<name>-<version>[-release].apk. See mobile/BUILD_NOTES.md for the one-time JDK + Android SDK toolchain setup and the release keystore.
# InstantDB
NEXT_PUBLIC_INSTANT_APP_ID=your_app_id
INSTANT_ADMIN_KEY=your_admin_key
# Solana
NEXT_PUBLIC_SOLANA_RPC=https://api.devnet.solana.com
NEXT_PUBLIC_POOL_WALLET=your_pool_wallet_addressdie-forward/
├── mobile/ # Expo app (main codebase)
│ ├── app/ # App routes (Expo Router)
│ │ ├── (game)/ # Game screens
│ │ ├── index.tsx # Home/title screen
│ │ └── _layout.tsx # Root layout
│ ├── components/ # Shared components
│ ├── lib/ # Utilities, game logic
│ ├── src/
│ │ ├── idl/ # Anchor IDLs
│ │ └── hooks/ # React hooks
│ ├── android/ # Android native code
│ └── app.config.js # Expo config
├── anchor-programs/ # On-chain programs (Rust/Anchor)
│ ├── die_forward/ # Escrow program
│ └── run_record/ # MagicBlock run records
├── public/ # Static assets + slides
│ └── graveyard-slides/ # Pitch deck
└── docs/ # Documentation
| Doc | Description |
|---|---|
| Game Design | Mechanics, combat, death system |
| Content Bible | Voice, tone, lore, writing guidelines |
| Staking Flows | On-chain escrow vs pool wallet flows |
| Mobile Wallet | MWA integration details |
| Agent Skill | API docs for agent players |
All Rights Reserved © 2026
💀 Every death matters. 💀