Inspiration
Our company, Offsuit Games, started back in COVID-times when lockdown led us to playing a ton of play-money poker. As designers and devs by trade, we were frustrated with the constant forced popups, deceptive UX tactics, and the neon and fake leather look of every app in the category. So we made Offsuit Poker: no real gambling, just dead simple poker with modern design and usability that took the game as seriously as we did. Three years in, we're applying that same philosophy to our new game: Offsuit Blackjack.
What it does
Offsuit Blackjack strips the game down to its simplest form. Download the app and play instantly for free, that's it. No forced popups, no impossibly small tap targets, just blackjack. We labored over the core gameplay UX, the haptic and audio feedback, and the animations of the smallest details.
How we built it
We designed the app first in Figma, building a token-driven system that supports multiple color themes. We prototyped interactions in Origami Studio, then eventually prototyped in code. The app itself is Flutter on iOS and Android, with Rive powering the detailed animations of the card faces and rewards. Purchases go through RevenueCat, which we wrapped in our own package so everything you buy is tied to a single profile that works across all our games.
Challenges we ran into
The biggest challenge was that we weren't really building one app. We wanted a system that could power blackjack, our existing poker app, and whatever card game we make next, with one game economy and user profile underneath it all. We also built our own "liquid glass" effect from scratch, since we didn't want to rely on external packages or native liquid glass implementations.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're proud of the deep customization options we created. We designed dozens of custom card backs, faces, chips, and themes, and we spent a ton of time on the illustrations and animations of each one. We also put a lot of work into performance: every animation and effect was assessed before shipping, and we tested everything on old/small operating systems to make sure the game feels great for as many people as possible.
What we learned
The biggest lesson was the process we developed to let our designer contribute directly to the codebase. It took some growing pains and back and forth, but we landed on a workflow that lets our designer start in code with micro-commits and lets our developer maintain a high standard of quality with multiple layers of review.
What's next for Offsuit Blackjack
We’ll listen to our users and go from there. We already have requests for blackjack leaderboards and more social features, and we’ve got a slate of new themed custom illustrations for cards and chips coming soon. We also have our sights on new games like solitaire and baccarat, all using our new system.
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