Interview with the masterball developers

Before we dive into the deeper topics surrounding masterball and the background of the platform, let’s start with the people behind it.

Who are you, and what are your roles at masterball?

Lucas: My name is Lucas, and I’m the UI/UX designer and front-end developer behind masterball. I prepare the designs for development and come up with most of the fundamental UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) elements. This includes both the visual design of the platform’s individual components and the underlying user flow. As a front-end developer, I also actively implement many of the visual elements on the platform and ensure that they function and look right on all possible devices. I’m also responsible for masterball’s branding.

In my role, I also develop the broad concepts and final decisions regarding trainer customization and achievements, as well as the details of progression (trainer level scaling and XP for cards) and much more related to UX. I also populate the HQ website with content, prepare marketing materials, and write for our blog, among other things. In short: a whole lot of different things!

Sebastian: I’m Sebastian, and my responsibilities at masterball are very diverse. Primarily, I handle the technical architecture of the application. This includes backend development, so I define what the application can do and how it should handle different scenarios. In addition, I’m responsible for our infrastructure, which means I make sure our applications are (hopefully) always accessible and functioning properly.

Together with Lucas, I also brainstorm new ideas and concepts on how we can keep making masterball even better.

How did the idea to develop masterball come about?

Sebastian: It was a really funny situation actually. Lucas and I got back into the Pokémon TCG hobby a few years ago. Malicious gossip has it that I got Lucas hooked on Pokémon again with my enthusiasm. When we started collecting again—I think it was with the popular Scarlet and Violet 151 set—we looked for ways to digitize our collection. For example, when we were on the go, we wanted to be able to check digitally which cards we actually had in our collection and which ones we were still missing to complete a Master or even Grandmaster set. Of course, we were also on the lookout for solutions and apps, but none of them ever really worked for us. So one day at the office, I said to Lucas, “Why don’t we just do this ourselves?”, which he replied to with, “Yeah, good question. Let’s just do it ourselves.” This was probably the starting point for what eventually became masterball.

Did you have any specific sources of inspiration that motivated you or served as a guide?

Lucas: There were various services that we, as Pokémon fans, had used ourselves, but at a certain point, they just weren’t cutting it anymore. Of course, these services also served as the basic idea and inspiration; we then layered our own ideas on top of them and developed our concept from there. It was important to us that we didn’t just pick a nice, existing design language and stick with it, but that we build something ourselves and thereby create our own unique identity.

Visually, there are relatively few sources of inspiration, but we find minimalist sites particularly exciting and quickly found ourselves drawn to that kind of design. Starting with the “Untitled UI” framework—which I found to be a great starting point and whose icons we use in part. Apart from that, as you can easily see, masterball is only available in dark mode; that was something I decided on very early on. Beyond that, we’re always on the lookout for new inspiration, whether through technology websites, individual projects by developers, or on social media.

When you compare masterball to other websites, what sets you apart?

Sebastian: If you look at most services, you quickly realize that real networking with other Pokémon fans just isn’t possible. Instead, it’s all about your own collection or your own deck. But what used to make it so exciting when I was a little boy was trading and comparing cards. On top of that, we have a really sophisticated gamification system that rewards me for good pulls and other achievements. I earn experience points when I add cards to my collection, and I receive badges, emblems, titles, and frames when I collect a set of different cards. This lets me represent myself even better on masterball as a true Pokémon Trainer and draw other trainers’ attention to me. One more thing I’d like to mention here: We want to continue developing masterball in close collaboration with the community. So if you’d like to actively help shape the platform, feel free to join our Discord server and support us with feedback and ideas.

Lucas: Personally, I see the community we want to build with masterball as the greatest value proposition. Not just on social media and Discord, but right on the platform itself—designed as an integral part of it from the very beginning. It’s practically the missing ingredient when you compare it to a simple checklist for Pokémon cards. At the same time, it’s so obvious, because Pokémon is meant to bring people together. That’s what it did back when we were young—we bought booster packs together, traded, and compared our collections with each other. Bringing this feeling back to the online world feels like the biggest opportunity for us with masterball.

Which feature are you most excited about?

Sebastian: I don’t think I can narrow it down to just one feature. If I had to pick one, I’d probably go with decks. But what I’m most looking forward to is the moment when we can officially release masterball and are “feature-complete” for the first iteration. Just a quick disclaimer up front: As a developer, software is never truly finished, and that’s part of the beauty of it. We want to keep working on features even after the release to offer you a great Pokémon experience far into the future.

Lucas: Aside from the community—which is ultimately probably more of a unique selling point than a feature—I’m most looking forward to the decks. I especially enjoy building my own decks, because I really get to know many cards and their properties when I’m actively looking for the right synergy for my deck. As a result, many abilities, moves, and items have already become second nature to me.

Are there things that you found particularly easy or particularly difficult?

Lucas: That’s a tough question: I think the easiest part for me was working out the card XP that each card gets, because it was so much fun and quickly led to a great result. That’s also a part I’m especially proud of, even though it looks very simple from the outside. What I found most difficult was the Trainer profile, because there are so many ideas there that I think are cool and would love to implement, but they simply don’t fit into the concept; not fully. Plus, this is the area that will inevitably grow with every new feature, so it will need to be refined over and over again. Ultimately, though, I’m very satisfied with the final ideas—even though, at this point, they’re still just designs and concepts.

Sebastian: I found the decisions regarding the platform’s infrastructure and architecture particularly easy to make. What posed a bit of a challenge for me, though, was the gamification system. As well as it works now, the more heart and soul I poured into it, the more it tested my nerves. But I’m more than convinced it was worth it. Above all, I’m particularly proud of masterball’s flexibility—not just when it comes to the gamification system.