Pixel Orchard

Build a game called Pixel Orchard: an idle game about growing a tiny orchard, one tap a day.

What it does

Plant a tree, come back tomorrow, watch it grow. Trade fruit with friends. Pixel Orchard is deliberately slow: one meaningful tap a day, no ads, no timers designed to annoy you.

Stack

Use Phaser, TypeScript, Cloudflare. The original was built with Bolt and Claude in 6 weeks, for about $52 in AI usage.

How it fits together

• A small game loop with one core mechanic
• Local saves, plus a simple backend for sharing or leaderboards
• A daily or slow rhythm that brings people back

Build it in this order

1. Build the core mechanic with placeholder art and make it fun
2. Add saving and the daily rhythm
3. Add art, sound and the share feature
4. Tune the economy or difficulty with a quick simulation
5. Test it with five people and watch where they stop

A prompt that worked: Tune a slow economy

Here's the growth and trading table for Pixel Orchard. Simulate 60 days for three players: one who plays every day, one who plays every third day, one who only trades. Show where the casual player falls too far behind to enjoy it, and suggest the smallest change to fix that without making daily play pointless.

Watch out for

• Prototype the mechanic before any art
• Respect the player's time: no timers designed to annoy

Done when

• Someone new gets the mechanic in thirty seconds
• Progress is never lost
• It runs well on a mid-range phone

Before writing code, ask me up to five questions about who this just for fun game is for and what the first version must do. Then work in small steps: after each one, tell me how to try it and wait for my feedback.