Moshe — Daily 1v1 Duels Between Friends
Moshe is a mobile app for asynchronous daily skill duels between friends. One puzzle a day, shared by both players, per-skill Elo, and a simple promise: loser buys coffee.
The Problem
Most mobile games lean either on anonymous matchmaking or on endless solo grinding. The first depersonalizes play, the second gets old fast. Friendly competition — the strongest retention hook there is — is rarely used to its full potential.
Real-time play isn't always feasible either: friends live in different time zones and keep different schedules. The need was for a game that doesn't require both players online at once, yet stays fair — with no advantage to whoever started first.
What We Built
Moshe is a Flutter app for iOS and Android backed by ASP.NET Core (.NET 10) and MongoDB. Each calendar day the backend pairs active friends and assigns every pair a single deterministic, seeded puzzle. Both players get an identical game and can play it any time within the 24-hour window.
Puzzles come from a rotating skill pool, scores resolve at day-end, and personal Elo is recalculated per discipline. Firebase push notifications pull players back in — a friend played, a duel is closing, a streak is at risk. No anonymous matchmaking, friend graph only.
Key Capabilities
One Duel a Day
Every day at 00:00 UTC the backend pairs active friends and assigns each pair a single deterministic puzzle. Both players take the same seed — whenever it suits them within the 24-hour window.
Rotating Skill Pool
Puzzles are drawn from a rotating pool of disciplines — Math Sprint, Vocab Duel, Memory Pattern. A different challenge each day, with no repeats and no first-mover advantage.
Per-Skill Elo
At day-end the higher score wins, and personal Elo is recalculated separately for each skill. You can see exactly where you genuinely outplay your friend.
Friend Graph Only
No anonymous matchmaking. Duels happen only between added friends, which keeps every game personal and the competition friendly.
Push Notifications
A friend played their round, a duel is about to expire, a streak is at risk — targeted notifications bring players back into the app every day.
Shareable Winner Card
After each duel both players receive a winner card built for sharing. The product's joke is simple: loser buys the coffee.
Outcomes
Live on the App Store
Moshe is available to download on the Apple App Store. The product went the full distance — from an architecture blueprint to a release in real users' hands.
Fair Asynchronous Play
The deterministic seed guarantees both players solve an identical puzzle. Winning comes down to skill alone, never to who happened to play first.
Retention by Habit
The one-duel-a-day format and streaks turn the app into a daily ritual between friends, not another game opened once and forgotten.
Why It Matters
The asynchronous, deterministic format solves two problems at once: players never need to be online together, and the game still stays perfectly fair. It's the same principle behind the best daily puzzles — but with a real friend on the other side.
Moshe is already live on the App Store — from the first blueprint to a release in real users' hands. You can download it here: apps.apple.com.