VKube Case study — Tetriverse NFT Game

How the Tetriverse team used VKube to deploy the Tetriverse NFT game, saving up to 70% in deployment costs

Published in

V Systems

6 min readMar 26, 2024

Tetriverse, a Tetris-like NFT game built on the VSYS chain, has been using the VSYS VKube Kubernetes-based containerization platform to deploy its containers i.e., the bundles of the Tetriverse application’s code with all the files and libraries needed to run.

Departing from a self-managed Kubernetes (K8s) solution, which can be time-consuming and subjected to frequent manual updates, the Tetriverse team opted for a container-based architecture, along with Kubernetes as the orchestration layer. This can ensure development flexibility, time and cost-effectiveness, and microservices architecture.

About VKube

VKube is a Kubernetes-based container service for developers and enterprises to run containerized applications on the cloud. It is affordable, easy to use, and efficient.

How VKube benefited Tetriverse

Deployment costs cut by over 70% (based on competitors’ average fees)
Flexible service duration from 1 hour up, renewable
Enabled microservices architecture despite budget restrictions
Supporting micropayments with VSYS tokens and PayPal
Flexible operations

Tetriverse — Background situation

Tetriverse is a light game for browsers

Tetriverse is a light, Tetris-like game that can be played on a browser. Built on the VSYS chain, it adopts a native tokenomics, comprising TET tokens and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

While it can host thousands of users, Tetriverse is a relatively small application that does not require complex deployment and development functionalities.

The team needed a flexible microservices architecture

Despite being light and simple, the Tetriverse team was looking to build a microservices architecture for the game. A microservices framework is an architectural style for developing applications by breaking down the app into smaller independent parts, responsible for different functions.

Unlike monolithic architectures, updates and amendments to a part of the application can be performed independently of the other parts, and subsequently (and easily) broadcasted to other components.

Yet, microservices can be expensive and time-consuming — yet, affordability and ease of use were requirements advanced by the Tetriverse team.

The team had limited resources for development and maintenance

Given internal prioritization and limited resources, the Tetriverse team was looking for affordable services to deploy the game. Furthermore, given the limited size of the team, the Tetriverse developers could not manage complex architectures requiring several pairs of hands to be deployed and maintained.

The team needed to keep development costs under control

Finally, the team was looking to avoid subscription-based services to maximize the degree of control exerted over game development.

Drawing upon these needs, the Tetriverse team opted for VKube, VSYS' latest product on the VSYS chain. To manage costs, the team decided to independently deploy the services through the VKube online dashboard, with close assistance from the VSYS VKube team.

By adopting VKube, the Tetriverse team achieved:

Increased flexibility with microservices architecture
Cost-effective deployment — up to 70% more convenient than with competitor platforms
Kept deployment costs under control

1. Increased flexibility with microservices architecture

In recent years, more and more games have started to adopt microservices architectures — an alternative to monolithic frameworks — to achieve flexibility.

Driven by similar needs, Tetriverse was looking to launch the game with two goals in mind:

Create a highly flexible gaming platform, ready to scale up according to user growth;
Ensure a high-quality gaming experience with minimized latency and jittering, ready to handle peak usage times.

The team decided to build a microservices architecture for the game. Microservices are autonomously developed and independently deployable components of software, communicating over well-defined APIs. Thanks to loose coupling and high cohesion, microservices can help projects enable flexible scalability and high availability.

Supported by the VKube team at VSYS, Tetriverse autonomously deployed containers for the game’s backend and frontend, as well as for storing game usage data and other analytics short- and long-term.

As the team is working towards the official release of the game (preliminarily scheduled in May 2024), different versions have been polished and re-uploaded with optimized functionalities and fixed bugs. After upgrading the game, the team re-deployed it with just one click on the VKube dashboard, either by selecting “Renew” the same configuration, or “Deploy” a new one.

The current microservice framework of the Tetriverse

Tetriverse’s microservice framework after the development of the Tetriverse mobile version

Given VKube’s convenient and flexible pricing, the team could experiment with the game without fear of incurring unexpected, high costs.

2. Achieved cost-effective deployment — up to 70% more convenient than with competitor platforms

While relatively burdensome in the initial stage of a project due to their inherent modularity, in the long run, microservices tend to be more cost-effective than monolithic architectures. This is why the Tetriverse team decided to embrace microservices from the get-go, a decision that was facilitated by VKube’s flexible deployment and easy-to-use platform.

Out of the two payment solutions — VSYS tokens, USDV tokens, and USD via PayPal — the Tetriverse team decided to use VSYS tokens to deploy the game. The decision was driven by one main reason: by paying with VSYS, the team could deploy services for less than 1 USD — the minimum amount required to perform a transaction with PayPal. Given VKube’s minimum hourly fee of 0.002 USD, the team could perform testing at ultra-convenient pricing, and for one-off deployment too. Overall, the total spending for the deployment of the game amounted to less than 85 USD per month, with no flat fee required for cluster creation.

The team at Tetriverse managed to save over 70% in deployment, compared to similar configurations with competitor services.

3. Kept development costs under control, easily

In the past, the Tetriverse team had negative experiences with subscription-based service platforms.

Often, the automatic renewal of dormant subscriptions would burden the project with extra, unwanted costs. Sometimes, the team was forced to pay for additional yet unnecessary services included in the subscription package, with no option to break down and self-manage the costs.

With VKube, the Tetriverse team effectively managed to keep their costs under control by deploying the containers one by one and of flexible, renewable duration.

About V Systems

V Systems (VSYS) is an open-source network that supports decentralized applications’ efficient and agile development. It is designed for real-world use cases, making it possible to create, send, trade, and track tangible or intangible assets in a digital form. VSYS can handle millions of transactions daily and it runs on a decentralized, open network.

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