At Builders Garden, we’ve decided to focus on building mini-apps for the next six months. Mini-apps are a perfect fit for our development style—we’re hackers, we love hackathons, and we ship fast. They let us test ideas quickly, simplify distribution, and accelerate development cycles. No app store approvals, no downloads - just instant access within platforms users already trust. And if an idea gains traction, we can scale it into a standalone product.

With a team of eight, we can build and ship two mini-apps in parallel each cycle. For this first cycle, we’re focusing on Farville, a game that’s already live in Alpha, and betttr, a social sports betting app.

Before diving into them, here’s a quick overview of the two ecosystems we’re focusing on for mini-app development: Farcaster and Worldcoin.

Farcaster Frames

Originally launched in Jan 2024, Frames let developers build interactive apps inside the Farcaster feed - allowing user identification, wallet connections, and both on- and offchain actions.

Farcaster recently released Frames v2, a new version of Frames introducing:

• A full-screen interactive canvas powered by HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

• Fast, reliable mobile wallet transactions

• Easy saving, searching, and discovery of Frames

• Native mobile notifications

• Farcaster-native actions like follows and channel invites

• Built-in developer attribution

This unlocks much greater potential for interactive apps within Farcaster, leveraging the existing social feed for in-app functionality.

Recently, it was announced that the Coinbase Wallet team is integrating the Farcaster social feed, making it possible to interact with Farcaster and Frames directly from the CB wallet. This is huge news because it means an even greater distribution from day one for Frames. It’s the missing link between app developers, like us, and new users coming onchain. We can’t wait to see and use our apps on Coinbase Wallet!

Worldcoin mini-apps

World App allows third-party developers to build native-like mini apps, unlocking access to a rapidly growing user base and new monetization opportunities. Similarly to Farcaster Frames, these mini-apps run inside World App via webview. With the MiniKit SDK, developers can create seamless, native-like experiences that integrate directly with the World ecosystem.

The user metrics on World Mini Apps look promising, and the experience within the World App is super smooth.

Our goal is to build cross-platform mini-apps that work seamlessly on both Farcaster and World App. To make this happen, we’re developing an internal starter kit that ensures mini-apps are compatible with both ecosystems from day one. The plan is to finalize it and then release it open-source for developers.

What about Telegram mini-apps?

Well, Telegram recently announced that their mini-apps and bots should be built exclusively on their proprietary TON blockchain (learn more here). We surely didn’t appreciate this move, as many others in the ecosystem, as it goes in the direction of building a closed ecosystem. Thus we decided to avoid building Telegram mini-apps for now.

Farville: Farming Simulation Game on Farcaster

FarVille, clearly inspired by the (g)old days of Facebook’s FarmVille, is our first mini-app experiment. It’s a farming simulation game where players can plant, harvest, trade crops, and interact with others—all within Farcaster. Designed to foster community engagement, it integrates social features and incentives that keep users coming back daily.

We launched Farville as a Frame v2 on Warpcast on January 17, rolling out an alpha version that has evolved significantly in the past few weeks. The main goal of the alpha was to iterate based on player feedback, improving the game’s economy, fixing bugs, and refining the overall experience.

Key Insights from Farville Alpha

Farville quickly gained traction, reaching over 2,000 daily active users (DAU) out of 7,671 registered players. Engagement levels have been strong, with 84% of users planting crops daily, and over 33,185 daily quests completed by more than 2,500 players. The in-game economy saw pumpkin leading as the most planted crop, followed by potato and corn. Social features played a big role in player interaction, with thousands of donation requests and completed trades helping the game spread virally across Farcaster.

What Worked Well

One of the biggest wins was the speed at which we shipped and iterated. Players actively provided feedback and bug reports, allowing us to improve the game rapidly. We also successfully created a daily habit, with many users logging in each morning to check on their farms. Interestingly, Farville became an onboarding tool for Farcaster itself, attracting players who engage with the game daily even if they don’t use Warpcast otherwise.

Our social features - such as donation requests, in-game trade channels, and leaderboards - proved effective in driving engagement. Competitiveness emerged naturally, with leaderboards motivating players to optimize their farms. Another surprise was the appreciation for sound design - players loved the soundtrack and effects, which added to the game’s laid-back atmosphere.

