Cardinate

Cardinate – Link pips, hack rules, top the leaderboard.

Inspiration

Competitive puzzle greats like Tetris and deck-builders like Slay the Spire begged for a mash-up. Splicing “code injections” into a card game felt fresh and allowed for an extremely unique idea.

What it does

Players place numbered cards on a grid, aligning pips to hit or beat each stage’s par score. Clear the stage, draft a new card, pick a rule-bending “code injection,” and keep climbing until you miss par—then brag or cry on the global leaderboard.

How we built it

Core engine in Unity (C#)
Procedural level generator prototyped in bolt.new
DreaminaAI for dynamic neon backdrops
Freepik vectors for UI, Capcut for trailer polish
Google Gemini (Nano Banana) generated the initial Scarab card art
PlayFab for leaderboards, Firebase for analytics

AI Tools

DreaminaAI – Generated 40+ glitch-art backgrounds.
Capcut – Auto-cut teaser trailers, added motion graphics.
Freepik – AI-curated vector packs accelerated UI mock-ups.
Google Gemini – Nano Banana prompts produced the first Scarab card set.
bolt.new (C#) – Wrote boilerplate and unit-test scaffolds.

Challenges we ran into

Balancing randomness with skill for fair but unpredictable stages.
Converting AI art into atlas-friendly textures without ballooning build size.
Keeping code injections powerful yet leaderboard-safe.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

One-tap tutorial testers finish in under two minutes.
AI pipeline cut art bottlenecks from days to hours.
Server-side anti-cheat flags impossible scores in 200 ms.

What we learned

AI art accelerates production but still needs a cohesive human pass.
Short, playful copy (“Link pips, hack rules”) beats long explanations on social media.
Transparent par thresholds boost player retention.