PortfolioMon Showdown

Kevin's portfolio at www.kevinliu.studio, a turn-based battle game where each project is a fighter with types, stats and moves. A from-scratch redesign that turns each project into a full-art trading card started on 2026-10-30 and is not live yet.

• Site: https://www.kevinliu.studio returned 200 on 2026-11-03 with the title "PortfolioMon Showdown — Kevin Liu". The apex, kevinliu.biz and kevin-liu.tech return 308 to it. Since 2026-10-30 the same site also answers at https://portfoliomon.kevinliu.studio. Source: curl -sI and curl -s, 2026-11-03; Personal-Website memory previous-site-easter-egg
• Repo: https://github.com/Kevin-Liu-01/PortfolioMon-Showdown, public, 2 stars. Its homepage field still says kliu.vercel.app. Source: gh repo view, 2026-11-03
• Stack: Next.js 16.2, React 19.2, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS 3, Framer Motion 12 and NextAuth 4, deployed as the Vercel project kevin-portfolio in Kevin's personal team. Source: package.json; Personal-Website memory previous-site-easter-egg
• Commits: 105 on main; the last, on 2026-10-16, generated the favicon and touch icons. Source: git log origin/main, 2026-11-03
• Status: live and frozen. Work goes into the redesign. Source: git log; Personal-Website memory portfolio-redesign-bar

The live site

Projects are "PortfolioMons" with types, stats and moves. A visitor picks a team of three, or a random one, and fights a CPU opponent in turn-based combat. The type chart is custom (AI beats Data, Web beats Mobile), moves can burn, poison, stun or put a fighter to sleep, and items such as an "API Key" potion and a "Debugger" antidote change a battle. An auto-battler plays for the visitor, and a battle log records every turn. Source: README.md "Key Features"

The site is also the directory of every project Kevin has linked from it, which is why he keeps it after the redesign. Source: Personal-Website memory previous-site-easter-egg

The redesign

• Where: the private repo Kevin-Liu-01/Kevin-Portfolio, checked out at ~/Documents/ChatGPT/Personal Website on the local branch claude/katagami-redesign. Round builds, judges' notes and the resume note STATE.md are in ~/Documents/ChatGPT/portfolio-design-rounds/2026-10-30/. Source: git branch, 2026-11-03; STATE.md
• The hook: Kevin asked for "one key theme visual hook" that shows off his coolest projects and "the things that make them special". PortfolioMon became that hook. Each project is a card: a framed art window the subject breaks out of, a full-card background in the project's own hue, and moves that explain the product's real features. Source: Personal-Website memory portfolio-redesign-bar, 2026-10-30 to 2026-11-01
• Battles: two modes on one engine. Card mode plays on a card mat with cutscenes and call-outs, and an isometric mode uses eight original trainer characters. Source: Personal-Website memory portfolio-redesign-bar, 2026-11-01
• Sound: generated sound effects and music, with a signature per card. Sound starts after the first tap or key and stays off under reduced motion. Source: STATE.md, 2026-11-01
• Roster: Kevin picked 18 projects on 2026-10-30, calling them "my kevinliu.studio domain projects": private page, private page, private page, private page, private page, private page, Local Search CLI, private page, Loop, private page, private page, private page, Princeton Powerlifting, private page, private page, private page, Princeton Tower Defense and Kevin-Wiki. On 2026-11-01 he added seven more, among them Sandbox Arena, Sigil UI, Podium and OMMC, plus a card for Prototemplate's Atlas magazine. Source: Personal-Website memories portfolio-redesign-bar and owner-rights-decisions

Kevin's rules for the redesign

• Lead with designed work: products, interfaces, engines, type, games and shaders. Never his paintings. Source: portfolio-redesign-bar memory, 2026-10-30
• Copy the trading-card system's anatomy and draw every part new. No franchise names, marks, symbols, fonts or card geometry. Source: portfolio-redesign-bar memory, 2026-10-31
• Card art leads with one big hero subject. On 2026-11-03 he picked a Claude of Tanks card with one lead tank firing through smoke over a version with three smaller tanks that scored better on legibility. Source: portfolio-redesign-bar memory, 2026-11-03
• Every page ships an og:video share loop. Source: portfolio-redesign-bar memory, 2026-10-30
• No names or photos of real people on the cards. bday.land appears only as its demo island. Source: owner-rights-decisions memory

Launch steps

At launch the apex and www domains move to the new Vercel project. The unpushed branch claude/own-domain in ~/repos/PortfolioMon-Showdown then moves the old site's canonical address, sitemap and llms.txt to portfoliomon.kevinliu.studio, and the new site keeps one hidden way into it. Source: Personal-Website memory previous-site-easter-egg

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Timeline

• 2026-11-03 | Page rewritten from the repos, the redesign's memory and live checks. Kevin picked the one-hero Claude of Tanks card art. private page
• 2026-11-01 | The roster grew to 25 projects plus an Atlas card. Kevin asked for each card's real product logo, its own hue, card and isometric battle modes, and sound. Source: portfolio-redesign-bar memory; STATE.md
• 2026-10-31 | Kevin asked for cards at the production level of the best modern trading cards and sent a wall of references. Source: portfolio-redesign-bar memory
• 2026-10-30 | Kevin started the redesign and picked 18 projects. The live site was added at portfoliomon.kevinliu.studio so it can stay up after the redesign takes www. Source: portfolio-redesign-bar and previous-site-easter-egg memories
• 2026-10-16 | Last commit on main: favicon, touch and manifest icons. Source: git log
• 2026-10-08 | The portfolio moved to www.kevinliu.studio; kevinliu.biz and kevin-liu.tech redirect to it, and kevinliu.biz auto-renew is off. Source: ~/repos/outputs/cost-domain-20261008/audit.md
• 2026-07-01 | The site's card #009 described itself: "a fully playable turn-based battle game inspired by Pokemon Showdown, where every fighter is a real project." Source: raw/sites/kevinliu-biz-2026-07-01/portfolio-projects.json
• 2026-05-31 | Page created from the repo README. Source: kevin-portfolio README, 2026-05-31