-
-
GamePlay
-
StartingScreen
Inspiration
Most daily games give every player the same isolated puzzle. We wanted to build something where even a tiny action becomes part of a larger community outcome.
Reddit is uniquely suited to this idea. People gather around niche interests, contribute individually and collectively shape what a community becomes. Morrowmoss translates that spirit into a living game world.
Every player receives one official seed per day. Where that seed lands influences the traits of a shared organism. Players immediately see that their contribution mattered, but the completed result is revealed with the next daily generation.
The central question behind the project was:
What if an entire subreddit raised one mysterious ecosystem together—one seed at a time?
What it does
Morrowmoss creates a new shared habitat every UTC day.
Players enter a short Phaser-powered physics challenge where they guide a falling seed by creating gusts with taps, clicks or swipes. Their objective is to reach one of three trait gates:
Glow adds bioluminescent characteristics. Bloom adds leaves, petals and plant growth. Bounce changes the organism’s shape and movement.
Each Reddit user can make one official contribution per day. When the seed reaches a gate, the contribution is recorded and permanently changes the community’s evolving habitat.
After playing, users can see:
Their selected trait Live community trait percentages The number of real seeds planted Their daily streak The evolving habitat A countdown to the next generation Practice Mode for additional non-scoring plays
The next generation inherits characteristics from the previous community result. For example, a Glow-dominant organism may introduce moving lights into the following day’s board.
This creates a continuing lineage instead of a collection of disconnected daily puzzles.
How we built it
Morrowmoss was built as a Reddit Interactive Post using Devvit Web.
The client uses Phaser and TypeScript to manage:
Responsive game rendering Seed movement and collisions Mouse and touch controls Wind-gust forces Trait gates Procedural daily layouts Particle effects Growth animations Practice Mode Reduced-motion behaviour
The server uses Devvit’s server environment and Redis to store:
Daily trait totals Daily contributors Player streaks Contribution history Bounded habitat data Previous daily results
Every daily board is generated from a deterministic UTC date seed. Everyone receives the same underlying daily conditions while individual plays remain interactive.
The server derives the current Reddit user and UTC date independently. It validates every submission and prevents the same user from changing the official habitat more than once per day.
We deliberately avoided external APIs, external databases and remote content dependencies. This keeps the game fast, privacy-conscious and native to the Devvit platform.
Challenges we ran into
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Accomplishments that we’re proud of
We are especially proud that:
A complete official play takes less than one minute. Every legitimate contribution visibly changes the shared world. Phaser drives the game mechanics and not just decorative effects. The game works with both touch and mouse input. Practice Mode preserves replayability without corrupting official totals. Daily boards are procedurally generated but deterministic. The experience remains honest when community participation is low. The visual identity uses lightweight, original botanical science-fiction artwork. The system does not require external services or paid infrastructure.
What we learned
We learned that retention is stronger when anticipation is connected to meaningful participation.
A conventional streak can remind someone to return, but Morrowmoss gives players a more emotional reason: they want to see what their community created.
We also learned that Reddit games should be designed around the feed rather than treated like conventional websites placed inside Reddit. The inline experience must communicate its purpose instantly, while the expanded experience should remain short and touch-friendly.
From the technical side, we learned how to combine Phaser’s real-time game loop with Devvit’s server environment, Reddit identity and Redis persistence.
What's next for Morrowmoss
Future versions of Morrowmoss could introduce:
Seven-day organism families Weekly community habitats Additional discoverable traits Subreddit-specific environmental themes Seasonal mutation events Community-selected weather Cooperative goals Achievement flairs Habitat sharing Accessibility improvements Moderation controls More advanced procedural creature generation Optional cosmetic customization after launch approval
The long-term vision is for every participating community to develop its own recognizable Morrowmoss ecosystem and history.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.