Career Quest Map

Career Quest Map - Turning uncertainty into direction, one quest at a time.

Inspiration

Many Singapore youths face the pressure of choosing a course or career long before they truly understand themselves. We were especially struck by insights showing that 40–44% of youths remain uncertain about their career prospects, and that skill-fit and meaningful work are among the strongest drivers of career satisfaction. We asked ourselves: What if discovering your strengths didn’t feel like a test? What if planning your future felt like an adventure instead of a stressful decision? That question inspired Career Quest Map - a game-inspired journey that transforms self-discovery into play.

What it does

Career Quest Map is an AI-guided desktop app where the user plays as an Explorer. They begin in the Training Grounds, completing short challenge gates that reveal their strengths, interests, and work style. Based on their results, three career districts unlock on a map, such as Cyber District or Design Dock, each containing:

Why it fits them
Example real-world roles
Relevant poly diplomas and uni degrees from a curated dataset To make exploration practical, each district generates a Quest Log:
One micro-quest for this week
One mini project for this month
One real milestone (e.g., shortlist diplomas, attend open house) The goal: convert confusion into clear next steps.

How we built it

We designed the system around a clear three-stage flow:

Discover: deterministic scoring system for Strength, Interest, and Work Style tags
Choose Route: rule-based matching to unlock the top 3 districts
Next Actions: AI-generated Quest Logs that stay within safe constraints

Our game layer uses:

Simple animations (gate lights, map glow)
Progression mechanics (badges, Explorer levels)
Curated education-route data to prevent hallucination
LLM prompts are strictly limited to explanation, personalization, and quest generation

This makes the experience feel like a game while still being feasible within hackathon constraints.

Challenges we ran into

Balancing game feel vs. realistic scope: We wanted it to feel immersive without building a full game engine.
Avoiding LLM hallucination: We prevented AI from inventing diplomas/degrees by forcing all recommendations to come from a curated dataset.
Designing the scoring logic: Mapping every question to Strength/Interest/Work Style tags required careful tuning.
Creating meaningful quests: We wanted actions that felt achievable yet genuinely helpful.
Time pressure: Making an experience that feels polished in one week pushed us to simplify aggressively.

What we learned

Youths don’t want to be told what to study; they want to discover themselves first.
Simple gamification (maps, badges, unlocks) can meaningfully increase engagement.
AI works best not when it decides for users, but when it explains, supports, and guides.
Clear constraints make AI safer and more predictable.
The biggest challenge is not technology but designing for clarity and confidence.

Career Quest Map is just the beginning. We want every youth to feel less lost and more like an explorer ready for their next quest.