Snoo-Clues

Inspiration

The inspiration for Snoo-Clues was to take the rising trend of "daily puzzle games" like Wordle and give it a uniquely Reddit-flavored spin. We grew up loving the classic noir detective aesthetic—low-brimmed hats, typewriter notes, and smoke-filled rooms—and thought: "What if you were a detective investigating the subreddits themselves?" The goal was to transform a simple trivia game into an atmospheric "cold case" experience.

What it does

Snoo-Clues is a daily investigation game where you identify a mystery subreddit based on three progressive clues.

• Daily Cases: One hand-picked case every 24 hours to keep the community competing.
• Cold Case Mode: An unlimited practice mode with over 50 puzzles to hone your investigative skills.
• Detective Rankings: A persistent XP system where your sleuthing pays off: \( P_{total} = (N_{daily} \cdot 10) + N_{cold} \) where \( N_{daily} \) is your daily wins and \( N_{cold} \) is your practice wins.
• Real-Time Mascot: An interactive Snoo mascot (powered by GameMaker) that reacts to your guesses in the background.

How we built it

We used a hybrid engine architecture to get the best of both worlds:

• Devvit (Reddit's Platform): Handles the server-side logic, identity management, and persistent storage via Redis.
• GameMaker (WASM): We used the GameMaker engine to render the background animations and the interactive mascot, ensuring we remained eligible for the specific "GameMaker + Devvit" prize category.
• TypeScript & Vite: These served as the "glue," creating a high-performance bridge between the web UI and the game engine.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge was the Bidirectional Bridge. Making a JavaScript UI talk to a WASM-based GameMaker engine required a custom callback system to trigger mascot reactions (cheering, thinking, or looking confused) without lag. We also faced significant layout hurdles ensuring the "Detective Notebook" UI felt like it was sitting on top of the game world while remaining perfectly responsive on Reddit's mobile app.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are incredibly proud of achieving a vibrant, premium aesthetic while maintaining GameMaker engine eligibility. Many Devvit apps are purely functional, but we managed to include custom "Case Closed" animations, paper-rustle sound effects, and a dynamic leaderboard that feels like an integrated part of a real game.

What we learned

Building Snoo-Clues taught us the intricacies of the Devvit platform—specifically how to manage global state in Redis across a large user base safely. We also learned how to optimize WASM asset loading to ensure that even users on slow mobile connections could start their daily investigation without long wait times.

What's next for Snoo-Clues

The "case" isn't closed yet! We plan to add:

• Multiplayer "Raid" Mode: Where subreddits compete to solve cases together.
• Image Clues: Integrating AI-generated pixel art hints for a visual layer of difficulty.
• More Ranks: Adding "Legendary" tiers for the top 1% of detectors.

Built With

• devvit
• gml
• javascript
• postcss
• reddit
• redis
• typescript
• vite
• vitest
• wasm