Pixel Trail

Inspiration

I wanted to create a game that brings a Reddit community together rather than competing against each other. The idea of hiding a single pixel in a sea of color felt like the perfect challenge, simple to understand, hard to brute force alone, but achievable when a community works together.

What it does

Pixel Trail is a pixel-hunting game for Reddit. Each level presents a colorful grid with one hidden target pixel. Players get one guess per hour, and every miss reveals a hint zone that narrows down the search area. When someone finds the pixel, a new level unlocks for the whole community. Though progress is personal, other players can share pixel locations.

How I built it

• Grid Generation: Deterministic PRNG-based system with 17 pattern styles (gradients, spirals, plasma, waves, etc.)

Challenges I ran into

• Syncing GameMaker and TypeScript: The grid generation must be pixel-perfect identical on both sides. One mismatched PRNG call means the client shows a different grid than the server validates against

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

• Completed the project in a very short timeframe
• Completing another project and not having it on my "I'll finish this in the future" pile
• 17 unique visual styles that make each level feel fresh
• The explosion :))

What I learned

• Devvit's webview architecture and how authentication flows between inline/expanded modes
• The importance of deterministic randomness for client-server game logic
• Better knowledge about the GameMaker-to-Devvit pipeline that works on Reddit's platform

What's next for Pixel Trail

• Live activity feed: See guesses happening in real-time
• Global Level Completed Effect: Thinking about adding an effect all players will see when somebody clears a top level
• Community stats: Track total guesses, fastest solves, most active hunters

Built With

• devvit
• gamemaker
• photoshop
• redis