Arrival Quest

ArrivalOS is an AI-powered “survival OS” for immigrants and international students combining onboarding, city navigation, community, and live AI guidance into one immersive platform.

Comment

Arrival Quest

GitHub Repository

https://github.com/hj2713/arrival-quest

Inspiration

Moving to a new country feels like entering an open-world game without a tutorial.

Every immigrant or international student faces the same chaotic first weeks:

  • immigration paperwork
  • airport confusion
  • finding housing
  • opening bank accounts
  • getting a SIM card
  • understanding transportation
  • building a social circle
  • adapting to a completely new system

Most existing solutions are fragmented:

  • random PDFs
  • WhatsApp groups
  • Reddit threads
  • expensive consultants
  • outdated university portals

We wanted to reimagine onboarding entirely.

Instead of building another boring checklist app, we built Arrival Quest — an AI-powered immigrant survival system that transforms relocation into a gamified, immersive, and emotionally supportive experience.

The core idea was simple:

“What if moving to a new country felt more like a guided open-world mission than surviving chaos alone?”

What it does

Arrival Quest is an AI-powered onboarding platform for immigrants and international students.

It combines:

  • 🗺️ interactive city maps
  • 🎮 gamified onboarding quests
  • 🤖 AI onboarding companion
  • 🌐 live web intelligence
  • 👥 community discovery
  • 📍 real-time local recommendations

Users progress through onboarding stages like:

  1. Pre-Arrival
  2. Landing (First 72 Hours)
  3. Settling In
  4. Leveling Up

Each stage contains actionable quests such as:

  • immigration & visa setup
  • airport navigation
  • SIM card activation
  • bank account setup
  • housing discovery
  • SSN onboarding
  • credit building
  • CPT/OPT guidance
  • tax onboarding

The platform also includes:

  • live community meetups
  • founder events
  • café meetups
  • city tours
  • study groups
  • local newcomer communities

At the center is Arrival Agent, an AI companion that acts like:

an immigrant mentor + city guide + onboarding concierge.

The AI can:

  • answer newcomer questions
  • provide step-by-step guidance
  • search the live web
  • recommend nearby places
  • suggest safer routes
  • surface real-time events
  • personalize onboarding journeys

How we built it

Frontend

We built the interface using:

  • React
  • TypeScript
  • TailwindCSS
  • Framer Motion
  • Leaflet maps

The UI was intentionally designed to feel cinematic and immersive rather than corporate.

We wanted:

“Duolingo + GTA mission map + cyberpunk onboarding OS.”

AI System

We integrated:

  • Featherless AI
  • DeepSeek-V4-Pro
  • Tavily Search API

The AI architecture combines:

  • static onboarding intelligence
  • real-time web retrieval
  • contextual user state
  • onboarding progress awareness

We implemented:

  • streaming AI responses
  • contextual prompt injection
  • onboarding memory
  • real-time search routing
  • dynamic recommendation systems

Real-Time Web Intelligence

Static onboarding data becomes outdated quickly.

To solve this, we integrated Tavily as the live intelligence layer so the AI can fetch:

  • current events
  • transit updates
  • nearby services
  • local recommendations
  • affordable stores
  • newcomer events
  • dynamic city information

This transformed the assistant from:

“a chatbot”

into:

“a real-time immigrant operating system.”

Challenges we ran into

1. Making onboarding emotional instead of transactional

Most onboarding systems focus only on information.

But immigrants don’t just need instructions.

They need:

  • reassurance
  • structure
  • confidence
  • community
  • emotional support

Designing that emotional layer was one of the hardest parts.

2. Combining static + live intelligence

Some onboarding information is evergreen. Some changes constantly.

We had to design a hybrid architecture where the AI intelligently decides:

  • when static onboarding knowledge is enough
  • when live web search is required

3. Preventing AI hallucinations

Immigration-related guidance can be high-risk.

We built safeguards so the system:

  • avoids legal guarantees
  • emphasizes verification
  • prioritizes trusted sources
  • focuses on safe recommendations

4. Making maps useful instead of decorative

Most onboarding apps use static dashboards.

We wanted the city itself to feel alive.

So we designed:

  • glowing map nodes
  • onboarding quests
  • community hotspots
  • transit intelligence
  • local discovery layers

Balancing immersion with usability was a major design challenge.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Built a fully immersive onboarding experience instead of a traditional app
  • Created a real-time AI onboarding companion for immigrants
  • Integrated live web intelligence using Tavily
  • Designed a gamified progression system for relocation
  • Built a community discovery layer for newcomers
  • Created an emotionally supportive UX rather than a bureaucratic flow
  • Combined maps, AI, quests, and social onboarding into one unified platform

Most importantly:

We built something that makes people feel less alone during one of the biggest transitions of their lives.

What we learned

We learned that immigrant onboarding is not just:

  • a logistics problem
  • a paperwork problem
  • an information problem

It is also:

  • an anxiety problem
  • a loneliness problem
  • a confidence problem

The most powerful technology wasn’t the AI itself.

It was making users feel:

“I can actually figure this out.”

We also learned that AI becomes dramatically more useful when combined with:

  • context
  • geography
  • onboarding state
  • emotional awareness
  • live internet intelligence

What's next for Arrival Quest

We want Arrival Quest to evolve into a full AI-native relocation operating system.

Next steps include:

  • autonomous onboarding workflows
  • multilingual onboarding
  • voice-based AI companion
  • document parsing
  • housing integrations
  • live transit integrations
  • AI-generated relocation plans
  • local mentor systems
  • verified immigrant communities
  • global city expansion

Future versions could proactively help users:

  • navigate bureaucracy
  • discover opportunities
  • build communities
  • adapt culturally
  • settle into entirely new lives

Our long-term vision is simple:

Wherever someone lands in the world, they should never have to figure life out alone.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates