Forgetful Kitty Trivia

A daily trivia game where 5 clues lead to a final puzzle. Build streaks, compete in freeplay, earn badges, and share your own challenges with the Reddit community

Comment

Inspiration

I always like to play trivia games with my family, I try most trivia games that I found, they are usually pretty slow, full of ads and almost not thrill or reward or something at stake, usually that happens when playing in person with other people.

So I tried it to make unique and reddit-y, as I know there are hundreds of trivia games, Forgetful Kitty Trivia, mixes Trivia with guesses, strategy and clue/relation guessing on it's Daily Challenge, but also for those who want more, there is a Free Play mode where strategy, quickness and of course knowledge work together to get the most coins possible in a fast pace 1 minute round.

But one of the most important things of the game... The kitty!

When I was reading the best practices section in devvit documentation I read this "Remember: You're competing with cat videos and memes" Good Practices it stuck in my mind, I should use a cat in my game but I didn't know how, but at the end, Forgetful Kitty became the star of the show.

What it does

This trivia puzzle app challenges Redditors to solve a Daily Challenge consisting of 1–5 trivia questions. If answered correctly, the answers become clues for a final mystery, which players solve by finding the relationship between all the clues.

Players can also explore Freeplay mode, chaining questions to earn points—but fail to save your progress, and you lose it all! Try to build the perfect chain of correct answers to earn big rewards. High risk, high reward—but also play smart. You only have a few seconds to save your coins!

Unlock badges, track achievements, and compete on leaderboards for ultimate bragging rights.

How we built it

I built the app using React for the client side and Node.js, Express, and Redis for the backend. The backend is organized into two main routes:

  • Leaderboard: Handles all leaderboard data and ranking logic.
  • Basic: Manages user data, trivia questions at initialization, and flags that control the UI, such as preventing users from solving the Daily Challenge more than once.

Once the backend foundation was in place, I focused on the frontend. I created custom hooks to handle API calls and manage the appState, which serves as the main state management system for the app. After experimenting with Devvit games and trial-and-error, I implemented a mini mobile navigation stack to switch between the main menu and other screens, using a layer system to make transitions smooth. Then I built reusable components for all screens and carefully synchronized state between the client and server to ensure user data stayed consistent at all times.

The useTrivia hook is the heart of the game. It manages timers, coins, saved coins, correct answers, and chaining logic, while also tracking user progress in real-time. I paid special attention to UI/UX, aiming for a cozy, cute, and memorable design that reflects the tone of Forgetful Kitty. Feedback to players—through sounds, animations, and visual cues—is emphasized for every action, whether answering a question correctly, making a chain, or failing, making the gameplay intuitive and engaging.

Another key feature is the user-generated challenges section. This allows players to create and share their own trivia challenges, keeping content fresh, encouraging daily play, and providing ideas for future improvements. Overall, the development process involved combining backend logic, frontend state management, game mechanics, and UX design into a cohesive experience. After multiple iterations and polishing, we delivered a functional MVP that balances fun, challenge, and replayability.

Challenges we ran into

Time was my biggest constraint. I only discovered the hackathon a week before the deadline, so I had to build everything quickly on my own.

At the start, live development in Reddit was a bit tricky, but after spending more time with the platform, it became easier to manage and integrate with the app.

Breaking components into smaller, reusable pieces was something I wanted to explore more, and I have plenty of ideas for future improvements and features that didn’t make it into the MVP.

Using Tailwind v4 was also a challenge. Setting up themes and consistent styling took longer than expected, so I had to implement a quick hackathon-friendly solution to keep moving forward.

Despite these challenges, working solo taught me a lot about rapid development, full-stack integration, and adapting to new tools and platforms under tight deadlines. I forgot how that feel lol I enjoyed it

Accomplishments I’m Proud Of

  • I built the entire app solo in just one week before the hackathon deadline—backend, frontend, game logic, and UI/UX.
  • Got daily challenges, freeplay, and clue mechanics working smoothly, including timers, coins, chains, and achievements.
  • Created a cozy, cute, and memorable UI for Forgetful Kitty that gives players fun feedback with sounds, animations, and visual cues.
  • Added a user-generated challenges feature so players can create and share content, keeping the game fresh and replayable.
  • Learned a lot about rapid full-stack development, Tailwind v4, Devvit game integration, and balancing game mechanics under time pressure. And I learn redis! I love redis :D

What I Learned

  • Trial and error: Most of the learning happened by just trying things, messing them up, and figuring out a fix.
  • Quick decisions: I had to make quick decisions all the time because the deadline was tight.
  • Full-stack, fullstack, fullstack, lol: Connecting React, Node, Express, Redis was a bit of a headache, but it actually worked!
  • Small details make the difference: Sounds, animations, and visual cues make the game feel alive.
  • Trial and error is real: I learned a ton just by testing stuff, breaking it, and fixing it on the fly.
  • Soloing: Doing everything myself was tough but also super satisfying—I forgot how fun building end-to-end can be.

What's next for Forgetful Kitty Trivia

  • Add more daily challenges so there’s always something new to play.
  • Make the chain system more exciting and rewarding—get that perfect streak hype! Like Tony Hawk Pro Skater combos... would be fun.
  • Add special events where players can earn unique achievements, and make achievements more like collectible rewards that feel fun and special to unlock.
  • Use the reddit API to integrate oother subreddits/posts/comments/upvotes/downvotes into trivia questions and/or Daily Challenges/UGC
  • Improve the user-generated challenges so it’s super easy and fun to share stuff.
  • Polish up the UI/UX with extra sounds, animations, and cute touches.
  • Maybe add new game modes or mini-games to keep things fresh and surprising.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates