Plonk — PvP Vocabulary Battle
A 2-minute asynchronous PvP vocabulary game. Clash Royale meets Duolingo — every word you learn becomes a card you battle with.
Overview
Existing vocab apps optimize for showing up — daily streaks that reward presence, not learning. Competitive coding platforms proved PvP dramatically increases engagement. No product has applied real-time PvP mechanics to vocab learning at scale. Plonk fills that gap.
Process
- 01
Hypothesis & user
Sharpened on a clear bet: users retain vocabulary 2–3× longer if recall is wrapped in competitive stakes — HP, ranking, leaderboards — vs solitary drilling. Locked target persona: English learner in India or Brazil prepping for IELTS or remote work, casual mobile gamer.
- 02
Skeleton-first build
Vite + React 19 + Tailwind v4 + Supabase + Capacitor. Strategy: ship a working app to a real phone by Week 1, even with empty shells. Phase 1 done — installs on iPhone + Android emulator, full OAuth deep-link, onboarding flow.
- 03
Vibe-coded solo execution
Solo build with Claude Code as pair programmer. Every task is 1–3 hours: spec → ship → test on phone → review. The roadmap is the contract; the build is the easy part. The hard part is choosing what NOT to build.
Result
Phase 1 shipped on schedule. Currently building Phase 2: 50 hand-crafted seed words, lesson flow, card collection, spaced-repetition queue. Targeting US App Store first, then India / Philippines / Indonesia, then Brazil / Mexico. Success metrics (D1 ≥ 40%, D7 ≥ 20%, D30 ≥ 10%) defined from day one.
By the numbers
40%
D1 retention target
1 / 4
Phase progress
Vite · Supabase · Capacitor
Stack
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