• 

  Splash Screen

• 

  game screen

About the project

We wanted to explore whether a fast, skill-based game could become part of a community's daily routine without requiring players to leave the platform. Rather than creating another puzzle that relies on taps or swipes, we designed a mechanic around a single continuous gesture. Every player receives the same deterministic puzzle sequence each day, making leaderboards a measure of execution instead of luck.

Inspiration

Many Reddit communities thrive on daily challenges, friendly competition, and shared experiences. We wanted to create a game that could become part of that routine while remaining lightweight and instantly accessible.

The core gameplay was inspired by the idea that a single gesture can create surprisingly deep puzzles. By allowing players to draw one continuous line that then moves independently through the board, every puzzle becomes a test of planning, timing, and precision instead of fast tapping or memorization.

What it does

Noriara is a daily puzzle game played directly inside Reddit.

Players draw one continuous line, release it, and watch it travel through the puzzle. The objective is to collect every colored target while avoiding black hazards before the timer expires.

Every day presents the same deterministic puzzle sequence to every player, creating a fair daily competition. Official runs are replay-validated before being accepted onto the leaderboard, while unlimited practice mode lets players improve without affecting rankings.

The game also includes replay viewing, player statistics, weekly events with custom rules, curated community layouts submitted by players, accessibility options, and automated leaderboard archives.

How we built it

We built Noriara using the Reddit Devvit platform with a shared architecture for gameplay and validation.

The game logic was designed to be deterministic so that the server can replay every submitted official run and verify its legitimacy before accepting a score. Gameplay data, leaderboards, player statistics, replay data, event configurations, and community layouts are stored using Devvit Redis.

The project includes both client and server components, shared validation logic, automated puzzle simulation tools to evaluate puzzle quality across thousands of generated boards, and moderator tools for managing events and community content without external infrastructure.

Challenges we ran into

Designing a puzzle mechanic around a single continuous gesture required extensive iteration to make it intuitive while still allowing meaningful strategy.

Ensuring competitive fairness was another major challenge. Official runs needed to be deterministic and reproducible so that submitted movement data could be replayed and validated server-side without trusting the client.

Balancing procedural puzzle generation also proved difficult. We wanted daily puzzles to feel fresh while maintaining consistent difficulty and avoiding impossible or trivial layouts, which led to building simulation tools that evaluate thousands of generated puzzles before deployment.

Finally, integrating gameplay, moderation tools, events, replays, and statistics into a seamless Reddit experience required careful consideration of the platform's constraints.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Building a fully playable game that runs entirely inside Reddit.
• Creating a deterministic daily challenge where every player competes on identical puzzles.
• Implementing server-side replay validation for official leaderboard integrity.
• Supporting weekly events with configurable rules and separate leaderboards.
• Allowing players to submit community layouts for moderator review.
• Developing automated puzzle simulation tools to improve puzzle quality.
• Delivering replay functionality, player statistics, accessibility settings, and moderator workflows within a single application.

What we learned

Building Noriara reinforced how important deterministic systems are for competitive games. Separating gameplay logic from presentation made replay validation and testing much more reliable.

We also learned that procedural content generation requires extensive automated testing to consistently produce enjoyable puzzles. Developing tools to simulate thousands of puzzles became just as valuable as building the game itself.

Finally, working within Reddit's ecosystem taught us how much can be accomplished when community features, moderation tools, and gameplay are designed together instead of as separate systems.

What's next for Noriara

We plan to expand Noriara with additional puzzle mechanics, seasonal events, richer replay analysis, and more ways for communities to create and share layouts. Future improvements include enhanced statistics, achievement systems, improved puzzle generation algorithms, and additional accessibility features.

Our long-term goal is to make Noriara a daily ritual for Reddit communities—a game that's easy to pick up, rewarding to master, and enjoyable to share with friends and fellow players.

Built With

• devvit
• phaser.js
• react
• redis