# How to Vibe Code Your Own Voidpet (and Stop Paying for It)

> Emotion-driven creature design and interactive pet care

- Site: https://voidpet.com
- Category: Mobile Game & Digital Media
- Verdict: **Serious undertaking** (45/100 vibecodeable)
- Estimated effort: 2-3 months of focused part-time work

## Verdict

You can build the technical mechanics of a turn-based pet collector in a few weeks, but creating the proprietary emotion-themed art assets and 1,000+ level balance is a serious undertaking.

Vibecoding will easily scaffold the database schemas, turn-based combat math boilerplate, and inventory APIs. However, an AI agent cannot generate the cohesive, distinct brand identity and emotional branding that makes Voidpet unique. You will spend most of your time hand-crafting creature sprites, designing animations, and tuning thousands of progression levels.

### What you can't replicate

- The original emotion-driven creature character design and proprietary art style
- The organic TikTok viral marketing presence and active community ecosystem

## What it does

An entertainment software studio building emotion-themed virtual pet games, web ecosystems, and character worldbuilding.

### Core features

- Turn-based creature combat engine with emotion-themed elemental mechanics
- Pet hatching, collection, and evolution logic across 1,000+ level progressions
- Persistent inventory, pet stats, and state management
- Giga subscription tier billing integration and perks enforcement
- Emotion-adjacent mental health interactive check-in companion loops
- Cross-platform mobile client deployment pipeline

## The business

### Pricing

- Free-to-Play: Free
- Giga Subscription: $3.99/mo

### Funding

$800K raised.
- Accelerator / Incubator funding ($800K, Sep 11, 2023)
Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (aXiomatic / cultural incubation backing)

Founded 2021.
Team size: ~9 employees.

## The hard parts

- Balancing progression loops and stats across 1,000+ levels without breaking economy pacing
- Creating custom 2D/3D emotion-themed creature asset art, rigging, and animation pipelines
- Managing cross-platform app store native deployment, IAPs, and compliance constraints
- Synchronizing real-time pet care state seamlessly between mobile local storage and remote databases

## How to vibe code Voidpet

### Prerequisites

- Node.js (free): Required runtime for building the web backend and running agent tooling.
- GitHub (free): Source code control and repository hosting.
- Expo Account (free): Required for building and testing the cross-platform mobile app client.

### Recommended AI tools

- Claude Code: Best-in-class coding agent for scaffolding game loops, backend APIs, and database migrations from terminal prompts.
- Cursor: Ideal AI-native editor for making iterative UI adjustments to screens and battle animations.

### Stack

- Frontend: Expo (React Native with file-based routing)
- Backend: Next.js API routes / Node.js server
- Database: Turso (SQLite at the edge for player profiles and pet inventory)
- Auth: better-auth
- Payments: RevenueCat
- Other: Vercel AI SDK, PostHog

### Hosting

- Cloudflare (Hosting backend API handlers and edge database connection points): $0-5/mo
- Expo (Cloud builds and OTA updates for mobile application clients): $0-19/mo

### Build guide

1. **Project Scaffolding & Database Schema** — Initialize the React Native mobile app with Expo and set up the SQLite database schema on Turso for users, pets, and inventory.

```
Create a new Expo project with TypeScript and file-based routing. Initialize a Turso database client configuration using libSQL. Define database tables for users, pets (storing emotional type, level, stats, and custom nickname), inventory items, and progression stage records. Write migration scripts to seed basic emotion-themed starter pets (Anxiety, Anger, Sadness) with default attributes.
```

2. **Turn-Based Combat Engine** — Implement the core combat loop logic, turn calculation, elemental emotion matchups, and damage formulas.

```
Build a turn-based combat engine module in TypeScript. Implement state management for active battle encounters between player pet teams and AI opponent pets. Write pure functions for damage calculation factoring in emotional type advantages, status effects, and level scaling. Ensure state transitions handle player actions, enemy turns, victory checks, and rewards distribution.
```

