Tile Tower

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  Tile Tower - Loading Screen

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  Tile Tower - Mobile Placement

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  Tile Tower - Material Select

Inspiration

Inspiration We wanted to create a game that turns an entire subreddit into a team. Inspired by Reddit's collaborative experiments like r/place, we asked: what if a community could build something together (literally) one piece at a time?

What it does

Tile Tower is a collaborative tower-building game embedded directly in Reddit. Each player places one block per day, choosing between wood, stone, or ice, each with unique tradeoffs. Upvotes on your block's comment strengthen it, while dynamic weather like wind and heat threaten to topple weak placements. If the community reaches 500 height together, everyone earns the Structural Engineer flair. Daily streaks, XP, and levels keep players coming back.

How we built it

We built it using Devvit's web platform with a React 19 frontend, Tailwind CSS 4, and a canvas-based rendering engine for the tower using the React template, which was very helpful. The backend runs on Devvit's serverless environment using Hono and tRPC for end-to-end type safety. Reddit's API powers the social layer: auto-posting comments for each block, reading karma for stability bonuses, and managing user flairs. Redis handles game state persistence across the daily tower cycles.

Challenges we ran into

Physics was the biggest hurdle was getting blocks to stack, topple, and cascade realistically on a 2D canvas took significant iteration. Balancing the three materials so each felt meaningfully different without any being dominant was tricky. We also had to work within Devvit's iframe sandbox constraints, finding alternatives for things like native alerts and file downloads. Tuning the weather system so it added tension without feeling unfair required extensive playtesting.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of how the social mechanics reinforce the gameplay. The upvote-to-stability loop means the community literally strengthens each other's contributions. The one-block-per-day constraint creates genuine anticipation and makes each placement feel consequential. Seeing a tower grow over days with dozens of contributors, with each block tagged with a username, feels uniquely Reddit.

What we learned

We learned how powerful it is to tie game mechanics directly to platform-native interactions, such as upvotes and comments. We also gained deep experience with Devvit's web stack, canvas rendering in constrained environments, and designing systems that balance individual agency with collective outcomes.

What's next for Tile-Tower

Our immediate priority is to fix and fully implement the flair reward system so contributors reliably receive their Structural Engineer flair when the tower is completed. Beyond that, we want to add more block materials, seasonal weather events, and per-subreddit leaderboards to encourage competition between communities.

Built With

• devvit
• react