Fillables

Inspiration

I wanted to bring the surprise and creativity of classic fill-in-the-blank games to Reddit. Letting communities write the stories as well as complete them felt like a natural way to turn Reddit's sense of humor into a reusable game.

What it does

Fillables lets someone write a story using placeholders such as [NOUN], [PLACE], or any custom prompt. Players enter their words before seeing the completed story, then reveal the result and can post it as a Reddit comment. The app has a dedicated community at r/Fillables, but moderators can also install it in their own subreddits.

How I built it

I built Fillables as a Devvit web app using React, Tailwind CSS, TypeScript, and Reddit's API. A custom builder validates and highlights story placeholders, Redis stores templates and each player's progress, and Reddit posts and comments make the finished stories part of the community.

Challenges I ran into

The biggest challenge was making both story creation and gameplay feel simple inside Reddit's inline post constraints. I also had to reliably parse custom placeholders, preserve individual progress, handle long stories, and keep the final reveal readable across mobile and desktop.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm proud that I made a flexible game where the community creates the content instead of relying on a fixed set of stories. That gives every subreddit a blank canvas for its own humor, references, and unexpected results.

What I learned

I learned that user-generated games need strong guardrails without making creation feel restrictive. Clear prompts, validation, saved progress, and a satisfying reveal were just as important as the core fill-in-the-blank mechanic.

What's next for Fillables

Next, I want to improve story discovery, add moderation and creator tools, introduce even more reasons to return and replay, and keep refining the experience based on the stories communities create.

Built With

• devvit