Reddit Heist

A daily social strategy game where Reddit users secretly choose to Steal, Defend, Spy, or Sabotage. Every decision shapes the community outcome, making each round unique and replayable.

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Reddit Heist

Inspiration: We wanted to build something that felt like it belonged on Reddit instead of just another game running on the web. Reddit communities are interesting because every person contributes to a bigger picture. Whether it's voting, commenting, or discussing ideas, the community shapes the outcome.

That made us wonder: what if a game worked the same way? Instead of playing against an AI or completing missions alone, players would make one decision each day, and the entire community's choices would decide who wins. That's where the idea for Reddit Heist came from.

What it does: Reddit Heist is a daily strategy game where players choose one of four actions: Steal, Defend, Spy, or Sabotage.

The interesting part is that the result isn't based only on your choice. It depends on what everyone else decides to do that day. That means every round feels different, and players have to think about community behavior instead of just picking the same strategy every time.

As players continue playing, they earn coins and XP, unlock achievements, move up the leaderboard, and keep track of their progress through statistics, notifications, and match history.

How we built it: We built the frontend using React, TypeScript, Vite, and Tailwind CSS because they helped us move quickly while keeping the UI clean and responsive.

For the backend, we used Node.js, Express, and SQLite to handle player data, game logic, achievements, leaderboards, and statistics.

One thing we focused on throughout development was keeping the project organized. We separated the game engine, API routes, and services so new features could be added without making the code difficult to manage.

Challenges we ran into: One of the hardest parts was balancing the gameplay. Since the outcome depends on what the community does, we had to make sure none of the four actions became the obvious choice every day.

Another challenge was connecting all the systems together. A single action affects rewards, achievements, history, statistics, notifications, and leaderboards, so making sure everything updated correctly took a lot of testing.

We also spent quite a bit of time improving the dashboard layout and making the interface responsive across different screen sizes.

Accomplishments that we're proud of: We're proud that Reddit Heist became much more than our original idea.

What started as a simple strategy game grew into a complete application with daily gameplay, progression, achievements, leaderboards, community statistics, player history, notifications, and a polished responsive interface.

We're also happy with how modular the project became, because it makes future improvements much easier.

What we learned: This project taught us that building a game isn't just about writing code. Designing fair mechanics, thinking about user experience, organizing a backend, and making everything work together are just as important.

We also learned how valuable planning and modular architecture are, especially when building a larger project within the limited time of a hackathon.

What's next for Reddit Heist: If we continue developing Reddit Heist, we'd love to integrate it more deeply with Reddit communities.

Some ideas include subreddit-specific competitions, seasonal events, team-based heists, community-created challenges, and additional progression features.

The goal is to keep the core idea the same while giving players even more reasons to come back every day.

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