SubReddle

A daily subreddit guessing game — read 5 clues, guess the subreddit, climb the leaderboard!

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🔎 SubReddle — A Daily Subreddit Guessing Game

Inspiration

Reddit is home to thousands of unique communities, each with its own culture, humor, and personality. We thought: what if we turned that into a game? Inspired by Wordle's simple daily puzzle format, we created SubReddle — a game where players guess which subreddit is being described based on a series of cryptic clues.

The idea is simple: every day, there's one subreddit to guess. You get 5 clues, revealed one at a time. The fewer clues you need, the higher your score. It's a celebration of Reddit's incredible community diversity — and a fun way to discover new subreddits you might never have visited.

How It Works

  1. One puzzle per day — everyone plays the same puzzle
  2. 5 clues, revealed one by one — each clue hints at the mystery subreddit
  3. Type your guess — just the subreddit name (e.g. askreddit)
  4. Scoring — Guess on clue 1 = 💯 100 pts, clue 2 = 80, clue 3 = 60, clue 4 = 40, clue 5 = 20
  5. Leaderboard — compete with other Redditors on the same subreddit
  6. Streaks — track your daily streak to stay motivated
  7. Share results — share your score with emoji spoiler-free cards

How We Built It

SubReddle is built entirely on Reddit's Devvit platform using the new Devvit Web framework:

  • Frontend: React 19 + TypeScript + Tailwind CSS 4, bundled with Vite
  • Backend: Hono server framework running inside Devvit's server runtime
  • Storage: Devvit Redis for persisting scores, streaks, leaderboards, and game state
  • Architecture: Client/server communication via Devvit's postMessage bridge between the webview iframe and server-side handlers

The game features 60 hand-crafted puzzles covering iconic subreddits like r/askreddit, r/showerthoughts, r/dataisbeautiful, r/nosleep, r/explainlikeimfive, and many more — enough for 60 days of unique daily content that automatically cycles.

Each puzzle has 5 carefully written clues that go from vague to specific, making early guesses rewarding but later guesses still possible.

Challenges We Faced

  • Bundle size limits: Devvit has strict size constraints. Our initial server bundle was 9.5MB — we optimized it down to 2.7MB by disabling sourcemaps and trimming dependencies.
  • Build timeouts: Remote builds on Devvit's infrastructure timed out multiple times. We had to iterate on our build pipeline to get reliable deploys.
  • Guess normalization: Players type subreddit names in all sorts of formats — r/AskReddit, askreddit, ask reddit. We built robust normalization to handle all variations.
  • Crafting fair clues: Writing 5 clues per subreddit that are fun but not too easy (or too hard) was a creative challenge. Each clue had to be progressively more revealing without giving it away immediately.

What We Learned

  • The Devvit Web platform is powerful for building interactive Reddit experiences
  • Redis is a great fit for leaderboard and streak tracking
  • Simple game mechanics (daily puzzle + scoring) create surprisingly engaging experiences
  • Reddit's community diversity is a goldmine for trivia-style games

What's Next

  • More puzzles — community-submitted subreddit suggestions via the in-game form
  • Difficulty modes (easy/hard clues)
  • Weekly tournaments and seasonal leaderboards
  • Achievement badges for milestones

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