Судоку · Дуэль
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New mode · Pitch

Судоку Дуэль

Real-time 1v1 sudoku. Challenge a friend, race the same board, and watch their progress light up on your grid. A solo puzzle becomes a viral duel.

⚔ Head-to-head🔗 Challenge a friend☁ Cloudflare-native
The gap

We nailed retention. We have no growth engine.

What we have

Daily challenge, streaks, XP, worldwide leaderboard. Great at keeping players who already found us.

🚫

What we lack

Acquisition. No ad budget, unadvertised domain. Traffic is the #1 constraint from the market research.

🎯

What we need

A feature that is inherently viral, where using it recruits new players for free.

The idea

Challenge a friend. Same board. Race live, and see the cells they've closed highlighted on your own grid.

Every match is an invite. Every invite is a new player.

How it works · player flow

From tap to rematch in one link

01

Challenge

Tap "Дуэль", get a link, drop it in Telegram/WhatsApp.

02

Join

Friend opens the link, no signup. 3·2·1 countdown.

03

Race

Identical board. Live progress bars + opponent-cell highlights.

04

Win

First to finish clean wins. XP + streak.

05

Rematch

One tap to run it back or share the result.

The signature mechanic

See where they are, not what they wrote

  • Cells your opponent has closed glow in their colour Spatial pressure you feel in real time.
  • But the digit stays hidden You see progress, never the answer. No copying.
  • Cells you both solved get a ring The board tells the story of the race.
givenyouopponent
Live mock · this is real, running on Cloudflare Pages

The duel screen

Why it stands out

Everyone else shows a progress bar. We show the board.

The category exists

SudokuRace, SudoBattle, Sudoku Rival, Mudoku, Sudoku Together and more offer 1v1 racing.

But it's shallow

Almost all reduce the opponent to a % bar. Sudoku Rival even states you "cannot see their actual numbers." Nobody makes your own grid the battlefield.

Our opponent-cell heatmap is a fresher, more visceral hook, with a built-in fairness rule.

Why it matters · the growth loop

The feature is the acquisition channel

Player taps
“Дуэль”
Friend opens
the linkmust land on sudoky.net to play
Friend becomes
a playerdaily / streak / XP kick in
They challenge
their friends

Zero ad spend. Each match pulls a non-user onto the site. This is the loop that fixes our traffic problem.

Feasibility · Cloudflare-native

It fits the stack we already run

🧩

Durable Object per match

One room object holds the board, relays moves over WebSockets, keeps both players in sync.

🛡️

Server-authoritative

We already own the solution + engine (Worker + D1). Every placement is validated server-side, so "closed cell" = confirmed correct. Anti-cheat for free.

💵

Cheap

Reuses the existing Worker + D1. Adds only Durable Objects (~$5/mo Workers Paid). No new vendor.

Monetization · stacks on the strategy

The race pays, three ways

🎬

Rewarded rematch

Watch a short ad to instantly rematch or unlock a fresh board. RU-standard, high tolerance.

Plus perks

Ranked duels, ELO, private rooms, custom difficulty, no ads. A clear reason to subscribe.

📣

Interstitial

One ad between matches (capped), when engagement is highest.

Plan

MVP in ~2 weeks, then depth

MVP · ~2 wks

  • Private-link duel
  • Correct-cell highlights + progress bars
  • Countdown + winner screen

V2

  • Matchmaking vs strangers
  • Ranked / ELO, seasons
  • Telegram Mini App duels

V3

  • Tournaments / brackets
  • Spectate + share replays
  • Power-ups & variants
Open questions

What we need to get right

Next step

Build the MVP?

A private-link duel with live opponent highlights and a winner screen. The cheapest viral experiment we can run, on the stack we already have.

▶ Duel mock 🎛 v2 site mock 📄 Full spec on request
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