Blocktide - Hackathon Submission

Inspiration

Panel de Pon (Tetris Attack) was my childhood obsession. When I discovered Reddit's Devvit platform, I saw a chance to bring that nostalgic gameplay to a new audience—playable directly inside Reddit posts, no downloads needed.

Building a polished puzzle game used to take months of solo grinding. With AI-assisted coding, I could finally ship a dream project instead of letting it collect dust in a "someday" folder.

What it does

Blocktide is a match-3 puzzle game where you swap adjacent blocks while the board continuously rises from below. Chain reactions multiply your score—set up cascades and watch blocks fall into new matches.

Three game modes:

Classic: Horizontal swaps only, pure Panel de Pon experience
Casual: Swap in any direction for relaxed gameplay
Puzzle: Community puzzles with move limits

Each mode has daily, weekly, and all-time leaderboards tied to Reddit accounts. Colorblind-accessible with shape overlays on every block.

How we built it

Phaser.js for the game engine, running a 60Hz tick system for deterministic logic. Express backend on Devvit's serverless platform with Redis for leaderboards.

AI pair programming accelerated everything. Instead of spending hours debugging timing edge cases or wrestling with platform constraints, I could describe problems and iterate quickly. The AI helped implement chain detection, optimize mobile performance, and build the responsive layout system. It's not about AI writing the game—it's about removing friction so side projects actually ship.

Challenges we ran into

Chain system complexity: Detecting when falling blocks create new matches, and only then incrementing the chain multiplier. Lots of edge cases.
Mobile touch targets: Match-3 needs big buttons on small screens. Built a dynamic zone system that scales to any device.
Android WebGL performance: Glow effects killed frame rates. Added device detection to disable them selectively.
Balancing tension: The rising board needed a "mercy bonus"—extra pause time when you're about to lose—to feel challenging but fair.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Shipped a complete game with three modes, leaderboards, and a puzzle creator
Frame-perfect feel that matches the arcade original
Accessibility support (colorblind shapes) built in from day one
Runs smoothly on both mobile and desktop
Clean architecture that made adding new modes straightforward

What we learned

Classic arcade games used fixed timesteps for a reason—deterministic logic matters for puzzle games. Variable frame rates break timing; 60Hz ticks don't.

AI-assisted development isn't about replacing the developer. It's about having a pair programmer who can help you move faster through the tedious parts so you can focus on what makes your game unique.

Also: 8% of males are colorblind. Accessibility isn't optional.