Gear It Up

A Mechnical Gear Puzzle made to test your spacial reasoning with daily challenges and community based levels. It’s seamless, competitive, and built to supercharge community engagement.

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Inspiration

Gear It Up was inspired by the satisfying logic of mechanical systems and the competitive thrill of daily puzzle games like Wordle but reimagined with rotating gears and real physics. I wanted to build something that feels tactile and strategic and make try to hit all the marks set by requirements without compromising on the quality of the game.

About the game

Each day a new daily puzzle is set from the backend for players to try out keep in line with the recurring and fresh content for everyone. The game begins with few red and green gears. The green gears are the drivers gear, and the goal of the game is to use the additional gear provided in the inventory of the player to realise a mechanical system where all the red gears are moving. Global leaderboards have been added to keep up with the competitive spirit and spark engagement and discussions.

A major part of this game comprising the User Generated Content criteria is the level editor. It allows users to create their own levels by placing driver and goal gears and players inventory . Before publishing, creators must pass their level through Test Mode to ensure it is solvable. Once approved, these community-created levels become playable by everyon expanding ecosystem the ecosystem.

The game is also completly responsive making is suitable for quick plays in mobile where most of the reddit audience lives. Games are short and spark spatial reasoning skills make them suitable for a better mobile experience.

How we built it

The project was built using devvit web using the following technologies:-

  • React + TypeScript for a fully typed, modular architecture
  • Tailwind CSS with a neo-brutalist brown mechanical theme
  • Custom physics engine for rotation propagation and collision detection
  • Smart snapping system for perfect gear meshing

Challenges we ran into

The gear snapping mechanics was slightly tricky to deal with when multiple gears were involved (still not perfected it). The lack of immediate development UI changes shown also made me the start the initial project in react to get a better sense of UI in the start, which later needed to match the reddit responsiveness when integrated into the environment.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

-This was my first time creating a game this size (just made a flappy bird game before in js) so it was definitely rewarding upon completing the project. Apart from technical stuff,a game which can reach multiple people through reddit where players and engage in something I created a accomplishment in itself.

What's next for Gear It Up

  1. I definitely would like to add more types of gears (magnetic, fix rotation ones) and additional mechanics ( Constraints on winning and specific environmental conditions)
  2. A better level editor experience which aids the creators of levels to better brainstorm ideas (comes with addition of more mechanics to the game).

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