Inspiration

What if an AI didn’t just assist you… but challenged you?

I wanted to create something more engaging than a typical map or guessing game. Instead of static locations, I imagined an experience where an intelligent entity — Cipher — hides somewhere in the real world, and the player must track it down using observation, logic, and intuition.

The goal was to turn location discovery into something that feels alive, competitive, and slightly unpredictable.

What it does

Find Me is a location-based exploration game where an AI hides in a real-world location, and the player must find it.

Players are given visual clues and must:

Analyze their surroundings Make educated guesses Improve over time

The experience is designed to feel like a cat-and-mouse game between the player and Cipher.

Each round challenges your ability to think geographically, recognize patterns, and make smarter decisions with limited information.

How we built it

The app was built using a combination of modern development tools and AI-assisted workflows:

Game logic and structure designed with AI assistance Map-based exploration mechanics Location seed system for scalable gameplay Pre-generated AI hints and feedback to simulate dynamic interaction Lightweight UI focused on clarity and immersion

Even without heavy API usage, AI played a key role in:

Designing gameplay systems Generating hints and dialogue Shaping the personality of Cipher

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was balancing:

Simplicity vs depth Guidance vs difficulty Static vs dynamic gameplay

Another limitation was restricted access to live AI APIs. To solve this, I designed a system using pre-generated AI content, allowing the experience to still feel intelligent and responsive.

Optimizing performance and keeping the app lightweight while handling map data was also a key challenge.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Creating a unique AI-driven game concept Building a complete playable experience within a short time Designing Cipher as a character, not just a system Making the game feel engaging without requiring heavy backend infrastructure

What we learned

How to design systems with AI as a core concept, not just a feature The importance of user experience in game design How to work within technical and resource constraints How to turn a simple idea into something interactive and scalable

What's next for Find Me

Real-time AI-generated hints using APIs Multiplayer mode (players hide, others search) More diverse locations and difficulty scaling Enhanced animations and immersive UI Social sharing and competitive leaderboards

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Updates

posted an update

Campaign expanded to 310 levels

  • 31 new locations (levels 280–310) across 6 new story arcs: The Quiet Shores, The Island Way, The Eastern Reach, The Crossroads, The Southern Gate, The Last Signal.
  • The campaign now spans 310 real Street View locations and 57 story arcs.

Narrative missions

  • The campaign is grouped into 8 coarse missions, each with a name and description, so every case now sits inside a larger story.
  • Mission name and description shown on the case briefing and in the explore HUD.

Badge detail

  • Tap any badge on your profile for a description, how to earn it, and when you unlocked it.

Notes

  • App loads the latest content from the server at runtime — no re-download needed for future level drops.

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posted an update

XP + Agent Levels — every case earns XP (accuracy bonuses, perfect pins, daily completions, streak milestones). Levels scale from Rookie Agent up to Cipher with a new title at every 5 levels. 16 Achievements — from First Steps and Perfect Score to Streak Master, Legend, and Immortal — with unlock popups that fire the moment you earn them. animated level-up glow, badge-reveal cards, streak milestone popups, and a screen-flash "PERFECT!" moment when you nail a pin. Streak rewards — daily streaks now grow past 5 (score multiplier still capped), unlocking badges and bonus XP at 3/5/7/14/30/60/90/365 days. Daily Challenge unlock gate — the daily sighting unlocks at 100 XP (or 3 friends), with a locked screen showing yellow progress bars so players always know how close they are. Agent Profile page — level, title, XP progress bar, streak counter, and a badges grid, linked from the home screen. Deep-link & sign-in reliability (multiplayer loop fix) Fixed the biggest drop-off in the challenge flow: Session cookies now survive external deep links — a challenge tapped from WhatsApp/email keeps your login via SameSite=Lax, and production HTTPS keeps its secure-cookie integrity. Redirects now return you to the challenge — the middleware's auth bounce correctly carries ?redirect=/challenge/{id}, so after signing in you land back on the match, not home. Sign-in page is mobile-safe — the form scrolls instead of clipping on small screens, with proper banner spacing.

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posted an update

Campaign doubled to 58 locations / 13 narrative arcs. Tracked a second full chapter of the Cipher chase across a fresh continental circuit — 20 new viewer-verified 360° real-world Street View locations. Every location features original anti-Google sensory briefings and evidence, so skill and observation beat a quick web search.

New Dynamic Clue & Hint Engine. Replaced static hints with a system that generates personalized content on the fly: Progressive clues (subtle → medium → direct) generated per location, enriched with real Wikipedia facts and GeoNames data, and cached so repeat plays stay instant. Tiered sarcastic hints that read the player's distance (hot / warm / cold / freezing) and tease them accordingly — and now personalize with the real country/landmark once they're close enough not to spoil the answer.

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posted an update

  1. All 28 Levels Now 360° Panoramic After a audit, 7 levels were found using flat (non-panoramic) images
  2. Mumbai (L17) — replaced with a Gateway of India-area 360° panorama
  3. Hong Kong (L18) → replaced with Seoul — new briefing & evidence written, Gwanghwamun area
  4. Istanbul (L19) — replaced with a Topkapı-area 360° panorama
  5. Cape Town (L22) → replaced with Kraków — new briefing & evidence written, Old Town square
  6. Marrakech (L25) — replaced with a Jemaa el-Fnaa-area 360° panorama
  7. Reykjavik (L26) — replaced with a verified 360° panorama
  8. Moscow (L27) — replaced with a western Moscow 360° panorama.

Tutorial Overlay Z-Index Fix The demo tutorial's 3-step CoachMark overlay was appearing behind the Leaflet map on the pin phase. fixed children. Removed the transform from the fade-in keyframes (opacity-only animation), restoring correct overlay layering.

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posted an update

Bug Fixes & Stability Update (Jul 26)

  • Fixed auth redirect loop — Previously, tapping "Daily Challenge" after logging in would redirect back to the login page (infinite loop on Android WebView). Root cause: the __Secure- cookie prefix silently dropped cookies in some WebView environments. Now all cookie prefixes are stripped before reaching the browser and restored by middleware internally. One login now persists across the entire app.
  • Native share sheet — "Challenge Friends" now opens the native Android share dialog via @capacitor/share instead of silently copying to clipboard (which only showed "Copied!" with no visible action).
  • Daily challenge hints — Added the Analyst HQ / Request Intel hint panel to the daily challenge pin phase (was missing compared to campaign mode).
  • TypeScript cleanup — Fixed auth route handler types to match Next.js 16 route contract, eliminating the TS error splashscreen overlay during development.

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posted an update

The past few sessions were all about turning Find Me from a solo detective game into a competitive multiplayer experience. What shipped:

  • Play with Friends — Shareable challenge links. Anyone with a link plays the same deterministic case. Two-phase game loop with inline leaderboard showing everyone's scores.
  • Daily Challenge — Single daily case with a streak system. Compete against the global daily leaderboard.
  • Relative Performance — After every challenge, you see exactly who you beat and who beat you, with distance differences in km.
  • Rematch System — "New Round (Can you beat them?)" button generates a fresh seed and opens the share sheet — instant replay loop with the same opponents.
  • Results Screen Redesign — Shareable result cards rendered as PNG via html2canvas. Dark theme, bold score/rank/comparison display. Share directly to WhatsApp, Instagram, or save as image.
  • Social Proof — Plays count on every challenge ("7 players joined this challenge").
  • Scoring Polish — Tiebreaker sorting (score → distance → time). Edge cases handled for 0, 1, 2 players.

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