About Astral Rivals
A solo-developed tactical card battler born from a love of strategy games, tarot, and poker.
The Vision
Astral Rivals is a tactical card battler that brings together grid-based strategy, deck building, and a rich lore system inspired by the Major Arcana of the tarot and the four suits of a classic poker deck.
Every card has a place. Every move matters. Units clash on a 15×15 battlefield with fog of war, 9 damage manifest types, hero leveling, equipment, Astral Sockets, and chain combos. The goal: destroy your opponent's Champion or Castle before they destroy yours.
The game is designed as a living platform — new cards, characters, story arcs, and game modes will be added continuously, creating a world that grows alongside its community.
Built for Competition
Astral Rivals is designed from the ground up to be the greatest player vs player game that doesn't require reaction time or high APM. Victory is determined by strategy, preparation, and decision-making — not by who can click faster or execute more actions per minute. Every mechanic, every card interaction, and every system is built with deep, skill-expressive gameplay as the north star.
As a solo developer project with minimal overhead, Astral Rivals has an advantage that large studios don't: the game never has to be balanced around selling card packs. There's no pressure to power-creep new sets, rotate staples out of the meta to push sales, or gate competitive viability behind a paywall. Every balance decision is made purely in service of the best possible competitive experience.
Every card in the game can be earned through gameplay. If you want to grow your collection faster, you can pay to accelerate your unlocks — but you'll never need to buy power that free players can't access. The full card pool is available to everyone. Open card packs to discover new cards, and use the crafting system as built-in bad luck protection — so you're always making progress toward the cards you actually want. In the current demo, every card is unlocked and available for free.
Because Astral Rivals is a digital card game, every card can be tuned at any time — stats, costs, effects, and interactions can all be adjusted without reprinting a single thing. Combined with the sheer number of balance vectors available across the game's systems — damage types, grid positioning, Astral Sockets, equipment, hero abilities, and more — the goal is a meta where every card has a role. No dead cards, no pack filler. If a card exists, it's meant to be a real strategic option.
The result is a game where strategy wins, not spending — where the meta evolves because of player creativity, not corporate release schedules.
Beyond PvP
Astral Rivals isn't just a competitive card game — it's also home to a lengthy single-player story mode set in the world of the Major Arcana. Follow an original narrative as you battle through encounters, unlock new cards, and uncover the mysteries behind the Astral Plane.
Beyond the story, Astral Rivals offers a variety of non-PvP game modes for players who want to test strategies at their own pace. Challenge AI opponents of varying difficulty, play through hand-crafted scenarios, or experiment with builds in sandbox mode — all without the pressure of a ranked ladder.
Whether you're here for the competition, the story, or just to explore the cards, there's a place for you in Astral Rivals.
Art & Animation
In the current demo, units on the battlefield are represented as portrait chips — simple tokens showing each unit's card art. But the vision for Astral Rivals goes far beyond that.
Every unit in the game will eventually be a fully animated 32×32 pixel sprite character brought to life on the battlefield. Idle animations, attack sequences, movement cycles, and death effects — each unit will have its own personality and presence on the grid. The goal is a board that feels alive, where every summon, clash, and spell plays out with handcrafted pixel art animation.
Solo Developer Project
Astral Rivals is built by a single developer under Zav Ventures. Every line of code, every game system, every AI opponent — all crafted by one person with a vision.
The project spans four codebases across multiple languages and platforms, from the Flutter game client to the Rust multiplayer server. It's an ambitious scope for a solo project, but that's what makes it personal.
While the code is solo-developed, Astral Rivals is built with collaboration in mind. Custom management tools are designed so that non-programmers — artists, game designers, musicians, and community managers — can contribute directly to the game without touching a single line of code. From card creation and balance tuning to sound design and scenario building, the tooling is built to let a growing team shape the game together.
Tech Stack
Follow & Watch
Stay connected with development updates, watch live streams, and join the growing community.
Watch on Twitch
twitch.tv/astralrivals
Catch live development streams, gameplay showcases, and community matches. See new cards and features in action before they launch. Watch the game being built in real-time.
A Note on Assets
The current demo uses AI-generated placeholder art and temporary audio for rapid prototyping. The final release will feature original artwork commissioned from real artists and professionally produced music and sound effects. Astral Rivals is designed as an ever-expanding platform, creating ongoing demand for creative work across multiple disciplines.
Want to Get Involved?
Whether you're an artist, musician, content creator, or just a fan of tactical card games — reach out on social media. The journey to the stars is better together.