DejaView

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  game over zero score

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  game over partial score

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  Home screen

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  correct order score

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  blank assembly page

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  partial assembly page

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  sample flashcard

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  complete assembly page

Inspiration

I wanted to capture the playfulness of the "daily ritual" games like Wordle, but with a fast-paced, visual twist. The name "DejaView" plays on the idea of seeing something again and using one's memory. Or in this case specifically, trying to recall a fleeting sequence of images. I wanted to build something that felt correct in scope and feel fo Reddit: quick to play, easy to understand, and highly competitive to share in the comments.

What it does

The game generates a unique, randomized sequence of images. Players then watch that sequence of images flash on the screen (at their chosen difficulty) and must repeat the pattern back. Players can play against themselves by improving their current daily score, or competing with others on the leaderboard.

How I built it

The game was built using GameMaker to handle the 2D rendering and logic.

Challenges

I needed to play a bunch of games to finally settle into an idea/concept for the game I wanted to make. There were a couple of ideas I tried out first, but they didn't lend well to GameMaker. I initially started with a completely different idea involving complex 2D physics and vertical frame stacking. However, I quickly realized the physics engine was overkill and prone to bugs for a short hackathon timeline.

Additionally, when developing/loading the leaderboard, it was only working for iOS players at first. It was not working for Android players. For the Android players, it would get stuck loading the leaderboard. Come to find out, the key for a request's "token" on Android was "webbit_token". I discovered this is because GameMaker's template code only accounts for "token", and there's an open issue on GameMaker's GitHub discussing this, so it may change in the future.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

This is my first public hackathon, my first time using GameMaker, and my first time making a flashcard game, so I'm very proud at how much I learned in a short amount of time! I learned a lot about GameMaker, Devvit, vibe coding with Gemini, and all the considerations that go into creating a fun game.

What I learned

• How to use GameMaker
• How to make games for Reddit
• Where to get assets like sprites, fonts, etc. for your game. I mainly used opengameart.org

What's next for DejaView

Next, I would like to implement a couple more features:

1. Daily community challenge of beating the #1 player from the day before.
2. Daily streaks to track how many days in a row a player has beaten the average score or similar.

Built With

• gamemaker