SubQuest

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  Test subreddit for SubQuest

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  Story generator python notebook

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  Kiro crashing out, but fortunately getting sane again

🎲 What it does

Ever wished your Reddit community could do more than just argue about pineapple on pizza? SubQuest transforms any subreddit into an interactive choose-your-own-adventure game where the entire community becomes the main character.

Here's how the magic works:

• Story Posts: SubQuest creates engaging story posts with rich content and images
• Democratic Choices: Each story decision becomes a comment that the community votes on
• Automatic Progression: After a set time period, the story automatically continues based on the winning choice
• Collective Storytelling: Your community's upvotes literally drive the narrative forward

Think of it as "Black Mirror: Bandersnatch" meets Reddit democracy, but with less existential dread and more dragons (depending on your story choice).

🚀 Inspiration

Gathering ideas for projects lead me to the thought of having a RPG like story game that could be played in a subreddit. Then I thought: "What if users could choose, how the story continues?" What if the community could collectively be the hero of their own story? And thus, SubQuest was born, because apparently I solve social problems by adding more gamification to the internet.

🛠️ How I built it

Core Technology:

• Devvit Framework: Reddit's official app development platform (because why fight the platform when you can embrace it?)
• TypeScript: For type-safe development and fewer "undefined is not a function" moments
• Redis: Persistent game state that survives even when the app takes a coffee break
• Reddit API: Native integration with voting, posting, and scheduling

The Secret Sauce:

• Automated Story Engine: Handles branching narratives, choice tracking, and round advancement
• Smart Vote Counting: Tallies community votes and determines winning choices
• Media Integration: Automatically rehosts images so your dragon pictures don't break
• Flexible Scheduling: From 1-hour speed runs to week-long epic sagas

Bonus Feature - AI Story Generator: Because manually writing JSON with dozens of branching paths is about as fun as debugging CSS, I built a Google Colab notebook that uses AI to generate complete interactive stories. Just describe your idea, and get a ready-to-use story file. It's like having a creative writing assistant who never gets writer's block.

🎯 Challenges I ran into

The Reddit API Learning Curve: Turns out building for Reddit is like learning to drive - looks easy until you're actually doing it. Figuring out Devvit's event system, scheduler jobs, and media handling took more coffee than I care to admit.

Timing is Everything: Getting automatic story advancement to work reliably across different time zones and server restarts was trickier than expected. Turns out computers are very literal about "advance this story in 24 hours."

JSON Complexity: Writing branching stories in JSON format is like trying to map out a conversation with your past self - technically possible, but mentally exhausting. Hence the AI story generator.

Community Engagement Balance: Making sure the voting system feels fair while preventing spam and ensuring meaningful participation required several iterations and a lot of "what would trolls do?" thinking.

🏆 Accomplishments that I'm proud of

It Actually Works: The app successfully runs complete story campaigns from start to finish, with real community participation and automatic progression. No manual intervention required (though mods can jump in if they want).

Zero-Code Story Creation: The AI story generator means anyone can create complex interactive narratives without touching a single line of JSON.

🔮 What's next for SubQuest

Community-Generated Stories: My ultimate vision is stories that emerge organically from community suggestions. Users comment their ideas, the community votes, and AI weaves the winning suggestions into coherent narrative progression. Imagine stories that truly reflect your community's collective imagination.

Cross-Community Stories: Epic narratives that span multiple subreddits, with each community controlling different aspects of the story. Think collaborative worldbuilding on a massive scale.

Story Remixing Tools: Let communities take existing stories and create their own variations, building a library of community-tested adventures.

🎮 Try it yourself!

SubQuest is open source and ready to install on any subreddit. Whether you want to run a quick fantasy adventure or experiment with community-driven storytelling, the future of interactive narratives is collaborative - and it's happening right here on Reddit.

Installation: Available through Reddit's app directory Story Creation: Use the included Google Colab notebook for AI-assisted story generation Community: Join the growing community of SubQuest storytellers and share your adventures

Turn your community into the hero of their own adventure. Because in a world full of passive content consumption, sometimes you need to give people the power to literally vote on what happens next.

Built With

• devvit