Building social loops in a Telegram mini game: clans and raids

Tap Tim is a free mini game that runs inside Telegram. You hatch a robot named Tim from an egg, tap to grow him, and guide him through 10 different forms. Tapping is the core action, so everything else is built to give those taps a shared purpose.

The first social layer is clans. A clan is just a group of players with a shared identity and a common roster. Design-wise, it answers a simple question: why would I open the game again today? Because my clan is there. Technically, a clan is a record with members, and each player holds one clan id.

The second layer is raids on bosses. A boss is a shared target that the whole clan works on together. Taps from members are added to the same progress bar, so even a casual player contributes something. The implementation idea is simple: store boss state on the server, add each member's contribution, and show the result when the boss falls.

Telegram helps a lot here. Players are already inside the messenger, so there is no install step, and sharing a start link with a friend takes a few seconds. Deep links with a start parameter let you see which invitation brought a player in, without extra accounts.

If you want to see how this feels in practice, try the bot: https://t.me/NeuroTimBot?start=src_devto2 . More details about the game are on the about page: https://ofd.unlock-rent.ru/timtapbot/about/en/ . Feedback on clan and raid design is welcome.