Astrocat

Astrocat: A love letter to my cat, turned into a cosmic match-3 adventure where every achievement tells her story.

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What it does

SuperTres//Astrocat is a modern match-3 puzzle game built as a Reddit Devvit app, featuring strategic gameplay with multiple game modes, custom challenges, achievement systems, and real-time multiplayer capabilities. Players match colorful planets and celestial objects on a grid to clear levels, unlock achievements, and compete in user-created challenges. The game includes power-ups, scoring multipliers, and adaptive difficulty that scales with player progress.

The app integrates seamlessly with Reddit's ecosystem, allowing users to create and share custom challenges with the community, track their progress through a comprehensive trophy system, and engage in social gameplay features.

How we built it

We built SuperTres using a modern web technology stack optimized for Reddit's Devvit platform:

  • Frontend: Phaser.js game engine with TypeScript for the match-3 gameplay mechanics
  • UI Framework: Custom responsive layouts with Tailwind CSS for cross-device compatibility
  • Backend: Node.js serverless functions for data persistence, challenge management, and image uploads
  • Database: Redis for real-time data storage and leaderboard management
  • Hosting: Reddit Devvit platform for seamless integration with Reddit posts and communities

The architecture follows a client-server pattern with the webview handling game logic and the server managing persistent data and social features.

Challenges we ran into

Several challenges emerged during development, especially since I had no prior coding knowledge and had to rely on iteration after iteration (at one point, the game went through over 280 updates just to get it stable):

Responsive Design: Making the game look and feel consistent across mobile, tablet, and desktop while keeping HUD elements clean and touch-friendly.

Trial & Error Development: Without a coding background, every small change required testing, breaking, and fixing, turning the process into a crash course in game dev.

Achievement System: Designing a reliable system that tracks progress across different modes and sessions while also carrying a personal story.

Custom Challenges: Allowing user-generated levels in a safe way, keeping the fun intact while preventing exploits or unfair setups.

Performance Optimization: Maintaining smooth 60fps gameplay on lower-end devices despite the visual effects and animations.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're particularly proud of several innovative features:

  1. Dynamic Challenge System: Users can create fully customizable challenges with specific objectives, game modes, and visual themes
  2. Comprehensive Achievement System: A detailed trophy collection with 4 different planets, each with unique stories and unlock conditions
  3. Adaptive UI: A responsive design system that automatically adjusts to different screen sizes and orientations
  4. Power-up System: Strategic gameplay enhancements that players can collect and use tactically
  5. Integration Quality: Seamless Reddit integration that feels native to the platform while providing rich gaming features

What we learned

Through building SuperTres, we gained valuable insights in several areas:

  1. Reddit Devvit Ecosystem: Deep understanding of Reddit's app development platform, its limitations, and best practices for social gaming
  2. Game Balance: The importance of careful difficulty scaling and power progression in puzzle games
  3. User-Generated Content: Managing community-created content while maintaining game integrity
  4. Cross-Platform Development: Techniques for building consistent experiences across vastly different device capabilities
  5. Performance Optimization: Advanced techniques for maintaining smooth gameplay on resource-constrained environments

What's next for Astrocat

Future development plans for Astrocat (formerly SuperTres) include both technical improvements and community-driven features:

Enhanced Multiplayer: Tournament brackets and guild-based competitions to foster long-term engagement.

Advanced Challenge Types: Seasonal events, limited-time puzzles, and player-created challenge playlists.

Economy System: Cosmetic customization and in-game currency to reward creativity and progression.

Personal Touch: Continue weaving Lenteja’s story into achievements while opening the door for players to immortalize their own pets as unlockable trophies.

Astrocat started as a love letter to my cat and a project built by someone with zero coding background (but 280+ updates worth of persistence). We’re excited to keep evolving it into a unique blend of puzzle gameplay, storytelling, and community creativity within the Reddit ecosystem

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