Roach Rage is a chaotic 2D side-scroller where you’re a cockroach dodging spray cans, fueled by crumbs. Mario meets pest control—except this time, you’re the pest.
Inspiration: We wanted to take something universally hated—a cockroach—and turn it into a lovable, chaotic hero. The idea was to flip pest control on its head and build a game that’s funny, fast-paced, and a little gross in the best way.
What it does: Roach Rage is a 2D pixel side-scroller where you play as a roach trying to survive humanity’s deadliest invention: spray cans. Players collect crumbs as currency, dodge obstacles, and race for high scores while laughing (and maybe cringing) at the absurdity.
How we built it: We coded Roach Rage primarily with TypeScript and Pixi.js for smooth rendering and animation. To make it playable on Reddit, we integrated it with Devvit WebViews and handled storage with Redis for persistent scores and upgrades. Along the way, we experimented with pixel art design tools to give the roach personality and add quirky animations.
Challenges we ran into: Getting the roach’s movement to feel fun instead of frustrating, Making spray cans act like real threats without being unfair, debugging leaderboard persistence—turns out roaches weren’t the only thing hard to kill, centering UI elements in the WebView.
Accomplishments that we're proud of: Building a fully working game loop and game logic, Setting up real-time scoreboards that can handle tons of players, designing daily challenges that keep players coming back for more fun.
What we learned: We learned a ton about optimizing Pixi.js performance for fast side-scrolling, managing state persistence with Redis, and how much polish little animations add. We also learned that not giving up is an important skill to have through challenges.
What's next for Roach Rage: We want to expand daily challenges, add power-ups, implement cosmetic skins so players can customize their roach. We’re also planning new levels with different household hazards—kitchens, bathrooms, and even a boss fight against a cat. Ultimately, we want Roach Rage to be a community favorite on Reddit.
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