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GAMEDROP LOGO
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SCREENSHOT
Category
Influencer Award - Gaming: Mr Lewis Blogs Gaming
Inspiration
My brother plays a lot of games, and he’s constantly discovering new ones he wants to try. He would find games through TikTok clips, YouTube videos, Instagram Reels, or even while watching a friend play. But saving them for later usually meant screenshots, Notes, browser bookmarks, or simply trying to remember the name.
His game library was also spread across different platforms like Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox, making it difficult to keep track of what he owned, what he wanted to play, and what he had already finished.
Seeing this pushed us to work in the gaming category and build GameDrop, a simple way to save games the moment you discover them, organize your backlog, and keep your entire gaming collection in one place.
What it does
🎯 Drop Games in Seconds
Found a game you want to play? Just share it to GameDrop using the native iOS Share Sheet. GameDrop can process links from platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, identify the game, and automatically pull its cover art, release date, platforms, genres, and other details from IGDB. No copying titles. No manual data entry. Just share, detect, and drop.
GameDrop can also scan games directly using the camera, whether you're looking at an image, a game being played on a screen, or a physical game box.
🎮 One Library Across Your Gaming Platforms
Your gaming history shouldn't be scattered across different platforms. Connect Steam, Xbox, or PlayStation and bring your existing library into GameDrop. Track playtime, achievements, Gamerscore, trophies, completion progress, and more in one unified experience. Instead of jumping between three different ecosystems, you get one place to see your gaming journey.
📼 A Library That Feels Like a Collection
GameDrop isn't designed to look like a spreadsheet. Switch between tactile, retro-inspired layouts including Vintage Cassette, Classic Cartridge, and Disc Dial. Physical-media-inspired animations, interactions, and haptics make browsing your games feel more like handling a collection than scrolling through a database. You can also customize your layout, pinch to zoom, and switch between light and dark modes.
📁 Build Your Own Backlog
Organize games using statuses like Want to Play, Playing, Finished, and Dropped, or create completely custom collections. Your backlog becomes a collection that actually reflects how you play.
📡 Share Your Collection
Gaming is better with friends. GameDrop lets you share entire collections through AirDrop, Messages, or the iOS Share Sheet using a custom .gamedrop file format. Friends can import the collection into GameDrop and add the games they want to their own library, making it easy to share recommendations without sending screenshots or individual links one by one.
🔍 Discover What to Play Next
GameDrop also works as a discovery hub. Browse trending games, upcoming releases, popular titles, Twitch activity, Steam player trends, and genre-based feeds powered by IGDB. So GameDrop isn't just where you keep the games you already know about. It's also where you find your next one.
Free vs. Pro Access Comparison
| Feature | Free Tier | GameDrop Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Max Game Drops | Up to 20 games | Unlimited |
| Custom Collections | Up to 4 | Unlimited |
| iOS Share Sheet Drop | Not Included | Included |
| Scan Feature | Not Included | Included |
| Steam / Xbox / PSN Sync | Basic | Full Stats & Badges |
How we built it
GameDrop is built natively with SwiftUI and Swift 6, with SwiftData and App Groups powering local persistence and seamless communication between the main app and the iOS Share Sheet extension.
Behind the app, we built a custom game-detection backend using Google Gemini, Vertex AI, and the Google GenAI API. The backend supports social-media URLs, camera OCR, and raw camera images.
For social links, our /scrape endpoint uses a four-tier detection pipeline designed to balance speed, accuracy, and model usage:
Post description → Comments & replies → Thumbnail vision → Deep video understanding
It starts with lightweight text analysis and only moves to visual or full-video Gemini processing when earlier stages cannot identify the game. For longer videos, the backend can use Gemini's agentic processing , while shorter videos use static video analysis.
We also built /scan for OCR-based camera detection and /scan/image for direct image analysis, allowing GameDrop to recognize games from screenshots, gameplay screens, and physical game boxes.
Once a game is detected, our custom IGDB service fetches its artwork, release date, platforms, genres, screenshots, and other metadata. Separate adapters for Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation normalize playtime, achievements, Gamerscore, trophies, and progress into one unified model.
For collection sharing, we created a custom .gamedrop file format using Swift's Transferable API and Uniform Type Identifiers, enabling native AirDrop and Share Sheet transfers.
Finally, RevenueCat handles our subscription infrastructure and powers GameDrop Pro purchases across the app.
Challenges we ran into
The biggest challenge was making game detection reliable across different sources. Social posts can have vague captions, noisy comments, unrelated thumbnails, or gameplay footage with no visible title.
We solved this with a tiered detection pipeline that starts with lightweight text analysis and progressively falls back to comments, image analysis, and video understanding only when needed.
We also had to unify very different Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation data into one consistent library model while keeping the app fast and native to iOS.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
⚡ Sub-2-Second Game Drops Turn a social media discovery into a fully populated GameDrop item with artwork and metadata in under two seconds when fast detection succeeds.
🧠 Multi-Tier Game Detection GameDrop can identify games from descriptions, comments, thumbnails, OCR, screenshots, and full video.
📼 A Physical Feel Retro-inspired layouts and tactile interactions make digital game libraries feel like real collections.
🤝 Easy Collection Sharing
The .gamedrop format lets friends share and import entire collections through AirDrop or the Share Sheet.
🎮 One Unified Library Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation data come together in one place, including playtime, achievements, Gamerscore, and trophies.
What we learned
Building GameDrop taught us that speed and simplicity matter most when capturing a game from the moment you discover it. We also learned how important flexible detection is when real-world content can be incomplete, noisy, or inconsistent.
What's next for GameDrop
- Interactive iOS Home Screen & Lock Screen Widgets: "Current Backlog", "Next Up to Play", and a daily "Random Retro Pick".
- Price Tracking & Deal Alerts: Real-time price drop notifications across Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox Store, and Nintendo eShop.
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