From Dusty MVP to Google Play: Bringing Cartastrofe Back

The story of Cartastrofe: a card game for couples, a MailerLite waitlist, a vibe-coded landing page, and more Google forms than expected.

The project that had been gathering dust

A few months ago, my partner and I went into "let's build an app" mode. I wanted to learn Flutter. She is extremely good at inventing game dynamics. On paper, it was a perfect combination.

The result was Cartastrofe: a digital card game for couples. The mechanic is simple. You open a deck, the app deals 12 random cards out of a total of 40, and you have 24 hours to use them. Some cards tell your partner to do something, some decide the plan for the day, some are defensive cards that block whatever gets played against you, and some just create absurd situations. Controlled chaos, now on a phone.

We split the work cleanly. She designed the cards and thought through how they interacted. I wrestled with Flutter, VS Code, and GitHub Copilot so the whole thing would become an app that did not explode on launch.

Then the usual thing happened with personal projects: we left it half-finished.

A functional MVP. Not polished. Several ideas still missing. Slowly collecting digital dust somewhere in GitHub.

The revival

Months later I looked at the project again and thought: this is actually fun. There are not many games like this, at least not that I know of, and it would be better if it existed somewhere on the internet instead of dying on a hard drive.

So I decided to revive it. Mostly so it would not disappear.

My first instinct was itch.io, because I already knew it from other prototypes. It is simple, creator-friendly, and easy to ship on. The problem is that Cartastrofe is not a browser game. You need to download an APK, enable installs from unknown sources, and follow manual steps. That is normal for technical users, but for couples who just want to play, it is too much friction.

So the next step became obvious: try to publish it on Google Play.

Publishing on Google Play means more forms than expected

I looked into the process and it is perfectly feasible for an individual developer, but there are several steps.

First, the developer account. You need a Google Play Console account and a one-time fee of 25 USD.

Second, signing the app. A regular APK is not enough. To publish on Google Play you need a signed App Bundle (.aab) built with your own keystore.

Third, the forms. Google wants to know a lot about the app before it lets it in. Does it show ads? Does it offer in-app purchases? What user data does it collect? Who is the target audience? Does it contain sensitive content? Cartastrofe collects no data, has no ads, and has no purchases, so the answers were straightforward, but the paperwork is still there.

Fourth, the store listing. Description, screenshots, icon, category, content rating. Each one has its own requirements. Screenshots need minimum dimensions. The icon must be 512x512. You also need a privacy policy hosted somewhere public.

A vibe-coded landing page in one afternoon

I needed a small website to host the privacy policy and terms of use, so I vibe-coded a landing page for Cartastrofe. I used Google Antigravity for the page code itself and ChatGPT to generate some supporting images. It is not perfect, but it does the job and looks good enough for what it needs to be.

For deployment I used Sliplane, a platform I like a lot because it stays simple. You pay 9 EUR per month for a server where you can deploy as many Docker containers as fit in the available resources. For personal work and side projects, the price-to-value ratio is hard to beat.

The domain was already registered through Porkbun, which also gives you an email address on your own domain. That turned out to matter later.

The plot twist: beta testers

This was the part I did not expect.

Google has tightened the rules for new Play Store apps. You can no longer just upload an app and publish it immediately. First you need to go through a closed testing phase: at least 12 beta testers must use the app for 14 days. After that, you submit a report on how the test period went.

It makes sense. Google wants to avoid a flood of low-quality apps that nobody has tested. But it also means you need real people to download the app, use it for two weeks, and give you feedback.

So the real solution became: build a waitlist.

MailerLite plus the landing page

I compared a few email marketing tools and settled on MailerLite. The flow was simple: a signup form on the landing page, a welcome automation, a manual email with beta access, and another feedback email 14 days later.

Why not send the access link immediately when someone signs up? Because the Google Play process is not instant. Once you collect the emails, you still have to upload them manually to the console and wait for access to be generated.

Why I wanted to bring Cartastrofe back

Because it is a small, slightly ridiculous, honest project. A shipped MVP is worth more than a perfect project that never gets released.

Publishing on the Play Store is also educational. You learn very quickly about releases, store listings, compliance, privacy, and testing.

Current status

The app is ready. The landing page is live. The email system works.

If you want to try Cartastrofe with your partner, have a laugh, and help me bring it out into the open, you can sign up here:

• cartastrofe.com

The game is free. There are no ads. It collects no personal data. Everything runs locally on your phone.