Confused Crow

Inspiration

I was inspired by the old story where a clever crow drops stones into a bottle to raise the water and drink. I thought—what if that didn’t work? What if the bottle had a hole and no matter what the crow did, it was useless? That idea made me laugh, so I decided to build it.

What it does

You play as a crow trying to get water by dropping pebbles into a bottle. The water rises... but the bottle has a leak. You can never win. The game gives you fake hope, sarcastic messages, and lets you feel like you almost made it—then it all falls apart.

How we built it

I built it using the bolt.new template for Reddit, which uses Devvit to let you create Reddit-native games and apps easily. I used React for the front end and added simple logic to handle pebble drops, water level changes, and the silly crow reactions. Bolt made it fast to prototype and get the game working inside Reddit.

Challenges we ran into

At first, I was trying to run it on Firefox, but I ran into a lot of issues and couldn’t get it to work properly. When I switched to Chrome, it finally started working, so it seems like there’s some compatibility problem with Firefox. Another challenge was understanding how game creation actually works on Reddit and figuring out Devvit’s system. I also ran into trouble with Redis not working as expected.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Even though I was using a vibe coding platform, which sometimes misses the point or breaks in funny ways, I still managed to get the game running and make it actually playable. I’m happy that I didn’t give up and was able to turn a silly idea into something real on Reddit.

What we learned

I learned how to use Bolt and Devvit to build apps directly for Reddit. I also learned how to handle weird compatibility issues, and how to design something that is intentionally useless but still engaging.

What's next for Confused Crow

Next, I want to create a proper leaderboard (or "Hall of Shame") using Reddit’s actual Redis storage. Right now, I’m just using local storage as a placeholder. I also want to add more funny items, new crow reactions, and maybe a few useless achievements.

Built With

• bolt.new
• devvit