Introduction
Onirya is an onchain idle game created during the Somnia testnet phase as a side project, with a clear goal: provide a simple and engaging way for users to interact with the blockchain, test its capabilities, and meaningfully spend testnet tokens.
Beyond its product purpose, Onirya was also conceived as a hands-on project to actively develop my coding skills. I used it as a practical environment to design, build, and iterate on a real product while deepening my understanding of front-end development, onchain interactions, and system architecture. The project is still actively evolving.
Rather than building a technical demo, the ambition was to design a real product experience that felt accessible, coherent, and engaging, while exercising core blockchain primitives such as transactions, persistence, and state updates.
Context & Opportunity
During Somnia’s testnet phase, users needed practical and engaging ways to interact with the blockchain beyond basic tooling, generate real transaction activity, experiment with onchain interactions in a low-risk environment, and spend testnet tokens in a meaningful, repeatable way.
Idle games presented a natural opportunity due to their simple mechanics, clear progression loops, high interaction frequency, and strong compatibility with onchain persistence.
Onirya was conceived as a playful yet functional layer on top of the testnet, bridging experimentation and product thinking.
Landing
Objective
As the designer and builder of the project, my objectives were to create an idle game that feels like a real product rather than a testnet demo, enable users to interact with Somnia through frequent and low-friction transactions, design a scalable progression system that could evolve over time, abstract blockchain complexity behind a clear and readable UX, and continuously ship and iterate while observing real user behavior.
Social post
Process
Exploration & Design
The project started with exploration around idle and incremental game mechanics, transaction-heavy interaction patterns, and UX approaches that minimize friction while remaining explicit about onchain actions.
The goal was to keep the experience calm, intuitive, and approachable, even for users new to onchain products.
Game & System Design
Onirya was designed as a system-first product structured around dream worlds and progression layers, timers and idle mechanics encouraging return visits, and resources and artifacts directly tied to onchain actions.
Each action was intentionally mapped to a blockchain interaction, ensuring that gameplay translated into real testnet usage.
UX & Onchain Integration
A key focus was making blockchain interactions understandable without being intrusive. This involved clear feedback for transactions and state changes, thoughtful loading and confirmation states, and UX patterns that made persistence feel natural rather than technical.
The result is an experience where users can interact with the blockchain through play without requiring prior technical knowledge.
Dashboard
Challenges & Learnings
Challenges
Designing an engaging loop while keeping interactions lightweight, balancing transaction frequency with UX fluidity, and shipping and iterating quickly as a solo project within testnet constraints.
Learnings
Idle games are an effective entry point for onchain interaction, product thinking matters as much as technical execution even on testnet, and clear UX dramatically lowers the barrier to blockchain experimentation.
Onchain activity
Results
Onirya successfully achieved its initial goals and became a widely used product during the Somnia testnet phase.
Key results:
120K+ unique players interacting with the Somnia testnet
900K+ onchain transactions generated directly through gameplay actions
A high-frequency, real-world testnet usage case driven by an idle gameplay loop
The project continues to evolve. Onirya is currently being prepared for deployment on mainnet, with the goal of extending the experience beyond testnet and exploring long-term progression, persistence, and product scalability.
Beyond the metrics, the project served as a practical testnet playground, providing valuable insights into user behavior, transaction patterns, progression pacing, and UX expectations.
More importantly, Onirya demonstrated that onchain interactions can be approachable, engaging, and product-driven, even in an experimental environment, when UX and systems design are treated as first-class concerns.
Conclusion
Onirya started as a side project but evolved into a long-running product used both as a testnet application and as a personal learning ground. It continues to be actively developed, serving as a space to experiment with game design, UX, and onchain architecture while steadily improving my coding skills through real-world application.
Onchain leaderboard
About
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