Word Search Daily – A Global Daily Puzzle Game on Snapchat

A polished 2D daily word-search game built for Snapchat, featuring global UTC-based puzzles, streak rewards, and smooth touch-drag gameplay designed for repeat play and long-term engagement.

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Inspiration

Daily puzzle games are one of the most engaging formats on mobile, but none exist natively inside Snapchat. I wanted to explore whether a fully playable daily puzzle game could live inside Snapchat not as an external app, but as a daily challenge, swipe-based and highly engaging and shareable experience.

Word Search Daily was inspired by classic newspaper word puzzles, reimagined for Snapchat Stories, Spotlight sharing, and global daily play.

What it does

Word Search Daily is a 2D daily puzzle game built entirely inside Snapchat.

• Every day at UTC midnight, a new global puzzle unlocks for all players worldwide

• Players find 4 hidden words by dragging across letters (straight or diagonal only)

• Includes daily streaks, rewards, and a countdown timer to the next puzzle

• Designed to be quick, replayable, and shareable on Snapchat Stories

• The same puzzle is synced globally using UTC-based logic, ensuring fairness across all regions.

How we built it

The game was built using Snap Lens Studio with custom JavaScript logic:

• A dynamic 12×10 grid system with indexed word placement

• Custom touch & drag detection for strict consecutive letter validation

• UTC-based time calculations to rotate puzzles daily without server dependency

• Persistent local storage to track:

  1. Daily completion
  2. Streak progress
  3. Crystals Count

• Optimized for low-end devices, ensuring smooth performance and instant load times

All logic runs fully inside the Lens no external servers required.

Challenges we ran into

• Preventing invalid word selection while allowing smooth drag gestures

• Ensuring daily puzzle rotation worked identically across all time zones

• Managing state resets (streaks, completion) without cloud storage

• Optimizing touch detection so diagonal and straight selections felt natural

• Same word and word placement for every player worldwide.

Solving these helped me build a reliable daily game framework that can scale to long-form content.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Successfully shipped a fully playable daily puzzle game live on Snapchat

• Implemented a global UTC-based daily reset, ensuring all players worldwide receive the same puzzle at the same time

• Built a long-form retention system with daily streaks, rewards, and countdown timers

• Designed smooth straight and diagonal swipe detection for accurate word selection

• Optimized the experience to run entirely inside a Snap Lens, without external servers or cloud backends

• Achieved strong early engagement and social sharing through Snapchat Stories and Spotlight

What we learned

• Camera platforms can support deep, long-form game mechanics, not just short visual effects

• UTC-based time logic is essential for building fair and globally synchronized daily experiences

• Touch and gesture systems require careful validation to feel both responsive and precise

• Persistent local storage can effectively power daily challenges and streak systems at scale

• Designing for low-latency and low-end devices significantly improves completion rates and retention

What's next for Word Search Daily – A Global Daily Puzzle Game on Snapchat

• Add leaderboards and friend challenges to increase social competition

• Expand to more puzzle variations using the same daily framework

• Introduce seasonal and themed word packs

• Enhance social sharing with auto-generated result cards for Stories

Built With

  • 2d-grid-systems
  • game
  • hypercasual
  • javascript
  • persistent-storage-(device)
  • snap-lens-studio-5
  • touch-&-gesture-apis
  • utc-based-time-logic
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