The Estate

• 

  Thriving mansion

Inspiration

I wanted to build something for Reddit's Games with a Hook Hackathon that actually fit how Reddit works. Most retention games rely on streaks or points. I wanted something where the comments themselves matter, not just decoration.

I looked at what already existed on Devvit first. Voting and verdict games already exist. So I picked a different mechanic: a single persistent object passed between rotating decision makers, shaped by the whole community over time.

What it does

The Estate is a haunted mansion that the Reddit community inherits together. Every day, someone new becomes the Heir. You become eligible by commenting on the post. Once a day, a new Heir is picked at random from everyone who commented that cycle.

The Heir gets a few hours to make one decision:

• Restore something
• Throw a feast
• Sell an asset
• Gamble the treasury
• Abdicate early to someone else

Every decision changes the estate's health and treasury, and posts back to the thread as a comment. The mansion's look changes too. It can be lit up and thriving, fading and worn, or fully decayed and gothic. A resident ghost's mood follows along. If no one acts, the estate quietly decays. Nothing forces a winner. The story is just whatever the community actually does.

How we built it

I used Devvit Web with React, Phaser, and Hono on the server. Redis stores the estate's state per subreddit. A daily scheduled job resolves the previous Heir and picks the next one. A Reddit comment trigger registers each claim, so the lottery is driven by comments, not a button.

The mansion art is kept consistent across all three health states. Phaser handles the scene, the tier transitions, and small animations tied to each decision so every action feels like it landed.

Challenges we ran into

Getting Devvit's APIs right took some digging, since some details only show up once you check the actual installed package types rather than older docs. I also had a bug where the daily job picked from the wrong cycle's candidates, which I caught by testing with a second account.

I also learned the hard way that Reddit can flag fast multi account activity as spam, which taught me to slow down and test more naturally.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I am proud that every part of the game actually works on the platform. The daily cycle runs on its own with no manual trigger. Reddit comments drive who becomes Heir. Decisions post back to the thread as comments, so the whole history lives in the comments, not hidden inside the app.

I am also proud of testing this with a second Reddit account, not just one account simulating everything. That test caught a bug in how the daily job picked candidates, which I fixed before relying on it.

The mansion's three visual states, thriving, fading, and decayed, all work correctly and change based on community decisions, with the ghost's mood following along.

What we learned

Building for a platform means testing on the platform, not just trusting the code. Several bugs only showed up once I played the game as actual separate user, not just one account simulating everything.

What's next for The Estate

More asset types, more decision options, and possibly letting communities customize the mansion's theme.

Built With

• css
• devvit
• hono
• phaser.js
• react
• redis
• tailwind
• typescript