What Needs Improvement

Not everything went smoothly. At times, we introduced game updates without fully considering their impact on the economy, leading to imbalances. For example, we initially capped player levels at 20, expecting it to take a month to reach - but players hit the cap in just 10 days. This showed us that level progression should be logarithmic, not linear, and that introducing leagues or seasonal resets could improve long-term engagement.

We also noticed that new players struggle with onboarding. The first playthrough can feel too slow - after planting, fertilizing, and harvesting their first crops, players have to wait six hours before they can engage meaningfully again. A guided tutorial and a better pacing system would help improve retention.

Other areas for improvement include tweaking requests/donations to feel less spammy, adding more rewards and incentives for daily quests, and introducing more “money sinks” to balance the economy. While players optimize for XP to compete on the leaderboard, their coin spending remains low because there aren’t enough compelling reasons to use in-game currency.

Beta Goals & Future Plans

As we move toward the beta phase, we’re focusing on several key improvements:

• Quests Revamp: Daily and weekly quests now offer significantly more XP for lower-value crops, shifting the meta away from maxing out pumpkins. 

• New Level System: Progression is now logarithmic instead of linear, making higher levels more challenging but more rewarding. 

• Daily streaks: We will introduce rewards for players coming back daily, incentivizing habit creation

• Farming Efficiency: We've optimized backend operations to ensure a smoother experience with no more lag.

• Onchain Marketplace: We will introduce an onchain P2P marketplace for players to buy and sell items for profits or utility

• Worldcoin integration, expanding Farville into the Worldcoin ecosystem and exploring new opportunities for growth.

With these updates, we’re aiming to make Farville not just a fun farming game but a more immersive, social, and onchain-powered experience that players keep coming back to.

Betttr: A Social Sports Betting Mini-App on Base

A Social Twist on Sports Betting

Betttr is a social sports betting and prediction market platform—initially launching on Farcaster and later expanding as a Worldcoin mini app built on the Azuro protocol. Its dynamic social features empower users to:

• Bet: Place your bets onchain on Base with USDC on multiple sports and events.

• Share Bet: Use Frames to share your bets with others, allowing them to place the same bet directly from your feed while earning referral bonuses, aka copybetting.

• Engage with the Community: Check out a comprehensive leaderboard featuring player stats, track ongoing bets, and even copy.

• Access Transparent Analytics: Dive into detailed player and bet analytics to showcase your expertise in sports - whether it’s football or a specific league like the NBA.

• Stay Notified: Receive real-time notifications when a player or someone you follow places a bet, with the option to copy it instantly.

…and many more.

Betttr frame pre-save

We're rolling out Betttr in stages. First, from now on you can pre-save the Betttr frame - simply add it to your Warpcast frames. We plan to release the Betttr V1 in March. Enjoy being part of Betttr from the very start:

On the Betttr pre-save, you can place a mock bet on 2 football games. If you win, you'll have a 0% protocol fee for the first 2 weeks once Betttr is live. Share your bet with others on Farcaster, each referral earns you additional leaderboard points.

Why We Are Building Betttr

We decided to build Betttr because we see strong potential for product-market fit in prediction markets and betting apps. There are already great examples like Bracket (10k DAU and $10M volumes) showing strong user metrics. We want to create an app that secures a significant space in terms of user distribution.

We believe that prediction markets and betting apps can see massive growth by integrating social features, making the experience more engaging and interactive so we want to double down on this approach and test these social dynamics with experiments like copy betting or using onchain bet data for building a social leaderboard that validates users' predictive abilities, whether they're forecasting outcomes in general events or excelling in specific categories, like Premier League events.

By utilizing the Azuro protocol, we can significantly shorten development time while offering competitive odds and deep liquidity, advantages that would be nearly impossible to achieve if we had to build an onchain prediction protocol from scratch and rapidly secure liquidity.

Monetization is also clear: a protocol fee on user bets, a proven business model that fits well for this app. 

Build mini-apps with us

Mini-apps are fast, social, and experiment-friendly, and these two are just the beginning. If you’re excited about building or integrating mini-apps, let’s collaborate! Whether you have an idea, want to explore use cases, or just want to jam on what’s next, the garden is always open.

DM us or reach out at gm@builders.garden - let’s build something fun and impactful together 🚀.