Mystery Agency

A community-driven detective game where players investigate clues, submit theories, vote on outcomes, and collectively shape a 10-chapter mystery story on Reddit.

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🦊 Mystery Agency

Inspiration

We wanted to create a game that transforms a Reddit community into an interactive detective agency. Instead of following a fixed storyline, players work together to investigate mysteries, submit theories, vote on outcomes, and collectively decide what becomes canon. Our goal was to combine storytelling, community participation, and game progression into a single Reddit-native experience.

What it does

Mystery Agency is a community-driven detective game built with Reddit Devvit and Phaser.

Players:

  • Investigate clues and evidence
  • Submit theories about each case
  • Vote on community theories
  • Influence the canon story through voting
  • Earn XP, ranks, badges, and achievements
  • Compete on leaderboards

The game currently features a complete 10-chapter mystery campaign called The Red Fox Files.

How we built it

We built Mystery Agency using:

  • Reddit Devvit
  • Phaser
  • TypeScript
  • Redis

The frontend handles gameplay, UI, progression, and player interactions, while Redis stores theories, votes, XP, ranks, canon outcomes, and chapter progression.

Challenges we ran into

Some of the biggest challenges included:

  • Designing a voting system that feels fair and engaging
  • Managing chapter progression and canon outcomes
  • Building moderator tools for community management
  • Synchronizing player progression across multiple phases
  • Creating a smooth experience inside Reddit's embedded environment

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Built a complete 10-chapter detective campaign
  • Implemented community-driven storytelling
  • Created theory submission and voting systems
  • Added XP progression, ranks, badges, and leaderboards
  • Developed moderator tools and automated phase progression
  • Successfully deployed and submitted the app for Reddit review

What we learned

Through this project we learned how to build interactive experiences on Reddit using Devvit, design scalable gameplay systems, manage shared community progression, and create engaging collaborative storytelling mechanics.

What's next for Mystery Agency

Future plans include:

  • Additional mystery campaigns
  • More progression systems and rewards
  • Enhanced social features
  • New detective roles and challenges
  • Expanded community events and seasonal content

Mystery Agency turns every Reddit community into a collaborative detective agency where players investigate clues, build theories, vote on outcomes, and shape the story together.

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