3. **Pet Hatching & Gacha Mechanics** — Develop the summoning and hatching system with weighted drop rates for different rarity emotion pets.

```
Implement a gacha and pet hatching system. Create drop-rate probability tables for common, rare, and legendary emotion pets. Build API endpoints and client hooks to handle egg hatching transactions, deducting in-game currency, rolling random traits, and instantly persisting newly hatched pets to the user's collection table.
```

4. **Progression & Level Management** — Construct the 1,000+ level map progression architecture and stage completion handlers.

```
Design a modular level progression system supporting thousands of stages. Implement a dynamic level generator or configuration loader that scales enemy difficulty, reward yields, and stage objectives based on stage index. Build screen components for the overworld map allowing players to select unlocked stages and track star ratings.
```

5. **Subscription & Microtransactions Integration** — Integrate RevenueCat SDK for mobile in-app purchases and the Giga subscription tier perks.

```
Integrate the RevenueCat SDK into the Expo mobile application to manage in-app purchases and subscriptions. Implement entitlement checks for the $3.99/mo 'Giga Subscription' tier. Grant perks such as pet renaming permission, expanded pet storage capacity up to 1,000 slots, and custom team template slots when the active entitlement is verified.
```

6. **UI Polish & Emotion Garden Companion Loop** — Refine the mobile UI styling to match the whimsical emotional branding and add the virtual garden care loop.

```
Create a companion 'Voidpet Garden' screen where users can interact with their collected pets in a peaceful environment. Implement touch-based feeding, petting animations, and daily mental health check-in prompts that reward in-game currency. Polish all navigation screens with custom soft color palettes, smooth transitions, and tactile feedback.
```

### Cost vs paying

**Starting costs (one-time):**

- Apple Developer Program: $99/yr
- Google Play Console: $25 one-time
- AI Coding Tools: $20 one-time
- Total: ~$144 one-time

**Ongoing costs (monthly):**

- Turso & Cloudflare Hosting: $0-5/mo
- Expo EAS Build Tier: $0-19/mo
- Total: ~$5-24/mo

- Paying for the SaaS instead: $3.99/mo (Giga Subscription)
- Build time: 60-90 hours
- AI tool credits: $20 one-time (Claude Pro)
- Break-even: Not applicable (built for personal learning and enjoyment)

## Sources

- [PitchBook - Voidpet Company Profile & Metrics](https://vertexaisearch.cloud.google.com/grounding-api-redirect/AUZIYQHxbJZ5_eAferYuLxJqcXyfVpQfxPDsaPs0Ud4v86LIMhv-vjQPj46CqVb-oCV7M7kiqGbocnuVRXS5Fd7dRVWFlIJNLDoiSTbsChbCPwBaJ312KaoESuhO2nITiMqMMns7mx3BdvM-)
- [Voidpet Official Website & Giga Features Page](https://vertexaisearch.cloud.google.com/grounding-api-redirect/AUZIYQF_t7LppoXaXQhOzrs04oLX4_3csdK0HsyiKUVbJ0MpcJsiG55FBKj1QlWaPjd5kvXTVtn41CPdaz8BcJNQcUx7fYnIBTPqKYwZSc5SybAmWw--)
- [Reddit (r/voidpet) - Community Discussions on Pricing and Gameplay](https://vertexaisearch.cloud.google.com/grounding-api-redirect/AUZIYQHBLu2uVi00eFsUJLanfNpJe7NOp3o_nrs6aaoJNObLhlPQX8LGFnNv1wM4__W9MrnfcS9tg4bnLRtRE4B76vl0W9mOWP9uX6fg5faiYLWue5WwYzpc52xIu58OZD2HAhT9l0PSgwgs4SBKBGuIH2DSVDfmDEUuhV33Ww7CcCHw6Lca_eevL08nsQpcCQIPwSlFzI6D)