Lil Shaper

The new snake, with a hook to design and share your own shape games with other users on Reddit.

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Inspiration

Lil Shaper started from a simple idea: what if the classic snake movement mechanic became a puzzle about shaping space instead of chasing food? I wanted to turn something instantly familiar into a Reddit-native community game where players could solve, compete, share, and create together.

The inspiration also came from daily puzzle games like Wordle, where a small challenge can become a social ritual through comments, leaderboards, and shared results.

What it does

Lil Shaper - The New Snake is a retro arcade puzzle game built for Reddit Devvit.

Players guide a snake across a grid to cover every target cell and finish on the final tile. The game includes:

  • A Hub menu for Tutorial, Daily Challenge, Designer, and Community Puzzles
  • Daily puzzle leaderboard with daily, weekly, and all-time rankings
  • Rewinds and reset controls for puzzle-friendly gameplay
  • Share-to-comments results so players can flex their solve
  • A Designer mode where users create their own puzzles
  • A Community Puzzles tab where published player-made puzzles can be discovered and played
  • Mobile-first layout with an expanded Reddit view for comfortable play

How I built it

I built Lil Shaper as a Devvit web app using Phaser for the game client, Vite for the frontend build, and Devvit’s serverless backend APIs for Reddit integration.

The frontend handles the game scenes, board rendering, touch controls, designer tools, and win/fail overlays. The backend stores leaderboard entries and community puzzles using Redis. I also integrated Reddit user actions so players can share completed attempts into the comments and help the game spread naturally inside the subreddit.

The app is split into clear modes: the Hub routes players into Tutorial, Daily, Designer, or Community, keeping the experience simple even as the feature set grows.

Challenges I ran into

One challenge was making a Phaser game feel good inside Reddit’s embedded and expanded views. A wide canvas can look good on desktop but become too small on mobile, so I tuned the layout around a compact vertical play area.

Another challenge was handling community puzzle publishing without duplicates. I solved this by fingerprinting puzzle layouts and using stable IDs so pressing publish multiple times does not flood the community list.

I also had to handle Devvit-specific permissions for user actions, especially posting share comments as the current user.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm proud that Lil Shaper feels like a complete Reddit-native game instead of just a standalone web game embedded in a post.

The biggest accomplishments are:

  • Players can create and publish their own puzzles
  • Other redditors can discover and play those puzzles
  • Daily challenges have scoped leaderboards
  • Results can be shared back into the comments
  • The retro terminal style feels cohesive across every mode
  • The game loop is simple to understand but still satisfying to solve

The community puzzle system is especially important because it turns players into contributors for any creative puzzle games they can make, not just players.

What I learned

I learned how important it is to design specifically for Reddit’s surface area: inline previews, expanded views, mobile feed width, comment engagement, and asynchronous play.

I also learned that small bits of clarity matter a lot in puzzle games. Labels like Filled: 1/16, clear win/fail messages, and readable touch controls make the difference between a cool prototype and something people can actually enjoy quickly.

Finally, I learned that user-generated content needs guardrails early. Duplicate prevention, validation, and clear publish flows are essential once players can contribute content.

What's next for Lil Shaper

I want to make Lil Shaper even more community-driven.

Planned improvements include:

  • Puzzle ratings or upvotes for community puzzles
  • Featured community puzzle of the week
  • More designer tools and puzzle naming
  • Better creator profiles and “puzzles by this user”
  • Streaks for daily challenge completions
  • Weekly tournaments
  • More visual themes and challenge packs

The long-term goal is for Lil Shaper to become a small daily Reddit ritual: solve the daily, share your result, publish your own puzzle, and try what the community made.

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