PlayDeck is more than a product catalog — it's the core infrastructure behind Telegram's emerging gaming ecosystem. As the platform's leading directory for mini-games and interactive experiences, PlayDeck connects players, developers, and monetization tools across a highly distributed, real-time environment.

When the team behind PlayDeck approached H-Studio, their goal was clear: build a secure, scalable, and modular backend system capable of supporting millions of interactions daily — while deeply integrating with Telegram's ecosystem (bots, Stars tokens, TON payments, and in-chat games).

The challenge was to deliver an enterprise-grade foundation with startup agility — a system ready to handle unpredictable growth without requiring rebuilds later.

Our Challenge

Telegram's ecosystem has over 700 million monthly users and a rapidly growing in-chat gaming scene. To support this scale, PlayDeck needed a backend capable of:

Managing thousands of concurrent players in real time.
Handling continuous communication between bots, users, and games.
Processing payments, achievements, and leaderboard updates within milliseconds.
Scaling horizontally without downtime.
Offering a developer-facing toolkit that makes onboarding and monetization seamless.

In short: real-time architecture, zero downtime, and growth-ready scalability.

Our Approach

We designed and implemented PlayDeck's full backend architecture — from system design and data flow to deployment and monitoring — using a microservices-based architecture focused on speed, isolation, and observability.

Technology Stack

Backend Core: Kotlin, Spring Framework
Networking: Netty for high-efficiency async I/O
Message Processing: Apache Kafka for event streaming
Databases: PostgreSQL + jOOQ ORM for relational data
Analytics & Storage: ClickHouse for large-scale event analytics
Caching & Queues: Redis for leaderboards, caching, and Redis Streams for delayed jobs
Dev Tools: Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines for continuous delivery

System Architecture

We structured the platform as independent, domain-specific services:

User Service — authentication, profiles, and session state
Game Catalog Service — indexing, search, and recommendations
Leaderboard Service — real-time ranking and stats aggregation
Payments Service — integration with TON and Telegram Stars
Notification Service — push events, engagement, reminders
Bot Gateway — secure communication layer between Telegram bots and backend

Each service runs in an isolated container, with load balancing, centralized logging, and auto-scaling via Kubernetes.

Automation & Observability

To ensure transparency and reliability, we implemented full observability:

ELK stack and Grafana for real-time monitoring
Slack-based alerting system for critical events
Distributed tracing for debugging and optimization

Continuous delivery pipelines were built to support rapid iteration without downtime.

Security & Reliability

The architecture was designed with multi-layered security:

Encrypted service-to-service communication
Rate limiting and authentication at API-gateway level
Automated security audits integrated into the CI/CD flow

Integration with Telegram

One of the most technically complex aspects was deep integration with Telegram's internal ecosystem:

Bot API & Inline Games — instant launch of games directly from chat.
TON Payments & Telegram Stars — multi-currency support for in-game purchases.
Deep Linking & Referrals — seamless movement between games and user channels.
Real-Time Messaging — handling thousands of concurrent bot updates per second.

This setup enables real-time synchronization between chat activity, game sessions, and backend systems — effectively turning Telegram into a complete gaming platform.

What We Delivered

A modular, horizontally scalable backend capable of millions of requests per day.
Developer Toolkit: onboarding portal, analytics, and monetization tools for game creators.
High-load infrastructure built with fault tolerance, real-time communication, and instant scaling.
Continuous deployment and observability integrated from day one.
Deep Telegram integration, including TON, Stars, and bot-to-backend communication.
Security-hardened architecture ready for enterprise-grade reliability.

Results

PlayDeck successfully launched and became the backbone of a fast-growing Telegram gaming ecosystem, supporting:

Thousands of games and millions of daily interactions
Sub-200 ms response time under peak load
Zero-downtime deployments
A sustainable foundation for global developer onboarding and in-chat monetization

The system now powers a global community of developers and players who build, share, and play — all within Telegram.

Insights

Scalable infrastructure is the foundation of product-market fit: you can't grow what can't handle growth.
Observability, modular design, and async messaging (Kafka, Redis Streams) dramatically simplify real-time systems.
Startup speed doesn't have to mean technical debt — the right stack makes both possible.

PlayDeck proves that even early-stage products can run on enterprise-level architecture without enterprise-level budgets. By combining modular microservices, event streaming, and automation, H-Studio helped create a platform that scales naturally — a perfect example of "Startup Engineering that Lasts."