By Jerome Bonjour
Inspiration
I wanted to create a game with the pace of an arcade game and strategic depth approaching chess. Dropping a token should feel immediate, but deciding where to place it should reward thinking ahead. That ambition led to Pikon: a duel where clearing a line changes the board and can trigger another reaction.
A line is only the beginning
Pikon is a tactical puzzle duel for players who enjoy familiar rules with surprising consequences. Drop a token, connect at least four, and watch the aligned pieces disappear. Gravity then reshapes the board. A good move can create another alignment; it can also leave an opening for your opponent.
The challenge is to read both the move you are making and the position it leaves behind. Each cascade becomes part of the next decision.
Two ways to compete
Classic turns alignments and cascades into points. Territory changes the objective to control of the board: capture and crystallize cells while planning around the same falling tokens.
Tactical powers add decisions about timing and position. A bomb can change a region of the grid, the Usurper steals alignment points, the X2 Catalyst boosts a successful move, and a Force Field temporarily locks a column.
Players can practice against AI, find an online opponent, invite a friend, or play together on one device. Finished matches feed XP, levels, and cosmetic unlocks. The combination of changing positions, opponents, and modes gives players a reason to return.
Pikon World
Pikon World extends the rivalry beyond individual matches into an archipelago. Players join a faction, earn Influence through online play, and use it to conquer and fortify territories.
A future World shop will let players purchase cosmetic objects through RevenueCat to personalize the territories they have conquered. These item purchases are coming soon. The shop images in the demo are development previews.
Free play and Pikon Pro
Core gameplay is free, with advertisements during matchmaking. Pikon Pro is an optional one-time purchase that combines match replays, match analysis, and removal of those advertisements. It is not a subscription. Players can inspect the offer and restore purchases in Settings. The analysis history covers online Territory matches, with Pro opening access beyond the recent matches available for free.
Pikon Pro ships in version 2.2.0, which was submitted to App Review, under expedited review, before the Shipaton deadline; it reaches the App Store at the same link as soon as Apple approves it.
RevenueCat handles the purchase and entitlement layer. The product grants the pro and no_ads entitlements, keeping access to the paid features consistent. The purchase does not buy stronger powers or extra points; it adds ways to revisit a match and removes matchmaking ads.
The hardest question
The main difficulty was finding out whether the game actually has the depth I was aiming for. Adding powers and chain reactions is not enough on its own: I needed to understand whether the choices create meaningful strategy. That question has been central to developing Pikon.
How it is built
Pikon uses Flutter and Dart, with Firebase for authentication, online play, and persistent player data. The game engine separates rules, gravity, scoring, animations, and particles.
One implementation challenge is keeping online cascades consistent without counting the same points twice. The player making a move calculates its score. The other device reproduces the animation and receives the synchronized score. Keeping the visual sequence separate from scoring prevents both devices from awarding points for the same move.
Another design challenge is showing a changing board clearly. Placement, alignment, removal, and falling pieces happen in an ordered sequence, so players can follow how the new position came about.
Details worth watching
The expressive red and blue characters establish the rivalry. The same colours carry into the board and fantasy environments. In Territory, compare the cell ownership with the tokens sitting above it: both tell you something about the contest.
The Best Game entry focuses on the tactical loop, two modes, and replayability. The RevenueCat Design entry focuses on the characters, readable chain reactions, and the connection between visual feedback and player decisions.
What surprised me
Territory is calmer, demands more planning, and is a little less focused on immediate arcade fun. Yet it seems to be attracting many more players than I expected. That has been the biggest surprise: the mode that slows the game down appears to have a stronger appeal than I anticipated.
This is an early observation from the launch, and I want to understand it better as more people play.
Launch
Pikon first reached public store distribution on September 22, 2026. Pikon is available on iOS; the Android version is currently being deployed.
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