Daily Ricochet

Charge, ricochet through invisible walls, and reveal a hidden Reddit image. Guess which subreddit it's from! A new daily puzzle, same challenge for everyone.

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Inspiration

We wanted to create a daily puzzle game that combines the satisfaction of physics-based movement with the discovery and community aspects of Reddit. Inspired by games like Wordle and daily puzzles that bring people together, we envisioned a game where everyone faces the same challenge each day.

What it does

Daily Ricochet drops you into an 18x18 invisible maze. Hold to charge your power (1-4), release to move, and ricochet off walls with decreasing momentum. Each collision reveals the wall you hit and uncovers part of a hidden image sourced from Reddit's front page. Navigate through vortex teleporters, find the exit, then guess which subreddit the image came from in 3 attempts. Everyone gets the same daily puzzle with a unique starting position.

How we built it

Built entirely on Reddit's Devvit platform using TypeScript. The game uses a seeded random generator for consistent daily puzzles, custom canvas rendering for the maze and effects, and Redis for persistent state. We implemented smooth animations for teleportation, collision feedback, and image reveal mechanics.

Challenges we ran into

Balancing maze difficulty was tricky - too easy and it's boring, too hard and it's frustrating. We also had to optimize rendering performance for mobile devices and handle edge cases with the ricochet physics when hitting corners.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The teleporter animation system with spiral effects, the satisfying "thunk" when hitting walls, and the image reveal mechanic that rewards exploration. The game feels polished and fun to play.

What we learned

Deep dive into Devvit's capabilities, canvas-based game development, and the importance of playtesting for puzzle difficulty tuning.

What's next for Daily Ricochet

Leaderboards for daily, weekly, and monthly rankings. Post hunt bonus for finding the exact Reddit post. More community features to encourage discussion around each day's puzzle.

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