Karma Roulette

A daily social intuition game for Reddit where users guess if real comments were Hot (high karma) or Cold (low karma).

Comment

Inspiration

Reddit is already the place where karma is the default score for human judgment. We wanted to turn that instinct into a playful, daily ritual that sparks conversation. Karma Roulette is inspired by the idea that every redditor has a “karma intuition” — we just needed a fun way to test it.

What it does

Karma Roulette is a daily social intuition game built on Devvit. Players get five real Reddit comments stripped of context and must guess whether each was a Hot Take (high karma) or a Cold Take (low karma). The game tracks score, streaks, and weekly leaderboards, encouraging players to return every day and share their results with friends.

How we built it

  • Devvit + React + TypeScript for the interactive post UI.
  • Redis KV Store to persist daily challenges, user progress, and weekly leaderboards.
  • Cron Scheduler that resets the game at midnight UTC with a fresh curated comment set.
  • Custom components (ScoreBoard, CommentCard, VoteButtons, Leaderboard, etc.) to keep the UI modular and mobile-friendly.
  • Utility layer for streak multipliers, share text, and formatting.

Challenges we ran into

  • Balancing the curated comment set so daily rounds feel fair yet surprising.
  • Syncing user state between Redis and the front-end while keeping Devvit renders responsive.
  • Ensuring the game feels great on mobile (touch targets, vertical layout, minimal text input) since that’s where most Reddit play happens.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Built a fully functional daily game loop with streaks, perfect-day bonuses, and leaderboards.
  • Designed a mobile-first UI that matches Reddit’s dark theme and feels fast on both web and app.
  • Implemented a scheduler-driven content reset pipeline so every day feels fresh without manual intervention.

What we learned

Building on Devvit forced us to think in terms of “mini-apps” that live inside Reddit posts. We learned how to structure Redis data for quick lookups, how to design components that feel native to Reddit, and how to optimize UX for short, daily play sessions.

What's next for Karma Roulette

  • Allow communities to submit their own comment packs to localize the game.
  • Add achievements and badges for streak milestones.
  • Introduce timed “speed rounds” for advanced players.
  • Launch a “Community Champions” board that highlights the best predictors per subreddit.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates