Tower of Challenges

Inspiration

Our inspiration came from the idea of creating an original tower-based game concept, inspired by classics like Hunter x Hunter’s Heavens Arena. We wanted to challenge ourselves to build something fun, interactive, and rewarding within the short timeframe of a hackathon. The goal was to combine mini-games inside a tower progression system, where each floor represents a different challenge.

What it does

Tower of Challenges is a multi-floor game where each floor represents a different mini-game challenge. Players must complete the challenge of one floor to climb to the next. The journey starts with simple challenges to hook the player and gradually introduces more complex and strategic mini-games. Each floor has its own scoring system, and the scores contribute to a global leaderboard. The game includes mini-games like:

Word Express: A set of letters is provided, you tesk is to form as many valid words as possible from those letters.
Flappy Escape: guide your character through obstacles without crashing.
Tiles Match: test memory by pairing hidden tiles.
Bulletstorm: survive waves of enemies in space and defeat the boss.
Checkers Duel: face the AI in a strategic board game. The objective is to climb all 10 floors of the tower, achieving the highest possible global score. It’s a solo experience, but all players share the same database, meaning everyone contributes to a community-wide leaderboard.

How we built it

We only had 17 days to build the project, and since we discovered Devvit late, we had to learn it on the go. Frontend : built with React, handling the game interface, animations, and player interactions. Backend: developed with Express.js, managing the game logic, scores, and communication with the database. Database: Community-based storage (one unique database per Reddit community) Devvit: used as the platform to integrate everything and make the game accessible to the community. This setup allowed us to separate the game interface from the server logic, ensuring flexibility and modularity.

Challenges we ran into

Time pressure: only 17 days to learn and build.
Late discovery of Devvit: learning while coding was tough.
Community-based database: since Devvit provides one unique database per Reddit community, we had to carefully design our storage model so that scores, leaderboards, and progress tracking worked correctly across players.
Integration issues between React, Express and Devvit.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We successfully built a 10-floor tower game in just 17 days, despite starting late and learning Devvit on the fly.
We managed to integrate two different technologies (React for the frontend and Express.js for the backend) into Devvit, ensuring smooth communication and data persistence.
We designed and implemented a shared global leaderboard, so every player’s progress contributes to the community challenge.
We created and polished multiple mini-games (Flappy Escape, Word Express, Tiles Match, Bulletstorm, Checkers Duel, etc.) with increasing difficulty to keep players engaged.
As a team, we improved our collaboration and project management skills, dividing work effectively between frontend and backend.
Most importantly, we proved that with creativity and determination, it’s possible to build something fun and functional even under time and learning constraints.

What we learned

How to quickly get started with Devvit, despite no prior knowledge.
Balancing time between learning new tools and actually coding.
Designing and structuring a multi-floor progression system with different game types.
Better team coordination and splitting roles between frontend and backend.

What's next for The Tower

Expand Tower of Challenges: extend from the initial 10 floors to 100, 500, and ultimately 1000 floors, creating a massive progression journey for players.
Add more mini-games: introduce new and diverse challenges at each floor using modern game engines like Unity or Godot, to push the gameplay beyond the current limits of web-only implementations.
Redesign current levels: improve the visual design, animations, and sound effects of existing floors to make the experience more immersive and engaging.
“Floor Master” feature: allow advanced players who reach a certain floor to design and publish their own mini-games/floors with custom rules, effectively becoming masters of their floor and shaping the future of the Tower community.
Community-driven growth: encourage collaboration and creativity by letting the community vote, rate, and challenge each other’s custom floors.
Enhanced scoring & achievements: implement richer scoring mechanics, badges, and rewards to motivate long-term play and competition.
Cross-platform support: explore deploying The Tower beyond Reddit (standalone web or mobile version) to reach a wider audience while keeping the Reddit-native experience unique.