Developing minipaths
minipaths is a small procedural roguelike — short runs, generated layouts, and just enough systems to make a single path feel different every time. It deploys to the edge on Deno Deploy, so there's no build server to babysit and no container to keep warm.
Play minipaths above, or open it in a new tab.
procedural, but bounded
The first version generated wide-open maps and they were boring — too much space, not enough decisions. The trick was to generate narrow: a run is a handful of connected paths, not an open field. Constraints make the randomness legible. You can hold a whole run in your head, which is the point.
seeded runs
Generation is fully seeded. Same seed, same run — which makes bugs reproducible and makes it trivial to share an interesting layout. The seed is the entire save file. No server-side state, nothing to sync.
deno deploy as the whole backend
There's no separate API. The same Deno runtime serves the client and handles
the few things that genuinely need a server. Edge cold starts are fast enough
that runs feel instant, and "deploy" is a git push. For a game this size,
that's the right amount of infrastructure: almost none.
what's next
More path archetypes, a proper meta-progression layer, and a daily seed so everyone plays the same run. The core loop is small on purpose — the work now is adding depth without adding sprawl.